Prediction: GMA Will Junk Chacha of FVR and JDV

ONUMENTAL BLUNDER.

That is how FIDEL RAMOS described the NO=ELECTIONS-in-2007 scenario offered by the ill-fated Abueva Consultative Commission as Transitory Provisions in a Draft Charter full of rhetorical and constitutional question marks. He's right about this, but I wonder if FVR has not committed a monumental blunder of his own. For although he reiterated his support for GMA, and even peed in Senate Pres. Frank Drilon's French wine to prove it, he also insisted that an integral part of his Charter Change timeline is for President Arroyo to cut short her own term in office. He suggests she step down in 2007 and give way to a Plebiscite and Parliamentary Elections under a new Charter to be completed by 2006. The Palace strongly objects and disagrees and the Lakas Party is in turmoil over the FVR-GMA rift. (Told'ya!)

GMA NOW AN ENEMY OF CHACHA: I think FVR just made GMA a mortal enemy of Chacha, and Jose de Venecia knows it! Unless JDV turns his back on FVR, we may see a new Speaker of the House and JDV joining FVR in senior statesmanhood. Last July, just before her State of the Nation Address, GMA cut a deal with FVR and JDV to support Charter Change proposals for a shift to a Parliamentary system of government. But I seriously doubt that they agreed for her to step down in 2007 at that point in the developing Gloriagate crisis. Since then, GMA has largely stayed above the Chacha fray. allowing everyone else to follow JDV and Jose Abueva into a vast intellectual and philosophical labyrinthe of debate and discussion over a new Constitution. For GMA Chacha has been a diabolically effective diversion, a QUAGMIRE that dominates the landscape and crowds out the Garci wiretapping and voterigging controversies. But the Garci matter is not about to go away and the Palace is deeply concerned about it. Senator Rodolfo Biazon's Senate Defense Committee is investigating alleged national security violations by the Palace and the Intelligence Services of the AFP (ISAFP) in conducting "a massive wiretapping operation" before, during and after the 2004 elections. This line of inquiry is far more dangerous to the Palace because it is quintessentially about NATIONAL SECURITY and not about electoral politics. A different set of actors and constitutents come into play in the Biazon Senate hearings. THAT is far more important to the Palace than any Chacha boracha.

FVR's CHACHA MUST DIE: But now that the Chacha Text from FVR and SWS reads, "CUT UR TERM SHORT MA'M" GMA's enthusiasm for Chacha as a diversionary quagmire is now tempered by the realization that Chacha must ultimately be made to fail. GMA will turn around and cut short the fantasy Pareliamentary terms of FVR and JDV. even before they start, probably with the help of two hopeful Prosperos, Pichay and Nograles, and their Kongress of moral and legal Leprechauns, the Capo Regimes, Capo Bastones and Consiglieri of the political mafiosi that run the fiefdoms of the Archipelago. She might even support the Minority Position of some in the ConCom, who contemplate a continuation of the Republican-Presidential system, and a concentration on reforms of the economic rather than the political provisions of the Constitution. (I might even support them on that!). But it's pretty clear handwriting on the wall for FVR's chacha: "Mene, mene, tekel upharsin!"

PALACE CALCULUS ON CHACHA: Once the threat of a Second Impeachment attempt based on voterigging and more potent wiretapping charges is successfully neutralized this year, with the help fo the Supreme Court, the usefulness of Chacha as a diversionary tactic to occupy Congress and the pundits with, will completely disappear from the Palace calculus. Until that time, the Palace can encourage the most absurd and radical proposals for charter change, to stoke the rage and criticism of Media and the Public and set them up for the triumphant moment -- probably at her next State of the Nation Address in July -- when she announces the burial of the Second Impeachment and the end of her support for highly divisive Chacha moves. She will support regular elections in 2007 and encourage everyone to unite until 2010, when the subject of charter change might again be revisited. She will appoint Fidel Valdez Ramos to be Ambassador to the United States. JDV could go to France, there to drink wine and admire the Parliament with Amando Doronila, and receive cordial visits from Frank Drilon and Tito Sotto. In a way, it all depends on what happens to GARCI's SECOND PETITION.