MANILA, Philippines -- A politician may have everything -- brains, money, connections, charisma -- but without a compelling message, he or she is nothing.

Fidel V. Ramos is a politician. And he has been a politician without a message for some time now, cranky digs at President Macapagal-Arroyo notwithstanding. Last Friday, he finally came up with one.

Speaking at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, during the kickoff for the Edsa Week commemoration, Ramos said, ?It is customary nowadays to denigrate or minimize the importance of the Edsa events?perhaps because the greed, the apathy and the corruption we brought down during those days are once again making themselves felt.? To make sure everyone got the message, he repeated that greed, apathy and corruption must be addressed.

And soon. For if left to fester, the growing public disgust not just at unmoderated greed but also at official contempt for institutions ?might yet call us to come together again?to offer our lives and fortunes on the altar of our civic ideals,? Ramos said, invoking history and pointing out how it could repeat itself.

After Ramos delivered his message, a stony-faced President left the ceremony without delivering her prepared remarks. For what, indeed, was there for her to say? Even a President has the right not to incriminate herself. And she has studiously avoided doing this since 2005. Thus she left it to her spin doctors to make the best of Ramos? pointed barbs. Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita and Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye did the usual administration tag-teaming to send out their counter-message: But, of course, corruption is a problem; but, of course, the President cares; but, of course, the President is at the forefront of the fight against corruption.

But, of course, all the while ignoring the reality that the President is indeed at the forefront, increasingly and undeniably, of the problem.

Yesterday, she said on dzRH that she was advised on April 20, 2007 that the NBN-ZTE contract was tainted with irregularities. She couldn?t rescind the deal, she said, essentially because it would cause China to lose face.

Five months later, she scrapped it, anyway. All the while, Assistant Secretary Lorenzo Formoso of the Department of Transportation and Communications and her Cabinet insisted that the deal was ?clean.? Which meant that not only did the President know they were lying; she also sanctioned the lying by keeping all these officials in their jobs and devoting the resources of her administration to promoting their lies.

This underscores why the public debate has begun to shift from whether she is the fountainhead of corruption to what should be her fate.

Yes, there are so many others, from all sides, in the same league as she is; but many of them, too, are taking their cue from the President who, only now, is showing signs that she is ready to discard those who lied for her, now that their web of lies has hopelessly entangled her.

To be sure, Ramos is out not only to keep himself relevant, but to disentangle his Lakas party (in the process of being neutered and euthanized by the President?s pet party, Kampi) from the administration. In his speech, he spoke for a political class bewildered by the public outcry that is increasingly being led by a galvanized youth that holds every politician?administration or opposition?in contempt; that could possibly take the outcry in the direction of the streets?and this time, with all professional politicians as the target.

In the face of an entire politico-business clique unable to moderate its greed, does a call for People Power represent an immoderate threat?

We ask our readers to consider this. It is the threat of People Power that has pushed the President to make her Saturday statement. It was obviously a last-ditch effort to present herself as someone trapped in a web of deceptions woven by her subordinates. She is prepared to sacrifice her lieutenants. We can only wonder if this will be enough to pacify a public now demanding command responsibility.

Having sworn to defend the Constitution, the President must not hold back the truth. She must volunteer to enumerate those irregularities. And she must go before the Ombudsman to identify those who are involved. She must throw herself to the mercy of our institutions. Her defiance must end.