To be fair to President Benigno Simeon ‘BS’ Aquino III’s apologists, they have a point. What is the return on an investment in time, effort, and disruption related to the ouster of the president that Filipinos are clamouring for nowadays?
Indeed, perhaps it may be true that the “extra benefits” of ousting BS Aquino when he has just a little more than a year to go may not stack up to the costs involved. After all, the president already has five years of damage wrought upon the country behind him. There would have been much more to be gained had he been removed from office much much earlier; or, better yet, not voted into office to begin with. Perhaps, nine Hong Kong tourists would still be alive today. Maybe a lot of the infrastructure projects started before his ascent to power may have been finished by now. The Maguindanao massacre could have been resolved or well on its way to that end at least. More importantly, maybe peace in Mindanao will have been achieved — under the terms of the Philippine government rather than within a framework hopelessly diluted by the demands of a bunch of Islamic terrorists who presume to represent Filipino Muslimdom.
Unfortunately, President BS Aquino had for five long years been the Philippines’ reluctant president. On top of the profound damage he’s done to the national psyche — the key one being advocating the notion that the country’s wretched poverty is a direct result of corruption and, thus, absolving an entire people of responsibility for their personal fortunes — Aquino has squandered his time as president adding a layer of no results.
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The nebulous notion that he’s implemented “reforms” that supposedly put a severe dent on the endemic corruption that, we are told, is hobbling the country’s march to progress is built upon his singular key achievement of impeaching former Chief Justice Renato Corona. Ironic, considering that this seminal “achievement” was found to have been funded by dirty money paid to crooked “senator-judges”. From whatever angle you look at this case of blatant political trickery, all the money trails lead back to President BS Aquino. Belatedly (but better than never) the mechanism used to funnel all this dough to crooks in Philippine Congress, the cleverly-worded Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), was declared illegal by the Supreme Court.
And the lying. Oh, the lying. President BS Aquino has spent the last five years sacrificing the honour of his presidential word at the altar of his Yellow compadres and partners in crime. Lying about pork. Lying about his dealing with China and the role his henchman ‘senator’ Antonio Trillanes played in the duplicitous backchanneling that cost the country a fortune in diplomatic capital with the regional elephant. Lying to the public about the government’s level of disaster preparedness. And now lying about not being responsible for coddling murderous Islamic terrorists even after they butchered 44 of the Philippine police’s finest.
Which is why all of his speeches suck — because they were all really just disguised cover-ups of all of the above lies. No other president in the Philippines’ history has ever delivered cringeworthy speeches as consistently as President BS Aquino. It is, indeed, difficult to be eloquent when you have stacks of lies to gloss over and lots of failures to spin positive stories around.
Not surprisingly, his handlers’ primary appeal to the public is to cut the president some slack. He deserves a break, as their thinking goes, for his transgressions because it was all done in “good faith”. He can be excused for his insensitivity because he lacks a wife to keep him emotionally levelled. He deserves all the breaks in the world because he is The Reluctant One — “dutifully” taking up the call to service that rang across the nation following the death of his mother.
Tough luck for Filipinos then. Their voters ate that all up electing a reluctant unqualified presidential candidate who would later capitalise on that very archetype he filled to engineer all of the above excuses. Convenient indeed.
As to the idea of the Vice President happening to be none other than Jejomar Binay being made out to be the “major cost” of a BS Aquino resignation or removal, well, I must say I am really not that surprised that Aquino apologists would come up with an argument like that. That Binay is made out to be the biggest reason to keep Aquino in office says a lot about the intellectual arsenal brought to bear by Aquino’s apologists. Might we remind everyone that Binay was also elected by popular vote to be next in line as President of the Philippines should the president fail?
There’s no point in that, of course. The idea that, in a democracy, leaders are a reflection of the voters who elected them is lost in the sorts of minds that elect — and continue to apologise for — people like BS Aquino. That both the offices of the President and Vice President are occupied by men Filipinos now despise says a lot about what sort of society the Philippines is home to.
Where to then given the bind Filipinos find themselves in — stuck with a failed president who will likely spend the rest of his term hiding behind his late mother’s yellow skirt? That’s not such a difficult future to face. Filipinos, after all, have muddled through nationhood since Day One. Presidents may come and go, but the constant in Philippine society is a predisposition to latching onto all the wrong arguments and, failing to learn from the consequences of that habit. Year in and year out.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
no more known yellow rulers and their cohorts be ruling our motherland the Philippines. they should be all prosecuted for what they’ve done to the Pilipino people. i’ll repeat it again…’NO MORE KNOWN YELLOW RULERS’
think about it. why is pnoy rushing the bangsamoro nation? seem something personal interest?
plan A: Bangsamoro nation
plan B: ancestral domain
plan C: ???????????
C: Nobel prize…
but i still want him to finish his presidency because by resigning now would be more dangerous for the Filipinos as we will be in the hands of binay. of course, if it is possible to call for a snap presidential election, then it might be good but this is too far-fetch considering the remaining 17 months for him.
Did you say Ig Nobel Prize? š
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize
What do you do, if you hire a Carpenter to Repair your house…instead, he is destroying your house…You Fire Him…to prevent the Damage…and make him pay for the Damage, he has done…
Let us kick out the Idiot…we can have a Snap Election for President and Vice President…
Aquino must face the Crime of Treason, like his Grandfather…for having an “UnHoly Alliance” with the MILF/ISIS/Al Queda and the NPA…he must answer for the Death of the 44 police/soldiers…
What do you do, if you hire a Carpenter to Repair your houseā¦instead, he is destroying your houseā¦You Fire Himā¦to prevent the Damageā¦and make him pay for the Damage, he has doneā¦
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How do you do that to a president? How do you kick a president? I mean, is there an indication that a ‘kick’ is possible?
Yes, the Filipino has struggled year in and year out BUT not because they elect the wrong leaders, no! The elections, in the first place, are rigged.Filipino’s get the leaders the oligarchs want them to have. To even insinuate that it is any other way than exactly that way is to be even more naive than the allegedly naive ‘massa’.
Human beings are not stupid to the point of not knowing how fucked they are and usually why they are fucked. Ask any Filipino, educated or not, and they will tell you that the government is corrupt.The entire country is one gigantic corruption riddled mess.The system in place is sooo unbelievably rigged to support the entrenched oligopoly and to prevent any and all upstart entity from gaining any type of progress toward upward social mobility that it is virtually impossible for anyone or anything to challenge the established order…or try to earn a decent living.SLAVE MUCH ?
Even the industries such as clothing manufacturing are unable to flourish due to the FAIL-ippines having the WORLDS highest electricity rates (there is no electricity shortage, it is a hoax!).The electricity rates make it impossible for a new company, that could employ what I personally know to be some of the most talented seamstress’s in the world,from even attempting to start a business as it is doomed before it even gets started.
THE COUNTRY IS FUCKED AND IT IS FAR FROM ONE MAN’s RESPONSIBILTY FOR THAT FACT. It is such a short-sighted view of things to blame ‘BS Aquino’,or anyone other person like GMA or E-CRAP, for the failings of the country that it is indicative of what ails the country.And that is the fact that anything short of a total removal of the system as it is, is akin to putting a band aid on a gunshot wound and think that things will somehow be OK, LOL !
If anything, it’ll be fun to see those buffoons in the Senate Committee talk smack about Binay if Binay does become President.
Yes, the Filipino has struggled year in and year out BUT not because they elect the wrong leaders, no! The elections, in the first place, are rigged.Filipinoās get the leaders the oligarchs want them to have.
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That’s taking the whole bunch and presenting them as one. I think all those you mentioned are stand-alone reason why the struggle continues. We get the wrong leaders, i.e. Erap & Gloria, so we fucked up. The elections were rigged, Marcos and Garci did it, we were fucked. Or the oligarchs did the betting for us, so we have PNoy and lots of marshmallows in Malacanang fucking the whole thing.
The rest of what you said I agree with a heavy heart because I know a lot of people share the same view and there is nothing in the horizon that is telling us that help and solution is on the way.
Sometimes I ask questions like: Why don’t we experiment in other system of governance that might work for us? We have been with the same system since liberation and we still we remain in incarceration. We cannot escape poverty and corruption. Are the oligarchs and traditional politicians (trapos) the reason why there is no movement towards opting for a new system, for a change? Will it going to be the same since we’re just transferring the same fish from a different bowl, so to speak.
There are a lot of well-meaning people that really wants genuine change but there is nothing that gives confidence in them that such idea is possible in the immediate or even distant future. I think change will come if the situation reach the level where people will no longer have a choice but to jump ship like when they kicked Marcos out in the ’80s. When the threat of disintegration, civil war and communist take over stared people in the face it resulted in the determination to cut and cut clean from the clutches of dictatorship.
Honestly, in spite of what I’m reading on this blog and observing the moving political and social variables, I don’t see any sign that we’re heading on that direction. Yet.
PNoy will be “ousted” in any case in 18 mos. It’s called ending his term.
And Binay can still succeed him, if the electorate vote for him.
Can we please stop resorting to “People Power” whenever we feel like it?
The reluctant will heed wisdom only when the confidence exhibited by the righteous awakens the seed of introspection,and the awareness of accountability, into the psyche of the uncertain.