MY friend Billy Esposo, the columnist, is an avid student of military strategy.  I remember one lazy afternoon while sipping coffee at the Manila Pen lobby, he regaled me with a story I will never forget.

Billy was reminiscing his halcyon days as chief of Cory Aquino’s media bureau in the days leading to the historic Edsa Revolution in 1986.  Among his favorite stories about military strategy was the Battle of Waterloo, a quaint town in Belgium where Napoleon Bonaparte suffered a decisive military defeat that ended his dreams of empire for France.

Waterloo has since become a picturesque metaphor for a decisive military defeat. As Billy told the story, the tide of battle (I like that elegant phrase) swung back and forth that entire day.  But the lesson he remembered most was that it hinged decisively on a small piece of territory which determined who had the upper hand at that particular moment in the battle. 

Translated to the 64 squares of a chessboard, that decisive piece of territory would be the four center squares.  Control them and you have the game in your pocket.  The rest of the 60 squares do not matter.  This is Lesson Number One.

But what made the conversation memorable was Lesson Number 2.  Briefly stated, it is, “When the enemy is busy making a mistake, do not disturb him.”

The lesson comes to mind today because of what is happening on three battle fronts: the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona, the viral images that caught Presidential Political Affairs Adviser  Ronald Llamas apparently patronizing pirated DVDs in a shopping mall, and the plan of congressmen to go on a nationwide barnstorming educational campaign to ostensibly explain the impeachment to the poor barrio folks who have limited  access to media, or DVDs.

These three seemingly unrelated episodes constitute the four center squares of the playing field, the strategic control of which will have far-ranging effects on the presidency of Benigno Aquino III.  But first a quick rewind.

Strategy lesson

Strategic thinkers have long wondered why, of all issues, President Aquino would stake his presidency on the impeachment of Corona.  The President could have chosen other issues with more palpable impact on the common man.  The impeachment of Corona and the incarceration of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the conventional wisdom went, were important moral issues, but the gut issues of poverty, jobs and food were probably equally important, if not more, to the teeming masses who live below the poverty line.

Christian S. Monsod, the legal aid lawyer of peasants and farmers and former member of President Cory’s Constitutional Commisssion that wrote our basic law in 1987, has pointedly observed,  “The impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona and the broadened debate on constitutional issues are not going to bring out masses of the poor to take sides.  To them the turmoil is a power struggle within the leadership class and it distracts from the central issue in our society: poverty and gross inequalities.”

Be that as it may, Mr. Aquino chose to stake his presidency on his moral crusade to clean up government.  To prepare for this battle, he even reluctantly gave up a prized toy, a sports car called Porsche (pronounced Portia) that raised doubts about his blatantly feudal hacendero habits.

KKK BFF

Very early into his presidency, Mr. Aquino was also criticized for turning a blind eye to ethical concerns over his personal friends in government, all lumped together in the deprecatory name, “Kaibigan, Kabarilan, etc.”  Which brings us to the unfortunate DVD episode.

Presidential Adviser Llamas, like the President, fancies guns. Which qualifies him to the KKK group.  He has admitted to occasionally going to the firing range with the President. 

While on a trip abroad, his SUV figured in an accident, and his bodyguards were caught on camera unloading an AK-47 assault rifle from the SUV.  He weathered that storm.  Now he is under the weather again.

What makes this one worse is that it is happening in the middle of the storm over the impeachment case, where House prosecutors are having a horrible time — ¨arising from their own ineptitude¨ — making the charges stick.  From avenging heroes in a morality play waging battle against the forces of evil, the House prosecutors have become the laughing stock of law students and the public.  But let’s leave this for a while and go back to the DVD episode.

The matter apparently needed the deft touches of the spin doctors.  Which made it even more amusing.

Sellers beware!

The chief of the legal division of the Optical Media Board (OMB) stressed that only the sellers of pirated copies of copyrighted material like video and audio discs are penalized under the country’s anti-piracy law, the People’s Journal reported.

Lawyer Cocoy Padilla pointed out that the buyers or possessors of pirated DVDs are not criminally liable under Republic Act 9230, otherwise known as the Optical Media Act of 2003.

Only those engaged in the manufacture and selling of pirated goods can be punished, Padilla stressed in a television interview.

Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma, Jr., reiterated the President’s position that the purported purchase by Llamas of pirated discs was not among his top priorities at the moment.

“That’s a statement that when viewed vis-à-vis the overall agenda of the President as the leader of our nation, there are more pressing problems and other issues that must be addressed,” said Coloma, also in Filipino, according to the People’s Journal.

To the grass roots

Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda supported a plan by congressmen to mount information campaigns in their districts to explain why Corona should be ousted.

Lacierda said the information campaign was not a “Plan B” for a “People Power” in case Corona was acquitted by the Senate.

“I don’t think it is meant for a People Power. It is not something we are planning to do,” Lacierda said. Neither, he added, would the information campaign influence or put pressure on the senators to convict Corona.

At this point I am reminded of how the Corona defense lawyers must be chuckling over the Esposo principle: “When the enemy is busy making a mistake, do not disturb him.”