Winner

We have a winner, and it looks like Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Now all we have to await is the opposition’s full temper tantrum.

The administration should just let everyone blow off steam. With war chests depleted and even opposition financiers now scrambling for an invitation to the Arroyo inaugural, any threat of EDSA IV (or Makati Uno) is bound to end with a whimper.

Administration lawmakers may also agree to open contested election returns, since an opposition senator vows that there are only a few ERs under question and examining them won’t take as long as an opposition filibuster. If the ERs show evidence of cheating, it can be passed off as another "honest mistake" of the error-prone Commission on Elections. Filipinos would be surprised if there was no cheating in any electoral exercise in this country.

For the Supreme Court’s ruling on the second challenge to the congressional canvass, refer to the opinion of former Senate President Jovito Salonga, published yesterday. The second suit will be dismissed.

These are loose ends that must be tied up before the President is proclaimed winner. The opposition has put up a good fight. Some Poe supporters are just quietly waiting for their coalition leaders to concede. As they lick their wounds, they find solace in Shakespeare and mumble: Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Some of them will do their best to make sure the unease will be there for the next six years.

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Given our propensity for bellyaching and doing everything wrong, the Poe camp might not even be needed to create trouble in the next six years. As Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo saw when she took over from Joseph Estrada, a president’s immense power to appoint and "disappoint" can create instant enemies of even close allies at the start of any administration.

Right now, amid allegations of massive, systematic cheating, the Poe camp can’t even achieve the critical mass needed to effect pre-proclamation regime change. A plan to match even the steadily dwindling crowd that bothers to watch the June 12 Independence Day parade fizzled out. Nothing happened last Thursday, when opposition lawmakers were supposed to walk out of the congressional canvass and trigger massive street protests. Even the walkout by opposition lawyers, after criminal charges were filed against them for serious illegal detention by dim-witted sycophants in the administration, elicited a public yawn.

There is simply no big group willing to provide the warm bodies for a credible show of public indignation over poll fraud. FPJ may still be mobbed by fans as he moves around the country once again, ostensibly to thank his supporters. But he must soon realize that an adoring fan, who will always be there to watch his movies and swoon over him, can at the same time be a discerning voter who doesn’t think he’s cut out for the presidency.

The Iglesia ni Cristo and El Shaddai, which supplied the crowds at EDSA III, aren’t budging from their support for candidate Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Although some members of the local clergy disagree, the Catholic bishops say there was no massive, systematic cheating. Eddie Villanueva says he won’t allow his Jesus is Lord movement to be used for destabilization or street protests. The opposition itself continues to suffer from the biggest reason for Poe’s defeat: its ranks are split, and the camp of rival Panfilo Lacson is being won over by the administration. The Council on Philippine Affairs is quiet. And if Corazon Aquino is to step into the fray at all, it will be as a peace mediator, not a defender of Poe.

People just want to get the canvass over with. The opposition has one more week to nit-pick and enjoy exposure on cable TV. After this week, we’re sorry to say, FPJ, that time’s up; life has to go on even for this nation suffering from arrested development.

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With a narrow victory margin, and with accusations of poll fraud tainting her mandate, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo could be hard-pressed to achieve even her modest goal of becoming a "good" president.

Fidel Ramos was hobbled by the same problems after his victory in 1992. But there was no EDSA II to haunt him, and he quickly made peace with his opponents as well as rebel groups. It was easy for him to tell the nation that there were better things to do than "carp and whine" endlessly.

Ramos was also blessed with favorable global forces. His luck ran out only in 1997, but even then analysts noted that the Philippines escaped the brunt of the Asian financial crisis.

President Arroyo, on the other hand, suffered from endless destabilization efforts, a global economic slump that was worsened by terrorism and SARS, and accusations of corruption against people close to her.

Those problems will still be around even after she has been elected to a six-year term. She might as well forget the traditional 100-day honeymoon with critics that newly elected presidents enjoy. It was impossible for her to enjoy it in 2001, and it’s unlikely now.

Even some of those who are conceding that she has won and want the Poe camp to just shut up are likely to start carping and whining against her as soon as she assumes office at noon on June 30.

Her governance could be easier if her political allies allow the opposition to present every dirt they’ve got now, during the canvassing.

You don’t do this by filing criminal charges for serious illegal detention against opposition lawyers; those charges, if valid, can wait. You don’t do this by looking like a bunch of cheaters with something to hide.

If the President is confident that she didn’t cheat her way to victory, there’s nothing to fear. If there are truly only a few contested election returns, let’s inspect them and get this over with. The best way to weaken the opposition is to show the people that it is simply imagining large-scale cheating, that systematic fraud is just a movie playing in the mind of Fernando Poe Jr.

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has achieved victory. Now she needs credibility.