Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo says that the creation of the Lakas-Kampi merger should dispel any doubts elections will push through next year. ?Cynics and detractors love to paint grim scenarios about the cancellation of the 2010 elections,? she told her audience at the rites in the Manila Hotel. ?Let this merger of the Lakas and Kampi be tangible proof of the administration?s readiness?nay, determination?to help ensure that the elections do push through.?

She exhorted the leaders of the new party not only to ensure ?credible elections? but to foster ?national harmony.?

This is the first time Ms Arroyo has actually come out to say that elections will push through next year. It?s not exactly saying ?I guarantee presidential elections will push through next year,? but it seems reasonably ironclad. So reasonably ironclad in fact it assures me only that the presidential elections will not push through next year.

You cry wolf once and are believed, the people who believe you are just trusting. You cry wolf twice and are believed, the people who believe you are just willing to give you another chance. You cry wolf three times, the people who believe you are idiots.
What?s particularly laugh-out-loud funny about this declaration is the exhortation to the Lakas-Kampi leaders to ensure clean elections and national harmony. The part about national harmony we heard six years ago on Rizal Day when Ms Arroyo also vowed unequivocally, directly, categorically, to not run for president. Because if she did so, she said, she would foment never-ending divisiveness. She was right about that. But she was wrong, deliberately, willfully, deceitfully, about not running.

She wants national harmony, she doesn?t need her followers to do anything. All she has to do is resign, immediately, completely, unconditionally. Overnight the country will unite far more spontaneously than at a Pacquiao victory. Overnight the country will heal faster than Lazarus bidden to rise by Jesus Christ.

The part about credible elections as well we heard before. Specifically in her unmistakable DNA-imprinted voice talking to Garci, their conversation including at some point kidnapping a public school teacher from Tawi-Tawi who threatened to expose the electoral fraud she had witnessed. And again in her same unmistakable DNA-imprinted voice intoning, ?I ? am ? sorry,? without making amends, which the contrite normally do, by vacating her post immediately. People who do these things are not normally the best people to exhort others to ensure clean elections.

Her camp of course will say, ?Ah, but there?s truly no way of convincing people who refuse to be convinced.? Can Ms Arroyo in fact say anything that will convince us once and for all that there will be presidential elections next year?

But of course there is. All she need do is say unequivocally, directly, categorically: ?There will be no presidential elections next year.?

* * *

The spectacle of the Lakas-Kampi, which had Fidel Ramos crying foul and Bayani Fernando plain crying, was breathtaking in one respect. It was not that cracks and fissures were showing even before the edifice could be raised. It was that everyone seemed eager to get the blessings of its ultimate architect, Ms Arroyo. You would think anyone who got anointed by her would naturally inherit the throne.

When in fact the opposite is true: Anyone anointed by her would be sure to lose in the elections. The 2007 senatorial elections at least proclaim so. The administration candidates lost and lost badly, just as they did in the US in 2006 when George W. Bush was still president. And for exactly the same reason: Ms Arroyo was as much a kiss of death just as Dubya was. Indeed, more: Dubya has never been as universally reviled as Ms Arroyo.

So why the eagerness to be anointed by her? Do they know something we don?t?

Yes, they do: Either the votes won?t be counted next year anyway or the elections will be for prime minister. Or both.

The only reason the administration senatorial candidates lost badly in 2007 was that the administration cheating machine got derailed. That?s not going to happen next year. There?s automation to take care of it. With a proprietary software, one that is not open to public scrutiny, to be used, dagdag-bawas (vote padding and shaving) would be a cinch. A vote for one candidate automatically goes to another.

It can explain why Noli de Castro can be seen smiling even when Ronnie Puno proposes to be his running mate. Why would the most popular candidate since Erap (Joseph Estrada?s moniker) ran for president in 1998, and one who has maintained his distance from Arroyo all this time, not mind lugging around all this baggage? And to boot the most unpopular person on this earth next to the First Couple, someone who has a talent only for serving tyrants?Marcos, Erap, and now Arroyo?only to get them booted out? It makes sense only if the elections are already a done deal with De Castro?s popularity used to give it a patina of credibility.

Just as well, elections might be guaranteed next year, but will they be presidential?

The people who say the Lakas-Kampi merger is the new KBL (Kilusang Bagong Lipunan), Marcos? monolithic party, may be right in more ways than they imagine. That party, which came into being after Marcos declared martial law and hatched a Constitution that proclaimed him president and prime minister at the same time, monopolized the Batasan which was a unitary legislature. History has a way of repeating itself for those who forget it. The Lakas-Kampi looked primed to become another KBL, one meant to overwhelm a new parliament.

Like I said, there?s only one circumstance in which I?ll believe we?ll have presidential elections next year.

That is when Ms Arroyo clearly, strenuously, ardently vows we won?t.