E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Oh no! Not again!
Sunday, 02 06, 2007
Sen. Kit Tatad’s letter to detained President Joseph Estrada on many issues related to the May 2007 senatorial elections is an eye-opener to the stark reality that all is not well in the opposition. An imminent defeat in the polls is staring the people in the face once again, and it looks like they will be having more of the same from President Gloria Arroyo for the next three years.
Tatad could not have been more forthright when he described how decisions are now made in the opposition, the biases of those making the decisions. It appears that one’s consistency for the cause of the opposition is no longer a qualification for inclusion in the senatorial slate of the United Opposition (UNO).
Tatad makes it clear to us where the nation is headed, the results of the elections notwithstanding. Even if the senatorial slate of the UNO — drawn up the way he describes it — makes a clean sweep of the elections, we would still be wallowing in the muck of moral bankruptcy that has been the trademark of Arroyo’s governance.
Tatad mentions the need for a “set [of] some criteria or standards before admitting anyone who wants to ride the opposition bandwagon.” This is what many of us have been advocating, to prevent choices being made on whimsy and caprice. To these criteria should be added the commitment to a platform of government that offers an alternative to the Filipino people. Sadly, an openly asserted hate for Arroyo, however, belated or superficial or contrived, has suddenly become a prime qualification for the UNO slate.
The danger to this criterion is that it glosses over the most important reason we are having elections: To put into office legislators who will craft the laws to set the government aright.
A candidate’s intense dislike for Arroyo could be here today and gone tomorrow. It will vanish as soon as he has been appeased, and the personal concern that is the cause of the enmity is addressed. An all-consuming hatred just won’t do, on the other hand; it becomes a poison in the blood, and eventually gobbles a candidate’s raison d’être at the Senate: to legislate. And by legislate, we mean lawmaking beyond bias, beyond hate.
The biases of the decision-makers in UNO show, more than anything else, a skewed set of criteria in the selection. Politics is additional bedfellows — no question about that — but while UNO is gleefully welcoming many into the opposition bandwagon, they are tragically subtracting from the equation people who are more opposition than anyone else. Tito Sotto, Tessie Oreta and Tatad, for example, have been holding high the flame for the opposition as far back as one can remember and they have performed extremely well during their previous term as senators. So why should they be excluded at all from the UNO slate?
Three shoo-ins to the slate are related by blood to incumbent senators; Joker Arroyo will make it over Ed Angara, simply because Ernie Maceda, who has no love for the latter, now lords it over UNO; Ralph Recto is in, but Gringo Honasan, who was chief of security for Fernando Poe Jr. in the May 2004 elections, is out. And how can anyone forget the May 2001 elections when these two tangled for the 13th senatorial spot; and Manny Villar Jr. instead of Kit Tatad? Oh, c’mon. Include in that list the now friendly stranger who has suddenly come too close for comfort: Kiko Pangilinan. Haven’t we “noted” his antics before?
Personal and familial reasons make it that easy. Tatad hit it right on the head when he said “UNO cannot possibly support this error without in effect telling the masses, whose champions we say we are, that, contrary to what we have been saying to them, and what we have led them to believe, our primary interest has never been to serve them but only to serve ourselves. We would thereby be throwing away our moral advantage, and making our party the most effective campaigners for the administration.”
The deadline for filling up the 12 slots for senators is fast-approaching. Speculations are rife over the possibilities — is there is going to be a Unity Ticket? who will constitute the “Third Force?” who will run under what banner? Losing, however, is not even the subject of speculation on the part of the opposition, for that is how cocksure UNO is in winning the Senate. UNO could be wrong on this, and I pray to God not to strike me blind if I am proved not having read the signs right.
Once before, in May 2001, the 13 candidates of the LAMP coalition were gloating over a sure-fire sweep. Again, in May 2004, the 12 candidates of the KNP coalition were expecting to recapture the Senate. They were proved wrong — their disunity made it easy for Arroyo to cheat them out of sure victory. (Tatad knows this, for he himself was a victim of his own teammate in 2004.)
Our sympathies are with the opposition. We have placed even our lives on the line for the opposition. Even at the rate things are developing, we shall always stay opposition. This piece simply echoes what Tatad so eloquently stated in his letter: “This allows me to stand on my own, with no fear of powers or personalities, of the dark or of the light; to snore quietly in my sleep every night in the hope of waking up in the morning to a loving and merciful God; and to speak up whenever truth demands a witness, and something that needs to be said in speech and in silence is not being said.”
UNO, you know it is not yet too late.
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