EDITORIAL — Hoodwinked, but real life still goes on

We hate to rub this in, because we honestly believe a great many Filipinos saw this for themselves. But allow us to say it anyway, that both President Arroyo and her political enemies will stop at nothing to promote their own interests, even at our expense.

Now it is very clear that the abolition of the death penalty law did not stem from the goodness of Arroyo's self-proclaimed devout Christian heart. It was a deviously well-timed ploy to provide Arroyo with a gift to give the pope.

You do not visit the Vatican or go on a foreign trip on the spur of the moment. You have everything planned and worked out in advance. So Arroyo sent an urgent bill to Congress seeking the abolition of the death penalty law.

She knew the bill would pass in a House of Representatives dominated by her allies. But she had no problem with the Senate as well. Pushed to the brink of extinction by irrelevancy and lackluster performance, the Senate jumped on the opportunity to do something good and popular.

The timetable for passage was precise. On the Saturday before the president left for the Vatican, Arroyo signed the bill into law. On Sunday she flew to see the pope, in her hands the cold and mute remains of the dead death penalty law.

But her political enemies were not to be outdone. They too had their own timetable. They knew they cannot allow Arroyo to waltz unhampered with the pope in celebration of the death penalty abolition. They must sour the occasion. And they knew precisely how.

So, at about the time that Arroyo would be enjoying her time with the pontiff, her enemies back home filed the first of what they said was to be a series of impeachment complaints against her.

The dramatics ensured wide media coverage, particularly the foreign press, which soon splashed the development live and in their latest editions. As the political tit-for-tat girdled the globe, real events affecting lives here went on unrestrained, like the latest oil price hike.