NO SECOND TERM FOR PNOY BUT A NEW OPENENDED MANDATE  (first Part)

By | November 15, 2014

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. ****