An ordinary day, or the moment of truth?

Will the President "tell the truth" in her State of the Nation Address (SONA)? That’s what many of the opinion writers and pundits are asking with regard to this afternoon’s joint opening of both Houses – the second session of the 13th Congress – at which the nation’s Chief Executive delivers her report.

Ever since the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate asked "what is truth?" even as he washed his hands on the blood of an innocent Jesus, nobody has had an impartial answer to that question. Every man and woman, except the witless, have nurtured or brought forth their own personal answer, and their own definition of the Truth. In this light, GMA is bound to disappoint. She won’t even pay attention to the strategically-timed release of a Pulse Asia Survey (who really commissioned it?) which averred that 52 percent of Filipinos want her to "resign" for having spoken to a Commissioner of the Commission on Elections.

"Only half the people?" I can already hear her Palace advisers chuckling. "Let’s listen then to the other half." Never mind the stray two percent.

Personally, although I’m no expert on the manner in which such portentous surveys are taken and how the responses are weighted, it seems strange that 52 percent of our people could have waxed so indignant over La Presidenta having "spoken" (she did confess to doing so in her clumsy radio-TV admission) to a Comelec official. After all, most people even before the May 2004 election had expected her to do just that. Why the much-delayed "horror" over such an act? Sus, do you believe as many as half of our population would be so angry over that?

Cheating? Long before "Hello Garci" became a ringtone, by gosh, there was already – for a year – much talk about vote-rigging, ballot-switching, fixed tabulation, et cetera. Now, sanamagan, a rising crescendo, a year late, of GMA "resign"? As my late grandfather on Mama’s side, Lolong Pinong, a.k.a. Don Agripino Villaflor, who was number two man in the pre-war Bureau of Customs but never owned a car, used to exclaim, "By jingo," and "Whappeya!"

Here’s what I wrote on Friday, October 2003, from Madrid, Spain. My column was headlined: "Would GMA Cheat to Win Re-election?"

This writer led off with: "I can already imagine the angry howls of protest and indignant expressions of denial from the Palace at the very insinuation made in the title of this column. Yet, let’s face it: It’s on everybody’s mind, friend and foe alike. After all, the President has the equity of the incumbent, which places her in the favor of both God and the Comelec."

"Will FPJ finally announce? When this journeyman journalist left Manila a week ago, the rumor mills were on overdrive."

"One thing is certain, you’ll agree. Having to leave Malacañang once before, as a young dethroned princess, when dad, Cong Dadong, was overthrown (toppled in clever fashion) by the swashbuckling Ferdinand Marcos, people are sure GMA is determined not to suffer the same fate."

"And what about Noli de Castro – who may be fielded by Gabby Lopez and ABS-CBN?"

"So, abangan."

"As here in Europe, not all marriages are made in heaven. Political intrigues, scheming and double-cross are the order of the day – as they were in the past."

This was published, remember, in the year 2003.

* * *

Hoping you won’t consign this piece to the Good Morning Myself" category, here’s another column, dated Tuesday, November 25, 2003, headlined: "Ambition Has Already Divided the Opposition."

"Perhaps President Macapagal-Arroyo, for all the bumbling of her government, needn’t worry too much about reelection. It’s early days yet, but already the so-called ‘opposition’ is bitterly divided. Very soon, if they don’t decide on a common candidate, or at least limit the circuit to two, the opposition contenders – most certainly egged on by their ambitious cling-ons and subalterns – will cancel each other out."

"And besides, a great many people already suspect that GMA will have the help of some very powerful insiders in the Commission on Elections. The word is ‘suspect,’ mind you."

By that time, FPJ had just announced his bid for the Presidency. In a previous column, I had asked: "Who can lead the Disunited Opposition?"

On November 25, 2003 (the column mentioned above), I had also noted that San Juan Congressman Ronaldo Zamora had emerged as the "campaign manager of presidential candidate Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson (the guy who put the finger on ‘Jose Pidal’)… Zamora was virtually sending a message to FPJ which can only be translated as ‘Phooey on you, FPJ. Ping isn’t going to give way to you. He’s going to run – and leave you eating his dust!’ "

"Isn’t Lacson going to say anything himself? Such as – for instance – ‘Welcome aboard, FPJ! Would you like to be my Vice President? Or what?’ That would sound more friendly, and things could be sorted out later."

There you are. Did GMA cheat? Even if she did, would she have won anyway? One thing is clear. This observer’s fears, expressed in 2003 – months before the election – came woefully true. The Divided Opposition blew it. America’s irascible President Harry S. Truman once cracked that "every schoolboy by hindsight is smarter than the President of the United States." By hindsight, who knows: If the late Ronnie Poe, Ping, Raul Roco and Brother Eddie had gotten together, chose one leader from among themselves (let’s say FPJ), the opposition could have overwhelmed any cheating machine or dagdag-bawas plot by the incumbent GMA.

Now for today’s SONA. Remember the novel, "The World According to Garp"? Let’s not begrudge La Gloria the challenge and opportunity to describe "The Philippines According to GMA."

It’s being called, in effect, her "Make or Break" speech. It’s evident, though, that no matter how many (or how few) rallyists and angry demonstrators the Opposition and the Radical Left may mobilize this day, La Presidenta won’t "break."

She disastrously said, "I’m sorry" and "forgive me" once. But she didn’t say, and she won’t say: "I resign."

* * *

Once more: The only way a President can be Constitutionally put on "trial" and exonerated – or removed – is by Impeachment. And the only way GMA and the government can restore some semblance of sanity to a tumultuous situation, as a result of which our international standing is going zilch, is to submit to a credible "impeachment" process.

I’m beginning to fear that La Presidenta has been getting the wrong legal advice from her insiders, intimates and loyalists. Either fawning Palace flunkeys and favor-seekers, now surrounding her, are telling her only what she’d like to hear, or that staffers and consultants, afraid of provoking her legendary temper, are loathe to say what ought to be done. Why doesn’t she call on real legal experts (experienced jurists, for instance of the ilk of retired Justice Jose Vitug) instead of tricksters and shysters who’re quick to propose strategies that foolishly cocoon her from reality?

For example, I feel a misstep has already been taken. Anyway one looks at it, the premature "answer" filed by one Atty. Pedro Ferrer (a lawyer unknown to many, except perhaps the members of Ateneo Law Class 1972 because his wife was a classmate of First Gentleman Mike Arroyo from First Year to Fourth Year) might have been ill-advised. Ferrer filed his answer on behalf of the President to the impeachment filed by lawyer Oliver Lozano.

The answer seems to have been made as a preemptive strike against an amended complaint drawn up by the House Minority Bloc (composed of Opposition and Party List Representatives) which will be filed today by the group, led by Rep. Ronnie Zamora (the same gent mentioned above).

Ronnie, if you’ll recall, was one of Ping Lacson’s campaign managers and a former Executive Secretary of ex-President Joseph "Erap" Estrada, but this doesn’t diminish his lawyerly skills.

If a vigorous defensive stonewalling is put up by GMA’s "defenders" in the Lower House, like Congressmen Pichay and Nograles, opposing the admission of the Opposition’s "amended complaint", this would give the impression that the Palace strategy is outright to "kill" a serious impeachment complaint in the House Judiciary Committee. That vital committee, after all, is chaired by Rep. Simeon Datumanong, another staunch Defender of the Faith (not Islam this time, but Faith in GMA).

If the amended complaint is "disallowed" in favor of the relatively "weak" Oliver Lozano complaint, I respectfully submit, the "impeachment" move won’t be credible.

It was Malacañang itself which had earlier insisted on the "rule of law" and cautioned GMA’s foes to hew to the Constitution by filing an impeachment complaint before the proper venue, the House of Representatives.

The Palace cannot bluff the public now with a sham type of "impeachment" which is killed aborning. Most people already understand how "impeachment" works. Don’t forget, they all avidly watched television, as they would watch a basketball championship game, when the Erap Estrada "impeachment" teledrama was going on in 2000-2001. This isn’t a new TV experience for a public which witnessed the "Jose Velarde" incident, or the ruckus over the unopened Second Envelope. That teledrama ended in the catastrophe of Edsa Dos for Erap – and rocketed GMA to Malacañang.

Which is why GMA and her Direks had better handle her own coming teledrama right.