Very bad idea

President Benigno Aquino III. Screengrab from RTVMalacanang Youtube account

P-NOY’S statement was really ambiguous. On one hand, he did say: “When I took this office, I recall that it was only for one term of six years. Now, after having said that, of course, I have to listen to my bosses.” On the other hand, he said as well: “(It doesn’t mean) I would automatically go after an additional term.” Listening to his bosses, he said, simply meant making sure that the reforms he started would continue after his term.

Only the first part of that statement grabbed the public’s attention. For good reason: It is attention-grabbing. Only the day before, I was listening to Sonny Coloma on TV saying government wasn’t minding the issue of succession, it had better things to do, like meeting the people’s needs. Then suddenly this. It’s not only attention-grabbing, it seizes the public by the neck and makes it face that way.

Jojo Binay puts his protestation politely: “Any national leader would want to hear the voice of the people on issues that have

far-reaching consequences. What is important is that the voice he hears is authentic and genuine, not one manufactured by quarters with vested interests who are driven mainly by self-preservation.”

Friends and strangers, as well indeed as the denizens of social media, are less polite. Of course P-Noy listens to his bosses, they say, it’s just that his bosses are Mar Roxas and Butch Abad. Or making a pun on “bosses,” “Ang boses (voice) na naririnig niya ay sa mga kaibigan niya.”

The criticism has been swift and widespread and won’t dissipate easily even after the Palace’s subsequent clarification that P-Noy won’t mount Charter change during his time. That criticism hasn’t just come from the usual suspects, though they have jumped at it, finding in P-Noy’s declaration an opportunity to accuse him of going against Edsa’s legacy. The legal community is up in arms, finding in P-Noy’s reason for amending the Constitution, which is the growing tendency of the Supreme Court to become domineering, the height of irony. In fact, the lawyers say, the opposite is true. It’s the executive that’s showing that tendency.

Of course, they say P-Noy won’t find it the easiest thing in the world to change the Constitution, now or later. The netizens in particular, quite apart from the self-styled oppositionists, vow to join rallies to protest it.

From where I stand however, P-Noy’s remarks about reconsidering term limits and trying to change the Constitution are a very bad idea for a far more basic reason. That is that he could run again—and lose.

If he loses, it will be a repudiation of everything he has stood for. If he loses, it will be a rejection of the very legacy he means to preserve.

The entire presumption in his running again which underlies the various objections to it is that if he does, he will win. That is by no means certain. He could lose. Indeed, if he runs again, he stands a very good chance to lose.

That is so because the conditions that made him president in 2010 won’t be there in 2016. In fact, the conditions in 2016 will be the opposite of what they were in 2010.

In 2010, he was the most reluctant to run among the candidates. He took some time to decide to do so long after people were egging him to, which most people took to be sincere. Especially with Gloria Arroyo being widely perceived as hungry for power, his reluctance held worlds of meaning and endeared him to the public, translating into phenomenal electoral numbers at the outset for someone who had come out of nowhere to contest the presidency.

Someone asked me during a forum of Aksyon Demokratiko in August 2009, why P-Noy had become so popular, and I answered that his reluctance was one of the reasons for it. While the other candidates were atat-na-atat (eager) to run, I said, he wasn’t, which appealed to the voters. An answer Korina Sanchez took offense at, figuring I was referring to Mar Roxas. I wasn’t then, I meant the candidates in general. But I do now. Roxas is still atat-na-atat to run, except that the voters want him to run all the way to the sea.

Reluctant to run is not how P-Noy will be seen in 2016.

In 2010, P-Noy was seen as the opposite of Gloria, in the same way that Cory was seen as the opposite of Marcos, for uncannily parallel reasons. P-Noy runs in 2016 and he will be seen not as the opposite of Gloria but as a variation of her. Especially in light of Gloria’s vow not to run in December 2003, which she forgot a few months later. Of course she won the following year only by helloing Garci, but that’s another story.

Of course as well, P-Noy did not make a vow not to run on Rizal’s grave, but he has something comparable. Which is that he might as well have done so on his mother’s grave. He will at least be judged by what his mother did, or did not do, which is to run again.

Not quite incidentally, if he does change the Constitution and run again, he will be the first president to have done so after Edsa. Arguably, Arroyo was the first to do it unofficially, she got close to 10 years after January 2001, but not by changing the Constitution, only by insisting on it to the letter, specifically the provision allowing her to succeed Erap. The previous presidents, except for Cory, hankered for a second term but never managed it. It would be the irony to end all ironies if P-Noy, son of the icon of democracy and an icon of democracy himself, upon whose shoulders has fallen the mantle of Edsa, would be the first to break the mold.

That irony will not be lost on the voters. As it is, P-Noy’s numbers have been falling steadily over the last year or so. Showing that his popularity is as good only as what he does.

Amid widespread opposition, P-Noy can always ram through and run again. Question is:

Will he win?