ZOOMING IN
by Rudy Romero
from The Daily Tribune
http://www.tribune.net.ph/commentary/20100219com3.html
It has long been conventional wisdom that an outgoing Chief Executive with a record of service as controversial and as tarnished as Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s, will likely hedge his or her bets by entering into a secret partnership with one of the promising opposition candidates. The need to hedge is in inverse relation to the strength of the administration bet’s candidacy; the weaker the victory prospects of the administration candidate, the greater the need to engage in hedging.
Arroyo is finding it necessary to embed — the verb that became famous with the second US invasion of Iraq — herself with one of the leading opposition candidates because of the weakness of the candidacy of the administration candidate, Gilbert Teodoro Jr.
Gibo Teodoro is the weakest candidate in what is turning out to be a four-candidate contest. He remains a distant fourth-placer in the opinion surveys. His rating has not risen above 5 percent since he became the standard-bearer of the Lakas-Kampi party, and, given the strengths of his three principal adversaries — Sen. Benigno Aquino III of the Liberal Party (LP), Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. of the Nacionalista Party (NP) and former President Joseph Estrada of the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) — and his personal and political deficiencies, the rating is likely to stay at around that level.
The best scenario for someone in Gloria Arroyo’s situation is for the incoming chief executive to be the candidate of the administration. But, as already stated, a Gibo victory is not likely to be the outcome of the May 10 political exercise. That being the case, Arroyo will have to look to one of the three other leading presidential candidates for her post-incumbency security.
Who should Gloria Arroyo strike a secret deal with? Noynoy Aquino? Joseph Estrada? Manny Villar perhaps?
Senator Aquino is out of the question. A secret deal with Gloria Arroyo would be absolutely contrary to everything that his mother, the much-loved President Corazon Aquino, personified and stood for. And it would negate the call for Arroyo’s resignation that Cory Aquino made when it was disclosed that the former had conspired with Commission on Elections official Virgilio “Garci” Garcillano and a number of high-ranking Armed Forces of the Philippines officers to rig the 2004 election. Cory Aquino’s son can hardly contemplate doing anything that would have the effect of extending protection to someone whom his mother considered no longer fit to lead the nation.
A deal with Joseph Estrada?
No way will that happen. By her own admission, Gloria Arroyo conspired with high-ranking civil society, religious, military and judicial officials, as early as a year before January 2001, to remove Erap from office and install herself in Malacañang to serve out the rest of his democratically acquired term. And, of course, she did nothing to mitigate the harshness of the judicial process in the prosecution of the plunder case that was filed against Joseph Estrada a few months after his unceremonious removal from Malacañang. That case ended, everyone knows, in Erap’s humiliation and loss of six years of personal liberty.
That leaves Manny Villar. If Gloria Arroyo cannot wangle a secret alliance with the candidates of the LP and the PMP, there is always the candidate of the NP, the “Sipag at Tiyaga” man.
Would Manny Villar be willing to strike a secret deal with Gloria Arroyo? A better question to ask is why the NP candidate would be unwilling to become Arroyo’s secret ally.
In a tight race with Noynoy Aquino, Manny Villar will almost certainly welcome any help he can get from anywhere. That help can come in two forms: votes and financing devious person that she is, Gloria Arroyo could quietly signal the local officials loyal to her to switch their support, at the proper time, from Gibo Teodoro to Manny Villar. This will be a more likely scenario if — as is likely — the administration candidate’s survey ratings don’t rise. As for financial assistance, Villar many claim that he is awash with cash, but it certainly would not hurt his campaign to be at the receiving end of P1 billion or P2 billion worth of government money and personal Arroyo funds.
What would Gloria Arroyo demand, and Manny Villar be prepared to offer, in return? A commitment from Manny Villar to go easy on, and to protect, Gloria Arroyo and her family when the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune shall have started to rain upon them after June 30, 2010.
Is Manny Villar likely to experience compunctions about entering into a secret alliance with Gloria Arroyo? I don’t think so, and, judging from the things that are being said about such an idea in coffee shops and newspaper writings, neither do many Filipinos.
Manny Villarroyo? Villar can protest all he wants, but that name has the ring of truth about it.
(My e-mail address is rudy_v_romero@yahoo.com)
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