GMA woes won’t end with lifting of ‘1017’

Professedly because the coup d’état has been foiled, but probably also due to public recoil, Gloria Arroyo is set to lift the state of emergency.

So far the Left-Right plot with the Opposition to topple the President has remained largely that – a plot. But for how long waits to be seen.

Going by the conspiracy papers declassified Monday by the AFP, the threat stays. "O-Plan 4G", for People Power-4, was supposed to start with a huge Opposition rally at EDSA last Friday on the 20th anniversary of People Power-1. Elite military and police units would have joined and declared a break from Arroyo, who rose to power via People Power-2 of January 2001. But as AFP spokesman Col. Tristan Kison quoted from one of the disclosed documents, "Minutes Re Final Talk, Feb. 20, 2006," it would just be a dress rehearsal for bigger actions. A march to Malacañang of 200,000 members of various Leftist factions and anti-Arroyo groups is set for March 31. If that fails to force Arroyo out, still another march of 500,000 would be mustered on May 1, Labor Day and the fifth anniversary of People Power-3, when Joseph Estrada’s mobs attacked the Palace.

"Final Talk" has it that putschists of the ’80s against Cory Aquino are counting on two brigades in Mindanao and strength in Baguio. Too, that a certain "Ping" is recruiting from the PNP. Simultaneous with the Metro Manila events would be the takeover of provincial capitols and vital government installations. It is unlikely that the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas would rescind its "Points of Unity and Understanding", another declassified paper, with the militarists’ Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan. Kison read from the intelligence summary: "4G is a combination of the EDSA-1 (1986) and the 1989 (coup attempt) scenarios."

The backlash from Proclamation 1017, for the state of emergency, will remain too. For, from all indications, the excesses and bungles committed in its name will continue.

Justice Sec. Raul Gonzalez says he will pursue the cases against one arrested Leftist congressman and five others in his wanted list. But already his slip is showing. He has admitted that the charge against them would have nothing to do with the Left-Right conspiracy, but with a rap, dormant since 1985, connected to slaying of communist rebels during internal purges of the ’80s. This would show he has done no serious investigating of their supposed role in "O-Plan 4G", yet are rounding them up as usual suspects. Gonzalez will also have to hunt down elusive ex-senator Gregorio Honasan, whom the AFP claims is the head of the "4G" plot. But this too would not be for last Friday’s coup attempt but for complicity in the Magdalo mutiny of July 2003. The charge was filed only last Friday, although dozens of AFP junior officers already have been court-martialed, which means the authorities never intended to implicate him until "4G" was discovered. Flak for Gonzalez’s lapses would hit the President.

PNP Dir. Gen. Arturo Lomibao can exacerbate Arroyo’s situation. For, even with the impending lifting of "1017", he insists that the press should abide by news coverage guidelines that he will soon draft. Expect the press to resist.

Lomibao and Gonzalez could themselves face charges of curtailing press freedom with the raid, sans court order, on two newspaper offices. Their selective ban on protest rallies will remain in the public mind. Civil libertarians will not readily forgive. Gonzalez could face a Congress probe as well for trying to foist a declaration of state of rebellion since October, resisted only by Defense Sec. Avelino Cruz. The Cabinet will also review the effects of "1017" on the economy, for businessmen are saying it has scared off foreign investors. There will be recrimination within the cluster on security; already Cruz is being maligned for absence at Fort Bonifacio last Sunday during the standoff at Marine headquarters, although the Marine commandant specifically had asked to settle the matter himself. All this will reflect on the President.

Arroyo’s situation henceforth is like dismounting from a tiger.

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Ambassador Noel Cabrera flew home from Rumania two weeks ago to prepare for kidney surgery. Minutes before he was wheeled into the operating room, his deputy called from Bucharest to say that a certain Ruth Pardo was preparing to take over his post. An advance party had been sent to the embassy to work out a turnover. Yet, Cabrera and the embassy staff have not been formally informed of his relief.

That’s no way to treat an ambassador.

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House Deputy Speaker Raul del Mar called to explain that his P100,000-donation to landslide victims in Southern Leyte is not money that he touched out of his P70-million pork barrel. "I can understand your concern about legislators touching the cash when we should only identify the projects," he said about my item on it (Gotcha, 24 Feb. 2006). "But it was only labeled as ‘cash’, although it was a check, to differentiate it from donations ‘in kind’."

Del Mar faxed a copy of a Treasury check for P100,000, released to Southern Leyte Gov. Rosette Lerias. It came from the Department of Social Welfare and Development, through which Del Mar said he coursed his donation. The impression is that part of his P70-million pork is with the DSWD, and he had the money released from it.

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