JDV, the Erap Pardon, and Tabako

1) JDV will not be ousted as Speaker. But he will be relegated to the role of a powerless eunuch figure by Arroyo's allies in the House.

2) When FVR came out of his crypt and made his bold prediction re Arroyo, tama siya in a way dahil malapit na ang 2010. ;)

3) I hate to say I told you so but... I told you so (Esposo, you lose!)

The main problem politically tho for Arroyo's "Erap pardon" is the timing. If GMA pardoned erap immediately after edsa dos, where she risked angering her allies (even though she still had high credibility among the edsa crowd at that time), i'd be more impressed with her "generosity", cuz she'd be doing the unpopular move that would have hurt her politically bigtime in 2004. Think of Ford's pardon of Nixon that doomed him in 1976.

if she pardoned erap immediately after "winning" the 2004 elections (pre-garci tape), she could have credibly claimed that she did this unpopular move (she has nothing to gain from this) to "heal the wounds" of edsa and bridge the gap between dos and tres.

But what happened instead was this. Take it away Kuya MLQ3:

Much as everyone saw the pardon coming, what I don’t think anyone outside of official circles expected was for it to be used so crudely, so patently politically: a historic verdict required a historic demonstration of presidential statesmanship; instead, it was a tool used to blunt the effects of embarrassing headlines resulting from a Senate hearing;

Tama. But the pardon won't damage her much politically because she's already damaged goods. And she ain't afraid to offend her civil society friends anymore. (Wha? do you think Winnie, Sassy, Austero and Cardinal Rosales will switch sides and call Arroyo's resignation because of the pardon? Not happening.)

4) And my advice to Erap is to embrace ARroyo and accept the gov't position they're dangling for him. And never miss the opportunity to thank arroyo everytime for his freedom.