VP Noli de Castro declines the offer of PGMA for the VP to head the country’s social work, one of the most politically-charged agencies should one considers a visible affiliation with the poor, so thought the president. Not really, he was persuaded to let go. That DSWD position was a May 10 compromise for De Castro to run as VP, thanks to the charms of El Presidente. Today, that same compromise, if fulfilled, could weaken the Party from attacks, right and left, bottom and top, spatial, that is. Take note that the radicals were smoking wild in rousing the masses in the De la Cruz’s fiasco.

Who changed the mind (the beautiful mind) of De Castro and PGMA? It’s the swinging JD Venecia on concurence of Fidel Ramos, Cory Aquino, and the rest of the rah, rah boys and girls. It was inconsequential whether De Castro could do the job in social work which required the submissive and labored guts of Soliman. She is their eyes in the cabinet: the joker that can be wild.

Had they left De Castro alone, he might simply languish in his own superficial ways without making a dint in the services of the department. As co-chair of PGMAs anti-povertty commission, he is left with a rug to wipe any redundance the chair may miss in twisting an argument to serve a defeated cause. The seeming supremacy of the Party is PGMAs code of survival. We’ll see more of it in the days to come.

Taking De Castro and his likes, I don’t think he can strike back. His dreams of becoming a president is a foregone conclusion when he joined Arroyo. Not even a Guingona could grab it. It’s the whole, with its antiquated line of reasoning that it’s better for the masses to be poor so that the rich can peacefully sleep in the anguish of those in poverty. It’s heartless. They should not even be given a pen to write their restlessness, more so their hope. Yes, give the pen for their idleness. In that way, they can never pose any challenge against the moneyed and the influential. A nation of unequal is what one-party system stands for. Abuse is its only known virtue.

You’ve seen it in the SONA through the unblinking eyes of the senators, they were scared. At a distance, they saw no line separating the majority and the minority, both enchanted by PGMA who gave them the cha-cha as if it was her own. From an enchantress of a siren in the costume party of high-brows, she’d be on her first year, Calypso to the wandering solon turncoats, they, multi-colored but one. All for what, but the enigma of security in a bureaucracy that has only one dominant party.

That Party routed in the May 10 polls that paralyzed its enemies. Where is Angara, Lacson, Villanueva, Roco, among others? It’s still there waylaying FPJ and Legarda to the high court in the senseless joke of Philippine politics to Juan de la Cruz or Angelo de la Cruz.

In the Charter change, the Party can legislate against itself a little just as controlable as the dynasty clause. Would you say that they’re playing and we, the spectators. If Congress takes the constituent assembly to do the job as in all likelihood, then it’s only the collar that changes, not the dog.

Come to think of it, there would be no easy way out for us. Dr. Faustus could not simply say, “God, help me!” The God would drop His missiles to erase Mephistopeles to kingdom come. Why? Dr. Faustus took his part of the deal, afterwards, it would be the devil’s. If there’s no security to a contract, as Faustus’ will, whichever it took had its dominion, then what balance is there in the world, in the universe.

As you read this column, change does not change. The sun could not cast the same shadow in the same hour. Each fraction of a second, solar particles extinquish to a vapor of indeterminate matter, so with you and me in Philippine politics, but always, believe, you, me, there is a rule.