All The President's Men

Every week in this administration is not without surprises. Just when you thought the President got a lift from her recent SONA speech, here erupts anew a damning scandal, the Zuce Episode. One wonders if this administration is trying to outdo film trilogies in the areas of scandals and public embarrassment.

To be sure, most articles will deal with the origin and credibility of the Girth One (if I may be so politically incorrect). But my issue is: Are the President's Men doing the right thing?

After the 8 July incident, it was not even the President’s Men who came out to sanitize effectively the President’s odiousness. It was her daughter, Luli, who did not hesitate to shed tears in front of the cameras to firmly and gently accuse Dinky Soliman of betraying her mother’s trust. It was Luli, more than anybody, who humanized her mother and showed the nation that like Shylock, her mother bleeds as we bleed, and weeps as we weep.

It is good that Secretaries Rigoberto Tiglao and Ricardo Saludo have come out blasting the Judases among the cabinet in talk shows while Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita provided the calming and paternal defense of the President. These three fellows have far weightier chutzpah between them than the spins and defenses put up by Environment Secretary Mike Defensor, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales combined. The latter group cannot hold a candle to the former when the president’s defense required an intellectual and impassioned response to a clamor where everyone is asking for the head of John the Baptist.

And now, the Zuce Episode. A former president’s man, the Girth One has oodles of evidence documenting the president’s participation of wrongdoing and in her very own abode. Another Quisling in the horizon, far more devastating than the wanna-be celebrity vixen, Sandra Cam.

But this time around, on the day of the expose, Political Affairs Adviser Gabby Claudio came out attacking the incredible yarn of the Girth One wondering how a minor functionary could have been invited to the President’s house. And rising from the sickbed, death bed or hospital bed depending on how the Palace characterizes his ailment, Zuce’s former boss, Joey Rufino, has denied everything Zuce exposed to the public. Even Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo spoke of his non-knowledge of the Girth One in the Palace. This latest scandal has penetrated the inner circle. It is now a war among the president’s men themselves. If that is so, how can a house divided stand and last long?

Be that as it may, the administration has learned from each scandalous episode it faced. From using emotional blackmail (as in the case of Dodong Mahusay) to marital threats (as in the case of Doble) to a non-apology apology (Garci tapes) to a frontal intellectual assault on the Hyatt 10, and now, the President’s Men appear to employ character assassination, pathos, empathy, financial assistance and threat of litigation, a classic case of carrot and stick. We do not know how this latest scandal will end. But one thing for sure, Darwinian evolution is at play and as to who among the fittest will survive will largely depend on the political environment that the survivor will manipulate to his favor.

In the meantime, let the President’s Men take the bullet for her. Let them defend the president. Let them proclaim the innocence of the president intellectually, assiduously and unabashedly. That is their calling and their blood oath. After all, it would be the height of their incompetence to allow the President to suffer the indignity of being asked questions where her only response can be: “I am not a crook!”. And we know what happened to that president after uttering those famous last words.

In law school, we were taught that if one is in the defense, one stategy is to obfuscate the issues. I do not know if the Truth Commission, the Charter Change were matters raised to obfuscate the present crisis. I do know that this present trouble requires a response beyond a textbook strategy.

But maybe, the strategy is simply elementary, if not subliminally childish... and that is to make sure that the President does not sit on a wall in order that she will not have a great fall. Well, the President has sat on the wall far too long. It is time for the President’s Men to step up the plate and bring down the wall before all the President's Men could not put her back together again.