There is something wrong with the one page "sermon" of Oppus Dei, former senator and press secretary of the Dictator Ferdinand Marcos (Francisco "Kit" Tatad) we read in The Manila Times last Monday.

Addressing it to the Youth of the country, Tatad declared that all the senatorial candidates of Team Unity and Genuine Opposition belong to the "Partido ng Oportunista ng Pilipinas" and therefore none of them deserves to be in the senate.

According to the "Gospel According to Kit," the youth should therefore not vote any of these "political conmen who have taxed our patience" and advised them not to fill out the senate voting list and cross them out totally. He likened this to a failed bidding for a public work contract which does not have "qualified bidders."

It surprises us that a former senator, known in the past for many erudite moments of brilliance, knows not of his law, that such will not deter the first 12 senatoriables with the highest number of votes to eventually become part of the Upper Chamber after the May polls.

Tatad had dramatically resigned from the Board of UNO (United Opposition) over the issue of political dynasties in the senate selection process - ranting that Allan Peter Cayetano has a sister Pia in the senate and Kiko Pimentel's father (Aquilino or Nene), likewise.

His newspaper tirade extends farther to Mike Defensor (Team Unity) who has a blood relation in Miriam Defensor-Santiago who will be senator till 2010, Tessie Aquino-Oreta (Team Unity) who has a nephew Noynoy Aquino (GO) and Tito Sotto (Team Unity) who has a Kiko Pangilinan (Independent-GO) whose mother-in-law is the older sister of actress Helen Gamboa (the wife of Tito Sotto) of "Eat Bulaga" fame. And so on.

People began to wonder what road resembling Damascus Tatad passed through in his holy enlightenment when he was quiet as a cathedral on Good Friday when Loi Ejercito and Jinggoy Estrada (mother and son) were senators when Tatad was with the Opposition.

The former Minister of Information of President Marcos had acerbic words for "the all-knowing media" for not dissecting enough the True North of the senatoriables; blamed "politics as the most, if not the only lucrative business for dynastic political class" and rhetorically asked if all of them (senatoriables) practice Christian values above personal interests and if any of them are not involved in bribery, graft, drug trafficking, smuggling and other high crimes?

To this day, many are still questioning Tatad's accumulation of assets on a Press secretary's salary during the Martial Law years where thousands lost their lives, businesses and properties to the marauding partners of the Conjugal Dictatorship. Many would have been pleased, if Tatad in his self-righteous innocence, had given up his pork barrel as some senators (like Lacson and Drilon did sometime) - to appear than like Caesar's wife.

The former senator also pointed out that the Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC) has the most number of senatoriables, namely, (Sotto and Oreta of TU) and (Legarda, Coseteng, Escudero and John Osmeña of GO). He hinted, argumentum ad hominem, that since NPC Bossman Danding (who butters the party's bread) is linked to GMA (remember the SMB-PCGG deal?) all six will become "pets" of the Palace. This not only insults the principled opposition of many of the six candidates but also the independence of Danding Cojuangco in certain political matters.

Former senator Tatad chides indirectly people like Sotto, Oreta, Recto, Arroyo and Angara (all of TU) for "going to bed" with the enemy GMA who wanted to abolish the institution they once belonged to (senate) and because some of them had earlier asked (GMA) to resign over the "Hello Garci" scandal.

The one-page Tatad Principle virtually condemns all senatoriables as "the popular incompetents," "dynastic oligarchs," "crooks" and "opportunists" or all of the above - and therefore none should get elected to the senate. That is probably not fair.

Some may call Kit as "sour-graping" but that is not quite accurate because one can only do so if he even has the slightest Chinaman's chance of getting elected senator - which Tatad, evensome Bicolanos swear, can never be, at this point.

The former senator is forgetting what the surveys are showing the country today. It is truly a referendum of GMA in a larger sense.

The genuine "Palace boys" - their best bets - in Representatives Prospero Pichay and Migs Zubiri and Cabinet Chief of Staff Mike Defensor - are lagging behind the surveys and the trend seems close to irreversible. GMA die-hard and Erap nemesis Governor Chavit Singson is out there in the wilderness - he had to go hostage negotiator to score some points, perhaps?

The "winning GO list of Legarda, Pangilinan, Villar, Lacson, Escudero, Cayetano, Aquino and Osmeña are "pure" oppositionists. The "winnable" Team Unity bets like Arroyo, Angara, Recto and even Sotto are not GMA die-hard fans, by any means.

Just last week, Joker Arroyo slammed the arrest of Bayan Muna Partylist representative Satur Ocampo and he will be the maverick senator he has always been. Sotto was in the thick of the campaign of FPJ (vs. GMA) until he could not answer some questions raised in the conduct of the failed 2004 campaign. Angara, politically, is neither here not there. And Recto was a VAT champion, not because of the Palace but the economist in him saw the merits of the bill.

They are just there to fill in the "winnable slots" for the Administration - watch them when the senate session opens.

Some of Kit Tatad's propositions are valid especially on the anti-dynasty tirade. But to ask people to boycott the senate election of May 2007 is seeing the trees for the forest. It is missing the point - terribly, we may say so.

The bigger picture is the message it sends to the Palace - and how the latter should respond to the people's anguish, pining and anger today.

Nothing personal, Senator Tatad. Strictly political reality.