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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| PNP: Ping Next President? By Antonio C. Abaya, December 12, 2000 Like the mysterious and still unsolved disappearance of PR man Buddy Dacer, the sudden and secrecy-shrouded seven-day trip of Philippine National Police chief Gen. Panifilo Lacson to the US has been the object of much intriguing speculations. Did Ping go the US to pressure suspected gambling lord Bong Pineda, hibernating in Los Angeles, to come home and testify in the coming impeachment trial of Vice-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo? Or did he go to Washington DC to sell himself to the Great White Fathers as an alternative to both the embattled President Estrada and the less-than-enthusiastically embraced constitutional successor GMA, as GMA herself has alleged? The enigmatic, poker-faced Gen. Lacson has not helped clarify matters by floating, or allowing to be floated, various other reasons for his sudden departure. To wit, that he went to the US to visit his family (living there on a police general�s salary?); to receive an award from a never-heard Society for Industrial Security; to accept a dubious $26 million donation, allegedly from the US Congress, to a private foundation recently organized by him�.none of which seems to have convinced anyone. ***** What is certain at this point is that Ping Lacson has an overweening ambition to succeed Joseph Estrada as President of the Philippines. And he seems to have been encouraged in this tack not only by his high rating in public opinion surveys, but also by his explicit anointment for that position by the inner circle of the Estrada Mafia, perhaps even by President Estrada himself. In June this year, Gen. Lacson announced the formation of the Philippine National Police Foundation, said to be a privately organized and privately funded organization whose stated objective is to purchase radio and other equipment needed by the police. (Philippine Daily Inquirer, June 30, 2000). Gen. Lacson is said to be confident of raising one billion pesos in the year 2000 alone, and an eventual total of four billion pesos in three or four years� time, not coincidentally, the amount political technicians calculate to be the minimum needed to win a presidential election, which, also not coincidentally, is next scheduled in 2004. And guess who have chipped in to raise the first billion. According to the Inquirer, Mark Jimenez, the �corporate genius� wanted by the FBI for various alleged misdeeds in the US, gave P100 million, of which P50 million came from his own pocket, the other P50 million from that of The Manila Times (which probably amounts to the same thing since, based on its small circulation, the Times is not likely to see P50 million in a hundred years). Lucio Tan contributed P50 million, and another P40 million came from the Filipino Chinese Chamber of Commerce, said the Inquirer. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to surmise that the PNP Foundation is actually a political campaign vehicle, that PNP really stands for Ping Next President, and that Gen. Lacson has been picked to succeed Erap in 2004 by the Estrada Mafia, possibly even by no less than il capo di tutti capi himself. They all need a friendly successor to protect and expand their interests and to guarantee their immunity from prosecution. ***** But a funny thing happened on the way to the 2004 elections. In October, Gov. Luis Chavit Singson detonated his jueteng stink bomb and suddenly the Estrada government faces the distinct possibility of ignominous disintegration. This has thrown a monkey wrench into the political machine meant to launch Gen. Lacson on his trajectory to the presidency in 2004, a nasty inconvenience especially since actor Rudy Fernandez has already finished shooting the film meant to portray Lacson in all his glory, in time for 2004. For Gen Lacson, Governor Singson�s stink bomb and the impeachment trial that it spawned have all but demolished his presidential plans. He is not in the line of constitutional succession, and he will most likely be removed from his post � his launch pad � by the next president, whoever he or she may be. By the time the 2004 elections roll in, if they ever will, he will most likely be no more than chief of security for Lucio Tan or Mark Jimenez, and may no longer be on the fast track to Malacanang. Of all the reasons given for his sudden trip, the most credible therefore is that he went to Washington DC to sell himself to the Great White Fathers as a fast track alternative to both President Estrada and Vice-President Arroyo, playing on the Americans� atavistic phobias of a) the Chinese (such as Estrada�s closest cronies aside from Jimenez) and b) the communists (such as Gloria�s newest allies.). ***** The only way now for Gen Lacson to rise to the presidency, and it has to happen soon, is for him engineer a police coup d�etat, to be justified perhaps by a total breakdown in law and order when President Estrada is acquitted or convicted in the impeachment trial. But it is not likely that the Americans, despite their pathological phobias of the Chinese and the communists, will buy it. And even if they do, Lacson will have a hard time selling it to the Church, the media, the business community, civil society and the middle and upper classes. (The masa would not care, one way or another, as long as they have their daily doses of showbiz inanities.) Furthermore, a coup by the Lacson PNP will most likely draw a response from the AFP, which is superior to the PNP in numbers, firepower and moral capital. It is no secret that Lacson and AFP Chief-of-Staff Gen. Angelo Reyes dislike each other; it is unlikely that Gen. Reyes will allow Gen. Lacson to get away with it. In a chaotic scenario of PNP coup and AFP counter-coup, the l987 Constitution may become inoperative and the matter of presidential succession may be sidelined by the more immediate need to organize a civilian-military junta, the crafting of a new Constitution , and a thorough clean-up of the thoroughly rotten political and electoral systems. ***** This article appeared in a January 2001 issue of Today. |