Looking at Estrada and Arroyo

WE should do better than to have an election that represents a choice of Joseph Estrada or Gloria Arroyo. Estrada may be incarcerated, he may be guilty or not, but he is still a multimi llionaire with powerful backers. Perhaps, ultimately he will be exonerated; aft er all, his judges are just human. He has many wives, and he had two senators i n his pocket. And it seems there is no more debate that he really helped himsel f to the countryâs coffers. And Arroyo? Poor Gloria! I don't know how history will judge her. It is possibl e that she had really wanted to do good for our people, but somehow along the w ay things happened that were not of her doing. Look at her husband and at what he and then-undersecretary of agriculture Jocelyn Bolante did to ensure that sh e would be elected in 2004. Look what happened to our military. I have a feeling that our military acquiesc ed to do the biddings of Gloria's cabal because they could not in conscience su pport a high school dropout who was maneuvered into wanting to become leader of the Filipinos by no less than an ex-president of the supposedly premier academ ic institution in the Philippines, the University of the Philippines (UP). Was it because of the influence of another UP alumna? The article could have been re-titled: "The âtrapos,â a.k.a. âdishragsâ" and it could say âThe politicians continue to glor ify and insult one another while the great masses of the Filipinos suffer..." -- CESAR TORRES, 2724 East Court, Hilltop Village, Richmond, California (via e-mail)