Reckoning time for Noynoy, Clavel

It was inevitable - the meeting of two of the country's most talked-about women at the site of the deadly landslide in Barangay Guinsaugan, Southern Leyte. Former first lady Imelda Marcos and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo came to the place together, and your guess is as good as mine as to which one was more welcome to the Leytenos. One of our spies said there was no doubt about it, La Madama upstaged La Gloria, but the possibility that the former can disburse more benefits than the latter is clear.

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But one has to give it to Imelda, she has the enviable capacity to make her sympathy look very sincere. Maybe this time it is because she really means it, after all, she is a daughter of Leyte herself. Everybody there knows her and her people continue to remember how much she had helped her province when her husband - and she herself - held power. As for GMA, she may feel it deep down, we can't fathom that, but there is a distance, an aloofness that exudes from her, even when she is being hugged by a weeping mother.

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As predicted here yesterday, reactions have started coming out to the statements of President Arroyo before the foreign correspondents at the Dusit Hotel in Makati Tuesday. From the Senate alone, we already heard some very caustic remarks, like Sen. Serge Osmeña saying it was expected of someone with a tendency towards dictatorship. Senate President Drilon calmly called it her own "self-assessment", while Sen. Manny Villar just said it was not surprising because she has to put on a brave face because of the threats to her administration.

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Yesterday, the President was in Cebu, again drawing strength from the place that she believes gave her the one million votes to win, the number which she had also mentioned in the famous Hello Garci conversation. By the way, one Cebuana who did not agree with that, and who is a member of Congress, just found out the price of her disbelief. She has been yanked out from the highly influential Commission on Appointments, reports said yesterday. Remember Rep. Clavel Martinez? She said aloud in Congress that she regretted supporting GMA in the 2004 election. Now she has other things to regret.

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Another congressman who may have cause to rue a previous decision is Tarlac's Benigno Aquino Jr. or Noynoy, who has been booted out as deputy house speaker for Luzon. Remember that Noynoy had sided with those who voted for the impeachment of the President? Not only that, his mother, former president Cory Aquino, has also been calling, and is still calling for the resignation of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. With Noynoy's ouster from his Congressional post, and GMA's lashing out at the EDSA I heroes (no names, of course), Noynoy should not be surprised.

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Will the country's senators, fielding all their arguments against the highly unpopular Executive Order 464, prevail at the Supreme Court? Not, if one is to believe another member, Sen. Miriam Santiago, who seem to speak with great authority about it. Miriam says the senators will not get what they want because the High Court will very likely come to a decision that will save faces on both sides. So, she said, the honorable justices will probably declare some, but not all provisions of the order unconstitutional.

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That may be a diplomatic way of resolving such an important issue, but wouldn't that appear to be a negotiated resolution? Already this administration is being referred to as characterized by "Transactional governance". Can we afford to also have a reputation for transactional resolutions? Let us pray that our justices will have the guts to come to an uncompromising decision. Either they say EO 464 is legal, or they junk it. Well, maybe somebody will ask me why I listen to Senator Miriam.

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Meanwhile, Mayon Volcano is also acting up, spewing ash on her sides, and giving sleepless nights to residents. The victims of the Zamboanga landslide have been accounted for and, mercifully, there were only five. The children who almost got mercury poisoning in Makati are now out of the hospital. But, against all odds, rescuers are still giving the families of the missing in Leyte some consolation by continuing to search, even if survival beneath 30 feet of sticky mud and water after almost five days can only be possible through a miracle. All we can do now is pray for the dead, their families, and for those kind souls who are helping ease the grief of all.* s

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