With that, former President Fidel Ramos made a clean breast of his mysterious goings-on of the past week, secret meetings with leading oppositionists and churchmen and all that.

He said the President must run in the 2007 election, his second ultimatum to her in two weeks.

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In late December, he issued his first ultimatum, namely, that the President must react to her Consultative Commission’s proposal to do away with the 2007 election and let all incumbent legislators become members of parliament without election.

The President ignored the deadline. Having experienced her uncooperative disposition, Ramos gave no deadline this time for a RSVP. Does she have up to mid-2007 to decide?

The more pressing question is: Will there be parliamentary elections in 2007?

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Ramos presumes that his heir-apparent, Speaker Joe de Venecia, who is itching to be Prime Minister, can whip his boys into line. But the Senate will block the move for a constituent assembly needed to write the parliamentary system into the new Constitution.

Ramos cannot presume that the President loves the idea of running to be a member of parliament, then having to contest De Venecia for the post of PM. Whether in a one-on-one contest or a one-against-several engagement, De Venecia is hard to beat. Especially if the incumbent congressmen are shoehorned into the parliament.

Ramos is placing all his bets that parliamentary elections will materialize. But he is not holding the good cards.

It is the President who holds the trump card. And in her heart, she may not care for the parliamentary system.