His Senate loss could be Villar's liberation

GO TO LOBOC: Will somebody please check if we are still on the world map?

Reuters reported yesterday that scientists saw for the first time in more than eight decades a pygmy tarsier on a misty mountaintop on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The tarsier is one of the planet’s smallest and rarest primates.

What is the excitement all about? All that those scientists, also tourists, have to do to see, photograph and cuddle tarsiers is go to Loboc town in Bohol, an unspoiled nature retreat reached from Manila by direct flight or by ferry from Cebu City.

The mouse-size tarsiers are there waiting in the trees — staring with unblinking big brown eyes — by the banks of the Loboc river where you join a leisurely ride-cum-lunch up and down the unbelievably clean stream.

Loboc is just 15 minutes from the much-talked about Bohol Beach Club, the Shangri-la of retired tourism icon Anos Fonacier, whose adrenalin is surging with the construction of the Panglao airport next door to his resort.

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FRIENDLY MOVE: Reuters reported that scientists spent over two months in Sulawesi locating and then trying to capture some tarsiers with nets. They caught three, while a fourth got away.

An excitable researcher reported with glee that he was bitten by an uncooperative tarsier. After his rabies shots, he should have that swollen finger fully documented and immortalized in bronze.

They should have gone instead to Loboc. The tarsiers there almost clamber up to you, except that they, especially the females, want you to make the first friendly move. But while cuddling them, please make sure you do not hold the head. They have no protective skull.

So when you walk by the trees on the way to the river ride, reach out for your favorite tarsier, talk to it, cuddle it like a pet. Don’t worry, they do not charge for the picture-taking like costumed Igorot natives do in Baguio and environs.

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ENRILE PRESIDES: Back to civilization, there is loose talk that Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile was installed Senate president via a stratagem hatched in Malacañang. The insinuation is that the chamber under him would now be friendlier to President Gloria Arroyo.

That is pure hallucination. The bare fact is that the 84-year-old solon from Cagayan is the choice of a new majority that includes sworn enemies of President Arroyo. It was this working majority, not Malacañang, that picked him to serve their present needs.

Anyway, the coming days will show what would emerge in place of the oppositionist Senate under erstwhile Senate President Manuel Villar.

We do not have to keep guessing for long, what with red-hot issues swirling around Charter Change, the impeachment of the President, the P728-million agriculture fund scam, and other scandals with no less than President Arroyo being mentioned.

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VILLAR LIBERATED: Having watched Villar operate, I can almost see that he will adjust to being a plain senator in no time. He is equipped, and motivated, to transform his fall from the Senate helm into another launch pad for something better.

His life story, starting in the wet markets of Bataan and Tondo, is replete with seeming setbacks that only prime him for a relaunch to greater heights. Every challenge seems to strengthen his resolve.

As Senate president, he was straitjacketed into being a moderate. He had to juggle the conflicting interests of 24 senators, each of whom was a virtual Senate. Presiding over them was a delicate balancing act.

Managing operations was not really difficult, considering Villar’s training and experience, but leading the Senate must have cramped his inclination to fiscalize, to strike out whenever he saw something amiss.

Seen in this perspective, his fall was actually a liberation. Now Villar is free to be himself.

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POLLS RANKING: And considering the time finally made available to this declared presidential aspirant, Villar is somebody to watch as the nation moves on to the 2010 presidential election.

It may have been a coincidence but the latest Pulse Asia survey conducted in October shows Villar rising to No. 2 (together with former President Joseph Estrada) as the people’s preference for president.

His 17 percent in that survey was an improvement on his 12 percent last July when he was just No. 5 in the rankings.

In the latest survey, Vice President Noli de Castro still held on to the No. 1 position, but he shed four percentage points (he had 22 percent in July compared to 18 percent in October.)

Freshman senator and second finisher in the 2007 elections Francis Escudero is third with 14 percent, up by one percentage point, followed by Sen. Loren Legarda with 13 percent, Sen. Panfilo Lacson with 7 percent and Sen. Manuel Roxas with 6 percent.

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SIMILAR RESULTS: The result of the last Pulse Asia survey is similar to that the Social Weather Stations conducted Sept. 24-27, which showed Villar also in the No. 2 spot with 28 percent (from his previous 25 percent).

While De Castro was still No. 1 in the same SWS September survey, he lost ground (from 31 percent last June to 29 percent in September).

In the same SWS survey, Legarda got 26 percent; Lacson 17 percent; Escudero 16 percent; Roxas 13 percent; and Estrada 3 percent.

Another SWS survey commissioned by a political party showed Villar and Estrada sharing the No. 2 spot with 17 percent and De Castro holding the top spot with 19 percent from his previous 28 percent rating.

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