How divided really is the opposition?

Senator Loren Legarda’s initiative in offering help to former President Joseph Estrada to unite the opposition seemed to indicate leadership failure in making it, as it should, the instrument of change in the country’s political circumstances.

Legarda, who has been vocal about her intention to run for president in the 2010 elections, said she was willing to talk with the former president on the unification of the fragmented opposition parties.

Parts of the divided opposition are Estrada’s Puwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP), and the country’s two old political parties, the Nacionalista Party (NP) and the Liberal Party (LP), among others.

The NP is headed by Senator Manuel Villar while the LP is led by Senator Manuel A. Roxas, who are both declared presidential candidates of their respective parties.

In fact, they have been all over the media making campaign statements that sound almost like advocacies, just in case they are accused of violations of election laws, as if the public didn’t know.

Which, by the way, make them unworthy to the thinking populace, but just the same, it is becoming a political practice that leaves people annoyed and helplessly frustrated. The truth is, many observers are disturbed that those who resort to such practice, and flagrantly, may lose their respectability as serious candidates.

Erap Estrada who has been going around the country from the time he was given presidential pardon by President Gloria Arroyo immediately after his conviction for plunder has repeatedly said he would run but only if the opposition fails to unite and present a common candidate.

But his running anew for president remains uncertain because of the constitutional provision that states “The President shall not be eligible for any reelection.”

It will first require judicial interpretation to settle once and for all the conflicting claims of partisan observers.

Briefly, one view holds that Estrada is eligible to run anew for president because he is not the incumbent and, therefore, not running for reelection, and that although he had been elected president, he did not finish his term. The contrary standpoint is that no elected president can run again.

As everybody knows, Estrada was ousted from the presidency by what has been referred to as Edsa II while undergoing impeachment proceedings in the Senate.

He was later convicted by the Sandiganbayan for plunder but was immediately pardoned by President Arroyo even before he could serve his prison term.

In offering help to bring the opposition together, Loren Legarda is cognizant of the effort of both Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay and the former President for their “honest-to-goodness” attempt at reconciliation.

Still, Senator Panfilo Lacson, an opposition stalwart, remains hopeless over the possibility of uniting the scattered opposition and presenting to the people a united front in next year’s presidential contest.

It seems he sees nothing but poor chance in convincing either Roxas or Villar giving way to the other. Or Legarda yielding to Senator Francis Escudero or to himself. This was the reason, Senator Lacson explained, why he withdrew this early from the presidential race.

But as far as Loren is concerned, “May the best woman win,” she said. (zhern_218@yahoo.com)