Readying for the Speakership

FRONTLINE

Ninez Cacho-Olivares

10/31/2009

Is Gloria Arroyo running for a Pampanga congressional seat in 2010?

She may or she may not. Yet all signs point to her making a run in a Pampanga district for a congressional seat where she will no doubt ensure for herself the Speakership.

For one, she has made at least over 35 visits to her hometown, a most frequent occurrence, and poured government funds into a great many Pampanga projects.

While it can be argued that she would like to be remembered by the Pampangos as one president who did all for her province mates, this line doesn’t quite fly. After all, being a president is not being remembered only by her provincemates, but by the entire country, good memories or bad.

For another, just as the deadline for the certificate of candidacy (CoC) for all elective offices nears, suddenly, out of the blue, came a petition lodged before the Supreme Court, questioning the resolution of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in the case of non-resignation of elected officials, which certainly has relevance to Gloria’s case of running for a lower position, where the question of whether she would have to resign as president if she files her CoC, which means that her vice president, Noli de Castro, takes over as president — at least for some six months, unless he too runs for an elective office.

Given Gloria’s track record of getting some lawyer to file cases against her as her insurance, such as say, her yearly inoculation against the impeachment virus and keeping all bases covered, it is not unlikely that this aspect of her candidacy for a congressional seat is already being worked out this early.

Notice that even as the high court has not quite taken this petition up, the Department of Justice chief, Agnes Devanadera, who is also the solicitor-general, already came up with a ruling favorable to Gloria on this resignation issue.

For yet another, it will also be noted that for some time, with media speculating on the many trips being made by Gloria to Pampanga as her preparation for her congressional run, Malacañang always claimed to be unaware of its President’s plans, saying she is focused on the economy and on improving the lives of the poor, apart from the usual claim of her not wanting to talk politics.

Yet all too suddenly again, Malacañang spokesmen came up with the spiel of a Pampanga clamor for Gloria to run in the second district, which seat her son currently holds.

This “clamor” thing is also vintage Gloria.

Few can forget the time in December 2002, when she vowed she would no longer seek the presidency in 2004, for the division and wounds of Edsa ll and lll to be healed.

And for some time, there was peace, until it was discovered that a few weeks after she made that vow, her husband, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, armed with balut eggs, was seen with taxi drivers in T.M. Kalaw and Taft Avenues, getting the drivers to sign up a petition for Gloria to run in 2004 for the presidency, in exchange for free accident insurance for the drivers.

Then came those silly posters all over saying people wish Gloria would run in 2004, after which there was that claim of a public clamor for her to run.

Not surprisingly, there was talk of “discernment” on Gloria’s part on the public clamor for her to run, with her emerging from her “discernment” saying that God had asked her to run for the presidency.

The same tactics are being employed for her Pampanga run. She did not want to engage in politics. She tells the nation her term will be finished in 2010, Malacañang is unaware of her electoral plans and then comes the tying up of loose legal ends.

Now comes the alleged Pampanga clamor for her to run for a congressional seat.

Can Gloria’s nature ever change? If a scorpion’s nature can’t, so it won’t change either, in Gloria’s case.

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