PLEASE PASS THE SMILES
Arroyo breaks ice, bread with foes

First posted 03:01am (Mla time) Aug 12, 2005
By Philip C. Tubeza
Inquirer News Service

GOING on a charm offensive, President Macapagal-Arroyo was relaxed and all smiles at a party on Wednesday night, even when she found herself seated between two lawmakers who want her ousted.

Ms Arroyo joked and cordially talked individually with several proimpeachment lawmakers at Las Piñas Rep. Cynthia Villar's birthday celebration at the Cuba Libre restaurant in Mandaluyong, said Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Satur Ocampo.

She even posed for a photograph with them.

BETWEEN THE LEFT AND THE RIGHT, President Arroyo beams even if sandwiched between proimpeachment lawmakers Roilo Golez (left) and Satur Ocampo during the birthday party on Wednesday night of Rep. Cynthia Villar, wife of Sen. Manuel Villar.

Even Ms Villar is herself still undecided whether to sign the impeachment complaint or not, she told the Inquirer last week.

"Her smile was sweet. She was smiling all the time," said Ocampo, who was at the same table with Ms Arroyo, Vice President Noli de Castro and Sen. Manuel Villar.

"She seemed to be relaxed. Of course, we were forced to have some small talk. It was a social affair, a birthday party. It had no major political significance," he added.

But Ocampo noted that the President's behavior was different compared to the cold shoulder she had given him and Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. during the launching of the new Radio Veritas format last week.

"She was charming to congressmen. I think we should look at this through her broader campaign, her media blitz and image makeover. She had a sweet smile for everybody," Ocampo said.

He said he was not moved by Ms Arroyo's new tack, adding that the President did not bring up the topic of her impeachment.

"I was not affected. I think she knows my decision. It was civil," Ocampo said.

Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez, another proimpeachment lawmaker who sat to the President's right, said the President looked relaxed although the impeachment hearings against her formally started in Congress earlier that day.

"I did not expect her to be there but it was very cordial and she looked quite happy," said Golez, a former national security adviser of Ms Arroyo.

The President even joked that she had with her two lawmakers from the two extremes of the political spectrum--Golez from the Right and Ocampo from the Left.

With Golez sitting literally to her right and Ocampo to her left, the President quipped: "I am between the Left and the Right. I think I can reach them."

"We had a good laugh. People thought that it was very amusing and they were ganging up on us," said Golez, who sat with the President for 15 minutes.

Golez and Ocampo said that it was Gina de Venecia, Speaker Jose de Venecia's wife, who urged the proimpeachment lawmakers to approach the President.

She was also able to convince Quezon City Rep. Bingbong Crisologo and Ave party-list Rep. Eulogio Magsaysay to talk to Ms Arroyo after the President spoke with Golez and Ocampo.

"Gina thought of a game of proimpeachment lawmakers approaching the President. She said 'Talk to the President.' I said I was used to talking to her. I was a friend of her father, the late President [Diosdado Macapagal]," Ocampo said.

Ocampo, a former journalist, covered Malacañang during the elder Macapagal's term in the 1960s, when Ms Arroyo was in her teens.

'We should talk'
He said the President joked that Ocampo's adversaries in the peace process, like former Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita "Ging" Deles, were now in the opposition and were also asking for her removal.

"She mentioned those that we criticized, like Ging Deles. She said 'She left me. Isn't she your enemy?' It was like that so I told her that even if we were on opposite sides, we could still talk," Ocampo said, who spoke with the President in her native Kapampangan.

"I mentioned that we should just wait for the crisis to be over. Whatever happens--if she wins or we win--we should talk," he added.

Golez said the guests, who included former and current congressmen, dined on spaghetti, prawns, grapes and wine.

"That's how politics should be--cordial and civil. However, people sometimes get pretty serious and start wagging fingers which should not be," he said.