By Alejandro Lichauco
The Daily Tribune
01/22/2009

Is there a Puno-Lim-Erap triumvirate programmed as transition government?

And programmed by whom? By the inner logic of events, of course. For events have an inner logic of their own and that logic dictates what is to be the future. And if events today have one commanding feature, it is the overwhelming desire for change — even revolutionary change in the political and economic situation. That explains the ongoing clamor for Chief Justice Reynato Puno to run for president.

The public is tired of politicians. It is tired of civil society. It is tired of businessmen. It is tired of the Church. All these have run, managed and determined the nature and course of the national situation and that situation has spelled only two things: Corruption and poverty, with both worsening rather than diminishing with time. Hence, the search for a new “establishment” has grown desperately with time and that desperate search is what explains the mounting clamor for Chief Justice Puno. An unprecedented event in our political history.

The Chief Justice, of course, isn’t all pure and all white. His critics, and enemies, murmur much against his morals and even competence but just the same, whatever they might murmur against him are far outweighed by the positives which surround him and which constitute his public aura.

And that explains the sudden emergence of a clamor for him to run for the presidency in 2010.

Truth, however, is the moral crusade for a Puno presidency doesn’t really have elections in mind. The Chief Justice doesn’t stand a single strand of a chance of winning any presidential election. He doesn’t even have the makings of a successful candidate for town mayor.

Those behind the clamor for Puno have only one thing in mind. And that’s to persuade the AFP to mount a revolutionary government and install Puno as head. In much the same way that the AFP mounted Cory as head of a revolutionary government in 1986.

But if that’s the plan, then the Puno crusaders underestimate the daunting challenge of the times. The Chief Justice will be deluged by problems — political, economic and military — which would be far beyond his solitary capacity to meet. He isn’t made to govern. What he is made for is to stand as a symbol of moral rectitude at a time when moral degeneracy has become the order of the day and the way of life.

And for that Puno will be ideal. But that wouldn’t be enough, a new government, committed to change and installed for that purpose, requires much more. It will need, for one, the new face of a morally rejuvenated military establishment. And that new face finds its maximum expression in Gen. Danny Lim. If Puno represents moral rectitude, particularly in the judiciary, Danny Lim represents moral rectitude in the Armed Forces. And since a transition government can be possible only through the intervention of the military, it is imperative that the new face of a morally rejuvenated military be represented in that government.

Danny Lim is the one military figure today that so powerfully represents the face of integrity and valor expected of the nation’s soldier, and one can’t conceive of a transition government, mounted by the AFP, without him. Besides which, Lim is the only military figure who has dared defy the face of colonialism and foreign domination by calling for a nationalist, sovereign and independent government. There isn’t anyone in the military who has dared do that — and dared it while in his prison cell.

As for Erap, why include him in the new government when, as said, the public is tired of politicians? And besides, hadn’t he admitted guilty to the criminal charges raised against him by the GMA government?

The answer is simple. Erap won’t be in the transition government as a politician and former President who had pleaded guilty to plunder but as the one public personality in the Philippines who has the capacity of appeasing the masses and of persuading the masses to support the new government.

The central problem of any new government is the masses: How to persuade them that the new government means business and that the new government needs their support. Only Erap has the capacity, or at least the potential, of doing that for the new government. Nobody else can take Erap’s place in that role. What does the new government do should the masses break out in hunger riots — and that is bound to happen because there isn’t an end in sight to the global crisis. As to Erap’s guilt, everyone knows that he would never have obtained justice as long as this government is in place. And so, he did the only practical and politically intelligent thing to do — which was to withdraw his appeal and accept the absolute pardon.

And besides, hasn’t Cory herself said that Edsa ll was a mistake and had asked Erap’s forgiveness? That was Cory’s highest moment, and Erap’s vindication too.

A revolutionary government simply would have to include Erap, because, rightly or wrongly, he incarnates the hope of the masses. And any revolutionary government must stand first and foremost for the masses and be perceived so. Otherwise, it collapses.

The Puno-Lim-Erap triumvirate is the political future.