The Jun Lozada project has backfired

The Jun Lozada project of the political opposition in the Philippines, in which a so-called whistleblower was to expose the hand of the Arroyo administration in a corruption-tainted national broadband project between the Philippine government and the ZTE Corp. of China, has backfired.

The Jun Lozada project of the political opposition in the Philippines backfired not because of anything but because of the very same greed it had so judiciously chosen to pin on the Arroyo administration.

The political opposition did not know when to stop. It wanted to have it all. For a political opposition, it exhibited an uncanny and consuming tendency to brook no dissent or opposition. It wanted everybody on board with no exception.

The political opposition, in addition to its greed, was also consumed by a sense of urgency and haste. It refused to employ normal persuasive powers but sought to bulldoze everyone into submission.

Its guiding philosophy appeared to be that if you did not see things the way it saw them, then you are with the enemy. And if you are with the enemy, then you must be destroyed at whatever cost just as if you were the enemy itself.

This be-all, for-all attitude, couple with the urgent need to make haste is rooted in the realization that if Gloria Arroyo cannot be toppled from the presidency by 2008, she cannot be toppled anymore in 2009, it being already too close to the scheduled elections in 2010.

Such compelling needs are understandable under the circumstances in which they need to be realized. Unfortunately, they are simply untenable. They just do not work for as long as there is democratic space in the Philippines and Filipinos cannot be bamboozled into just any belief.

It has to be conceded that many of the things Jun Lozada said are probably true. Indeed, it is the common suspicion among most Filipinos that the Arroyo Government is one of the most corrupt ever. That is precisely why virtually all surveys say the same thing about her.

In other words, they do not need a Jun Lozada to tell them what they already know, or at least suspect, by themselves. That they have not risen up in revolt is not because they do not believe in what Jun Lozada has been saying but because they do not need him to tell them what to do.

But the political opposition failed to realize this. They think that because the novelty of having a Jun Lozada performing his scripted antics will make him a credible star wherever he goes and that he is what Filipinos need to band together to form a critical mass.

How terribly wrong can the political opposition get. And how terribly it has appreciated the Filipino intellect. More importantly, how miserably it has misunderstood the limits to which the Filipinos would blindly follow his religion.

Filipinos are an intelligent people, or at least most of them are. They know when they are being led by the nose or when they are being given the chance to decide for themselves. Try to misread the signs, and you cannot sell anything to them no matter how tempting the bargain.

And that is the reason why Jun Lozada was only effective as a tool for the political opposition for a while. He has reached the limits of his initial usefulness. There is no way the political opposition can squeeze any more persuasive powers from him.

The political opposition erred badly in believing that the passions of all Filipinos can be whipped up by a mere puppy just because they happen to dislike who the puppy is yapping at. More so if they happen to know who is pushing the puppy.