The fear of Ping
December 1st, 2002
SENATOR Panfilo “Ping” Lacson announced during a Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) forum yesterday that he would seek the Presidency in 2004, making him the first politician to do so.
Lacson also confirmed the rumor that the opposition is considering two other people for that contest aside from himself. These are Senator Edgardo J. Angara of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino, which as the biggest party in the opposition coalition would be crucial in providing the organizational and manpower muscle needed for a credible campaign; and actor Fernando Poe Jr., who’s still being convinced to run by his best friend and compadre, former President Joseph Estrada.
At first glance, Poe, Angara and Lacson seem to have nothing in common.
A movie actor with no experience in politics and administration, Poe does not seem to have anything to recommend him except his immense popularity, earned by playing strong, silent, but wholesome types on screen.
Poe’s films are exceedingly violent, with scenes in which he has been known to mow down rows of antagonists with blazing pistols in each hand. However, he has eschewed that other staple of Philippine movies, sex, refusing to dally with his leading ladies beyond a chaste kiss or two. Violence alone apparently sells, and doesn’t need sex to attract and hold movie-goers’ attention. In witness to this, Poe has been for decades king of the Philippine box office, with millions from Aparri to Jolo worshipping at his feet.
In contrast, Angara is no pop idol. Before large audiences Angara comes across like an academic—as he indeed once was, having been president of the University of the Philippines.
Although a member of that elite group of UP lawyers that over the last three decades has played a major role in Philippine politics, Angara’s lawyering for corporate and other interests has mostly been done behind the scenes where he has been most influential, not in the courtroom.
Angara is rightly identified with education causes. He is the most experienced, and probably the most thoughtful of the three opposition possibles for 2004, having been a senator thrice, in which capacity he has authored or co-authored some of the most significant laws to emerge from the post-Marcos Congress (for example the Education Reform Act, and the Senate Absentee Voting Bill).
Lacson is on the other hand a neophyte senator whose niche in the Senate is peace and order. A former Chief of one of the most problematic agencies of the Philippine government, the Philippine National Police, controversy has hounded Lacson both before and during his Senate incumbency.
He has been variously accused of involvement in the drug trade, money-laundering, and even murder. To this day his supposed involvement in the Kuratong Baleleng case—an execution, a Senate committee has ruled—is still unresolved and continues to disturb, as does the alleged existence of his dollar accounts in the United States.
However, these disparities and contrasts in the qualifications, political and administrative experience as well as popularity of Lacson, Poe and Angara conceal something all three have in common.
It is their links to deposed President Joseph Estrada, during whose term Lacson was PNP Chief and Angara Secretary of Agriculture and later Executive Secretary. Poe’s connection to Estrada is arguably even stronger, however, the ties of friendship and that institution known as the compadre system being cast in iron in the Philippines.
Because of these ties, all three, it has long been assumed, will be seeking the Presidency with, among other purposes, the intent to see to the exoneration of Estrada of the capital offense of plunder for which he is currently (and very slowly) being tried.
That may well be, and it’s almost a certainty should either Angara, Poe or Lacson wrest the Presidency from Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who’s almost certain to be fielded by the administration’s People Power Coalition.
Returning to power, however, is the bottom line of any opposition effort in 2004. Almost marginalized by its identification with Estrada and by People Power 2, the opposition began the long climb back to some measure of credibility in the June 2001 elections, but has been visibly thwarted at every turn by the realpolitik cunning of Arroyo, who, among other initiatives, managed to undermine the Senate opposition by appointing Blas Ople Foreign Affairs Secretary.
An opposition president in Malacanang in 2004 will mean vindication not only for Estrada but also for the opposition’s claim that things have never been as bad as they are at present. If it fields Poe and Poe wins, however, only Poe’s adoring fans will regard it as any kind of victory for either the reform of Philippine politics or the country.
Lacson’s declaration of his availability, however, was accompanied by a salvo against Church family planning policy, which suggests that Lacson intends to emphasize some kind of alternative program to current Arroyo policies as his winning ace in the contest within the opposition for who will be its sole candidate.
The same may be expected of Angara, who has long been familiar with the need for a credible platform. For Poe not to be the opposition candidate, in short, both Lacson and Angara have to emphasize, even if only by implication, Poe’s basic weakness: his lack of experience, and with it, his lack of political savvy and appreciation of key Philippine issues, among them that of population growth and government policy.
Even if Estrada should manage to convince Poe to seek the opposition’s mandate for 2004, the context is thus likely to be between Angara and Lacson, with Poe emerging as either one’s vice presidential candidate.
There is, however, a wild card in all this. Fear of Ping Lacson is a subtext in most discussions about his ascension to the Presidency. Although popular, and armed with a war chest rumored to be as formidable as any Arroyo can put together, this fear could compel the opposition to hesitate in giving its mandate to Lacson.
The problem, however, is that Angara is widely regarded as a far from popular candidate despite his experience and background. It’s a fact likely to be a more compelling factor in any opposition decision for 2004 than the fear of Lacson that in any case is resident mostly in the thin layer of the politically aware and informed among the electorate. Presumably the power brokers and decision makers in the opposition bloc will consider all these, the stakes in 2004 being extremely high.
Given all these factors, early bird Lacson is likely to be the opposition candidate in 2004. That may be an event devoutly to be condemned. But Philippine elections being at bottom line a popularity contest, the Philippine electorate is likely to have in 2004 only Lacson as the alternative to six more years of Arroyo. The elections of 2004 being a year and several months away, Lacson’s early declaration means there’s time enough for those who want to emigrate to do the paperwork.
(abs-cbnNEWS.com, November 20, 2002)