GMA ought to dance less and do more: This election isn’t in the bag

Everybody knows that La Emperadora GMA is a good dancer, not just on the dance floor but in our political vaudeville show. Now she’s launched the Gloria-robics, which reminds me of the Whirling Dervishes in Turkey – you know, those rotating dancers in robes of white who almost endlessly spin like tops, each whirl a prayer to Allah to swoosh the sins of the world away.

I’m not implying that our President is some kind of dizzy dame, if anything she’s cool and calculating, not prone to impulsive words or actions. Behind that gamin grin is a mind, to risk a bromide, like a steel trap. It’s been clear for some time that GMA will do almost anything to win re-election, not just do the ocho-ocho.

Right now, even without the poll surveys giving her the advantage, La Presidenta is on a roll. She’s not only got a war chest galore – including our tax money – while, right before the nation’s eyes, the leading opposition candidates appear to be fragmenting.

Businessman and tycoons who detested her and the bullying of her close . . . er, associates, and made secret deals with her challengers, have been stumbling over each other to pledge their support to her. Among a number of politicians, who were once paladins of her political rivals, there has been a visible – and at times laughable – balik-Gloria movement.

This is not a time, however, for La Glorietta "Back in Excelsis" to grow smug and over-confident. Strange things happen on the way to the finish line. In a tropical country like the Philippines, where passions, like the sun, are hot, it is always wise to expect the unexpected.

A case in point is what happened in Spain. I’ve told the story before, but it bears repeating as a cautionary tale. This writer – interrupting my own coverage of our elections – flew to Madrid last March 10 to fulfill a commitment I could no longer put off. (It had been postponed, already, a year earlier.) Why Madrid. I had been scheduled to be inducted into the Hermandad (brotherhood) of Gallegos, a worldwide fraternity based in Santiago de Compostela (Galicia) where the "holy year" of St. James, the patron saint of Spain, is currently being commemorated.

Arriving in Madrid at 10 p.m. that night by Air France (we changed aircraft at the Paris CDG airport), my wife and I remarked how peaceful, serene and well-lighted Madrid looked. Although Spain was in the last week of a hotly-contested political campaign, the capital city was free of angry posters, streamers, or boisterous rallies.

Indeed, the walls were immaculately clean – not a single handbill or graffiti defaced them. The only portraits of candidates discreetly hanging from lamp-posts were those of the ruling Partido Popular’s candidate for president/prime minister, and that of his Socialist challenger, Rodriguez Zapatero. The weather was great. Thousands were out enjoying the night. It was generally conceded by everyone that the ruling Partido Popular would win the elections, albeit by a small margin. The P.P., of course, was the party of then President and Prime Minister Jose Ma. Aznar, who had not only brought Spain to prosperity but had been so confident of his leadership that he had committed Spanish forces to the "invasion" of Iraq, alongside his coalition partners, America’s George W. Bush and Britain’s Tony Blair.

Alas, with the explosion of 11 terrorist bombs on four coaches of trains bound for Madrid’s central Atocha Station, resulting in 196 killed and 1,400 injured, many seriously, the situation changed overnight. Our hotel, The Palace (just across from Spain’s parliament building) was not far from the Atocha station – where the blasts began at 7:29 a.m. Within minutes, the scene was that of carnage and chaos.

What proved catastrophic and pivotal was that the Aznar government clumsily tried to do political "damage control" by trying to make it appear that the horrible attacks had been perpetuated by Basque ETA Terrorists – a bloodthirsty, vicious lot, you must understand, capable of such an outrage. But this time the ETA butchers had nothing to do with the train bombings. Despite the government "cover-up" attempt, the police let it leak that the attacks had been mounted by Muslim terrorists linked to al-Qaeda, extracting "revenge" for Spain having sided with the US and Britain on Iraq.

This was too much for – to begin with – the two million "young" voters, casting their ballots for the first time. The Atocha Station is next to the university belt, and a number of ministries. Many of the victims had been students and young people.

On election day came the surprise. The Socialists had not only triumphed – they had won overwhelmingly. (Not enough seats to form a new government by their own, but enough to topple poor Aznar’s Partido Popular and propel Zapatero to the top.) This is why those 1,500 Spanish troops were speedily withdrawn from Iraq, leaving the unfortunate Americans to rush their own units to man the abandoned outposts and bunkers.

Just one day of infamy, and two days of cover-up, and the electorate, disgusted with the lies, turned up to boot out the government.

Sure, Islamic terrorism rattled the population, but there, on the spot, I was able to interview some key observers, and feel the pulse. Much of the indignation was over the falsehoods being peddled by the government.

The unexpected must always be expected. In politics, as in war.

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Speaking of war, the President was right to reject hysterical suggestions that the Philippines withdraw its police and aid contingent from Iraq, just because a Filipino civilian driver had been killed in the ambush of his convoy there.

With 4,000 Filipinos working in Iraq, all of them, they themselves realize, "in harm’s way", why should this first fatality panic our government and ourselves? Everywhere they labor, here at home not an exception, Filipinos are at risk. We mourn each casualty or loss, of course, but we’re surely not a nation of cry-babies. More Filipinos will die, it can be expected, but it's the chance we all take wherever we go.

The government, by the way, cannot legally compel any Filipino to leave his or her place of employment, no matter how dangerous it may be. It is the government’s role, if our nationals ask for help, on the other hand, to be ready to assist in any way possible.

The term "possible" is significant.

As for our minuscule contingent of – was it 41 police and other personnel – why agonize over them? They all volunteered for the mission. Let us honor our commitments. In a few weeks, our Foreign Affairs Secretary, the Hon. Delia D. Albert will assume the Chairmanship of the United Nations Security Council, even though for only a brief period. We have to be able to demonstrate that we’re a nation courageous enough to the bear the pain of commitment, not a nation of wimps and nay-sayers. (Sus, let me end this comment at this juncture, because I’m beginning to sound pompous.)

* * *

In any event, the Americans themselves may – who knows? – decide to leave Iraq. (No, never! the Bush White House will roar.) The monthly death toll of American soldiers and personnel climbed to 134 last mid-week, more than were slain in the 21 days the US and Britain punched through to Baghdad.

In Falluja, the Americans are even turning the battle over to Saddam Hussein’s former Republican Guard generals. Can you beat that? Shorn of the propaganda B.S., it’s beginning to appear that the Americans would dearly love to re-mobilize the deposed Saddam’s old Army, and give them back the Iraqis to control. How the world turns.

Then there’s the exposé of that sadistic bunch of Ame-rican servicemen and women torturing and even sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners. Our friend, President Bush, stuttered in his anger and embarrassment, trying to tell the world that what those rascals did was un-American. Our family fought in the Revolution, then against the American "invasion", and we know that such atrocities can be very American indeed. (Remember, the glorious USA is the homeland, not just of the brave and the free, but of serial killers and Washington-Maryland killer-snipers).

Indeed, in last Friday’s Financial Times of London, Cato Institute chairman and defense analyst has just published an article, entitled: "Filipino Lessons for America’s Strategy in Iraq".

He wrote: "America’s first experience of a relatively ‘easy’ war followed by an extended period of guerrilla combat was not in Iraq; it was a century ago in the Philippines."

You bet.