Dispatches from the Enchanted Kingdom

The Wednesday Club

The Wednesday clubbers have gone their separate ways. Ralph Recto and Joker Arroyo will run with Gloria Arroyo’s Team Unity while Manuel Villar and Francis Pangilinan will run as independents under UNO.

Villar and Pangilinan can afford to run as independents. The former has his megabucks, and the latter has his megastar, Sharon Cuneta.

Manny Villar will run as an independent with UNO because his interests lie with them. He knows he will never become president if Gloria Arroyo is not lame-ducked or impeached after the election.

Francis Pangilinan is another matter. He bragged, “I have not asked to be included on the UNO list so I am not sure what that means. If they adopt me that’s their decision.”

Pangilinan shouldn’t be talking that way. The UNO had reservations about taking him in because of his role in the congressional canvass that railroaded Mrs. Arroyo’s proclamation, and the administration was divided over him because he joined Sen. Franklin Drilon’s call for Mrs. Arroyo to resign. Besides, Gabby Concepcion would be senator and he would be running for barangay council if Gabby had stayed married to Sharon. Francis Pangilinan CUNETA needs to remember who he is.

Joker Arroyo and Ralph Recto said they joined the Team Unity because “we ran for the Senate and won on the Arroyo administration slate. Nothing that has happened since gives us reason not to do the same in our reelection bid.”

Apparently, neither Executive Order 464 nor the attempt to abolish the Senate meant anything to them. They will run with the party whose first order of business after the election, assuming cheating bears fruit, will be to abolish the Senate.

Joker Arroyo will remind voters, “Arroyo nga ako pero di ko sila kaanu-ano. (I am an Arroyo, but I’m not related to THE Arroyos in any way, shape or form).”

However, that will not be so easy because many people remember him as the fiercely “independent” legislator who prosecuted Jose Velarde but refused to act against Jose Pidal. Frankly, I believe Joker Arroyo is really Merceditas Gutierrez, the Ombudsgirl, in male drag. But that’s just me.

Ralph Recto, another Wednesday Club member who married well, had an honest reason for joining the Team Unity. He said, “If, for example, we’ll announce that we will run as an independent bloc, that’s good because we’ll get headlines possibly in the Inquirer, Star or the tabloids. After that, we file our certificates and then on Tuesday, we start campaigning. But where will we campaign? In the coffee shops?. . . Remember, there are 400,000 precincts, 45,000 barangays, 1,500 municipalities, 80 provinces, 7,100 islands. So how do we campaign, there’s only four of us? We can form the LP-NP coalition . . . but can we go around the 30 million hectares in 90 days? . . . As I’ve said, there’s a compromise in everything. You’re aware of the ideal issue on one end, and the pragmatic issue end.”

Ferdinand Marcos Jr. summarized Recto’s long-winded explanation in one killer quip: “The only thing the administration has to offer is a guarantee that its candidates will not be cheated.” By the way, Marcos Jr. spurned the Palace invitation to join the team.

Recto obviously did not inherit his grandfather’s wit. But he has something else going for him: Vilma Santos. Edu Manzano’s loss is Ralph Recto’s gain.

The only other member of the Wednesday Club who is not running for office is Noli de Castro. He will campaign for all of his fellow club members. As he should.

Noli could become president if the opposition routs Mrs. Arroyo’s candidates. But only if Senate President Manuel Villar ensures that impeachment goes no further than Mrs. Arroyo. At the same time, Noli has to keep Joker and Kiko happy, just in case the opposition loses. In other words, Noli needs the Wednesday Club more than it needs him.

The Wednesday gourmet club’s plan to present themselves as THE lily-white alternative to UNO and the Team Unity collapsed like a poorly prepared soufflé. They pretended to be better than everybody else but, at the end of the day, they showed us all that they are as cheap as they come.  

Buencamino writes political commentary for Action for Economic Reforms (www.aer.ph). 

NO question about it: climate change is here and it’s real. Those who say otherwise are merely contributing to noise pollution, emitting hot air and turning themselves into the best arguments for censorship or the death penalty.

The Wednesday clubbers have gone their separate ways. Ralph Recto and Joker Arroyo will run with Gloria Arroyo’s Team Unity while Manuel Villar and Francis Pangilinan will run as independents under UNO.

It’s that time of the year, so we might as well greet the president of the National Power Corp. (Napocor), Cyril del Callar, a Happy Valentine’s Day! But from the people of Mindanao and Eastern Visayas and their representatives in Congress who are also members of the Joint Congressional Power Commission (CPC), the same message of love would surely be delivered to del Callar with all the sarcasm they could possibly muster.

One can’t help but be disturbed and frustrated by the practice of the country’s leading drugstore chain when it comes to senior citizens paying with credit cards.

‘Let the games begin.”

This may have been the dominant sound bite that reverberated Monday as the senatorial candidates from both sides scrambled to beat the midnight deadline for the filing of their certificates of candidacy.

As the interest rate offered by banks continue to decline for deposits, other investment alternatives, outside of the stock market, are looming as pretty viable avenues for wealth creation or capital appreciation.