Aquino’s disconnect and the monster it produced
THE MOST bizarre social media post I have seen in recent days was that of a Facebook user so incensed at another post that ranted at Rodrigo Duterte’s rape joke. The tirade left many astonished. She said she would gladly offer her daughter to be raped by Duterte. As if that wasn’t enough, she proceeded to say that it would be an honor for the family. By now, what’s no longer more weird is the Duterte supporters who threaten to kill those who oppose their candidate.
Manila must have awakened by now to the specter of Rodrigo Duterte hovering over the country’s center of power. It should. Never before has there been such an inexplicable collective behavior toward a presidential candidate that shuns all civilized values and mores.
There seems to be a national surprise that such a local tyrant as Duterte exists. But there are many. That is part of Manila’s naiveté. So many local tyrants have risen in many parts of the country while Manila was not looking. They start at the barangays. Something ails our political system; in fact, the system needs intensive care, and Duterte is not part of the cure.
One must not forget that Duterte has thrived on the ills of political dynasticism. A registered voter in Davao City casts his/her ballot for a Duterte for mayor and for another Duterte for vice mayor. When sister-mayor is unable to run for reelection, brother-vice mayor takes over. But Davao City certainly is not the only local government unit caught in this anomaly.
Many have been pondering where this strange behavior we currently see is coming from. Six years of the current Aquino presidency simply ignored the latent public anger that precisely has led to what has become this grotesque reality looming in the nation’s political horizon.
Precisely because Mr. Aquino’s popularity index has remained steadily high, it was least expected that the disconnect would come from his very self. While insisting on the narrative of the straight path, he himself violated it with the Disbursement Acceleration Program. When the Supreme Court shot it down, he whined like a spoiled brat, despite the evidence of graft.
It was no straight path when he bribed senator-judges who voted for Renato Corona’s impeachment. He wanted the impeachment, but he did not follow the straight, proper path to that impeachment. That three senators were jailed for corruption under his administration did not add luster to his narrative. Until now, no Liberal Party big fish has been jailed. That is unbelievable.
Mr. Aquino and company have even succeeded to relegate to the dustbins the signs of graft in the construction of the Iloilo Convention Center.
Mr. Aquino himself made Mamasapano the biggest farce of his administration. Alan Purisima will soon be in jail, but that would not be enough. Did Purisima “self-appoint” himself to lead that snafu? Of course, he didn’t. The person who put him there must be convicted—and that person is Benigno S. Aquino III.
Mr. Aquino’s narrative was severely eroded by his habit of protecting kin and friends who clearly screwed up big time in their public duties. Aside from Purisima and the late Virginia Torres, the greatest hypocrisy of his administration is the Manila airport and all the lousy services it provides as the worst airport in the world. This is an understatement: His cousin Jose Angel Honrado must be sacked, banished, even jailed, if need be, for dereliction of duty.
Now comes Kris Aquino and her use of the presidential chopper for her campaigns. The Aquinos seem to be a family that has run out of delicadeza and yet they insist that they are straight and clean. Each time they do this, they redirect “daang matuwid” to a dead end.
Daang matuwid has evolved into a farcical narrative about a government that had the potential for doing good. It has failed, not because it was hard put to do good but because it ignored the public’s yearning for good governance and did not see the repercussions of such a failure in 2016 among Filipino voters. That explains Mar Roxas’ current basket-case campaign.
The hypocrisy of daang matuwid now explains the phenomenon of what some have called the “Dutertards”—albeit we have to admit that not all Duterte supporters are Dutertards. But the fact remains that Mr. Aquino made a mockery of the law, and a surreal cultic movement of one who is “a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler” now wishes to replace it.
The irony is, the perceived solution is someone who himself has made a mockery of the law. The Duterte dynasty is too blatant to be ignored. For what interests four Dutertes must have to hold on to power in Davao (it used to be six, with late father, Vicente, serving as governor and brother Benjamin as councilor)?
His alleged connections to drugs and smuggling in Davao are no sneezing matter. It behooves every Duterte follower to ask about it. It is a valid question in an election, but which his followers have so far failed to ask. There is also the matter on the 11,000 ghost employees the Commission on Audit reportedly questioned. To say it is a smear campaign only underscores the similar, usual lame answers other Janus-faced trapo have given in defending themselves against allegations of corruption. Ad hominem statements are not the way to real change.
We cannot turn medieval on our image of leadership and go back to a leader whose ilk dominated the prehistoric era: a headman-chieftain accorded vast powers, including the power to trample on human rights and to silence public opinion by killing critics.
Two weeks left before the elections and we have not yet guaranteed that one mockery of the law is not remedied by another mockery of the law. We have yet to know the altruistic meaning of democracy and what it should stand for.
