Make sure the horse is dead

Please don't say we are blowing our own horns, but I hope DAILY STAR readers have noticed that while none of the top national dailies in Manila had caught up with the Big News from Thailand about the resignation of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, their STAR was able to carry the story on its front page yesterday. With picture pa.

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One can't help feeling sorry for President Arroyo. Yesterday was her birthday and even if her loyal supporters did try their best to make it a happy one, her critics and detractors did not even take a day off. As soon as the news of Thaksin's quitting came out, they also called on her to "Do a Thaksin". Anyway, you can bet that her spokespersons will answer that with their stock reply: "The President is unfazed…"

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It was reported that the members of the cabinet also held a party for her, where they pledged their loyalty and steadfastness, saying "We will stand by you". Will the President believe them, especially if she recalls the last time her cabinet also rallied around her shortly after she recited her "I am sorry" speech at the height of the Hello Garci controversy? I remember that the cabinet members even held hands around her and sang "If we hold on together…" A few days later, ten of them jumped ship and held a meeting at the Hyatt Hotel and decided to call on her to resign.

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Meanwhile, her spokespersons, exasperated at the continuous surfacing of issues against her, said the opposition people are just "flogging a dead horse". The problem with the horse is that it keeps snorting and jerking, so that those watching it keep reading meanings into its neighing. Take the case of the former Comelec Commissioner Virgilio "Garci" Garcillano. Everybody thought the issue was a closed one, then suddenly this passport thing comes up. So the oppositionists found another issue to pounce on. The Palace should therefore make sure that that horse is truly dead.

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Then there is the dagdag-bawas issue. The highest officials of the Commission on Election themselves cannot seem to get together on what to tell the public. The new commissioner, Romeo Brawner, says the People's Initiative ploy is illegal and will be dumped as soon as it gets to the Comelec. Then another one declares that there was, indeed, massive cheating in the 2004 polls. Then their own chairman, looking pained, explains that that is not what they meant. Now comes a former commissioner, Mehol Sadain, himself a Muslim and from Mindanao, also declaring that there is no way that President Arroyo could have won over Fernando Poe Jr. in his territory. Will Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos disown his statements, too?

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But I'm sure one salutation that must have warmed the President's heart was that from the Department of Justice that took out a one-page ad to say Happy Birthday to her and declare their support and admiration for her work. Of course it was not just an opportunity for its secretary, Raul Gonzalez, to have his picture along with hers. The names of the rest of the DOJ officials were also listed below. But everybody know Gonzalez need not have paid for advertising space to do that. Actions speak louder than words - or ads - you know.

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Another kind of smuggling has been discovered, but this one goes the other way around. Police have discovered that thousands of one-peso coins are being taken out of the country and brought to China or Hongkong. Is our money more valuable in those places? The cops who caught the Chinese shipper of P100,000 worth of P1 coins at the North Harbor in Manila suspect that they will be melted and made into tokens for gambling casinos in those places. The most insulting part of the news was that it also said, the coins were shipped together with scrap.

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A study in contrast - that was what some headlines in national papers had. On one hand there was the report that: "Peso rallies on strong OFW remittances". On the other, there was: "Body of Pinoy in Bahrain sea tragedy brought home". There are three more remains of OFWs coming, too.*

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