Crooked politics in the Philippines

Philippine Daily Inquirer, Asia News Network, Manila

Joseph Estrada seems to wield more power while in detention than when he was president. Although there's no beeline to his detention cell by politicians to court his electoral support, leading presidential and vice presidential candidates seem eager to stay in his good graces. They show that eagerness by pleasing or appeasing his kin, political allies and leading supporters.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has included known Estrada supporters in her senatorial slate, easing out her own men such as Agrarian Reform Secretary Roberto Pagdanganan and former environment and natural resources secretary Heherson Alvarez. She has also left open a slot for former senator Miriam Defensor- Santiago, an Estrada ally who in turn has consulted the disgraced former president, obviously seeking his blessing.

Presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr. has disappointed Estrada, his showbiz buddy, in making Senator Loren Legarda, who sided with the pro-impeachment bloc in the Senate in the trial of Estrada, as his running mate. But many of his lieutenants are known Estrada men, such as Senators Edgardo Angara and Vicente Sotto. And Legarda has made peace with Estrada by having lunch with Estrada's son Jinggoy and Estrada's avid supporters such as Horacio Morales and the irredeemably twisted Juan Ponce Enrile.

The players in this game have justified their political maneuverings and contortions as conciliatory efforts to heal the divisions of the past. This is a lot of hogwash. There is simply no moral or reasonable basis for reconciliation. Peacemaking is totally foreign to utilitarian politics. What we are seeing is simply the politics of expedience.

The President is particularly hard-pressed to reconcile her choice of former Estrada men -- and a host of showbiz celebrities -- in her senatorial slate with her oft-repeated claim of upholding a politics of substance. It seems the economist in her has compelled her to perform the basest strategy of political economy: Hoarding supply, including the rotten ones, to satisfy a perceived demand -- for votes and more votes. If there's scientific economics in her rulebook, it's the economics of addition.

Poe's drumbeaters have made much of his choice of Legarda as proof of his independent mind. This is baloney. No matter how much he tries to distance himself from the deposed president, he still cannot disguise the fact that he is Estrada's crony and political creation.

In any case, he's not capable of shrewdness because he has always done the bidding of his manipulative lieutenants and advisers who only want him because he's extremely popular and he can hand them the power that they greedily covet, the power that they need to restore the fortunes of Estrada and his cohorts. Come to think of it, they are Estrada's cohorts.

In considering the President's offer to run in her Senate slate and seeking Estrada's support for it, Santiago represents the politics of schizophrenia. How else can one explain the gall of this woman who, after lashing out at Macapagal-Arroyo no end and questioning the legitimacy of her assumption of the presidency, stops to consider the President's offer to join her in the campaign, and then proceeds to seek the blessing of the man she claims to have been unconstitutionally booted out of power? Hers is not politics, but psychosis.

As for Legarda, her efforts at assuaging and flattering Estrada's supporters so they can support her vice-presidential bid expose the politics that she subscribes to: The politics of farce. To be sure, Legarda has nothing to apologize for what she did during the impeachment trial. She might have voted against Estrada, but she lost out. She and the Senate failed to impeach Estrada: It was the people on EDSA highway who kicked him out.

But since she needs Estrada's people to win the vice- presidency, she has to pander to their every whim and caprice. She may not have apologized, but she has eaten humble pie. She has eaten her own words. She now looks like a repentant anchorite, ascetic and saintly.

The election is five months away, but it is apparent that Estrada is becoming the ultimate kingmaker. The man who, perhaps after Ferdinand Marcos, best represents the bankruptcy of our political system, seems to have become the chief catapult to hurtle pretenders to power. In one fell swoop, a prisoner has reversed his fortunes and held up the appalling truth: Filipinos are confined in the prison house of their crooked politics.