JDV NOT INTERESTED: Our barber told us that he had heard Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. say over the radio that he was not running for Prime Minister under a parliamentary setup.

If that is truly the stand of De Venecia, the nonpartisan advocates of charter change should lose no time in putting this declaration in formal form and giving it the widest dissemination.

Better still, instead of off-the-cuff remarks, De Venecia himself can write a clear disavowal of such ulterior political designs and have it published in media within one week.

Many people are leery of amendments proposed by Congress acting as a Constituent Assembly (ConAss), because of their impression that the Speaker is pressing for a parliamentary system so he can become Prime Minister, or Head of Government.

Clearing the air of this personal issue will help put back on track the disorganized debate over constitutional amendments. Advocates of charter change who have no hidden personal or partisan agenda deserve to be heard.

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KANYA-KANYANG AGENDA: But why single out De Venecia for prior restraint? That’s not fair to the hard-working Speaker who had helped many presidents with his talent for consensus-building.

Actually there are many discredited trapos (traditional politicians) and operators who also want the rules rewritten and the government setup changed so they can bounce back to power. Some of them are:

• Officials who had tasted power, plus the glory and wealth it brings, and now want more of it under a new setup.
• Officials who had to give up their posts before they could wipe away their fingerprints on juicy mega-deals whose stink is being brought to public notice only now. They have to go back to the scene of the crime.
• Lawmakers and local executives (governors and mayors) on their final terms who are disqualified from serving additional terms, but who can run again in the immediate next election under a new charter.
• Grizzled trapos who cannot hope to win a national presidential election but stand a chance if the voting is confined to the 250-plus members of a parliament-type Batasan.
• Power brokers who have perfected the business of buying and selling political favors and see in the proposed unicameral parliament an exciting self-perpetuating power machine.

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VIOLENCE GOOD FOR U.S.: A suggestion has been made for us to tap the good offices of the United States in solving the violence in Muslim Mindanao that continues to take innocent lives. We can’t see how the US can be of help.

It is to American interest to maintain (“allow” is the more discreet term) a certain level of violence in the South. This keeps the Philippine government off-balance and, weak as it is, will be under constant pressure to always run to Uncle Sam for help.

The continuing violence in the South is useful in justifying the presence of American troops there, although in the guise of participating in RP-US military exercises covered by bilateral agreements.

Violence, especially when classified as acts of terrorism, would also justify not only passing presence but also the maintenance of US military “facilities” on Philippine bases in Mindanao.

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U.S. PRESENCE JUSTIFIED: In a regional context, American presence improves US capability to keep safe and open the strategic sea lanes in the area. A beefed-up facility in Mindanao and the stationing of warships there project US might in the region south of China.

American presence also serves to dampen the boiling over of violent tendencies of some fundamentalist sectors in the Muslim regimes in the region.

If violence were the most convenient and convincing justification for US presence in Mindanao, why would the US and its local collaborators act to stop it?

It’s much like dissidence. If there were no New People’s Army and those Moro brigands, what would happen to our armed forces that eat a fifth of our national budget?

Without that problem, our soldiers will end up planting rice, building roads, painting walls and doing such non-military chores.

There has to be a manageable level of dissidence to justify our having a huge armed forces. Don’t ever expect them to solve that problem.

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TERRORIST TAG: The government is threatening to classify the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front as a terrorist group.

The tag actually does not mean anything as far as the military is concerned. Whether the MILF is a bunch of gun freaks, bandits, rebels, gangsters or terrorists is immaterial to the way the military will have to fight them on the ground.

The government cannot use the terrorist tag to freeze whatever money the MILF keeps in local banks, because the funds have not been pinpointed. Besides, there is no law authorizing the government to seize bank deposits without due process.

By threatening the MILF, the government is actually telling the bad boys that if they don’t behave, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will make sumbong to her pardner George W. Bush in the White House.

And Dubya, the threat implies, will make life difficult for the Moro terrorists. Sample of such action was the financial squeeze applied on the Netherlands-based communist National Democratic Front after it was classified as a terrorist group.

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CANNON FODDER: If our officials have been watching closely, they should notice that we have been systematically sucked into the global crusade of the US against all groups and regimes it had arbitrarily classified as terrorist.

The escalation of violence in Mindanao, which is about to be termed as terrorism, will seal that fate of waiting in the shadow of the US.

Wittingly or unwittingly, we have become part of the new imperial politics being played by President Bush. We have thus become a logical target of all those who consider Bush or the US as the enemy.

This is a serious matter. Our leaders should make at least an effort to ask us the people if we relish being cannon fodder of Uncle Sam.

The President is the sole spokesman of the country in foreign relations, but there should be advice and consent from at least Congress, whose members stand as representatives of the people.