A Private Citizen’s Review BENIGNO SIMEON AQUINO III: THE ‘UNPRESIDENTIAL’ PRESIDENT

By Manny Pinol

About two years ago, I asked my friend, Davao City Mayor Rody Duterte, what he thought of President Benigno S. Aquino III as President and leader of the Filipino people.

“Masyadong palaban,” Mayor Duterte, then vice mayor of the city, said of his former colleague in Congress. (He’s always in a fighting mood.)

Mayor Duterte’s candid description of President Aquino was perfect to a T. It pointed to both the strength and the flaw in the President’s character.

Indeed while no one could question President Aquino’s integrity and honesty as President of the Philippines, he is hobbled by his reputation of being unconventional, unorthodox and sometimes of being very personal.

Four years into his Presidency, President Aquino seems to have failed to grasp and understand that there are compulsions which come with the title President of the Republic of the Philippines.

Instead of rising above the rest and serve as compassionate and conciliatory figure among his people, President Aquino has unwittingly waded into the jostling and feuding crowd taking sides and joining the fray.

The classic examples of Mayor Duterte’s description of President Aquino was when he told Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao to “Put up or shut up” when the latter complained about the excessive tax being collected from him by the government, and when he turned his back on a businessman who was airing his grievances and complaints in a press conference in Tacloban City in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Yolanda.

I am not trying to make the impression here that I know better than the President. But I certainly know what I would like to see and hear from my President.

Here are the instances when President Aquino performed dismally as President of his people:

1. Living up to his “palaban” character aptly described by Mayor Duterte, the President’s propensity to publicly chastise and criticize his underlings comes across as actions of a fault-finding opposition politician rather than a sitting President.

Instead of calling the corrupt in government names and asking “where do you get your thick face,” I would have preferred my President to assume a Presidential persona and issue decisive and categorical statements on what he would do to eradicate corruption in government.

Engaging in name calling makes the President no better than a critical newspaper columnist or radio commentator.

2. The handling of the Sabah Crisis, where members of the so-called “Royal Army” of the Sultan of Sulu infiltrated Sabah to once again stake their claim on the territory which is rightfully and legally owned by the Sultanate, showed the President’s undesirable trait to act hastily without the benefit of a careful study conducted by a group of experts on the problem.

I would have hoped that the President convened his national security advisers and handled the problem in such a way that the Tausugs would not feel that their government was abandoning them to please the Malaysians.

Incidentally, at the height of the crisis, I sent the President a text message giving him my perspective on the handling of the Sabah Crisis and the negative reception of the people on the ground, especially in Mindanao, to the government’s reaction to the problem.

In fairness to the President, he seemed to mellow towards the last days of the crisis and the threat to arrest members of the Royal Army never happened.

3. The reports that it was the President himself who raised the bail money for former Isabela Governor Grace Padaca when she was ordered arrested by the Sandiganbayan for graft was an admirable action by a person who was helping a friend he sincerely believed was innocent of the charges.

But the problem is the person who raised the bail money is not an ordinary citizen but the President of the Republic of the Philippines who is supposed to uphold and defend the judicial processes.

By raising the bail money, the President committed a very dangerous act which showed his contempt for the judicial processes.

I understand that the President is a very loyal friend but he should just have instructed other people to help out Grace Padaca, who by the way is also my friend. Worse than bailing out Grace Padaca, the President appointed her Commissioner of the Commission on Elections even before the public could be assured of her innocence through the dismissal of the corruption charges again her.

4. Three and a half years into his 6-year term, President Aquino still has not elevated himself to a higher level, higher than us ordinary mortals including Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao.

He continues to wade among the hoi polois which could be part of his desire to be with his “bosses” and remain the People’s President.

His statement issued at the height of the Pacquiao tax controversy when he told the boxer turned Congressman to “Put Up or Shut Up” was an embarrassing and unfortunate Presidential miscue.

I would have wanted to see my President display a more conciliatory gesture by acknowledging Pacquiao’s achievements and the honor he has brought to the country. That statement could have been followed with a stern declaration that while Pacquiao is a sports hero, he, just like all the other Filipinos, will have to follow the law.

By issuing the “Put Up or Shut Up” statement, the President placed himself at the level of a griping boxer with tax woes.

5. With a self-proclaimed “Last 2 Minutes” in his term, President Aquino’s accomplishments in the area of agriculture have been very dismal, in spite of his noble intentions.

He has relied mainly on an agriculture secretary who already has pre-conceived ideas on which way Philippine agriculture should go which unfortunately is still mainly rice production, this time with emphasis on organic farming.

At the start of the President’s term, Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala fed President Aquino the information that rice sufficiency could be achieved during the period.

Finding themselves nowhere near the target of rice sufficiency, the President was deluded into believing that the Philippines is now exporting rice when in truth the rice exported was actually organic rice in limited volumes of a few tons.

Worse, it looked like nobody told the President that the exported organic rice from M’lang was a product of an effort by the Don Bosco Foundation in North Cotabato started many years ago. The only help extended by the administration was in facilitating the shipment of the organic rice to Hongkong.

Yet, this achievement was included in the State of the Nation Address of the President and made to appear as an accomplishment by this administration. I would have preferred my President to really have a hands on involvement in Philippine agriculture because this is the lifeblood of the Filipino nation.

6. I was deeply impressed by the photos of the President sleeping in a tent in Bohol following the devastating earthquake and the reports of his week-long stay in Zamboanga City during the MNLF siege. But I would have been happier had I seen photos of the President sleeping in a farmer’s hut in the hinterlands of Mindanao, not during times of calamity and emergency, but to learn more from the Filipino farmer and understand his problems, dreams and aspirations.

7. While the focus on the fight against corruption is unprecedented in Philippine history, President Aquino’s campaign against grafters and thieves in government is tainted by the perception that the anti-corruption crusade is selective with those who are close with the party in power treated with kid’s gloves.

The administration gathered all its strengths and influence to impeach the Supreme Court Chief Justice for a misdeclared Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth but it seems timid in initiating actions against administration officials linked to the pork barrel scam.

With the exception of Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon and Water Utilities chief Rene Villa who voluntarily resigned out of delicadeza, all the others have continued to hang on to their positions with nary a whimper from the Palace.

While Janet Lim Napoles has been convincingly exposed as the brains behind the pork barrel scam, the legal action against her is moving at snail’s pace.

Ironically, it is in this deeply emotional issue where the President’s brave and “palaban” statements are awaited by the people.

In spite of his dismal performance in the areas mentioned earlier, I would still rate President Aquino as one of the few leaders of this country whose integrity could not be questioned.

Detractors who are accusing the President of being the Pork Barrel King are forgetting the fact that it was during the time of the former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo when almost all of the irregularities which we are discovering now and the media are exposing were committed.

The President’s only misfortune is that in the world of real politik the party that he belongs to, the Liberal Party, had to take in divergent political groups, most of whom are left overs of the previous administration, to build a political base to win the elections.

And this is where the problem lies.

The President is now faced with the dilemma of making a choice between seeing that his campaign against corruption pushes through regardless of who is hurt or preserving the political base of the Liberal Party, which includes the corrupt and the grafters, to ensure that the next President of the Philippines will belong to the party and hopefully continue the crusade of President Aquino against corruption.

The decision which President Aquino will make in the “Last Two Minutes” of his presidency will determine whether he will be known in history as a “Great President,” or an “Un-Presidential President.”

(Photo credit: President Aquino’s photo was downloaded from his facebook page.)