Tuesday, January 08, 2008 Seares: Erap redux By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
A PRIEST friend has a Latin word for it: “redux” or brought back, popularized in John Updike’s 1971 novel “Rabbit Redux” which tells the saga of Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, its main character.
Former presidents are being dragged from nearly obscure lives to prance on center stage and, with the glare of publicity, made to think they can be president again.
To be sure, the living ex-presidents — Joseph Estrada, Fidel V. Ramos and Corazon Aquino — are not yet wheelchair-bound.
FVR, 80, still looks fit and trim; Cory, 75, hearty and hale. It’s only Erap, 71, who wobbles, threatening to fall any second.
And yet it’s Erap who’s spreading the “redux” idea for him and other ex-presidents.
Convicted of plunder, he was a lot less quiet until President Arroyo pardoned him. With his rights fully restored, he has been moving around and making loud noise about what he can do.
He would run for president again, Erap said, he didn’t complete his term, rudely terminated by Edsa 2 and “usurped” by Mrs. Arroyo.
Outbursts
Ploy or not for his son Senator Jinggoy, his interest in 2010 sparked similar outbursts from camps of the other ex-presidents. FVR would qualify, his aides say. Cory is the only one not legally disabled, a lawyer said. To all that, the secretary of the Department of Justice said that all the ex-presidents are disqualified.
They talk as if the constitutional limit were the only bar to their return and, worse, as if the country were totally barren of presidential timber.
Ex-presidents can help by lending wisdom and experience to the sitting head of state. But they aren’t recycled or brought back. Redux is definitely not for Erap.
