Kill Gloria!

If we are to believe Gloria Arroyo’s mouthpieces, someone is out to kill their employer.
Recently, Mrs. Arroyo’s all-purpose spokeswoman, who goes by the name of Elena Bautista-Horn, urgently called in the press to announce that, yes, there’s a plot to do her boss in. The plan is supposedly called “Put the Little Girl to Sleep.”
The Horn of Gloria claimed that their mole in Malacanang, the presidential palace, had informed them that someone or a group was out to kill the former President.
The implication, or insinuation, was that President Benigno Aquino III and his people would want to dispose of Ms Gloria, a piece of news or, more accurately, gossip that sent Malacanang insiders doubling up in mirth, so preposterous was the news.
Mr. Aquino’s alter egos dismissed the reported assassination plot as ludicrous, a product of fertile imaginations. Budget Secretary Butch Abad, a close associate of the President’s, laughed it off and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima called it the height of paranoia. Press Secretary Edwin Lacierda challenged Horn to name their source, purportedly someone at the Palace. The Arroyo camp has repeatedly refused to name their source.
President Aquino, queried at a press conference, exasperatedly called the whole thing a “work of fiction” and annoyed told the press to stop pestering him about something that doesn’t exist.
But, the Observer asks, is it possible that someone is really out to harm Gloria?
Actually, the more appropriate question is, why would anyone want to kill Gloria? What would they get out of it? What would be the benefit of such an action?
Mrs. Arroyo is on the dock and set to be tried for the crime of electoral sabotage. Several cases, mainly for plundering the people’s money, are winding their way through the legal pipeline and will soon reach the courts. From this, one can deduce that sooner or later Mrs. Arroyo will find herself locked up in prison.
So, if indeed the process takes its due course, then it wouldn’t make sense to kill Arroyo.
What’s more logical is that the Arroyo camp is desperate over what’s been happening to the former leader and they’re making all sorts of attempts to muddle up the issues to confuse the people. All sorts of denunciations and claims have been emanating from Arroyo’s spokespeople, mostly shrill and nonsensical, even disrespectful of President Aquino, in a war of pronouncements aimed at conditioning the people’s minds that their client and benefactress is being persecuted by the government.
The recent claim of an assassination plot is just the latest salvo from the Arroyo camp at misinformation and disinformation. It is also aimed at engendering sympathy for the despised Mrs. Arroyo and, hopefully on their part, making her appear as the underdog in the current battle over her wrongdoings when she was President.
The Filipinos are notoriously known as a sentimental and sympathetic people, rooting always for the underdog. Inured in a long history of cinematic tear-jerkers that are the staple of Philippine movie-making, the Filipinos live life as a serio-comic serial. Filipinos lap up such simple-plotted movies so much so that local film producers haven’t changed or upgraded their movie formulas. If it ain’t a tear-jerker of a movie, it ain’t gonna make any money at the box office.
So, this assassination nonsense is simply a ploy to manipulate public sympathy and opinion in favor of the fallen Mrs. Arroyo.
Unfortunately for her, nobody’s buying their story.
To Mrs. Arroyo’s chagrin, her fall from grace and continuing dire straits haven’t generated any public sympathy. When the government’s actions toward taking her to court for her alleged crimes started to gain substance and momentum, no public outcry marked the news. When Mrs. Arroyo fell ill and had to undergo major spinal surgery, no noticeable public sympathy could be detected among the multitude. And when she wanted to travel abroad and seek medical attention but was barred by the government from leaving, there was no protest from the people. Mrs. Arroyo has fallen from the people’s grace completely.
Senator Ping Lacson, an arch critic of Mrs. Arroyo’s, said it best in the vernacular: “Kawawa si Gloria kasi walang naawa sa kanya.” Gloria is pitiful because no one pities her.
That, indeed, is the crux of the matter. No one, with the exception of a few Gloria supporters, has come to her defence. Even the number of her political allies has dwindled to a sorry handful. That is how hated she is. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Absolute loss of power is an absolute loss.
So devastating to Arroyo is the total lack of public sympathy for her that one of her legal spokespersons has gone to Europe to solicit support from politicians there, mainly Christian Democrats. Even if they succeed in getting European politicians to voice support, what of it? Only Filipino public opinion matters on this issue; only the Filipinos have a say.
So now, Gloria Arroyo is under hospital arrest.
(At this writing, she had just been transferred to a government hospital, the Veterans Memorial Medical Center, upon orders of the judge trying her electoral sabotage case. Unless the Supreme Court rules otherwise, she’s expected to be confined there indefinitely, and will be transported to court during hearings of her case.)
She can’t go anywhere. She can’t even text or email whomever she used to text or email. Desperate moves by her battery of lawyers have had no positive effect or results for her so far. Their latest ruse of an assassination plot is turning into nothing but a desperate and unsuccessful ploy.
More and more, Gloria is finding fewer and fewer sympathetic and supportive people around her to give her comfort. It must be a lonely feeling. Especially at Christmas.
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Speaking of Christmastime, happy holidays to the editors and staff and, of course, the readers of BALITA from rainy Manila (climate change is really upon us!). I understand it’s been cold in Toronto, although of course you are all so used to frigid weather!
Special season’s greetings to Filipino friends in Toronto — Pany and Yoly, Flor and Cecile; my niece Marianne (and husband Albert and their daughter Alanette) and nephew Ninoy (and their niece Lovely)! Also to my comadre Ana and my goddaughter Alexia.