Has the fat lady sung?

The fat lady, I think, has begun to sing. In some important ways, this opera is over. But in other equally important respects, it’s far from over.

That military cabal that brands itself "idealist," as well as those over-eager opposition politicians salivating at the prospect of taking over the reins of government, can forget it. This isn’t your time and our people won’t allow you to assume power.

The leftist opportunists never had. If the middle forces have their way, the left won’t ever bring this country back to the dark ages of ideological mumbo-jumbo and voodoo politics. We’ve wised up enough to realize that the left just sticks a finger up in the air, determines where the wind is blowing and follows the direction where the people are going. Then it plays the tired old game of the "united front" and waits for the opportunity to seize the initiative and assert a bogus and discredited leadership.

It belittles our people to say that it’s "people power fatigue," as if concerted action were a matter of collective stamina. People are not tired. Rather, they have come to realize that people power, as opposed to genuine constitutional process, has its own way of allowing false prophets and amateurish, untested and closet corrupt leaders to become the beneficiaries of the trust bestowed by a desperate citizenry. Disappointment and shattered expectations are, after all, effective show-stoppers.

Having said all this, I hasten to clarify that the rightists, the leftists and the political opposition do have the capability to say the right things, to sound sincere and perceptive about issues which happen to matter to the population as a whole. It’s when you listen to their proposed solutions that you begin to realize that you’re being had by some pretty glib but essentially clueless poseurs with hidden agendas.

I said that this opera isn’t over because the fat lady isn’t done singing. While none of us, least of all that wise and underestimated lady Susan Roces-Poe who refuses to be an instrument of trapo ambition, is naïve enough to believe that an upheaval is the solution to all our problems, we can’t quite say that this two-pronged controversy, jueteng and that tape, is totally behind us.

Still, jueteng is the one subject which the President, and only the President, can take off the agenda pretty quickly if she acts decisively. There is no doubt that if she takes the action suggested by people like Senate President Frank Drilon and Senator Dick Gordon, it may involve considerable pain, personally and within the family.

But unless she has incontrovertible evidence of the innocence of her son and brother-in-law, and she is prepared to allow the controversy to fester, I don’t see that she has a choice. A more palatable way may be leaves of absence for both Iggy and Mikey, until the Ombudsman has made a determination of the probable truth of the testimonies of the bagpersons who have appeared as witnesses before the Senate.

A referral of the matter, including additional witnesses of Archbishop Oscar Cruz, to the Ombudsman seems reasonable, provided the Ombudsman acts with dispatch and avoids the appearance of a whitewash. The Senate proceedings had indeed become a circus, with some Senators turning the process into personal stages for grandstanding and furthering personal agendas. As things developed, full TV coverage and assurances of immunity from prosecution made it difficult to distinguish the character assassins and spinners of fantasy from the genuinely heroic whistle-blowers.

The eventual outcome of all these testimonies, which could be truthful for all we know, may well be criminal prosecution. Hence, it is best to lodge the proceedings at a venue where action can be taken speedily without those numerous postponements and administrative delays that congressional hearings are prone to. One weakness of trying to tackle a problem which, at bottom, needs no new legislation but more no-nonsense enforcement of existing law, is to play into the hands of adventurers and destabilizers.

As for the tape, it’s the uncertainty which breeds doubt about the President’s mandate. The time has come to put closure on this issue by the simple expedient of getting expert, independent opinion on the different versions of the tape. The United States has said it would provide such expert assistance if requested. If for some reason a U.S. government agency is deemed unreliable, other governments such as the United Kingdom could be, pardon the pun, tapped for that service. Or, a private audio lab in the U.S., U.K., Germany or Japan could be engaged for the purpose.

However, the findings of such independent bodies could also be inconclusive. Advances in digital technology now make it possible to construct fictitious conversations, where the voices of the alleged participants are electronically created. Whatever may be the outcome, it is probably advisable that the whole matter be turned over to the technicians and removed forthwith from politicians and people with huge axes to grind.

In the end, we must acknowledge the possibility that the whole truth may never surface in both the jueteng and tape controversies. That would be unfortunate because all of us had hoped that, for once, the unembellished truth would come out, and events wouldn’t be constantly subject to numerous interpretations and infinite colorations.

But, as our recent history has shown, that state of affairs, where parties to a controversy swear on the bible and their mother’s graves that their version represents the truth, is hardly novel in this country. This is far from ideal for those who insist on the primacy of truth and justice, but it is a sad reality. Ric Manapat, bless his mischievous soul, was probably right: Some are really smarter than others.

Our choice seems cruel but essentially simple: Do we pursue the truth and strive for justice, despite the costs in terms of political instability and economic stagnation? Or do we accept the facts that while our system remains profoundly flawed, that elections can be stolen, and that corruption is endemic in government, our salvation lies not in unremitting crisis but in staying the constitutional course, even if it means muddling through and living with arguably dubious characters in our midst.

I don’t have all the answers. All I know is that I’ll wait until the fat lady finishes her song.