The surveys, their meaning; Apocalypse, if Mindanao explodes

Hostage we all are to the surveys. The Ides of March came and many among us expected Apocalypse to descend and reduce President Joseph Estrada to a helpless, bleating, bloody pulp. And possibly preparing to head for the exits. Well, the SWS (Social Weather Stations) came and its Net Satisfaction Rating of the president held on to five percent. Same as December 1999. Pulse-Asia just released its March survey. From 28 percent net approval rating in December, the president suffered a seven percent slide to 21.

While stupefying low for a president who has just served 21 months in Malacañang, it still does not have the effect of an iron ball knocking Erap Estrada for a loop. Sen. Teofisto Guingona, president of Laban, rattled the rafters demanding the president's resignation. He may have said a mouthful that just about everybody agreed with (under their breath) but few in Congress, even in Laban, were willing to sever President's Estrada's head.

The so-called Silent Protest Movement with its stilted exclamation point held centerstage for a few days. Linggoy Alcuaz, a squinting, blinking leftist maverick and Movement spokesman, had eyebrows up, up, up when he counted the number of the president's mistresses, named names, and demanded to know where the president got all the money -- hundreds of millions -- to construct mansions for Guia Gomez and Laarni Enriquez.

But here again, as in the case of Tito Guingona, few were willing to go public, take up Linggoy's cause and rat on Erap. And the Silent Protest's noise barrage came a cropper.

So, as we said earlier, the president lives and breathes, has gone back to kissing babies, says he doesn't worry about his plunging popularity. "I am more concerned about my performance," he says blithely. "I don't worry about the criticisms. My only concern is to implement projects for the benefit of the people." So what lesson do we derive from all this? We have a very unpopular president, the disenchantment is widespread, poverty remains the curse of the citizenry, but -- and this is a big but -- the knives are not being drawn.

I sort of hinted at this in a previous column. I indicated that if President Estrada were pushed too far, abused too far, if his person and position would be dragged to the sewers, then a big power vacuum would yawn and only the military could immediately fill that vacuum. Many of us experienced martial rule and, horrors, we were not ready to go back to that. God awlmighty, not again!

And then again, the latest surveys and the latest events opened up doors and windows that were not open before.

I am talking about the person of vice president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Her approval rating remains high in the latest Pulse-Asia survey, 69 percent, topped only by DILG secretary Fred Lim's 70. But Lim's rating has nothing to do with the presidency. His presidential campaign in 1998 was a big dud. The people like Lim where he is, head of the DILG, a warrior, a law and order fist in the criminal's face. But Gloria now is being increasingly seen as the only alternative to Erap Estrada by the men and women who largely determine who the next president will be.

This is highly revealing. They include prominent individuals who thumbed GMA down as a presidential candidate in the 1998 elections. At that time, they thought of Gloria as too inexperienced, too ambitious, too avid for presidential power, and yet powerless before a glowering and imperious military. Why this 180-degree volte face? It seems they are now fully convinced Erap Estrada will remain Erap Estrada, come what may, though hell freezes and the heavens fall. No way can you reinvent the man. A house painter, no matter how entertaining can never become Picasso.

And so all of us who have tried to move heaven and earth to part the waters and open up a Third Force or a Third Way in Philippine politics may have to pause. Our idea was to get together the best 12 men and women to form a Senate slate for the year 2001. A slate blessed by the Church and all the men and women of good will. This slate would be the forerunner of the Third Force. Now we realize, the odds could be formidable and we may have dreamed a little bit too much. Listen to this:

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will set up her own Senate slate, no ifs and buts. This will be her first bugle blast for the presidency. She certainly wants her own senators in the upper chamber. Particularly if the 2004 presidential elections are held and she is elected president. Where GMA stands today, no other political force or party can successfully challenge her bid unless Raul Roco, Renato de Villa and Lito Osmena uncork the biblical miracle of the seven loaves of bread and fish.

If we know Gloria, she will certainly set up her own political party. Political parties after all don't mean anything today. They do not emerge on their own power. They gather like filing magnets around a prominent and powerful political personality, much like Manolete and Belmonte, the great matadors, were besieged by their admirers and followers. As far as I can see, nobody right now, no political party owns GMA, and that's the wallop that is in store for Philippine politics in the coming weeks and months.

President Estrada ate back his words and said Gloria could stay in his cabinet. Former president Fidel Valdez Ramos declared it would be a big mistake if Erap would ease out Gloria since she remained until today the biggest asset in his cabinet. But voices in LAMP have become increasingly hostile to Gloria. Senate President Blas Ople and Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile want her out. And so does -- surprisingly -- Sen. Aquilino Pimentel.

To the big question: What does GMA really portend in Philippine politics? We really don't know. Except that she is a woman. And women are always full of surprises.

So far, our prose has remained on the rails, in fact has been very moderate compared to past columns, many of which were blood and thunder. But what is happening now in Mindanao -- the widening war, Monday's unprecedented blackout, the hideous hostage situation in Basilan -- removes us from the realm of normal concern to rising anguish and fear. We had always known that Mindanao was a powderkeg waiting to explode. But we had hoped -- in vain, of course -- that the Estrada government would know how to handle the situation.

But when the president recently ordered the military to wage total war on the "terrorists" of the MILF for allegedly breaking the peace, we instinctively knew something big was going to happen. Of course, Al Haj Murad, the MILF's military strategist, had always threatened war, jihad and vendetta, but we figured he was just posturing and jawboning. Now that Mindanao-wide electrical blackout Monday has all the makings of war as bloody as we have ever seen in Mindanao. And that blackout occurred as "fierce fighting" between government troops and the MILF was raging in Lanao.

That brownout couldn't have been an accident. It was deliberate and whoever set it off knew Mindanao would again be trapped into massive bloodletting. The lights, of course, came back last Monday but there's no guarantee the blackouts won't come back. And if they do, they'll paralyze transport, trade and commerce, make of Mindanao a No Man's Land. I am told the power grid in the war area in Mindanao is long and can easily be disabled to wreak the kind of havoc Mindanao cannot just afford today.

What alarms veteran observers is that our military is ill positioned to wage a long and effective war today. It's been a long time our AFP has modernized, while the MILF, drawing help from Islam and Osama bin Laden, is equipped with modern weapons, including the deadly Rocket Propelled Grenade which can pierce the armor of tanks. And that is why it was wrong for the president to have declared total war on MILF "terrorists." The word terrorist itself was provocative, according to observers, because the MILF claims it is waging a just, secessionist war.

Anyway, provocative or not, the fat is in the fire. If there is one thing the United States fears, it's an aggressive, fanatical, international Islam coming to the aid of the MILF. That would play hob with the Visiting Forces Agreement. And America's hegemonic conflict with China in the South China Sea. We are told that CNN recently broadcast a CINCPAC (Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific) statement to the effect that widespread war in Mindanao could bring down the Estrada administration.

So you see? Politics in the Philippines has always to be measured against the wider canvas of the geopolitical situation in East and Southeast Asia, No matter how we Filipinos think of ourselves, great shakes or not, we are pawns of the great powers. We have a Mutual Defense Treaty with the US. A flare-up in the Spratleys with Chinese forces intruding into islands or sea lanes claimed by the Philippines would make us putty in the hands of Washington. The Yankees, of course, will be calling the shots.

That's what's missing in the SWS and Pulse Asia surveys.