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Friday, October 10, 2003
Malilong: Let’s hope GMA broke her word for right reasons
By Frank Malilong, Jr.
The Other Side
I was in Cagayan de Oro when President Gloria Arroyo announced that she had “deferred” her retirement from politics and will seek a direct mandate to the presidency from the people.
I watched a late night replay of her speech on a government-sequestered TV station, hoping for the one line I thought was most appropriate for the occasion but I never heard her utter, “sorry, I lied” until I slept.
That would have helped assuage the feeling of betrayal of those who, like me, believed in her sincerity when she announced on Rizal Day last year that she wasn’t looking at the presidency beyond June 30, 2004. It seems that she is unwilling to grant us even this consolation.
I have seen politicians lying through their teeth and I ought to have taken GMA’s December 30 promise as just another politician’s empty talk. But I thought that she meant her vow to be solemn—one that she would never break because she made it on the day a great Filipino offered his life and made the supreme sacrifice for his country more than a thousand years ago.
I looked at Mrs. Arroyo as one in the same patriotic mold as Jose Rizal and I applauded her and put her in a pedestal. It now seems that I looked at her wrongly and I‘m the one feeling sorry that she fell.
Let’s just hope that the President broke her word for the right reasons. Not that the intention would justify her flip-flop but rather that the wrong reasons could aggravate it. If she decided to run because she honestly believed that only she could lead this country out of the depths, I offer my prayers and best wishes.
But if she broke the covenant that she made with us on Dec. 30 because she wants her presidency to shield Jose Pidal, whoever he is, or because she wants to keep her friends happy and contented with the perks obtained from her presidency, then she has already laid the foundations for a thousand Oakwoods to rise.
What her real reasons are, we will probably not know in a long while, if at all. What is immediately obvious is that Mrs. Arroyo’s change of tune, not necessarily of heart, is infectious.
Look at the Cebu governor’s daughter. Not very long ago, Gov. Pablo Garcia and his consultant-daughter Gwen were vehemently denying that she had any political plans. Yesterday, I read that Gwen is willing to run for any post in the province.
The information came from no less than the governor himself. Daughter, says Daddy, is eyeing either the gubernatorial or vice gubernatorial position. Although he hastened to add that the final decision rests with President Arroyo, there is no doubt as to who determines what post suits Gwen. Daddy knows best.
There is no question about Gwen’s qualifications or her right to seek any elective position that her heart desires. This is a free country, in case you have forgotten, and the anti-dynasty provision in the Constitution remains an idle and lifeless concept. Gwen might even out-perform her father given that she has the benefit of his experience.
But I do not know how the governor can now offer his daughter as an alternative after both have repeatedly said that she wasn’t interested in an elective position.
Garcia’s disclosure confirms what his critics had been saying all along: that he was grooming her to be his successor. I can imagine the likes of Cebu Vice Mayors League president Ricky Ramirez going to town lambasting him and her for their insincerity.
And what about Vice Gov. John Gregory Osmeña? Although Garcia has denied that he ever endorsed John-john as his candidate for governor, the denial came rather late when the latter had all but limited his options.
Garcia said it was the mayors who endorsed Sonny Osmeña’s son as their bet for governor. And now he’s asking the same mayors to tell him who they want? Murag lisod man espilingon, Gob.
(October 10, 2003 issue)
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