Obama and Gloria

By Antonio C. Abaya

So that President Arroyo does not further humiliate herself trying to get an audience or at the very least a photo-op with President-elect Barack Obama, she should always keep in mind that Obama belongs to the liberal wing of American domestic politics.

It should be assumed that there are Filipino-Americans in Obama’s staff, and they, too, are liberals. They know what is going on in their country of origin. Through the Internet, they know about the stealing, the lying, the cheating and the killings that have been going on in this country for the past seven years, and they input this knowledge whenever Obama asks them for a briefing on the Philippines.

Through them, Obama knows that she is maneuvering to change the Constitution so that she can stay in power beyond 2010.

It is no wonder, therefore, that when Gloria visited the US last June, Presidential Candidate Obama was always in New York when she was in Washington, and was always in Washington or somewhere else when she was in New York. It was a deliberate snub. American liberals do no not approve of the way she has been running this country.

All Obama was prepared to give her, to acknowledge her presence, was a polite telephone call, followed by a letter..

Even that was not forthcoming when President-elect Obama received congratulatory telephone calls from dozens of world leaders, including President Arroyo. Obama returned the telephone calls of only nine of them – the leaders of the most important countries – and Arroyo was not one of them.

When President Arroyo went to the US early this month, ostensibly to speak before a United Nations forum on interfaith dialogue, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said that meeting Obama was “high” on her agenda.

But there was no meeting with Obama, even though President Arroyo made a two-hour stop-over in Chicago – Obama’s home base – ostensibly to talk to the Filipino community there.

And not to forget her visit to the US last October, supposedly to speak before the United Nations General Assembly. If Malacanang is to be believed, President Arroyo met with the heads-of-state, heads-of-government, or chefs de mission of 19 countries – including seven Lilliput ones – all within the space of 48 hours. (See my article Gloria and the Lilliputs, October 02, 2008).

But no meeting with Barack Obama, although I am sure frantic efforts were made by her staff to wangle an audience. She would have gladly junked those meetings with 19 boring leaders of silly countries, in exchange for one with the devastating Barack.

And it is not just the liberals who have blacklisted President Arroyo. The outgoing neo-conservatives have neither forgotten nor forgiven her for abandoning the Coalition of the Willing in Iraq and for playing footsies with the Chinese, whom the neo-cons believe will be the next strategic enemy of the US, after the Muslim extremists..

During her visit to Washington last June – during which Candidate John McCain, bless his gentlemanly soul, gave her 15 minutes of his time in a hotel lobby – the neo-cons insulted her by forcing her to conduct a press briefing outdoors, on the sidewalk of a busy DC street. No self-respecting head-of-state or head–of government would have put up with such indignity, but she did.

If you do not believe me, look at the color photo on the front page of the June 25 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, credited to Malacanang Photo. There she is, talking into one of two stand-up microphones, flanked by Deputy Secretary of State (and neo-con) John Negroponte, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo and Press Secretary Jesus Dureza.

There are no lecterns, no chairs, no tables, no presidential seal. But in the background are motor vehicles going about their normal business. (See my article Weird, June 30, 2008)

Malacanang is complaining that media prints/broadcasts too many negative stories and not enough feel-good ones about President Arroyo. But why does she put herself in such humiliating situations, and why does she herself create such self-destructive conditions?
She is her own worst enemy, not media.

Such as giving executive pardon to the convicted murderer Claudio Teehankee Jr.? She knew this was going to be a very unpopular decision, yet she went ahead and did it.

Even the convicted murderer knew his pardon would infuriate most people. He did not leave prison through the front door in broad daylight. The previous evening he stayed in the “special” room of convicted child rapist Romeo Jalosjos, then destroyed the decorative tiles close to the ceiling, crawled through the hole (which was later patched up by someone with a new set of decorative tiles), and out into the street where a man on a motorcycle was waiting to speed him away. It looked more like a jailbreak than the implementation of a presidential pardon..

Did President Arroyo really think anyone other than Teehankee and his family rejoiced over this caper? Is she really wondering why, according to a recent Pulse Asia survey, 46 percent of Filipinos disapproved of her performance and 51 percent distrusted her?

Even the defeat of Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s bid for a seat in the International Court of Justice could not be prevented by President Arroyo even though one of the rationales for her trip to the UN last October was to campaign for Miriam’s nomination. Presumably PGMA lobbied for Miriam when she met with the top officials of – if Malacanang can be believed - 19 countries, including seven Lilliput ones, in 24 working hours.

But Miriam lost to the nominee from, of all places, Somalia. Somalia is considered a failed state; it has no functioning government. It is run and overrun by marauding bands of armed men loyal to rival warlords who, in turn, clash with Islamist rebels, while increasingly bold Somali pirates hijack ships off the Horn of Africa with impunity. (Their latest catch, just today, is a Saudi supertanker weighing 318,000 deadweight tons).

To lose to Somalia is therefore deeply humiliating and requires exceptional talent..

Last June, when a Senate committee chaired by Sen. Miriam was hearing the complaint of foreign car assemblers that second-hand cars were being illegally imported through Port Irene (Cagayan Province), Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, who is from Cagayan, told the chairman of the Joint Foreign Chambers of Commerce (JFCC) to “get out of the country if you can’t live with us.”.

The JFCC is currently chaired by a Frenchman and represents some 2,000 employers/investors from the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, South Korea and the European Union, who employ some one million Filipinos.

In my article ‘Get out of the country!’ of June 09, 2008, I wrote that with Sen. Enrile’s outburst, Sen. Miriam “can kiss goodbye her ambitions to be named to and accepted by the International Court of Justice.” Quite influential and powerful, the countries whose representative Sen. Enrile chose to publicly humiliate..

If they couldn’t get back directly at Sen. Enrile, they could get back, and did, at committee chair Sen. Miriam and the Philippines, despite the charm offensive, assuming there really was one, by President Arroyo, and that she was really charming. *****

CULTURAL NOTES. Tomorrow night, Nov. 29 at 8 pm, it will be From Russia with Love at the CCP, with Russian pianist and (since 1998) Steinway Artist Katya Grineva, who will perform romantic piano music for the benefit of skills training and vocational education for soldiers and their families in Camp O’Donnell, Tarlac. The New York Times has described her performance as “liquid, dream-like…”

Tickets at the CCP Box Office, Ticketworld and National Bookstores. *****