Imminent Rumblings

[racerx]

TURBULENCE

FIRST PERSON By Alex Magno
Philippine Star, Tuesday, May 25 edition

The elections just wouldn?t go away.

Two weeks after we all trooped to the polls, we are still at it. The local
candidates have been proclaimed. The new batch of senators should, by now,
be proclaimed.

The official canvassing of the votes for president and vice president
begins today at the Batasan building, with two houses of Congress jointly
convened to perform this sacred function.

But this my not be the wind-down of this intense and exhausting contest. It
might be the commencement of a new, more dangerous phase of confrontation
between the two main camps that contested the last election. This could be
the beginning of a new phase of political turbulence.

My sources in the KNP have confirmed to me that there is frantic
recruitment and organizing of forces for massive street action intending to
disrupt the canvassing and abort the proclamation of a winner in the
presidential contest.

Although the effort of some sort of aklas-bayan is led by KNP
personalities, it includes both segments of Eddie Villanueva?s Bangon
Pilipinas as well as leftwing groups represented by the "Patriots". My
sources claim they have some support from the military, although I suspect
these could be no more than the retired generals who have been
exceptionally agitated from the start of the campaign period.

Over dinner last Sunday, my friends from the Poe camp warned of a "very
long week ahead".

The operating scenario as of two days ago was for the KNP representatives
to walk out of the Batasan canvassing sometime in the latter half of this
week. Then all hell is supposed to break loose.

This all sounds like an insurrectionary plan. But I have strong doubts the
leaders of this effort have the moral ascendancy, the political competence
and, most important, the cause to pull this adventure through.

Given what happens over the next two or three days, this whole effort could
actually fizzle out. Or, some street confrontations could happen, creating
enough media events to torpedo investor confidence in our economy.

The most important ingredient for a rising widespread public indignation
is absent. This enterprise could be destructive, but it could not possibly
succeed.

I have little doubt, however, that the effort is serious. Three malignant
political streams have converged to create enough energy for an episode of
turbulence.

The first stream is composed of the more rabid sections of the Poe campaign
who have convinced themselves the elections have been stolen and refuse to
accept any other outcome than their candidate being proclaimed. They have
invested heavily in this campaign and will accept only the capture of power
for themselves.

The second stream is composed of communist operatives who are under
instructions to "deepen the crisis" and form "tactical alliances" even with
the most moribund political forces. They cannot imagine their nemesis
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo winning a just and democratic mandate. That will
put the Left on the extreme defensive for a very long time.

The leftist militants have been trying to discredit the electoral process
from the start in order to produce the predicate for declaring the Arroyo
"regime" illegitimate and a fitting target of revolutionary rage. That
effort included bringing in foreign leftwing allies, their lack of
credentials for evaluating elections notwithstanding, to declare this
process flawed. Those leftist "foreign observers" ? who did not even bother
to register with the Comelec ? held that high-profile press conference
featured prominently by another broadsheet.

The third stream is composed of the impressionable mob from Bangon
Pilipinas movement. They are the most uncritical believers of Eddie
Villanueva who has been behaving quite strangely since the counting began.

Villanueva has dug himself into a pit of sorts. He used religion to seek
temporal power. He promised a miracle that did not come about. He massed
the biggest rallies during the campaign and ended up with the shortest end
of the count.

The last few days, Villanueva seems to be in a state of disorientation. He
seethes with anger at nothing in particular. It appears he is having
difficulty grappling with his fate.

This is an unholy convergence.

Those organizing the protest actions expected over the next few days do not
expect, deep in their hearts, to invalidate the count and abort the
process. Short of sparking a civil war, that simply cannot be done.

The only thing they can do is to poison the mandate of the winner of this
count. The only thing they can hope for is to taint the legitimacy of the
country?s leader and create enough basis to leverage and paralyze
governance.

Their only realistic goal is to chip the propellers that drive the ship of
state, take out some of the wind from the sails of the presidency.

By damaging the winner, they will end up damaging the nation. By unfairly
tainting the elections just held, they undermine the credibility of our
democratic processes.

In a word, they will burn down the barn of no particular benefit. They will
raze the ground of our politics and prevent consensus from forming. For
narrow partisan motivations, they will make the future bleak.

I wish the more reasonable personalities in the opposition would manage to
prevail over their more reckless colleagues. But even that is unlikely.
Some of the more important voices of moderation in that beleaguered camp
have joined the frenzy.

It seems we are condemned to enduring the antics of frenzied partisans the
next few days. But all their perilous propensities will fail to shake
events off their course.

The adventurism will enjoy no broad public support. To the contrary, the
public will welcome a firm response to this infantile plot.

In the end, an opposition with neither historical nor ideological roots
will be thrown to the wind and settle in the dustbin.

[pajerokid]

Pag si GMA pinroclaim..... gulo.
Pag si FPJ naman.............gulo din.

haaaaay.