Carlos Lopez. Smokescreen. Oil on canvas circa 1940, gift of Abbot Laboratories. Department of the Navy, Washington DC. Right-clicked from www.history.navy.mil./ac searched thru www.artcyclopdia.com
The phone was in my right hand and the wheel was on my left, this was like 8:30 am yesterday and i was on hold so i tried to press speaker looking straight ahead then the line was gone, i had pressed the red icon instead. Apologies: to the number one radio morning program multi-awarded nearing hall of fame: Sorry po (i heard they were calling out my name on air, and i heard i was introduced as “political analyst”, the first time anyone’s called me that because i don’t consider myself one, ha-ha. Anyway. Sorry talaga) and also to the producers: the phone number did not register in my cellphone (after my line went dead i texted the earlier number instead but i guess they were in another room.) And that was how my phone-patched interview on the speakership row went yesterday morning. I was never able to return-call the entire day because of the jumbled-up sked too.
Anyway. I wrote a little something for you. (but i swear, this is the last time i’m going to write about their political intramurals.) I saw the killing.
The title: Lick Your Wounds and Regroup
After having unknowingly drank the poison at her table, feeling his intestines burning, then suffering a dagger at his back with her initials, going out on the street and being hurtled a hundred feet by her speeding truck, then landing on her booby trap of rusty iron bars, he staggered to get up and said, “I think she’s trying to kill me.”
It was supposed to be JDV’s valedictory at the House, but it became a call to war, the “peacemaker” realized he had to fight, but realized it too late, his army had been halved, there was little he could do, and he was too bloodied.
Holding just one-fourth sheet of a yellow pad paper (what was that, his outline? A list of crimes? must have been in microscopic print. Or a suicide note? Only time, three or five months, will tell), he delivered an extemporaneous one-hour speech: he told of murder or murder plots, of his knowledge of “attempts” by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to change the results of the 2004 presidential elections (this better be personal knowledge), of pork barrel being centralized by Gloria and how congressmen have to beg on their knees before the Arroyo sons to get their share.
JDV yesterday evening fought from his guts, he was never prepared, and he lost this battle.
They started killing him last year, the pork barrel was centralized, the death blow was set in motion when the Blue Ribbon Committee chair gave the Arroyos time to rest by suspending the ZTE investigation, the impeachment complaint was filed and dismissed setting the one-year bar. Those were his best weapons, the impeachment was then within his control, being Speaker and majority party stalwart. He was being disarmed yet he did not know when to make a break because he refused to look at the faces of his enemies, and therefore could not recognize them, could not tell, they were closest. When your enemy tells you something, do not believe it. JDV expected mercy and got a swift death.
Time is not on JDV’s side. In five months, the election year will be set in motion.
Lick your wounds and raise your army, if you’re going to do something, do it quickly.
And most of all, JDV has to learn, now that he is no longer Speaker. When the impeachment year was open, he refused to bite the bullet not realizing a new government would give him comprehensive immunity and that history will kind be to those who tell all. You fight half-battles with half-confessions and you get death.
Let’s start with the full confessions, with checks, bank accounts, documentary evidence. You either choose full confessions and imagine a new government or choose Gloria and your oblivion.
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