Enrile's arithmetic
By Dean Jorge Bocobo

WHATEVER merit there is in the vicious attack mounted by Senator Juan Ponce Enrile on the hapless Education Secretary Brother Andrew Gonzalez, it can only have the effect of increasing graft and corruption in that department by driving away the one man who has been trying hardest to clean it up.

No matter how many crocodile tears of deep concern for the plight of our impoverished teachers are shed at congressional interrogations, at the end of the day, those teachers will find themselves in even greater poverty and neglect if they lose the one person at the DECS who has been doing the most to help them.

The most dastardly form of demagoguery-class warfare-has been employed against Brother Andrew to stir up the passions of a public that is justly outraged at a government reeking of cronyism and corruption. But driving Brother Andrew out of the DECS will only bring back a free reign of plunder and malfeasance there. Already, the Barabas characters and carrion-feeders are waiting in the wings to take back their old dominion at DECS.

In Enrile beats the cold heart of a frustrated master politician with the mind of a shrewd military tactician. He did not go from being a Marcos underling to Edsa rebel, to coup plotter, to senator, by allowing moral scruples to get in the way of political survival. He knows that the issue of cheating in the 1995 polls, brought against him by Senator Aquilino Pimentel, is sure to haunt him in the coming 2001 elections. What better way for Mr. Dagdag-Bawas to vanish from view than under the cloak of moral outrage over the plight of those same teachers who will be manning the polling places and ballot boxes? What better way to emerge, beautiful as a butterfly, smelling like sampaguita, than as the defender of the downtrodden public school teacher?

Enrile has successfully prosecuted the case against Brother Andrew in the court of public opinion, in a masterful use of that venue that would make Machiavelli proud. Since he cannot be loved for the things he has done in the past, Enrile would rather be feared so as to avoid being hated. Perhaps, others more culpable and guilty than Brother Andrew should get nervous.

No one, it is said, understands the inner workings of Philippine government and society better than Enrile. He knows where everybody's hidden skeletons are. No racket, no scam, no corrupt operation within the larger criminal enterprise that is our government, is unknown to him from all the years as a Marcos henchman and a player par excellence. But it is a pity for him, and a tragedy for the people, that the brilliance of his legal mind seems unexalted by any aspiration to nobility. He shows no idealism or charity, only a steadfast adherence to realpolitik.

His is a cynical genius. He knows all the evil that surrounds us, all the corruption that suffuses the government, yet he does nothing, or just enough to get re-elected.

Once, he came close to being a hero of Philippine history, when he joined Fidel Ramos in the military rebellion that preceded the EDSA people power revolution. Never mind that the original motivation was to save his own hide from an angry Marcos. Others have acted on equally selfish motivations at times, but were not found undeserving when destiny or fate finally offered a chance at greatness.

But Enrile lost that chance. Through some great imperfection of the soul, some hubris, or lack of grace, some tragic flaw, he just could not accept as President, the simple, relatively undistinguished Corazon Aquino, a mere widow, wife, and woman. What was she, after all, compared to Marcos the dictator, Da Apo, the bar topnotcher, the brilliant man who created and raised him up, a giant whom he helped to topple?

He chose instead to abet the coup d'etats of the late eighties that threatened democracy and devastated the economy. Perhaps he could not accept the corruption and nepotism in the Aquino administration from which he did not benefit, after he had helped to depose the Marcos regime, from which he did.

Is he embittered that of the four most famous personalities of the EDSA Revolution (Fidel Ramos, Corazon Aquino, Cardinal Sin, Juan Ponce Enrile), he alone has not been smiled upon by destiny in some honorific way? The other three are revered, while he is ignored or reviled. Even the lofty Senate, he may feel, he must share with mental poseurs and the merely popular, with more on the way next year.

Does he yet have a chance at greatness, at heroism that will live beyond this paltry moment? Can he yet be revered, not just by the present's peanut gallery, but by the infinitely larger audience of history? I say yes!

Manong Johnny, be the greatest graft-buster your country has ever seen. Brother Andrew is a small fish you have found and shot in a barrel, careless at worst, but morally innocent. Break the mold of moral indifference in your own life. Wreak havoc on the real criminals, the big-time plunderers, the syndicates of corruption, the cesspools of the depraved and insatiable caymans in government. Strike fear in the hearts of the extortionists and bribe-takers in government who look down on Ford Expeditions. Savage their shameless, craven cabals. You know them all and all their works and all their wiles. Wield the avenging sword of your legal acumen and strike a hammer blow for ineluctable justice. Be no one's footstool or insurance policy any more. Go after the biggest fish. Heroic greatness may not call again.

source: Inquirer October 2, 2000.