The vindication of Loren

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

The vindication of Loren
Sunday, 12 18, 2005

More than a year and a half after the presidential and vice-presidential elections, the political landscape is still littered with questions about who really won. These nagging questions, however, find no resolution because of a fractious opposition. No, make that fractured opposition. If it’s not one, it’s the other. The sad fact is that either the members of the opposition are in opposition against each other and could not get their act together or they have been broken, disrupted and co-opted by the administration.

The main drawback of the fractious members of the opposition has been their overriding concern to dislodge Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. It seems they have given this matter the highest priority without giving any thought to the more important consideration after the fall: Who will take Arroyo’s place? There are just too many personalities in the opposition elbowing each other out in wanting to be the head man in that victory parade to Malacañang. Nobody wants to sit by the sidelines to cheer and provide encouragement to the leader of the parade. As a consequence of this sweet confusion, others have even entertained the thought of taking the less traveled road: an unwieldy Council of Leaders or, worse, a Revolutionary Council or, worst, a civilian-military junta.

If the constitutional route were to be followed, following a forced resignation (read that, ouster) of Arroyo, the Vice-President takes over. But then, the presumptive Vice-President Noli de Castro is not being taken seriously as a successor, owing to the major issues raised against his integrity and his capability to govern. Given all these reservations, the opposition has written off De Castro as a constitutional successor to Arroyo. Add to that the fact that he is not even with the opposition, choosing to even ignore a deadline given to him to join the movement to oust Arroyo. Above all, he shares with Gloria the very same taint — a deeply flawed election count — in their claim to the two primal positions in our supposedly democratic republic. As Tom Stoppard once quipped: “It’s not the voting that’s democratic; it’s the counting.”

Which leads us to a counting now going on, which has almost escaped public attention on account of the more sensational news of the disappearances of a couple of Cabinet members and the scripted appearance of a notorious vote counter and phone user. The ongoing count (more appropriately, recount) being conducted by the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) may yet provide the opposition with a leader or a rallying point. Loren Legarda, she from whom the vice- presidency was stolen in the same fashion that Fernando Poe Jr. lost the presidency, is standing by the sidelines, waiting to be recognized and asked by her colleagues in the opposition to lead the parade.

Loren is the other half of the tandem in the May 2004 presidential elections who should have been proclaimed winners had Congress not simply “noted” the complaints of their lawyers. Necessarily she is the torch bearer of the dashed hopes of the people for a legitimate leadership. Loren may not have been that visible — or voluble — in the activities of the opposition, but this is both by choice and as the consequence of a blurry focus of some leaders in the opposition.

By choice, Loren has quietly pursued her electoral protest against De Castro. However slow the pace may have been in the PET, Loren’s doggedness to lay bare the truth is starting to bear fruit. Her protest has bright prospects, following the opening of the first set of election returns from Lanao del Sur and ballots (from Mandaue City).

Loren has not been given her rightful place in the scheme of things of the opposition, more by the maneuvering of a moneyed and powerful few who doubt her sincerity to the cause of the opposition. But this is more than made up and contrived, more a function of a selfish ambition to lead colliding with a rightful claim to a position via the constitutional route.

Loren has been crying fraud the past 18 months. The election returns from Lanao del Sur vindicate her: the ERs have been substituted to conform with the results bared during the canvass; the ERs were contained in ballot boxes with serial numbers different from those transferred by the Senate to the House of Representatives; The ERs bear the signs of fraud which, according to NBI questioned-documents expert Sig Tabayoyong, were prepared under conditions affording the convenience of space and the luxury of time; the serial numbers of the ERs are similar to the official and authentic copy of the Comelec, but contain different results. In the ballots from Mandaue City, many, and I mean many if not all, were written by just one hand or by two hands.

Loren has railed against the leadership of the House of Representatives for allowing or keeping a closed eye to an intrusion into its premises where the ballot boxes were corralled, and where wholesale substitution took place. (If a report in The Daily Tribune is to be believed, these post-canvass operations were videotaped and the usual gang of mercenaries is now peddling the tapes to Loren).

Loren is going to win her protest. It would do well then for the opposition to look to Loren to lead it, or at best, to provide her encouragement, support and appreciation in her lonely quest for victory in her protest.

The constitutional route to oust Gloria can — and will — move faster if there is a credible leader who can replace her. Loren, the President-in-waiting, is that leader.

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