Curiouser and curiouser / How GMA cast her dragnet

Alice in Wonderland would be very much at home in the Philippines where everything is "getting curiouser and curiouser". The sight, for instance of Sen. Gregorio (Gringo) Honasan and Speaker Jose de Venecia seemingly burying the hatchet, gives you the heebie-jeebies. Remember that Gringo is the top security honcho of the FPJ forces, a post equivalent to that of the feared and hideous Lavrenti Beria when Joseph Stalin all by his lonesome commanded the Soviet Union. And Joe de V is the unrivalled political strategist of GMA’s K-4, a political insider of the first water who has counseled all Philippine presidents since Ferdinand Marcos.

What the devil were they up to signing an alleged peace pact to keep the May 10 elections "peaceful, enlightened, clean, and credible"?

In other times, in other climes, they would have stuck political daggers in each other’s backs. Joe de V reportedly represented Lakas-CMD, dominant party in the administration coalition. Gringo publicly claimed he signed the peace pact in behalf of the party-list group Philippine Guardians Brotherhood Inc. Hello. Both signatories alleged (cross their hearts and hope to die) they hadn’t veered an inch from their principals, namely GMA and FPJ. Hello again.

That I can believe. But the question still begs itself. Why?

My initial surmise is that the Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino is beginning to see the handwiting on the wall. That handwriting says GMA will win the May 10 elections hands down and there’s nothing the KNP can do about it, except possibly to take to the streets and seek to topple the GMA regime. My second guess is that Gringo Honasan is the opposition’s Trojan Horse. His job is to lull the government and of course GMA into a false sense of safety and security. Once the government puts its guard down, then BAM! All hell will break loose, as the FPJ forces call on the citizenry to join EDSA IV.

Word has gone around that the military has long scenarioed a possible opposition street revolt before and after the elections.

There will be no such thing as maximum tolerance. From the word go, the military, aided by the police, will pounce upon the street prostesters, be they in the tens of thousands, beat them up with clubs and truncheons, maul them, kick them, foul and fetter their eyes with tear-gas grenades, rout them with everything the goverment has, except live bullets, live ammunition.

There will be no repeat of the so-called EDSA III. GMA had to flee Malacañang as thousands struck at dawn, pierced the Palace defenses, and would have succeded in their siege if they had an armed contingent. The bulk of the suspected leaders of EDSA III now form the consiglieri of FPJ. They have borne arms and weapons all their lives, kill without compunction.

And yet they have continued to survive. Why? They form part of the Establishment. They are the "gentlemen thugs"every government needs to function. They have stables of professional killers, who exterminate without leaving a trace. Ferdinand Marcos used them, as did presidents before and after him. I understand French president Charles de Gaulle had no compunctions using "la pegue", the underworld, to bump off suspected assassins and enemy politicans who were out to do him in.

The Establishment may be riven with intramurals, with political factions scheming savagely against each other. But in the end, the Establishment protects itself. So you don’t see its most disreputable members being kicked into jail. Gringo Honasan should have been thrown into the ca-laboose for having staged half a dozen failed coup d’etats. But he had formidable political godfathers in the Establishment. And now he is a senator who easily flits in and out of trouble.

Now let’s take another look at the elections.

It is as Lady Margaret Thatcher etched out on her political tablet: "Expect the unexpected. "Raul Roco hadn’t sufficiently warmed his seat as survey topnotcher (Ibon, Pulse Asia, Social Weather Stations) than when the first unexpected occurred. GMA bade farewell to politics end of 2001, swore off 2004. Her ratings then were abominably low, and she couldn’t have won even if she ran for dogcatcher. The citrizenry had cast her off. Nevermore!

The second unexpected was when GMA did a volte face. She tore her solemn word of honor into pieces, announced without a tremor of guiilt, she would run for president in 2004. Sen. Panfilo Lacson threw his hat into the presidential ring. That too was unexpected. Fernando Poe Jr. followed. It was expected he would sweep everything in his path. He was Da King, the Towering Panday. But this was illusion. He was chosen by powerful members of the Establishment, virtually brainwshed into accepting. He would do nothing, they assured him. They would do everything.

The unexpected was that FPJ would become the Philippine version of Charlie McCarthy, the hilarious dummy of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen of the Bergen-McCarthy Show which wowed American audiences for two decades, from the 30s to the 50s. FPJ’s fall from Da King to Da Dummy of a bunch of political gangsters resulted in his first serious fall from political grace.

Also unexpected was Raul Roco’s awful disease, prostate cancer. Although this turned out to be benign, it enabled Sen. Panfilo Lacson to overtake him overnight and occupy third place in presidential rankings. FPJ could have caught up with GMA, even eclipse her if Ping Lacson folded camp and joined FPJ. He didn’t. And this too was unexpected. Ping, a sure loser, had a lot to gain if he joined. Why didn’t he?

But the most unexpected of all was GMA’s campaign performance.

Nobody took her seriously in the beginning. Wasn’t she minus three only last December in the surveys? Roco’s superior intelligence and experience would make mincemeat of GMA. FPJ’s Olympian popularity and mass support would knock GMA into a thimble. Her three-year performance after Estrada’s fall wasn’t anything to brag about. It was mediocre. Ping Lacson’s Jose Pidal expose all but drowned GMA in a flood of jeers and siroccoes.

Again the unexpected.

GMA set about to work and, by golly, did she work. And the succession of events also worked for her, namely Roco’s rickety campaign machine and sickness, all that hullabaloo about FPJ’s citizenship, Da King’s transformation into Edgar Bergen, intramural squalls in the FPJ camp, the inability of Brother Eddie Villanueva to hitch the glow of gospel to the collective Filipino conscience.

What to do? GMA knew the Filipino better than her rivals. First the campaign machinery to expand reach, expand communication, extend propaganda. So she drew the bureaucracy to her hands like a huge dragnet. Into this dragnet would fall the votes. The votes could be culled, segregated, classified. But most of all they would be bought. The concept that the ordinary Filipino voter couldn’t bought or dragooned into a dragnet was all bunk. He or she could easily be bought. Or corrupted. Or waylaid.

Logistics. This was the crucial component. But this had to be a war chest that even King Midas would look upon with envy.

Money, funds, resources, the whole kaboodle of goodies, were no problem at all. As former Speaker Jose Avelino said many years ago in a moment of brutal candor: "What are we in power for?"GMA’s learning curve in the use of power has been phenomenal. That power, according to her critics, has been used to to scrape government funds clean. She spends more money, more resources per capita than all presidential rivals combined, Nothing can woo the voter more effectively than pension funds, health certificates,transport bonuses, education benefits, land titles, easy loans, cash donations.

This is the hurricane of GMA’s election campaign, funds, funds, funds, money, money, money, cash, cash, cash.

Ill-gotten money? Maybe. But in a Philippines soaked with graft and corruption, wrapped in a culture of venality, who really cares much today? Just take a look at the men and women surrounding FPJ. They are no different from Ali Baba and his forty thieves. If they get into power after May 10, will things be different?. They could be much worse.

So better stick with the devil you know and who is in power than switch to the devil whose resources are running low and wants to get back into power. Then to all that, add illusion. So daily you have a passel of kidnap victims recovered, tons of shabu recovered, shabu factories discovered, a passel of "terrorists"and kidnapers captured, a media only too willing to play the game if the price is right.

Once GMA was an innocent damsel. Now she is a political Merlin in her own right. Even Ferdinand Marcos could learn a few lessons from her.