Unity

Divided the nation will fail, President Arroyo said the other day.

So why are her allies in the House of Representatives embarking on a deeply divisive activity in a year of recession — Charter change through a constituent assembly?

Filipinos are never going to unite and rally behind Cha-cha at this time, much less Cha-cha through a Senate-less con-ass.

Filipinos are just waiting for nine long years to be over, when it can be possible again to hope that the nation can head toward another direction with a brighter horizon.

Counting down to the elections in May, and then to noon of June 30, 2010 is diffusing public outrage over all the scandals besetting this administration.

A popular pastime these days is guessing which country will serve as home-in-exile of the Macapagal-Arroyos once this administration comes to an end.

There was talk of a villa on the borders of Spain and Portugal. But the Spaniards, it must be noted, extradited Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet.

Now a new possibility is Brazil, which has just opened its beachfront properties to foreign ownership. The President, still globe-trotting amid the recession, heads for Brazil in a few days, courtesy of the Pinoy taxpayer. Nasty versions of “The Girl from Ipanema” are now circulating.

All these perks of power eventually come to an end, as even Imelda Marcos will attest.

Imeldific has managed to get away with almost everything, minus her collection of shoes, gowns and brassieres that she had to leave behind when she fled Malacañang.

President Arroyo will likely be able to bring with her all her personal belongings when she leaves Malacañang, if it happens as scheduled.

But with tighter international rules against money laundering and corruption, and with certain groups determined to stop making crime pay in this country, Imelda’s charmed life in retirement could elude the crooks in the current administration.

That fear of being held accountable for immoderate greed is seen to be fueling the increasingly desperate Cha-cha effort at the House.

* * *

Some legal minds are puzzled by House Resolution 1109, which expresses the intent of congressmen to convene a constituent assembly (con-ass) without the participation of the Senate.

Those legal minds believe that President Arroyo’s House allies simply want to force the Supreme Court to act on an issue for which there is yet no justiciable cause.

The legal observers point out that the House is already an assembly and can always propose constitutional amendments.

For example, the House can deliberate on the two economic provisions that Speaker Prospero Nograles, in his own Charter change (Cha-cha) resolution, wants amended through the regular legislative process.

Once the deliberations are over, the entire chamber must vote on the proposed amendments, and not by voice vote as in the approval of Resolution 1109.

Signatures will be needed — in this case, three-fourths of the House membership. With the recent addition by the Supreme Court of 33 party-list representatives, this means 221 congressmen approving the amendments.

The House can then do two things. It can ask the Commission on Elections to call a plebiscite to ratify the amendments. In the unlikely event that the Comelec goes along with this, the best that the poll body can do, given time and budget constraints, is hold the plebiscite simultaneously with the general elections in May 2010. “No-el” isn’t going to happen.

Regardless of the outcome of the plebiscite, a new set of officials would have been voted in, and it will obviously be too late for any amendment to allow incumbent officials to stay in power beyond June 2010.

In case the Comelec allows the plebiscite, senators who were excluded from the amendment process could finally challenge the House Cha-cha before the Supreme Court. The House approval by a three-fourths vote makes it a justiciable case.

There is no such case in the approval of Resolution 1109. If the Supreme Court plays along with the House game and takes cognizance of the petition filed by Marcos loyalist lawyer Oliver Lozano himself, the tribunal will inevitably be suspected of complicity in the Cha-cha script.

There is method in the seeming madness of Lozano, and it’s foolish to dismiss him as a harmless crackpot.

Some quarters have warned the public that violent mass protests could be used by the administration as an excuse to declare emergency rule.

Like the petition filed by Lozano, such scenarios cannot be dismissed lightly, considering the circumstances.

* * *

In 1971, then defense chief Juan Ponce Enrile allowed his car to be ambushed and the incident used as a pretext for Ferdinand Marcos to impose martial law.

Today, with elections just 11 months away, it may seem too late in the day for the President to declare emergency rule.

So why is she speeding up the rise through the ranks of her loyal aide, Army commander Delfin Bangit, who is now in a position to succeed Victor Ibrado as chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines?

Bangit, former commander of the Presidential Security Group and ISAFP or Intelligence Service of the AFP, belongs to Class ’78 of the Philippine Military Academy, which “adopted” President Arroyo as a member.

Six out of the 10 Army divisions are headed by members of Class ’78. The heads of military operations and ISAFP belong to the same class. So does the head of the police command in Metro Manila, Chief Superintendent Roberto “Boysie” Rosales, president of Class ’78.

In case sufficient “provocation” is created, there are enough officers in the right positions in the AFP and police who can carry out orders from the President and commander-in-chief to deal with the situation in any way she sees fit.

Two of the officers who command the kind of respect in the AFP that can foil an unconstitutional order from the top — former AFP chief Alexander Yano and his vice chief Cardozo Luna — have been conveniently packed off before their scheduled retirement, one to Brunei and the other to the Netherlands. Their PMA “mistah,” AFP chief Victor Ibrado, may one day soon find himself sent to Tehran, like Rocky Ileto.

The “pranings” or paranoid conspiracy buffs may be reading too much into all this. But our recent history should have taught us sufficient lessons in taking suspicious political maneuvers for granted.

When someone calls for unity in this divided country, it might not be addressed to the entire nation, but only to loyal allies.

It could be a call to arms.