E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Loren Legarda
Sunday, 10 15, 2006
Lawrence Durell once said: “There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, you can suffer for her, or you can turn her into literature.”
So, what have we done with a woman named Loren Legarda?
Surely, we loved Loren in 1998, when more than 15 million of us elected her senator with the highest number of votes. We loved her when she secured in 1999 the release of Gen. Victor Obillo and others held captive by the NPA; when she maneuvered in 2001 the joyous return of Maj. Noel Buan to his family after years of captivity by rebel groups; and when she and journalist Arlene dela Cruz emerged in 2002 from the lair of the latter’s abductors in Sulu.
We even rejoiced at her accession in 2001 to the position of majority leader, a real mean feat for a woman, the first ever, in a male-dominated Senate.
We loved Loren for her concern for women, children and the environment, as manifested in the pieces of legislation she authored: the Anti-Domestic Violence Act, the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act, the Solid Waste Management Law, and many others.
Others beyond our shores bestowed upon her a similar gesture of affection: Switzerland, for the 2000 Global Leader for Tomorrow Award from the World Economic Forum; and Italy, for the 2001 United Nations Environment Program Award for her Luntiang Pilipinas Project.
And because we love Loren, we suffer for (and with) her today, ever since the 2004 elections when a notorious election official made sure that she would lose by 800,000 votes. So, where have even half of those over 15 million who voted for her in 1998 gone? Have they gone to graveyards, everyone? Or have they been disenfranchised, replaced by fictional voters skillfully incarnated?
We suffered with Loren when she filed an electoral protest before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET). We experienced her emotional pain and distress when action on her protest, not incuriously, took so long. And just when her protest was going well, the tempest of many constitutional issues was raised to blow the attention of the justices away from the injustice heaped on Loren. Just when evidence of the fraud is unraveling — the fake ballots, the manufactured election returns (ERs), the substituted ballot boxes…you know the rest. Just when at every hearing before the PET, there is no doubt about the conclusion one could make of the evidence being presented by her lawyers…
We suffer for Loren, because a verdict on her protest before the 2007 elections is a distinct impossibility, thanks to the delaying tactics of her opponent. We do not even know if, by a cruel twist of unenlightened minds, our justices in the high court would make the elections next year a distinct impossibility!
But amid a muddled political climate, let us suppose that elections for the Senate will be held next year. The surveys show Loren in the forefront. Which is not surprising for somebody whose brains are now sorely missed, given the recent preponderance of actors who act like senators — and vice versa. Should she decide to make the surveys the determinant of her future, all she has to do is heed that very tempting call. For the Opposition, she will be one more warm body to man the ramparts of a Senate that will surely sit as an impeachment court, given the certainty of more Opposition than Administration candidates getting elected to the House of Representatives next year.
The Administration, on the other hand, would be gladdened if Loren does run. It would be a move that would render moot and academic her electoral protest. The panic of the Administration over the impending result of the protest is most evident in a lawyer’s urging Loren to run. Loren, who does not need a lackey for a spokesman, advised the poor sap to stick to lawyering.
The lawyer must be a real numbskull not to remember the case of Miriam Santiago. Miriam was cheated in the 1992 presidential elections, lodged her protest, but ran for senator in 1995. Miriam’s protest had been mooted; she is deemed to have abandoned her protest by running for senator, the PET said in some such words. So will it be in the case of Loren, should she decide to run, thereby burying into oblivion, the issue of fraud lodged against Gloria Arroyo and Noli de Castro.
But as long as the protest is there, Loren stands out as the last remaining noble face of the victims of the fraud in 2004. And so must Loren look at it that way, the certainty of her winning in 2007 notwithstanding.
So long as the protest is there, the Opposition has the forum to prove the real truth in the 2004 elections. So long as the protest is there, Loren assumes the moral high ground as prime leader of the Opposition. By right to the position she is contesting, Loren could end up anytime as the highest-ranked member of the Opposition, the vice-president of the country at that; and she could end up as the president in the event the rule on succession will have to be observed. As vice-president and the leading light in the Opposition, Loren could even end up as the civilian caretaker of the government just in case some enlightened protectors of the people conduct an exercise similar to what their counterparts in Bangkok did recently. So long as she keeps her protest alive, Loren puts herself in a commanding position to be the standard bearer of the Opposition in 2010.
In short, she does not need to be a senator to keep the flame for the Opposition burning. And, if only for this reason, we can turn Loren Legarda into literature — or immortalize her in song.
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