It began with "No" to impeachment, which took the form of "Yes" since the congressional committee posed the question in a strange way.

From there it was "no-permit, no rally," and by yesterday it was "no apology" for giving the water treatment to a former vice president, a senator, and three archbishops. On this hangs a tale.

It will be recalled that after much "soul-searching," GMA decided to apologize to the nation for a "lapse of judgment" in talking to the missing "Garci." Obviously designed to put the damaging tapes behind us, it didn’t do the trick. The mea culpa didn’t move the opposition at all.

The dramatic move recalled that her father, Diosdado Macapagal, performed a similar mea culpa in the sixties, which didn’t do any good at all in the 1965 elections. To those who still remember, Cong Dadong had said in 1961, he would only serve one term.

In one of those rare historical coincidences, GMA said that she would not run for president in 2004, even saying that she had become the cause of division in the country. (The noblesse oblige was probably spoiled when misguided opportunists put up a popular actor as their presidential candidate.)

But the real consequence of the unaccepted apology for the "lapse of judgment" is that it doesn’t pay, that it’s simpler to say "No" than "Yes" when you can strain the exercise of power to its limits. "Yes" is submission, "No" is affirmation. There’s more to lose in "Yes" than in "No."

That, in any case, is the administration policy. That’s why it sees nothing to apologize for in the drenching of demonstrators. As the executive secretary compassionately puts it, the elderly Teofisto Guingona should have stayed home instead of joining the street rally. He might have said as well that the archbishops should have stayed in their churches.

In this Land of No, senior citizens, like Voltaire, should just cultivate their little gardens. Political participation is too dangerous for them.