October 22-31 (2009)

Former President Joseph Estrada, accused of plunder, convicted and jailed – pardoned after six years -- is seeking another crack at the Philippine presidency. Whether he is legally qualified to run for the presidency is another acid test case for the Supreme Court to rule on it.

Estrada, known as the “weather-weather man”, believes that he still has that masa spell that catapulted him to power in 1998. Not anymore! He is in a dream. The ordinary people are not that stupid as what he imagines. After seeing him in the helm of power committing one blunder after another, the ordinary people, mostly his bakya (wooden slipper) fans during his younger days as an actor, are not really that simple, nay shallow-minded, voters. They have matured --- and are educated politically. We have trust in them, as thinking voters; and we are sure they would not commit another misjudgment by putting a man to power again, who proved unequal to the task.

Estrada has no credential to speak of and both his intelligence quotient (IQ) and emotional quotient (EQ) are reportedly below par. He cannot handle a highly complex situation that calls for multiple approaches. Human psychologists say that a man with a very low IQ like Estrada has always that tendency to be violent or autocratic. His all-out war policy against the MILF is such that one-track mind in operation. This is one of his party platforms.

Mind everyone, the MILF is not bothered by this threat or that policy of all-out war. It is not bad to know if any of those running for the presidency treats the MILF as an enemy. The late MILF Chairman Salamat Hashim once told his peers in the Central Committee that it is better to have an enemy brandishing sword rather than an olive branch in hands. In the first, one either brandishes his sword also or run away; in the second, it can be very deceptive: Who can tell that he is hiding a sword in his other hand.

One thing good if he is elected again as president is the old score against the MILF would be settled once and for all. The unfinished “all-out war” in 2000 will be played again. He had bragged that he almost completely defeated the MILF had he stayed in office longer.

The MILF does not want war. Islam has never approved of Muslims wishing war to come; it is completely taboo. But if war does come, Islam condemns Muslims to run away from it.