E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Defining the opposition
Sunday, 11 04, 2007
Amid the allegations of conspiracy — or a self-correcting sell-out, as others are quick to point out — surrounding the executive clemency granted by President Arroyo to ousted President and former detainee Joseph Estrada, the opposition appears now to have been thrown into a disabling state of disorganization and uncomfortable untidiness in thought, in word and in deed.
This is an unfortunate development. The fire that burned brightly in the torch that the collective opposition stalwarts took up since January 2001 is now a smoggy smolder — wispy smoke coming from a fire that at least manages to keep burning slowly but without its usual glow and brilliance. The rhetoric is now self-absorbed, self-adjusting, self-closing, or, at best, cautious.
O tempora, o mores! Where now are the keepers of the flame?
It is wishful thinking to assume that Erap will assume with renewed vigor — or even forced reluctance — the leadership of the opposition soon after his pardon. Which is understandable either way: because he needs to catch up with the realpolitik which passed him by for the past six years while he “rested” in the confines of his Tanay jailhouse; or because he must bide his time to weigh and convincingly explain away the consequences of being co-opted by the government that ousted him, convicted him and eventually pardoned him.
So, as Estrada whiles away his time at Polk Street, the opposition needs a leader who can seize the burning issues of the day — and there is no better day than today, given the current numerous scandals that lead directly to the doorsteps of Malacañang.
But who?
Sen. Loren Legarda should be it. But she has kept mysteriously silent, as if she had suddenly decided that she could not stand the heat generated by the scandals. She has lost that former vibrant voice of dissent, the consequence possibly of her new membership in the Nationalist People’s Coalition, which is aligned with the Arroyo government.
Senate President Manny Villar Jr. cannot somehow shed his image of being a closet fence-sitter and a smooth two-timer, no matter how much effort he puts at projecting himself as a critic today, an apologist tomorrow.
Mayor Jojo Binay, despite his sincere efforts, is hamstrung by his own explosive problems in Makati City which he must attend to first and foremost, and cannot seem to gather the UNO around him.
Sen. Nene Pimentel Jr. is a good man. He has always been a good man in my book. But as today’s yuppies say, he’s sooo yesterday.
This leaves — perhaps arguably, perhaps plausibly — one opposition figure who stands out in the vacuum of leadership: Sen. Ping Lacson. Never mind that Lacson was the cause of the regrettable split in the opposition votes in 2004. Lacson has already paid for that: being the only one consistent in the fight against the excesses of the Arroyo government: every time he takes that fighting stance is almost a public act of atonement for that stubborn decision three years ago.
The opposition has always been defined by its voice against the scandals besetting the Arroyo government. That voice is Lacson’s.
It is Lacson who is defining every single issue that makes Arroyo look the ogre who wants to govern even as she flaunts her mockery for the decent rules of governance. It is Lacson who, without fear or caution, has been carrying the fight in Congress, cutting the Arroyo public figure down to size. It is Lacson around whom those opposed to the Arroyo government revolve, from whom they get cues to move forward, step sideways, or pause in the fight against Arroyo. Where others who are eyeing 2010 have suddenly become timid and tread with a cautious step, Lacson has thrown caution to the wind, unmindful of the consequences to his own ambitions in 2010.
Legarda, et al. have shied away from the battlefield, preferring to hem and haw, expecting perhaps that they, in a Malacañang co-optive stroke that will out-Estrada the Estrada pardon, would be the anointed of the administration by 2010. Not Lacson.
The zeal and daring that Lacson has shown defines the real opposition now.
Lacson is credible when he dares Speaker Joe de Venecia Jr. to speak up or shut up. Lacson is believable when he says Arroyo can never be right if everything she does is wrong. Lacson edifies the nation when he floats those tidbits about some upcoming exposé against the Arroyo government. Lacson comes out clean when he spurns his “pork barrel.” Others who imitate Lacson, despite their public acts and countless media spin, still fall flat on their faces.
It is three more years to 2010, not too far away if you reckon the time spent by a nation in tolerating and suffering under an unelected president leading a corrupt government, who now is being addressed by people we’d never expect to do so as “my President.”
This late, however, Legarda, et al. have been found wanting in their consistencies. Lacson is the exception. If he keeps this up, Lacson could very well be it for the opposition in 2010. Arguably. Feasibly. Plausibly.
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