Speaker Jose de Venecia, master political baton leader, is asking Congress to grant an all-encompassing "amnesty for all Enemies of the State" to include former president Erap Estrada and rebel-turned-senator Antonio Trillanes IV.

This does not come from the immaculate purity of the heart of JDV but simple political arithmetic. The last three years is a GMA swan song - and she could yet be a lame duck president or a serious candidate for an ouster from general restiveness outside.

Her unpopularity can undo her, the seasoned politician JDV knows.

Hypothetically, in a one-on-one snap election today (based on ratings and the last elections) Erap would likely beat GMA 3:1. On the other hand, the popular swashbuckling PMA graduate senator Trillanes had 11 million voters rooting for him with him inside his prison cell.

Because of the general hostility in the air, the Administration cannot afford this national resentment to snowball into a disruptive political tsunami that can be initiated by an even small minor political event. The Amnesty Bill aim is "so we can unify the nation," the Speaker avers.

In less than 60 days, the Sandigan Bayan is likely to officially rule on the plunder cases against Erap. There are calculations that the court may convict Erap - which explains why large newspaper advertisements to cool the nation's psyche were released earlier to soft-land the titanic roar the conviction might elicit from the nation. The fiery Erap remains bull-strong in his exile in Tanay: he will face the verdict and will not ask presidential pardon, if convicted.

That is a super-hot political potato that this quivering, shaky administration may not be able to handle for long. It can outrage a large part of the nation.

That is why the option of any Amnesty is so vital preferably before a Sandigan Bayan verdict. GMA had reportedly agreed as long as the move is "legislated" - or it comes from Congress so that the shaking inside the boots in the Palace by the river is not made so apparent.

The Church, political parties - allies and opposition have been courted. Even the hawkish twin Gonzaleses - one in the Justice Department and the other in the National Security Council had allegedly supported the Amnesty proposal.

Any macho stance against it will make both reap the political whirlwind - the twins realize. The Amnesty will cover military, Muslim, political and communist rebels.

Political fuel is added to the conflagration since the Lower Court (despite the Senate Resolution 17-4 decision asking that elected senator Trillanes be allowed to attend the session) decided otherwise. It makes another potential powder keg out of 11 million Trillanes fans - very angry because that would appear as gross persecution and harassment for one (Trillanes) who decided to take the legal route of dissent (via elections) instead of placing bombs around Arlegui Street near the Palace, our imagination moving wayward.

As the GMA Administration moves toward the sunset of its life, it has dispatched of rightly its hubris and braggadocio and has offered the green olive leaf to two icons that represent the growing despondency of the nation over the inadequacies and corruption of the Government.

The Master Baker JDV had sugar coated the cake with icing like the Amnesty could be a "lasting legacy for all" and would make things easier for the next Malacañang occupant in 2010.

The gigantic debacle of GMA in the last 2007 senatorial polls -where even a highly competent and popular senator like Ralph Recto - was tarnished by a GMA "kiss of death" and failed to make the Top 12 senators- the new fiscal woes and the bloody skirmishes in the south is starting to have debilitating effects on the administration. It is like skating on thin ice from hereon.

The political baggage is just too heavy from where we are viewing it. Aside from the illegitimacy issue of the 2004 polls due to "Garci" factor and the "Maguindanao Scandal" of 2007, there are actually still many people who continue to believe that Erap was unlawfully stripped of the presidency.

For instance, they hark back to Section 8, Article VII of the 1987 Constitution that the President can only be replaced through, death, permanent disability, removal from Office and resignation of the President.

Well Erap is definitely alive - still drinking his Jhonny Walker Blue and dancing the swing in Tanay and Erap certainly won the senate numbers when then Senate President Nene Pimentel said " The nays have it" on the impeachment trial - thus leading to former senator Tessa's Oreta's most expensive dance-jig - that cost her a new senate seat in 2007. So he was not removed from office by impeachment.

The Erap apologists further states that his departure from Malacañang was to save his skin and family from harm by the maddening mob coming from EDSA (and not to effectively resign forever) and that his letter to the senate and Lower House would only have made GMA merely an Acting President under the Constitution. The Supreme Court the, however, ruled it was a "de facto" real resignation of the former President and installed GMA.

Erap claims the resignation of his Cabinet would still have allowed him to reappoint a new set of Cabinet members and would therefore not "permanently incapacitate him".

The legal debate is hard to resolve - each claiming they are on the side of Rule of Law.

There.

But the political cunning and Machiavellian savvy of JDV is beyond doubt even by his most ardent hate-mail sender. But, unfortunately, JDV had said the Amnesty will cover only "political but not the heinous crimes."

To our understanding, "plunder" has never been a political crime - so what gives?

This Amnesty pitch therefore only seems to expose the fact that upon seeing the twilight descend on their political careers, the Adminsitration may be clutching at straws - any straw - which only proves rather than negate that the GMA Administration is not moving from a position of strength.

Quite on the contrary - from a position of weakness, actually.

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