Postscript to Teflon

It’s easy enough to explain the Teflon. Which the foreign correspondents suggested P-Noy was—a “Teflon President.” Why were criticisms not sticking to him?

The President answered: honesty and simplicity.

On honesty: “I try to tell the truth at all times. It may be an unpopular truth, but I think I have been very consistent (in my stance). I stand by what I say and I do what I say.”

On simplicity: “We were taught by our parents to live simple lives. We were taught to be very disciplined at a very young age. During martial law, we lived under an oppressive structure. I learned then that the more you are wedded to material things, to privileges, the less effective you will be in fighting oppressive structures.”

Well, reality seems to bolster much of his self-diagnosis.

The simplicity has been a lot more conspicuous of late. During the Zamboanga siege and the aftermath of the killer earthquake, P-Noy lived in fairly bare, if not Spartan, conditions for an extended period of time. Only recently, he camped out in Bohol and carried out his meetings in a tent by wind and sea, in all its beauty and harshness, sleeping on a cot afterward.

A gimmick? That’s how it would look if another person did it. But we are a people who read body language very well, which goes with being able to play things by ear, and can readily distinguish fake from genuine. Erap eats in a poor man’s hovel with his hands, that’s genuine. Gloria does the same thing, that’s fake. That P-Noy should go on to stay for days, or even weeks, in Zamboanga and Bohol, puts the genuineness of his concern past dispute.

Just as well, the personal honesty is patent. Look at the criticisms. One is that he gave away P50 million to the senators who voted against Renato Corona, which is unethical. Two is that he made use of Butch Abad’s creation, the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), which is probably illegal: Several legal luminaries have come out to say it’s so. Three is that he retains pork in various guises, which an angry nation now finds immoral.

But nowhere there is the charge, other than by imputation, implication, innuendo, that he is dishonest, that he is corrupt, that he stole money. Indeed, at no time in office has he been accused of diverting money into his pockets. Gloria was, Erap was, even Fidel was. That’s how the criticisms slide over P-Noy. That’s what makes for Teflon.

There’s another side to this coin however.

First off is the question: Is he really completely Teflon?

Pulse Asia had kinder findings but SWS did not. “Good” is still a pretty good rating, and one that will be welcomed by some other president. But “good” from “very good,” or specifically a fall of 15 points from +64 to +49, is not and will not. So grease is sticking to the pan after all, in this case one requiring a fairly strong detergent to remove. Arguably, it was the result of a “conspiracy,” as P-Noy himself puts it; or a furious, and probably expensive, PR snow job, as others do, and he can be expected to rise once more once he mounts his own communication counteroffensive. Which Janet Lim-Napoles’ hearing offers, when, or if, it takes place—the subject suffering from all sorts of maladies, real or imagined, at the prospect of it.

That P-Noy can rise and that he will rise are two different things however. That is so because there is a formidable obstacle to it. You see it in that although P-Noy himself has gotten off relatively lightly amid the collective broadside his enemies have fired at his administration, his people have not. His people in fact, chief of them Butch Abad, have been blasted to pieces.

What this says is that the same goodwill P-Noy continues to enjoy among the public, his dip in ratings notwithstanding, does not extend to his people. The public won’t say, “They may not be able to account for billions of pesos (the Malampaya Fund, Customs), but they are basically honest, the money is just there.” The public won’t say, “They may be giving P-Noy more powers and more money than he is entitled to (the DAP, his own pork), but they mean well, they have the nation at heart.” That public is going to say, “They are devious, they have their own agenda, they have only their interests at heart.” And say it with sub-zero ratings for them.

Over the first half of P-Noy’s government, those two forces have been at play. P-Noy has been pulling his people up, and his people have been pulling him down. Until lately, his immense popularity has pretty much given his people an umbrella with which to take shelter. Which he has been only too willing to give, coming to their side when they fall into trouble.

This government is the opposite of Fidel Ramos. Ramos fired his foreign and labor secretaries, Roberto Romulo and Nieves Confesor, after Flor Contemplacion was executed, though the two officials were little to blame for it. Today, P-Noy’s people point to him when they get into hot water, such as with the DAP, such as with the growing perception the Liberal Party is building a war chest from spoils for 2016. P-Noy does not need that chest, he isn’t running.

What has worked before clearly doesn’t do so now. He’s not lifting them up, they’re pulling him down. Which force will prove stronger, or which tendency will prevail, we’ll know soon enough. But you have to wonder why even now, some of his people do not resign posthaste to lift the weight that’s sinking him. Since they cannot conceive of it as the honorable thing to do, they can always conceive of it as the practical thing to do: They bring him down, they all go down. Heaven forbid, well before 2016.

There is a limit to the efficacy of Teflon. You scratch the Teflon pan violently and the oiliest pork will stick to it.