You fight a bad idea with a good idea

I think the SNAP! (Say No to a Phony!) proposal by Conrad de Quiros is a brilliant idea to counter Arroyo's Cha Cha Choo Choo. Why did I not think of it before?

I do think we ought to "do battle" with Cha-cha, but I don't think that merely opposing Cha-cha is the way to do it. There is no end of ways to do battle, and I think a purely defensive posture is the least effective of them -- if indeed it is effective at all. As the impeachment bid shows, having the truth on your side means nothing if you are fighting the enemy on his turf. You want to fight back, think offensive. You want to fight back, take the battle to your turf.

My own tack is this: In lieu of just mustering arguments against the Cha-cha and taking it on in various forums, launch your own signature campaign for a movement. The only way to fight a bad idea is through a good idea. My suggestion remains a campaign called: "Snap Gloria." The "Snap" there meaning "Say No to A Phony," and the call being for snap elections. A signature campaign for something like this has several advantages.

First, it will show up the lie in the name "Sigaw ng Bayan," which the people demanding Charter change have seen fit to appropriate. The only real "sigaw ng bayan," or cry of the people, you will hear in this country is for Gloria to go away. You see that in surveys, you hear that in conversations. There is no cry for the presidential system to disappear from the nation's life, but there is a cry for Gloria to disappear from the people's lives. If the Cha-cha people can launch a signature campaign that says the sun revolves around the earth, I don't see why we can't launch a signature campaign that says the earth revolves around the sun. Like I said before, I am confident a campaign to "snap Gloria" will get more signatures in one week than the Cha-cha got in one year. Launch a campaign like this, and you will have more people lining up in your booths than before health centers distributing condoms. Some protections are better than others.

Second, it draws attention to the heart of the matter, something we may not allow this nation to forget. Which is the problem of an illegitimate president, which is the problem of an illegitimate rule. I do think the people who tried to impeach Gloria for a second time made the mistake of enumerating too many issues against her. One would have sufficed: She stole the vote. Everything comes back to that, everything owes to that. A signature campaign to snap Gloria brings that back into focus. And it ranges itself directly against the Cha-cha: The Charter is genuine, the president is fake. Change the usurper, not the Charter. That is the slogan the campaign should carry.

And third, it gives the public something to do. Opposing Cha-cha merely turns the citizens into spectators of a not very genteel sport invented by their "betters." A signature campaign to snap Gloria gives them the opportunity to fight back. Nothing is more frustrating than immobility and a sense of powerlessness. It gives way to cynicism, indifference, or – as the survey shows -- a desperate desire to flee this country and live elsewhere. The citizens need to be able to fight back. The citizens need to have a way to fight back.

If somebody's gonna give me a petition to sign for SNAP! I'm in.

Cha cha will not solve our Arroyo problem. New elections will. IMO, people would rather change Arroyo than change the constitution. And this SNAP proposal is a better alternative than Sigaw ng Bayan. I think more people will be eager to sign this petition than the arroyo funded People's Initiative.

UPDATE: Myrna's reaction from Ellen's site:

Bakit hindi gawin o bigyang pansin ng mga nasa oposisyon yung iminumungkahi ni Conrado de Quiros. Pirma brigade din, SNAP (Say No to A Peke) Gloria.

Siguro naman, marami rin pipirma niyan, at kung ibabase sa survey results na karamihan ayaw kay Bansot, bakit hindi gawin?

Siguradong mas marami ang pipirma.

The best defense against a bad idea (SnB) is a good offense (SNAP!)