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The ouster of Senate President Manny Villar was not
totally unexpected. He actually got his comeuppance after he
announced his bid for the presidency in 2010. Since then, all bets
were off. He became the target of panzer attacks from all corners,
and not just from his rivals for the presidency.
No amount of all-expenses paid
cruise along the Nile or expensive junkets to exotic places could
stave off the simmering discontent among some of his colleagues in
the Senate.
The alleged double-insertion in
the C-5 budget, which triggered the coup in the Senate, was the
handiwork of Sen. Panfilo Lacson, a known maverick. Lacson said that
Villar lost his moral ascendancy to the Senate’s top post after
the C-5 controversy.
Sen. Jamby Madrigal, another
loose cannon in the Senate, has vowed to push for the investigation
of Villar to include other multi-million peso road projects that,
she said, have directly or indirectly benefited his family’s real
estate companies. According to Jamby, Villar’s slogan should now
be changed from “sipag at tiyaga” to “C-5 at taga,” a
pejorative catch phrase that is unfair to Villar since nothing has
been proven illegal yet about his acts.
Ironically, it was Sen. Juan
Ponce Enrile, who defended Villar during the initial C-5 probe. As
chairman of the Senate finance committee, Enrile then said that
there was nothing wrong with budgetary insertions, which, he said,
have been done in the past.
But Enrile has now made a
turnaround and is saying that the Senate should push through with
the inquiry and that Villar should fend for himself.
Who was behind it?
The more former President Joseph
Estrada denies his involvement in the Senate coup, the more it shows
that he was the brain behind it.
Everybody knows that Lacson,
Villar’s tormentor, was Estrada’s former police chief and top
aide. Although the two had parted ways when Lacson ran for president
in 2004, the latter got Estrada’s support for his reelection bid
in 2007 under the Estrada-assembled United Opposition ticket.
Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, who has
kept his post as Senate president pro-tempore under Enrile, could
not have bolted from the Villar camp without his father’s
blessings. To say that it was purely Jinggoy’s decision is a lot
of crap. Jinggoy considers his father not only his mentor but also
his idol.
But there are deeper reasons, and
probably old scores to settle, that could explain why the former
president would want Villar out and Enrile in.
It was Villar, while he was still
the Speaker, who rushed the impeachment complaint against Estrada to
the Senate. That was the start of Estrada’s political nightmare
and the rest is history.
Although, like Lacson, Villar
also ran for reelection in 2007 under Estrada’s opposition ticket,
he practically begged for Estrada’s anointment and got it only
after several sorties to the latter’s rest house in Tanay, Rizal.
In contrast, Enrile consistently
stood by Estrada’s side during the agonizing moments of his
impeachment trial. Estrada’s long friendship with Enrile began
when both of them, as members of the defunct Grand Alliance for
Democracy, won in the l987 elections. They were the only opposition
members during the post-EDSA I era when Cory Aquino was swept into
power and hailed as a demi-goddess.
To Enrile, the Estradas have a
debt of gratitude to pay; to Villar, it was the other way around.
But another reason why Estrada
could be behind Villar’s ouster is that Villar has been showing
steady gains over Vice President Noli de Castro in recent surveys, a
development that could put a monkey wrench on Estrada’s desire to
return to Malacañang.
In a survey taken by Pulse Asia
in October, Villar’s score went up to 17 percent. Interestingly,
Estrada got the same score with Villar although de Castro was still
on top with 18 percent.
But what could be bothersome to
Estrada is that in the other survey conducted by the Social Weather
Stations, he was in sixth place with 13 percent as against
Villar’s 28 percent, only one notch lower to de Castro’s 29
percent. The SWS survey, however, was taken from September 24 to 27,
long before the Senate shakeup.
The Pulse Asia survey result has
buoyed Estrada’s hopes for a political comeback. Although his
favorite refrain that “I will run only if the opposition cannot
put up a common presidential candidate” now sounds like a broken
record, Estrada has been going the rounds in the provinces showing
his true motive.
Whether Estrada can run again is
still a big legal question, which only the Supreme Court could
settle but only after Estrada files his candidacy.
But Estrada can dream on while
the other presidential wannabes, including Villar, scramble for
their next moves on the run-up to the 2010 polls.
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