Dear Mayor LITO,

To my fellow Thomasian,
and yes, my fellow Atenean,

once upon a time,
I wished that you could be Manila's Mayor-for-Life;

I voted for you in all the elections
where you ran for Vice Mayor and eventually, Mayor.

I appreciated your beautification of our city,
the current deconstruction of your successor notwithstanding.

I felt, and still do,
that by your passion for improving our city,
you gave Manileños back their pride.



However,
by the the time your last term began in 2004,
for some strange reason, it seemed that you decided
to emulate another former Manila Mayor, Ramon Bagatsing,

a man who once was very popular with First Lady Imelda,
because he insisted on holding up an umbrella over her
magnificent bouffant every time she would go around Manila.

And Mr. Mayor,
although you never went around with an umbrella,
(ella ella eh eh eh)

you took it upon yourself to shield Gloria,
not from the rays of the sun,
but from the heat of the Opposition.

I guess I'll never find out exactly why
you decided to act like UV protection for the Administration,
but now, you're the Secretary of the DENR.



And now,
has your unswerving loyalty to the President
come down to this?

Jun Lozada's expose' has implicated you as the
alleged mastermind of what certainly looks like,
if not an attempted kidnapping,
then an absurdly amateurish abduction.



The irony of this tragedy is earth-shakingly Shakespearean.

You entered my consciousness as an Opposition candidate
in the 1984 Batasang Pambansa elections,
bravely taking on Marcos and his machinery,
patriotically espousing the values of Ninoy Aquino.

How could you allow yourself then,
twenty four and a half years hence,
to be involved in the most notorious act
in that very same airport since August 21, 1983?

The fact that it was Noynoy Aquino who represented the Senate,
and was actually there at the NAIA to meet Jun Lozada
last Tuesday, adds an even more ironic exclamation point
to this whole sordid saga of your total reversal in my eyes.



I firmly believe that the reason why Gloria is still around
is simply because there has been no CATALYST,
either an event or a person, to move the middle class.

Martial Law effectively ended
with the assassination of Ninoy,

and Clarissa Ocampo and Perfecto Yasay's testimonies
practically drove Erap out of the Plunder Palace.

I don't think our country can survive another People Power,
but I believe that we can easily live through
two years of a Noli de Castro presidency until 2010,
if somehow, Macapagal-Arroyo can be forced to resign.

Jun Lozada may just be that catalyst.




You can still be a hero, Mayor Lito.

I hope that somewhere deep inside you,
the embers of the principles of Ninoy Aquino,
the same burning ideals that once made you shine,
still somehow, faintly glow.

Reveal what really happened with Jun Lozada.




That's my impossible dream.