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HE must have a special vision from Heaven. Bro. Eddie Vilanueva, the
leader of the Jesus is Lord Movement, has asked the five highest
officials of the country to meet and draw up a formula to choose a
new leader for the nation to avoid bloodshed.
The five officials may become president should
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo leave office. They are Vice
President Noli de Castro, Senate President Manuel Villar, Speaker
Prospero Nograles and Chief Justice Reynato Puno.
The only trouble is that the President is not
about to just play dead and let those who want to be President
before their time has come just step over her. Obviously, any
attempt of this sort is sure to result in bloodshed that Villanueva
says he is trying to prevent.
We have no lack for saviors. Rodolfo Noel Lozada
Jr. is the latest and the hottest. Over the last three weeks, just
the controversy as to whether he was abducted or not was a bone of
contention that ate up media sound and space. It is still a
live issue and no one is about to go to court to settle the matter.
One of the more pathetic images to come out of
the exercise was Sen. Alan Cayetano holding up a page of the Ninoy
Aquino Internatonal Airport logbook showing that a member of the
Presidential Security Group was at the NAIA when Lozada returned to
the country. The story said that it was routine for a PSG man to be
at the NAIA. Besides the PSG man was casing the joint in preparation
for the first gentleman’s arrival the following day.
The bottom line was that Lozada left the country
to avoid testifying at the Senate. He asked the help of officials to
help him beat being arrested. He did go and testify before the
senators. He was confronted by the officials who helped him while he
was running scared.
The senators wanted him to confirm some of the
things Secretary Neri told the Senate and he did. What was apparent
was that he was part of the whole ZTE broadband cabal, if indeed
there was one.
When media made a big thing about his statement
that he was instructed “to moderate their greed,” meaning the
government negotiators in the deal, it seemed he had the power to
“moderate their greed.”
One could not help but have second thoughts
about his decision to turn the people’s witness because he was
told to deny that he was abducted on the instructions of the Palace.
An interview brought out the fact that he was given P500,000 to go
with his brace of credit cards. It was not clear how the
half-a-million pesos got to him, but he suggested that it was while
he was in agony at the luxurious Hong Kong hotel that he decided to
make a clean breast of it all.
Was this agony the Hong Kong version of the
Mount of Olives?
In a special confrontation over TV Saturday
night, he remarked that he will turn over the P500,000 to the Senate
minus what he will need to pay for the things he charged on his
credit cards. If the money given him was supposed to be for
his expenses attending a special conference in London, he will have
to liquidate with the finance officer of his office, not with the
Senate.
As for his being abducted by orders from the
Palace, enough documents appear to have been gathered to make this
connection or not.
Lozada complained during the TV confrontation
that he was made to feel like “one against the mob” when he was
made to face a battery of people. But as
anchor Korina Sanchez clarified, they gave everybody whom he painted
with his revelations. One even threatened to hail him to court.
Lozada may have a lot to say. But he appears to
be a part of the whole deal and may have ratted on his friends. Now
is the time to validate his testimony before a competent authority
and let the chips fall where they may. Sinner of saint? Hero or
wimp?
Lozada is such a big hero today, it seems
sacrilegious that I or anyone should question his integrity. There
are even those who insist he is a second Ninoy Aquino. This is
demeaning to Ninoy and his memory. But this is a free country. And I
reserve my right to speak about this new hero of the people.
For “all things must be taken in together to
make up a year and a sphere.
“And I feel it no disgrace to occupy my place
… If I cannot carry forests on my back, neither can you crack a
nut …”
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