So pardoned plunderer Joseph Estrada is 99.9-percent sure of running for president again in 2010. He offers many rationalizations for his recklessly self-indulgent reentry into national politics, and not one makes logical sense—except, of course, to the man obsessed with vindication.
First, he offers the argument of unity. If he runs, he has said much too often, it will be because the opposition cannot unite behind a single candidate. We fail to follow Estrada’s logic. We assume he wants the opposition to wrest Malacañang from his People Power-ed successor. How will he do that when, by running for reelection, he further splits an already divided opposition?
Perhaps Estrada assumes that none of the other opposition candidates—not front-running Manny Villar, not popular Chiz Escudero, not well-funded Mar Roxas—can win the presidency outright. Surely, he is mistaken: the 2010 presidential poll is the opposition’s to lose.
