QUINTESSENTIAL OPERATOR! STRANGE BEDFELLOWS!

A year ago, this week, July 12-15, 2013, the PDI came out with a four part series on the Napoles PDAF/Pork Scandal. The PDI Expose came out of the three months “Serious Illegal Detention” of Benhur Lim Luy by Janet Lim Napoles and brother, Raynald “Jojo” Lim from Dec 19 to March 22. Then there were attempts (the retention of the MOST Law Firm and a letter to President Aquino from JLN seeking assistance against harassment by the NBI.) to cover up and hush up the said crime. Atty. Baligod and the Family of Benhur Lim Luy went to the PDI on April 27, 2013 and turned over Benhur’s Computer Hard Drive with 2,156 folders and 20,103 files.

Since then, we have been analyzing, projecting, wondering, what will be the end result of all of these. Our predictions and projections have swung back and forth, to and fro, principle to practical. A mere month and a half after the first PDI series, we thought that we were on the verge of another popular revolution (July 12-August 26). However, every month that passed since then, September, October, November, December and so on, the instant indignation and mobilization of July and August was disassembled and whittled down.

Even, the Tuesday, November 19, 2013, Supreme Court decision that PDAF was unconstitutional seemed to contribute to the pacification of public opinion. The proverbial final nail on the coffin was the paltry and pathetic June 12, 2014 Coalition or Movement Rally at the Bonifacio Shrine behind the Manila City Hall. Meanwhile, Bayan and other likely suspects held their rally at the Liwasang Bonifacio and proceeded to Mendiola after. The quantity as well as the quality of the Million People March to Luneta had been dissipated by Disunity, Dogma, Pride, Purism, Selfishness, Suspicion, and what have you.

Before you read on: Beware “Do Gooders”, “Holier Than Thous”, “Mayabangs”, “Pharisees”, “Purists” and Swapangs”. You might not like what you will read. Welcome “Balimbings”, “Half Breeds”, “Mestizos” “United Fronters”. Pray, keep your Hearts and Minds Open!

People are born, develop and grow up with two sides to the brain – Art and Science, Creativity and Logic, Language and Numbers, Love and Likes. My Left Brain must have been bigger. I was better with numbers than with language. However, in my late High School years and even more during College, my Right Brain caught up with my Left Brain and even overtook it. This was just in time for the 70’s as in the “First Quarter Storm!”
Subsequently, I realized that six decades of Politics and Protest taught me a new Political/Protest kind of Math. I learned that: 1 + 1 is not = 2, its 3. 10 divided into two is not 5 and 5, its 3 & 3. The other 4 just evaporated. I learned the value of Coalitions, Compromise, getting together and Unity. I learned too the other side of the coin, Disunity, Division, Dogmatism, Going It Alone and Purism.

Both at close range and from a distance, I learned about and observed political failure and success. One of the longest running political failures was the Jesuit/Ateneo inspired purist third force that fielded a separate slate of candidates in the National/Presidential Elections of 1957 and 1965 (PPP – as in Party for Philippine Progress and Progressive Party of the Philippines), and the Local/Midterm Elections of 1959 (Grand Alliance). Double blinded Noynoy (an Atenean like Manglapus.) may yet turn the success story of his parents’ double deaths and martyrdoms into the biggest family tragedy because of his narrow mindedness. On the other hand, we have had a myriad of political successes when even strange bed fellows got together. The following are examples of how the heterogeneous as opposed to the homogenous came about achieving their common objectives.

In 1946, the Liberator, Gen. Douglas Mac Arthur supported the Collaborator, Manuel Acuna Roxas for President. In 1953, the Nacionalista Party adopted LP President Elpidio S. Quirino’s Defense Secretary Ramon Magsaysay as its Presidential candidate. The latter had been an LP Congressman.

Then, in 1961, the Grand Alliance/PPP and the LP coalesced as the United Opposition Party (with Diosdado Macapagal and Emmanuel Pelaez for President and Vice President. Raul S. Manglapus and Manuel Manahan of the GA/PPP captured the first two slots for Senator.) and defeated the NP’s incumbent re-electionist President Carlos P. Garcia.

In 1965, former LP Congressman, Senator and Senate President Ferdinand E. Marcos won the NP nomination for Presidential candidate. With Fernando Lopez as his Vice Presidential running mate, they defeated the incumbent LP President Diosdado Macapagal and running mate Senator Gerardo “Gerry” Roxas. Senators Raul S. Manglapus and Manuel Manahan, the Purists, came in third.

In the 1970’s, Moderates and Radicals came together and came apart several times over. In the February 7, 1986, Snap Elections, Corazon “Cory” C. Aquino and Salvador “Doy” Laurel were perceived as having been the real winners because they had come together in one slate at the last minute.

In 1992, Lakas, NUCD and UMDP coalesced to field FVR. After he won the count and proclamation, Ramos made peace with all of his rivals, namely, NPC”s Danding Cojuangco, LDP’s Ramón V. Mitra, LP’s Jovito Salonga, KBL’s Imelda Romualdez Marcos and Unido’s Salvador “Doy”: Laurel, except for PRP’s Miriam Defensor Santiago. In 1995, in a Marriage of Convenience, Lakas and LDP put up a common twelve man Senatorial Slate.

In 1998, the LDP, LP, NPC, PDP and PMP coalesced behind Erap against the Lakas, NUCD, UMDP, Kammpi and defeated Speaker Joe de Venecia. However, the Kammpi’s GMA beat Angara for the VP. In March 2000, the Binamira’s, Pedrosa’s, Jun Enriquez and Linda “Inday” Montayre and Linggoy Alcuaz launched the Exclamation Point Sticker in the Silent Protest Movement. In the run up to EDSA II, Boy Saycon and Popoy Lagman, Peping S. Cojuangco and Vic Ladlad teamed up to Oust Erap. In 2004, Erap and Jun Enriquez got together. From 2004 to 2009, Orange and Red worked side by side.

From sometime in the past until November 29, 2007, the RA and RJ factions of the Left were often in the same coalitions. In 2007, Uno and GO defeated GMA and the Lakas’s Coalition at the Senatorial level. In 2013, Grace Poe ran under the LP and came out # 1. The future may show Pastor “Boy” Saycon and Erap together again.
All of these examples don’t mean that in this more complicated age that the strange bedfellows have to be formally together and united in their objectives to defeat the enemy. After all, as the lesson of the lost August 26 Million People March to Luneta shows, it is impossible to unite everybody. All they have to do is to aim their attacks at the same targets – Aquino and Abad, and not at each other. The Supreme Court Decision declaring the DAP unconstitutional lays the foundations for a common target range. The targets are now much bigger than Napoles of the Ten Billion Scam.

Happy Birthday Pastor Boy Saycon!