Thus, while the Arroyo administration is seeing a modest economic growth and relative political calm, the amorphous opposition groups are still groping in the dark, and desperately searching for a credible leader to lead them out of the wilderness.

In the meantime, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo should be getting her second wind, so to speak, and from an improved leveraged position of strength to accelerate her second round of reforms whose beneficial effects, and economic trickle down dividends, are not yet widely felt at the grassroots levels.

For these reasons, President Arroyo enjoys a tiny window of opportunity to effect two or three fundamental reforms upon which the success of her seven (out of ten) socio-economic 10-point targets by 2010 hinges.

It is also widely perceived that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, notwithstanding the fact that her 10point legacy is doable and realizable, does not have a vision of exceptional clarity of a future Philippines that every Filipino can easily relate to.

Be that as it may, these frantic efforts and endless travels of President Arroyo to reduce the classroom shortage, boost agricultural output, environmental renewal, better education, and cushioning the impact of high fuel prices on basic consumer products will come to naught unless several fundamental reforms are undertaken and accomplished that will strengthen democracy and pave the way to economic modernization.

These are (1) the immediate shift to a parliamentary system, with the other Constitutional amendments to follow; (2) the amendment and rationalization of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law which will pave the way to agricultural modernization; (3) a positive and uncompromising population policy to reduce the population growth rate to 1 percent per annum not only to achieve equilibrium in the ratio between schoolroom and students but also democractize universal education; (4) being archipelagic, the Philippine political administration needs to be, out of necessity and practicability, federal in structure; and (5) the marginalization of the Senate, which has outlived its usefulness, must be accelerated.

When all is said and done, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is in a position of strength of limited duration to show leadership, uncompromising economic reforms, and political breakthrough.

Last but not least, it is a mistake and premature to speculate and conclude that former President Fidel V. Ramos has retreated to his lair in defeat or out of fatigue, or "thrown in the towel.", as it were, simply because President Arroyo "appears to be out of the woods," and FVR has ceased criticizing her.

The fact is that PGMA stands on shifting political sand, and "hubris" can be again, her nemesis and downfall. FVR is always on call when needed since it is the nation’s welfare that dictates his actuations.

As Shakespeare warned ambitious people, "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries."

You be the judge.

(For comments and views, please e-mail: chaff_fromthegrain@yahoo.com.ph)