Arroyo's husband, Jose Miguel "Mike'' Arroyo, her son Miguel "Mikey'' Arroyo, and her brother-in-law Ignacio "Iggy'' Arroyo, were alleged in a Senate hearing to be receiving payoffs from illegal gambling operations, known as jueteng.

Jueteng is always a thorny subject in Philippine politics. In 2000, President Joseph Estrada was impeached and driven out of office by massive street protests because of his alleged links to illegal gambling.

Listening to a self-professed jueteng bagwoman in the Arroyo claims offer details of how she had delivered cash to certain government officials, we knew that we'd seen and heard this before, only with a different cast of actors. The original version was far more riveting than the remake - it starred a genuine movie idol, Joseph Estrada, a character so Rabelaisian that whether you liked him, hated him, or were simply embarrassed to have him for a head of state, you had to pay attention. Like unwitting extras in a political Groundhog Day, we seem to be trapped in a continuous repeating loop of our own recent history.

We tuned in to the latest hearings because we're news addicts and must get our information fix. Some were outraged, some suspected an anti-Arroyo plot, but the general reaction seemed to be ennui. Here was another scandal, yes, it could be serious, yes, but there are new exposes and controversies every other week, and this one would probably be forgotten like all the others before it.

Does anyone know what's going on with the Estrada trial on charges that the former president plundered the treasury, for instance?

While the jueteng hearings were going on, press secretary Ignacio Bunye presented to the media two CDs of recorded conversations between a woman who sounded like President Arroyo, and a man she called "Garci.''

That is all we know for sure, because in the succeeding days the details of the story shifted constantly. It really was the president; it was not the president; it was the president's voice, but the spoken words were cut, spliced, and manipulated into what sounded like a conversation.

And so the claims and counter-claims have gone on. "Garci'' was Election Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano; "Garci'' was really "Gary,'' an aide of the president's brother-in-law, Iggy. The recordings were of wiretapped conversations, in which case they were not fake, but we still have to know who bugged Garci's phone.

The CDs contain several con-versations between persons who sound like President Arroyo, Commissioner Garcillano, the First Gentleman, a senatorial candidate, a former congressman, and others.

The recordings were allegedly made in late May and early June 2004 - we know because a man's voice introduces each conversation with the date and time. This means the alleged exchange between the president and Garci took place while the Commission on Elections was counting the votes in the 2004 general elections.

The "Hello, Garci'' CD was an instant smash hit, widely reproduced and made available for downloading on the Internet. The Garci phone calls would seem innocent and innocuous - until one puts them in the context of the election count. The news media provided this context, analyzing the conversations, noting the places alluded to in each call, and matching them with the president's election performance in these places.

With this information in hand, it would appear that the elect-ion had been fixed and the vote tally manipulated to ensure victory by a comfortable margin.

President Arroyo will not comment on the authenticity of the recordings. Commissioner Garcillano seems to have vanished and is rumored to have left the country, although his wife has denied this.

Once again, deja vu. In 1986, President Ferdinand Marcos was deposed in the Edsa 1 people power revolt because we believed he had stolen the election. The massive anti-Marcos protests had begun in 1983 after the assassination of former senator Benigno Aquino, Jr, but what triggered Edsa 1 was the admission by two Marcos men, Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile and General Fidel Ramos, that there had been massive election fraud. Enrile and Ramos holed up at the military camp on Edsa, and as they prepared for their last stand, the Archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Jaime Sin, who died on Tuesday, called upon the people to defend them. The people poured out on to Edsa, and history was made.

Back to 2005. It's a case of "been there, done that.'' On June 10, the former deputy director of the National Bureau of Investigation, Samuel Ong, came forward with what he claimed were the master tapes of the alleged wiretapped recordings. He called them "the mother of all tapes,'' then took sanctuary at the San Carlos Seminary in Makati City. Then he declared that the actor Fernando Poe, Jr, who died in December, was the real winner of the election.

Edsa 4 might have happened right there, but for one vital absentee: The people. (Edsa 3 took place in 2002 when Estrada supports marched but did not succeed in overthrowing President Arroyo.)

Poe's widow arrived to support Ong, but declared: "This is no longer about the election. My candidate is dead. We have nothing to gain from this.''

A small crowd gathered on the street, but people power didn't happen. In the days that followed, pundits strove to explain why the people were not more outraged over the scandals. Some said the people had not yet digested the alleged recordings and realized their meaning. Others said the government had scared the media into not airing or discussing the tapes, so not enough people had heard them.

Subsequent events support the theory of people power fatigue. How many times in our lifetime are we supposed to go out on to the streets to topple a government? What shall we replace it with?

And if we stand out there again, will it really change things?

People power fatigue means Fili-pinos are sick and tired of political scandals. We just want to get on with our lives. We have enough to deal with as it is; let the politicians talk each other to death. If they cannot help us, then they should get out of the way and let us do our work. Perhaps we have finally learned that we cannot depend on politicians to take care of us; we must rely on ourselves. It is tempting to think that a change in government will solve all of our problems, but two people power revolts have taught us that there are no quick fixes.

Our political and business leaders frequently admonish us not to do anything that will scare away foreign investors. What Big Business needs to know is that we are sensible people, we are prepared to work with them, and we should not be judged by our officials' shenanigans.

Which is not to say that the Garci CD issue is finished and everyone gets away scot-free as always. Congress will conduct an inquiry, and no doubt the politicians will spend days arguing over whether the alleged wiretapped recordings can be played at all. The president's allies are already urging her to speak up on the matter, as her silence only fans speculation.

More importantly, public interest in the issue is growing, as evidenced by two indicators. One, the volume of jokes circulating via text messaging about the Garci tapes. The Philippines is one of the texting capitals of the world and Filipinos use humor to deal with grave matters - it is our coping mech-anism. We like to cut down to size pompous, self-important personalities. "[President Arroyo] gets highest ratings ever,'' one SMS begins. "Her CD has gone platinum.''

The second indicator is the now-famous cellphone ringtone that samples from the recordings. A woman who sounds like the president says: "Hello, Garci'' to a hiphop track. The ringtone was produced by txtpower, a group that was formed last year to protest against the tax on text messaging.

It is so popular that within hours of its release, the txtpower.org server crashed from the number of people attempting to download the ringtone. A second version has been released, this time accompanied by a snippet of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean.

These days it is impossible to set foot in a public place without hearing the "Hello, Garci'' ringtone. The cellphone has become one of the main venues of Filipino political discourse: it's democracy at the speed of SMS.

The international media has largely ignored the Arroyo scandals. Last week, while text messages warned of martial law, the only mention of the Philippines in the foreign media was in a news item on world reaction to Michael Jackson's acquittal. Former First Lady Imelda Marcos reportedly cheered the verdict, saying: "Once again, the US judicial system worked. God bless America!''

After the second Edsa revolt, the foreign news media quipped that the Philippines' theme song was Oops, We Did it Again. Let's hope our next political anthem is from older and wiser artists: Won't Get Fooled Again.

Meanwhile, in Manila, the influential publisher Eugenia Apostol, who played a role in the Marcos downfall, has launched a new magazine. In 1983, following the Aquino assassination, Apostol published the Mr & Ms Special Editions, which fearlessly reported the misdeeds of the Marcos regime. The tabloid later grew into the Philippine Daily Inquirer, one of the largest newspapers in the country. In 2000, she was publisher of Pinoy Times, a tabloid which exposed corruption in the Estrada administration.

It is perhaps a sign of the times that Apostol's new magazine, Mr & Ms, is not political, but "a super-monthly for mind, body, and spirit.'' Among the articles on New Age spirituality is a directory of services for past-life regression experts, clairvoyants and psychic surgeons.

The message seems to be: Forget politics, look into yourself.