During his 1961 inaugural address, US Pres. John F. Kennedy issued a stern reminder to the power-hungry by saying that “those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.”

Forty-eight years later, US Pres. Barack Obama expressed a similar doctrine, a more specific one, warning that “those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent ... are on the wrong side of history.”

About six months after proclaiming that and after snubbing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo several times, Obama suddenly invites her to the White House.

We believe he decided to meet the person he assiduously avoided not because he would be pleased to meet her, but to refresh her memory about what he said in his inaugural address.

We believe that Mr. Obama had been informed that Ms Arroyo is widely perceived to have assumed office through deceit and that she has been clinging to power through corruption and by silencing dissent. We believe that those are the very reasons why he had dodged all her efforts to be seen with him.

Ms Arroyo might play the Muslim terrorism bogey, but we think that Obama had been told that the problem in Mindanao may not be the sort of politically motivated terrorism the Americans fight against and that what is happening down there could just be acts of piracy and kidnap-for-ransom criminality.

What does this tell us? It tells us that he would be going to show his displeasure in no uncertain terms, albeit politely. But softly spoken admonitions ring louder than shouts.

We believe that Obama will lecture her on how to preserve democracy and/or the American-style system of government. We need not always support the American view, or to always follow what the Americans say or do, but it is always good to do what is right.
Seeking power by riding the back of the tiger and clinging to power through corruption and deceit and by silencing dissent are, without question, wrong.

And certainly her spinmeisters would never announce even the kindest of Obama’s admonitions; neither would she tell even her closest allies if Obama reprimanded her in private.

Her days as president are numbered and we believe that Obama will tell her to cut and cut clean when her term expires in June 2010.

—Ramon Mayuga,
GeRMayuga@aol.com