The political pot starting to ripple

Once again the Filipinos are astir over their favorite pastime - other than drinking and gambling - that runs the gamut of society from sleepy boondocks to city asphalt jungles.

Surfacing like lightning-bred mushrooms, are the usual pol opportunists, except a rare few, who peddle the nauseating blurb of "public service", but whose puny minds and mediocre capabilities are disguised in shoddy swagger and blabber-mouth. On the average, they suffer from dehydration of principles and moral scruples, save for, again, a sprinkling few.

Take the national front... While the initially-hinted admin senatorial bets had outpaced one another in shying away from the draft for fear of the forecast 12 to zero debacle, the Erap-brokered united opposition got swamped by a host of aspirants. Like Erap who got catapulted on his showbiz popularity, these aspirants with showbiz connections and has-been "trapos", elbow one another like crazy to land in Erap's perceived magic twelve. To lift from Time's buzzword "celebutard" - he who banks on celebrity status than on what's between his ears - showbiz figures whose names now get scarcer in theater/TV marquee are queuing up for top billing in politics.

No wonder, former Senator Kit Tatad whose martial law pugnacity had his share of the Marcos notoriety, was the first to raise hell over his non-inclusion in Erap's UNO line-up. This was followed by Janus-faced Tessie Oreta and Vicente Sotto III who are unabashedly willing to eat their words against GMA, while courting for slots in GMA's ticket. Good for Guingona who was floated to lead the opposition, that he has hitherto kept his hurt in silence.

That in politics there are no permanent friends and/or enemies but only permanent interests, is personified by the Oreta-Sotto turn-about, even if they humiliate themselves into gulping back their spit complete with its ugly phlegm. Like Tatad, but of lesser venom, is Senator Enrile's repulsive reaction to the "Kamag-anak" preoccupation of the Estradas, Cayetanos, and Pimentels in the united opposition senate slate.

Meantime, other floaters from the Liberal-Nacionalista merger are putting up Villar, Pangilinan, Recto, et al. separate from Erap's UNO bets, only because they want to sanitize their aspirations from the history of Erap's infamy..

With the vaunted united opposition in obvious disarray, the administration hopefuls who first appeared as unwilling sacrificial lambs, are also now in frenzy for inclusion. Moreover, GMA loyalists, like, Cong. Prospero Pichay who has stuck to GMA through thick and thin, are likewise raising hell to block the unexpected entry of Oreta and Sotto into their ranks.

What is very likely, to the chagrin of Pichay et al., is the fruition of self-appointed spokesman Michael Defensor's mat of welcome for once-bitter critics Oreta and Sotto. GMA herself in her usual impish grin, has hinted the Oreta-Sotto shift to the admin fold, just to prove, she says, the thrust of her program for unity. And what's worst could be the "grand entrance" of the Imeldific herself to complete the charade!

Meanwhile in the local front, the political pot is also in disruptive ripples... In one town near north, brothers are poised to battle for vice-mayor of opposing blocs. In one party's slate, headaches and brickbats have surfaced over the inclusion of an incumbent uncle and an aspirant niece. In one city, an aunt in the sidelines and a nephew who is barely weaned from the mammary but so politically obsessed, are at loggerheads. On the other side, if the brewing differences and feud between brothers have not been nipped in the bud but still shaky, family break-up could have ensued, to say the least. You see, only next to money, politics is the great destructive divider of family and friends.

The election pot now appears in tepid ripples, but will inevitably turn into a simmer, then into hissing sizzle, and becoming so steamy hot for comfort, if cooler heads fail to put out with patience and sanity, the flaming pyre on time.

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