Mrs. Arroyo just committed subversion by design

When Mrs. Arroyo filed her Certificate of Candidacy, she was, in effect, communicated something serious. Mrs. Arroyo's act was a subversion of the very institution which she took refuge for the past nine years and which lent Constitutionality to her illegitimate dictatorship.

Mrs. Arroyo and her minions know that they will be smearing the very name and essence of this institution which we know as the Office of the President. They know that this is the first time that a Chief Executive, the Commander-in-Chief, at that, will be doing an act which many term as a "debasement" of the Institution of the Executive.

This act is not just a show of spite against detractors nor was it a purely egotistic act by a diminutive megalomaniac. No. It has a purpose. And the purpose is simply charter change.

That singular act of filing the CoC, shows you how determined and how strong the will of Mrs. Arroyo and her minions is in achieving their strategic objective. The objective is render the Office of the President useless in the scheme of things. In fact, the real goal is strip the Office of the President of real Power and shift it to the Prime Minister-ship.

By abandoning the presidency and leaving it for the Opposition and other political forces to fight it out, Mrs. Arroyo and her minions just formalized the real and serious effort at cha-cha. Mrs. Arroyo wants to strip the Office of the President bare, without real power to prosecute her or her mafia of crimes against the People. That's the most logical thing to do for somebody who fears prosecution---make this Institution weak and toothless and rob it of real power.

Come 2010, the Presidency will just be a crown encrusted with fake jewels. For real power or the loci of State Power will eventually lie in the Prime Minister's office.

That's why the cost of this act, is nothing compared with the possibility of achieving real victory in the end. This debasement of the Office of the President, of rendering the entire Republic as a laughing stock of the entire civilized world, is nothing compared with the stronger chance of making charter change a law come 2010. Being ridiculed is momentary. Yet, being in power is stationary.

The Opposition is expected to win the elections, not the entire war. For the Arroyo administration, the war is a Power Struggle. The Opposition's sights is on the Presidency, which they consider as a crown jewel. Arroyo's sights is set on Congress since she knows that in a post May 2010 scenario, Congress acting as a Parliament, will exercise real power than the Presidency. In the struggle between an elected president and a strong Congress, it is Congress that usually wins.

For nine years, that was not the case, since the Executive used all the liberties and all the freedoms that she can use under the old Charter. The very act of filing that CoC has shown us how Arroyo made the old charter her tool to achieve her strategic goal. By using these liberties afforded by law, Mrs. Arroyo just subverted the very Institution which she sits as Chief Executive in order to turn it around and make it stand on its head.

Now, the Chief Executive has "sacrificed" herself by wittingly diminishing her stature (not Power) and waiting for the right time to further diminish the Office which she holds and shift its power to Congress. It will not surprise us to see Mrs. Arroyo holding the Spectre of State Power while the one who spent so much just to get elected as president, languish and wail when he realizes he holds an empty bag.