he purported
assassination attempt against Gloria Arroyo was purportedly uncovered from
documents dumped by the plot hatchers in a parking lot. On the basis of such
information, the PNP recommended to the Presidential Security Group that
Arroyo’s movement be restricted. Trash, it seems, is now sufficient ground to
immobilize the machinery of government.
We are not complaining, far from it. In fact, the more the
administration is paralyzed by fears of its own imagination, the better for all
of us. We will have a Gloria who not only is a lameduck, but also held isolated
and paralyzed inside the Palace. She can pretend to govern. We can humor her,
secure in the knowledge that at least no more harm can come from her direction.
She is not resigning come what may. The people are not
prepared to throw her out of office for fear of the erosion of the
constitutional order in the event of another People Power revolt. It’s a
standoff, which is good enough from the viewpoint of a long abused people.
At least, there will no new opportunities to rob the people.
The clock is ticking. The national broadband deal was a last
two-minute attempt to further feather thieves’ nests. It was foiled, but there
are still more in the pipeline. There’s the cyber-ed project. There’s the rush
to build big-ticket infrastructure projects. There’s the planned P75 billion
spending to purportedly insulate the economy from the global slowdown. That’s a
lot of money Gloria wants to spend in the time remaining before 2010 – all in
the name of improving the people’s lives.
Well, we can forego with any promised improvement in our
lives in the next two years in exchange for the assurance our money in the
Treasury remains intact. The savings in "commission" would be that much
additional investible funds in the hands of a more honest and caring
administration to come.
But there’s no room for complacency. We used to labor under
the illusion that after the past scandals, Gloria would have learned her
lessons. What we have seen instead was more of the same, if not worse, because
Gloria sought to accumulate more power and pelf immediately after weathering a
crisis.
At this very moment, even as the fate of her administration
hangs in the balance, she and her lieutenants are laying the ground for a
counter-attack in the form of the revival of the already discredited charter
change. If we give her a respite from the body blows coming from sustained mass
actions – or communal actions if we use the term preferred by the bishops – she
will for sure come back swinging without regard to the people or the
institutions she will be wrecking.
That’s Gloria. To protect ourselves from her vindictiveness, there should be
no let up in keeping her dazed, confused and bewildered.
