I wrote during the last quarter of 2009 my thoughts and believed strongly that reluctant Noynoy Aquino will be Liberal Party candidate and a sure winner in the Presidential elections of 2010 – all because of Ninoy and Cory’s legacy and, thinking outside the box because also of his low profile lackluster performance in a disgraced Congress as a representative and later as Senator.
After requesting BALITA to re-cycle a pre-election 2009 piece on Noynoy entitled TO BE OR NOT TO BE (see BALITA issue October 16-31), this piece seeks to fulfill a personal wish to rake P Noy’s shortcomings over the coals of scrutiny after more than four years in office. To the over-politicized Pinoys (inside the box) raking over the coals anybody’s performance seems brutal and likely to result in severe image and ego burns because that is what’s happening every day—in print and over radio and TV. Character demolition is a convenient shield resorted to by public officials of interest aggrieved by insinuations of massive corruption.
It is not that criticism and abuse are always part and parcel of the highest public office territory. It’s dynamic, like atoms always in Brownian motion spreading mud instead of doing car wash. For example rampant crimes against persons and properties, continuing corruption in the departments and public sector corporations, violation of the constitution emanating from his cabinet made P Noy the King of Pork, the unchanging number of dirt poor Filipinos, mini revolt in Zamboanga, delayed response and rehab in calamity stricken areas, kid gloves for P Noy’s errant appointees.
In sum, life seems to be the same for the large majority in the rural areas and congested cities. Noynoy has had almost five years to make significant felt change. If this is life under his presidency, is he abetting it, is it going unabated under lost control or gross misgovernance?
It needs deep research to prove that in the Philippine Congress high performance and notable achievements –then and nowadays—will not be tainted with suspicions of negative political behavior. Pundits and insiders blame the system for the pervasive and prevalent corruption. The seeds may have been planted during Marcos’ long reign. It may have germinated during the short stint of Cory, developed it’s robust stalk and branches during Ramos’ time, flowered and cross pollinated by Erap went into full bloom and fruit harvesting during Gloria’s time.
The botany metaphor is not about millions and billions of pesos of stolen taxpayers money. It’s about corruption of the Filipino psyche. Transformational change to become corrupt is like growing a fruit tree, from seeds to bearing fruits takes a long time. It’s about changing people’s values. The criminal value of corruption it is said is a function of interaction over long periods of INCLINATION, OPPORTUNITY and ACCEPTANCE. A people may not have a strong inclination for corruption but with ever present lucrative opportunity eroding resistance, acceptance becomes inevitable making corruption a sub-culture, a way of life.
Those who work in a government office which is like dirty kitchen can’t help but be dirtied by soot and grease. Those who worked the most and produced the most to serve and protect their interest get to work longer in the kitchen. Noynoy was no mad Chef but more of a bored dishwasher. It need guts and lack of motivation to be laid back and turn one’s back to the need for achievement to have accomplished almost nothing. It is not really difficult perhaps to decipher Noynoy’s preference not to accomplish much while working in a dirty kitchen. But that’s not why Noynoy won the Presidency. May be he won also because of the dirt and grease thrown at him he adroitly avoided during the election campaign.
P Noy’s case seems to indicate unprecedented low and historic shallow: those criticisms hurled against him. There’s substance and irony to accept the make over done by fiction writers on the biblical adage: the sins of the father shall not visit upon his children. Turned on its head it becomes: the sins of the children shall not visit upon the father.
Philippine politics during the last four decades had been awash with prodigal fathers producing prodigal sons. Ninoy and Noynoy were and are not prodigals. Suffrage gave Noynoy the presidency. Along came the custom built prodigal sons he could not refused. To imagine a stretch, Noynoy became the Pinoy farmer who is tolerant and seldom use the stick on his sluggish carabao who helps him plow the barren soil. What is he then to do with his prodigal children who are supposed to help him work the land? When these children don’t even have his genes?
You are the farmer-father, your adopted sons help you till the land but they keep on stealing the fruits of yours and neighboring farms. Do you heed your neighbors shouting: kill them, KILL THEM ?
It remains debatable the salience of the bible when it profess: the sins of the past generation should not be visited upon succeeding generations. Readers may ask. What’s the point behind these seemingly scattered neurons este thoughts from dirty kitchen to pomology ( fruiticulture) , to biblical passages ? It is these. I can neither just write P Noy is good nor bad. Or a daan merely tuwid or baluktot. Or just say I see ghosts collecting their fifteen thirty salaries lest I be mistaken as paid write-shitpiece, este mouth piece. Political mouths don’t spit in context. Which most wannabe contextual writers do.
To rate or grade P Noy’s performance in a score of 1 to 10 in governing in effect less than 100 million people scattered in 7, 107 islands of a land area of 300,000 square kilometres with the poor crowding 143 cities (as Sept 2012) during the period of more than four years ONLY with his country climbing weakly as number 117 among >200 nations in the UN Human Development Index and give him a score of 7 out of ten and rake his performance over the coals of objective scrutiny, what do you do to remain contextual while disregarding criticisms of his detractors ?
From a grade of 7 from the highest 10, perhaps it is best to forget 7’s golden elements, the hallelujahs of accomplishments, the sterling of political perception since they can only be smoke and ashes of burnt coals. Concentrate instead on the unfulfilled 3’s; red hot coals over which P Noy ‘s shortcomings can be barbecued to his detractors’ taste.
What is that? If that is to be Part II of this piece for BALITA November 16-31 issue. Martin Luther King Jr. was adamant and heroic to his people when he uttered : “I have a dream.” But P Noy is better: He has a political platform written in paper or in video-audio where any critic worth his salt will find the burning coals to rake him over.
But readers should not be mislead, just keep in mind this piece title: NO SECOND TERM FOR PNOY BUT A NEW OPEN ENDED MANDATE. To serve as long as he wants. BUT ONLY the critics (and clerics?) and likely victims of Tuwid na Daan need worry. In 2009 he was at the gate of the grandest party, but needed to be pushed to get in. Now he is raring to go home when the party ends. Another grandest party coming at mid 2016? NO WORRY ! This guy—not being a money or power junkie—is psyched to always go home. That’s why PNOY does not want a second term. ****