Speaker Arroyo

by Lito Banayo
from MALAYA

Is Pa-La-Ka conceding the presidency this early, that its spokespersons have trumpeted openly the prospect of Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo? Or is it part of a deal, in the event they are able to make Money Villarroyo win the presidency come May 10, 2010?

Monday this week, the Pa-La-Ka drumbeaters, like Isabela’s Rodito Albano and Butuan’s Joeboy Aquino could not contain their excitement over being led in the House by their beloved Dona. They preened over their more than 100 Lakas-Kampi congressmen and cabinet members now seeking election to the House, even administration party-list bets like of course, El Esposo’s hermana, who represents the poor, marginalized balut and kwek-kwek vendors, kuno.

Thundered my friend Joeboy, “PGMA will win hands down. She continues to wield power and influence…if her detractors think they’d seen the last of her, they are mistaken. She’ll be around longer than they think”. Brave words.

Of course, the Liberal Party candidate for Congress in the second district of Pampanga, one Adonis Simpao, was bravado personified when he said, “Let GMA win first!” Wow! Akala ko ba tapos na ang laban sa Lubao and Guagua, Bacolor and Porac and Floridablanca? Even the ulang and the river shrimps will vote for the Dona, courtesy of Baby Pineda’s cabos y cobradores, so she will be the first president in history to become congresswoman. From Numero Uno to Numero Siete, and by grace of Money Villarroyo, to Numero Cuatro.

Y nunca te olvidare, Senor Joker, de Arroyo tambien, as Senate President. Numero Tres! Ang saya-saya!

Noynoy Aquino quickly said that if he is elected president in May, he will make sure that the Dona will not be Speaker by July. And Money Villarroyo deftly said his Nacionalista Party will run their own candidate for Speaker. “I am not saying that we are going to win. I am just saying that we will nominate a (candidate for) speaker”, Villar said. Nimble, nimble, this Money. Baka magalit si Dona, at magpalit pa ng isip.

I see visions of another “rainbow coalition” similar to what Joe de Venecia crafted when FVR won while Laban or LDP-ran winners dominated the House in 1992. So what else is new?

As the French would say, “Plus ca change, plus la meme chose”. And remember, Joe de V is supporting Money Villarroyo for president, even as his wife Gina, who is running to succeed him in the fourth district of Pangasinan, is a close friend of Kris Aquino.

“Oh, what a circus!”, as Che Guevarra, the character in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical satirizing Evita y su Juan Perron, sang in the opening lines.

* * *

A friend wrote to comment on what we wrote last Tuesday about a Supreme Court decision that would virtually open the floodgates to foreigners who want to take over jobs of Filipinos without even having to acquire an alien working permit.

“What else is new?”, he twitted. If an American citizen and blue passport holder like Gary Olivar y Bocobo could be employed by the president herself as one of her spokespersons, speaking for and in her behalf, what more an Australian who just wants to manage resort hotels like Andrew McBurnie?”

That’s what I keep saying — there is no rule of law in the benighted land. What the Dona wants, the Dona does, and to hell with the law.

What Supreme Court justices decide, no matter if it contravenes or circumvents the letter of the law, is the law.

* * *

Sorry, Peter Ong. After Judge Myra Garcia Fernandez of Manila’s RTC was nominated to become a justice of the Court of Appeals in “kaliwaan” fashion, for issuing a warrant of arrest against Ping Lacson whom El Esposo Don Jose Miguel hates with a passion, I thought you too, Peter, would be rewarded with the post of Chief State Prosecutor as reward for filing the information against Lacson.

Mea culpa. Maybe my writing about it soured your chances. Buti nga kung ganoon. In any case, it was Claro Arellano, the Quezon City chief prosecutor, who will succeed Jovencito Zuno. And they say he too is the “recommendee” of the FG.

But wait! What is this we hear that Arellano will be succeeded by a lady assistant fiscal who is an American citizen, como Gary Olivar?

Will wonders never cease!

* * *

Meanwhile, both Money Villarroyo and Erap Estrada failed to attend the Foreign Correspondents presidential forum last Monday because one was still savouring braised abalone and birds’ nest in Hong Kong, after an “historic spiritual” encounter with Bro. Mike Velarde and his followers upon the break of the Year of the Tiger, while the other was still in Davao after paying obeisance to another “holy” man, Apollo Quiboloy, the self-proclaimed “appointed son of the almighty”.

The reverend Quiboloy had Gibo and Gordon, Erap and Jojo, Bayani even, and a host of senatorial wannabe’s kowtowing to his “benediction” in front of the multitudes in his enchanted kingdom in Tamayong, in the city where the Dutertes and the Nograleses are in a fight to the finish. Gibo and Gordon quickly returned to be heard by Focap, but the rather ageing Erap could not quite catch up with the hectic campaign schedule.

But Money and his newly-acquired Loren basked in the afterglow of Velarde’s encomiums, before a crowd dutifully wearing regulation orange, the colours of Villarroyo. “You are showing your true colours”, Velarde egged on his followers, as he spoke of how close he and Villar were, while Loren, trying to “picture” in, confided to media that she had never made a major decision in her life without consulting Bro. Mike.

“We cannot serve both God and money at the same time”, the El Shaddai servant leader said in Hong Kong, “but here we have the Manny that you want”. Talaga nga palang Manny is spelled “money”.

And Manny, este Money, was seen on TV saying that indeed “he and Mike Velarde knew each other even before El Shaddai was formed in the dreams of Bro. Mike. They are both realtors. They both started in the Las Pinas-Paranaque area, Velarde with his reclaimed salt beds named Multinational, and Villar with his father-in-law’s Las Pinas raw lands converted into Camella and Palmera. But Velarde seemed content with Amvel upon the salt beds along with his religious denomination, while Villar expanded his business empire from Las Pinas to Bacoor, then Imus, then Dasmarinas, then San Pedro, and Bulacan, and Rizal, and Cebu and Iloilo where Savannah lies, this time over irrigated riceland. And grew his political hegemony from congressman to Speaker, then to senator to Senate President, and now, the presidency itself.

Money Villar, the speaker who impeached Erap, moved the former locus of C-5 to another in GMA’s time, now passing through lots owned by his Adelfa and his Brittany and his Golden Haven, and made a killing in upward land values thereafter, not to mention road right-of-way payments from the Republic of the Philippines, whose taxpayers he now wants to lead towards his “vision” of a prosperous nation where “hindi na kailangan pang magnakaw” ng mga corrupt.

He has made tons and tons of money that his followers say “hindi na kailangan pang magnakaw” ni Money Villarroyo, because he has too much already, as if to imply that anyone who is not as rich as Villarroyo “ay magnanakaw pa”. The culture of corruption is thus ingrained as a given, and the poor masa, already inured to “walang katapusang kurakot” and “pare-pareho lang ‘yan” are fooled.

* * *

Meanwhile, the hard-hitting Escalera radio program of Rey Marfil, Marlon Purificacion and Jett Zaide, which airs every Saturday at 11 in the morning, is unceremoniously axed, its blocktime contract simply terminated by Madio Mindanao Network’s Manila station DZXL.

“Sobra naman kasi kung banatan si Money Villar”, they were told. I could not believe it when I learned that they were told Tuesday after their Saturday program that they were kaput. Just like that. The Canoys who own RMN should know. They are decent people in my book.

Natapalan na rin ba ng pera ang mga tao ninyo, Eric?

(banayo_at@yahoo.com)