Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make crazy

After all had been said and done, perhaps the bottomline description that best fits President Arroyo is that she is someone who never knows how to quit while she's ahead. A quick review of her recent past will show she sees no sense in leaving the table with chips in hand.

A few years ago, Arroyo was the apple of the nation's eyes. The few who dared depict her in caricature politely left her front teeth alone. She was the darling that lent perfume to a presidential vacuum that reeked of dirty money, booze and women's sweat.

A less ambitious person would have felt gratified. She was president. She may have only been thrust into the position, but that does not detract from the fact that she was one of only 14 Filipinos out of the millions ever born in these isles we call home to have held the position.

But Arroyo is overly ambitious. And she is overly proud. Maybe she lay awake nights tormented by the thought that in history books, she would make a poor comparison even to her father who at least enjoys the distinction of having been actually elected president.

Besides, she reached the pinnacle of power at about the same time that two other children of former presidents did --- George W. Bush and Megawati Sukarnoputri. Arroyo could not bear the burden of being perpetually annotated as the only president without an actual electoral mandate.

Yet, burning with ambition and possessed with fierce pride, one would have thought Arroyo would have the spine to match. Sadly, that was never the case with her. The entire history of her political career is pockmarked by accommodation and compromise.

Once a top-ranked senator, she jumped the gun early for the presidency. But her ill-timed exposure made her a veritable target of every similarly ambitious soul. Badly battered, she was eventually forced to slink back and settle for the vice presidency.

But as fate would have it, the actor Joseph Estrada was ousted. Suddenly Arroyo had the presidency on a silver platter. Wow, how lucky can some people get, if only the snakes and vipers did not come with the package.

And so the spineless Arroyo was thrust into the same game of accommodation and compromise that was oh so familiar to her, only on a more pernicious scale. And when that was not enough to placate the crocodiles in government, the girl from Lubao was forced into the ultimate sacrifice.

Thus, at the tomb of the national hero, Jose Rizal, Arroyo swore to step down at the end of the term she inherited from Estrada. She was not making herself available for election even if she was perfectly eligible. The crocodiles were beside themselves with glee.

But then came those sleepless nights we mentioned earlier. Unable to make peace with her demons, Arroyo suddenly roused the nation one day to say she was in fact running. That made her a big fat liar in the eyes of the nation. But what the heck. The nation cannot get into her hair.

The announcement made the crocodiles delirious. How could she? But then again, how could she not? That was who she was. The crocodiles had been lulled into a stupor. But you have to give to the sniveling bastards the ability to swiftly recover. Promptly, they plotted and schemed.

Election day came. And while many now say Arroyo cheated her way to victory, that is under serious dispute. The undeniable fact is that at the time she ran, Arroyo was blessed with an array of contenders who were too weak, too fragmented or too unqualified to stand a chance.

What Arroyo did not anticipate was the extent to which the crocodiles would sink into filth to play this dirtiest of games. Still, who could really blame her. In this largely Catholic country, wire-tapping was almost synonymous with blasphemy.

On the other hand, for all its pretentions at predominant Catholicism, nowhere in the entire Christian world can a person get convicted prior to being proven guilty than in this country we have the audacity to call ours.

Thus, with her presidency fairly or unfairly under siege, Arroyo, eyebags and all, is forced to clutch at straws to try and salvage a leadership in crisis, an administration of badly impaired credibility, and an individual personality of seriously eroded moral authority.

She tried to titillate by endorsing a shift in form of government. That can buy time but not salvation. The end of her term, 2010, is just too far off. Perhaps, not even St. Christopher can guarantee her a safe voyage.

In desperation, she now tries another tack --- bring in the Marcos loyalists, of which there are still many under a variety of disguises. Arroyo is now offering a hero's burial for the dictator. Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they indeed first make crazy.