by Lito Banayo (Malaya) Jan 14, 2010
SURVEYS are snapshots of a particular period. When you read their results, always check out when the field research was done. Because that is all the survey is supposed to tell us. If it shows the majority of Filipinos looking sad and depressed in say, October 5-12 of 2005, that’s the state of disposition of the Filipino at that point in time. If by February of 2006, the Filipino is looking sad and depressed still, that’s cause for policy makers and other people in government to wonder why. If after a series of similar findings, and the snapshot reveals the same disposition of the majority of Filipinos by the end of 2006, that’s cause for worry. And if three years later, say in December of 2009, six months before the present government that has ruled the land for almost a decade, the surveys show that Filipinos have been sad and depressed all along, plus or minus a few blips, then the snapshot has turned into a portrait. The portrait of the Filipino as one losing hope. The portrait of the government as a hopeless case. Hopeless because it has not provided the right remedies, the right solutions, and is viewed as incapable of change.
Okay, the snapshots since September 2009 have shown the looming portrait that in the forthcoming presidential elections (if they are held as normally as possible), there are really just two candidates with a high probability of making it, and that the rest of the field can only catch up by way of a miracle from heaven, which has been rare in these benighted parts since 1986. These are Noynoy Aquino, senator of the Republic for two years and six months, before that representative in Congress of the second district of Tarlac for nine years. And Manny Villar, senator of the Republic for eight years and six months, before that representative of Las Pinas, Metro Manila for nine years. During the eight years and six months that he has been a senator, Villar’s wife served in his stead as congresswoman of the same constituency.
Between September and December, a series of snapshots in between have shown that the purported administration candidate, Gilbert Teodoro, for two years Secretary of National Defense and for nine years before that, congressman of the first district of Tarlac, has marginally increased from less than a percentage point to anywhere from 3 to 4 points. It would take a miracle that even the Lord Almighty will have to work overtime and with nary a rest, for such low single-digit esteem to convert into the 35 percentage points that a three-cornered contest would require. Would-be presidential candidates with much more commanding numbers have wisely withdrawn their names from the derby, principally on account of a lack of resources, with snapshots revealing that those resources will be hard to come by. Young Francis Escudero has accepted that 2010 may not be his year. Panfilo Lacson in early June of 2009, bowed out of the race. Loren Legards has lowered her sights, along with Bayani Fernando. Both are running for the vice-presidency.
Joseph Estrada persists, hoping that a once fully-adoring masa could yet convince the highest magistracy that it would be better for them to heed the call of the crowd than the strictures of the Constitution. But the snapshots since 2009 show that the once-adoring masa have thinned out. If the Court will listen to a voice "higher" than the majesty of the law, then Estrada’s legal fate is up to the lady he visited in the stinking palace beside the stinking river last Tuesday. If it suits her purpose that he stays in the fray, then likely he will stay, or Court action is deferred until it suits her purpose that the "erudite" magistrates decide.
So there you are – it is Aquino versus Villar in May 10, 2010.
Now what do the "sovereign" people desire in 2010? Survey after survey for the past several tears have shown that the current holder of the presidency is distrusted by the people she "serves". From the moment Hello Garci was heard, her trust ratings have nose-dived, never to be repaired. Surveys show that even in the final months of her term, the public’s trust cannot be recovered.
Her spokesmen tout the kilometres of roads and spans of bridges she had "built", many of which had been planned and financed by her predecessors, but she had the good fortune to cut the ribbons to complete the same. They mouth economic statistics they themselves do not comprehend the meaning of, statistics the masses cannot eat, statistics that cannot buy the masses enough instant noodles to while the pangs of hunger back. But all for naught. The public trust is gone, never to come back. Perhaps they hope she would at least be remembered like Elpidio Quirino, appreciated by yet a few, two generations after his term of office. But Quirino’s concrete legacies, among them Maria Cristina which 50 years later still electrify most of Mindanao, and dams and irrigation canals in Central and Northern Luzon that half a century later still serve its farmers, and metropolitan low-cost housing that still exists fifty years after they were turned over to the lowly, have stood the test of time and history. Two generations from now, this writer shall have said goodbye to mortality, so in the rest of my life I shall see no vindication for little Dona Gloria. I hope my grandchildren, about a few years younger than hers, could comprehend in their middle age why Mikey’s daughter wished once upon a Christmas time, that her Lola Gloria would be president forever, and ever.
But something worse has happened in the almost ten years that Gloria’s misrule and excessive betrayal of the public trust has been suffered. The institutions of governance and democracy have been damaged, and it would take purposive, decisive, concerted and even revolutionary steps by the next leadership to repair these institutions back to health.
There is no justice in the land, except for the powerful who appoint or cause to appoint, and the rich who are willing to pay the stiff price that magistrates have put upon the judgments they purvey. Not even the highest tribunal is spared from this searing indictment that Lady Justice has become a lady of the night.
There is no order in the land, whether in the hovels of the urban poor or the countryside wracked by secession or revolutionary fever. Worse, more and more parts are like Maguindanao, ruled by the terror of guns supplied by henchmen of the regime to political warlords who assure them of the votes needed to prop their illegitimacy beyond time and sufferance.
Poverty is endemic. Manuel Villar makes much out of young urchins who swim in a sea of garbage, and sleep in the streets, and beguile us that he has the solutions, he has the vision. Noynoy Aquino tells us these problems of poverty and the woeful lack of basic services that worsen its state can be solved by honest leadership.
Who do we believe? Someone who purveys a "vision", or someone who tells us we must begin with the basic element that we have not had for the last miserable decade, which is honesty?
I should like the fact that Villar was born of lower middle class roots. I should admire the fact that he rose from humble beginnings to become one of the ten richest men in the country, never mind if he started the climb by marrying a rich man’s daughter. That after all speaks both of talent and purpose. I should respect the fact that he has been highly successful in the field of real estate and housing, and that because of these collective experiences, he may indeed possess good managerial skills. But I cannot admire, and I cannot respect, based on documents I have seen and testimonies I have heard, facts that show how his fabulous wealth has grown several times over because he did not shirk from the "kalakaran" of using his power and his influence, and took advantage of government resources in so doing.
I should not admire the fact that Benigno Simeon Aquino III was born to comfortable, even rich, beginnings. I should not like the fact that his maternal grandparents once used political influence to be able to famously acquire almost 7,000 hectares of Central Luzon from a Spanish company. I should not respect Noynoy simply because he was sired by proper genes. Gloria’s father after all was not a bad president, but look at how she has abused the public trust. In the twelve years that Aquino III has been in public life, we have not heard any unseemly deed. And I should admire the fact that Noynoy has not acted like the spoiled sons of those of his land-owning class, that he has in fact been living a simple life, and revels in simple joys. I should respect how he and his family suffered the pains of humiliation and personal tragedy when once upon a time, a dictator whose son Villar now famously sires as political ally, incarcerated their father, later to die in the hands of a yet unknown assassin at the bidding of yet unknown mastermind(s). And I do admire how the same family bore grief in dignity, and how Noynoy’s mother comported herself when a grateful nation accorded her the highest public trust. And how two decades later, that grateful nation wept when she died, still loving her, because she never betrayed their trust.
Ladies and gentlemen of the benighted land: It’s all a question of trust. Upon who of these two gentlemen should we repose our trust? Upon who of these two gentlemen should we pin our hopes for change, whether revolutionary in scope or marginal, as like a stone upon the edifice of nation-building?
On one who swears upon the graves of parents we trust that "hindi ako magnanakaw"? Or one who tells us of his vision of a polity and a society where "hindi na kailangan pang magnakaw", as if to say that there is some justification for all the stealing and all the cheating and all the accompanying lying, that has bedevilled this nation and its people? And tells us that he would remove the justifications for "pagnanakaw".
Once more I repeat: It’s all about trust, and who to trust.
Okay, the snapshots since September 2009 have shown the looming portrait that in the forthcoming presidential elections (if they are held as normally as possible), there are really just two candidates with a high probability of making it, and that the rest of the field can only catch up by way of a miracle from heaven, which has been rare in these benighted parts since 1986. These are Noynoy Aquino, senator of the Republic for two years and six months, before that representative in Congress of the second district of Tarlac for nine years. And Manny Villar, senator of the Republic for eight years and six months, before that representative of Las Pinas, Metro Manila for nine years. During the eight years and six months that he has been a senator, Villar’s wife served in his stead as congresswoman of the same constituency.
Between September and December, a series of snapshots in between have shown that the purported administration candidate, Gilbert Teodoro, for two years Secretary of National Defense and for nine years before that, congressman of the first district of Tarlac, has marginally increased from less than a percentage point to anywhere from 3 to 4 points. It would take a miracle that even the Lord Almighty will have to work overtime and with nary a rest, for such low single-digit esteem to convert into the 35 percentage points that a three-cornered contest would require. Would-be presidential candidates with much more commanding numbers have wisely withdrawn their names from the derby, principally on account of a lack of resources, with snapshots revealing that those resources will be hard to come by. Young Francis Escudero has accepted that 2010 may not be his year. Panfilo Lacson in early June of 2009, bowed out of the race. Loren Legards has lowered her sights, along with Bayani Fernando. Both are running for the vice-presidency.
Joseph Estrada persists, hoping that a once fully-adoring masa could yet convince the highest magistracy that it would be better for them to heed the call of the crowd than the strictures of the Constitution. But the snapshots since 2009 show that the once-adoring masa have thinned out. If the Court will listen to a voice "higher" than the majesty of the law, then Estrada’s legal fate is up to the lady he visited in the stinking palace beside the stinking river last Tuesday. If it suits her purpose that he stays in the fray, then likely he will stay, or Court action is deferred until it suits her purpose that the "erudite" magistrates decide.
So there you are – it is Aquino versus Villar in May 10, 2010.
Now what do the "sovereign" people desire in 2010? Survey after survey for the past several tears have shown that the current holder of the presidency is distrusted by the people she "serves". From the moment Hello Garci was heard, her trust ratings have nose-dived, never to be repaired. Surveys show that even in the final months of her term, the public’s trust cannot be recovered.
Her spokesmen tout the kilometres of roads and spans of bridges she had "built", many of which had been planned and financed by her predecessors, but she had the good fortune to cut the ribbons to complete the same. They mouth economic statistics they themselves do not comprehend the meaning of, statistics the masses cannot eat, statistics that cannot buy the masses enough instant noodles to while the pangs of hunger back. But all for naught. The public trust is gone, never to come back. Perhaps they hope she would at least be remembered like Elpidio Quirino, appreciated by yet a few, two generations after his term of office. But Quirino’s concrete legacies, among them Maria Cristina which 50 years later still electrify most of Mindanao, and dams and irrigation canals in Central and Northern Luzon that half a century later still serve its farmers, and metropolitan low-cost housing that still exists fifty years after they were turned over to the lowly, have stood the test of time and history. Two generations from now, this writer shall have said goodbye to mortality, so in the rest of my life I shall see no vindication for little Dona Gloria. I hope my grandchildren, about a few years younger than hers, could comprehend in their middle age why Mikey’s daughter wished once upon a Christmas time, that her Lola Gloria would be president forever, and ever.
But something worse has happened in the almost ten years that Gloria’s misrule and excessive betrayal of the public trust has been suffered. The institutions of governance and democracy have been damaged, and it would take purposive, decisive, concerted and even revolutionary steps by the next leadership to repair these institutions back to health.
There is no justice in the land, except for the powerful who appoint or cause to appoint, and the rich who are willing to pay the stiff price that magistrates have put upon the judgments they purvey. Not even the highest tribunal is spared from this searing indictment that Lady Justice has become a lady of the night.
There is no order in the land, whether in the hovels of the urban poor or the countryside wracked by secession or revolutionary fever. Worse, more and more parts are like Maguindanao, ruled by the terror of guns supplied by henchmen of the regime to political warlords who assure them of the votes needed to prop their illegitimacy beyond time and sufferance.
Poverty is endemic. Manuel Villar makes much out of young urchins who swim in a sea of garbage, and sleep in the streets, and beguile us that he has the solutions, he has the vision. Noynoy Aquino tells us these problems of poverty and the woeful lack of basic services that worsen its state can be solved by honest leadership.
Who do we believe? Someone who purveys a "vision", or someone who tells us we must begin with the basic element that we have not had for the last miserable decade, which is honesty?
I should like the fact that Villar was born of lower middle class roots. I should admire the fact that he rose from humble beginnings to become one of the ten richest men in the country, never mind if he started the climb by marrying a rich man’s daughter. That after all speaks both of talent and purpose. I should respect the fact that he has been highly successful in the field of real estate and housing, and that because of these collective experiences, he may indeed possess good managerial skills. But I cannot admire, and I cannot respect, based on documents I have seen and testimonies I have heard, facts that show how his fabulous wealth has grown several times over because he did not shirk from the "kalakaran" of using his power and his influence, and took advantage of government resources in so doing.
I should not admire the fact that Benigno Simeon Aquino III was born to comfortable, even rich, beginnings. I should not like the fact that his maternal grandparents once used political influence to be able to famously acquire almost 7,000 hectares of Central Luzon from a Spanish company. I should not respect Noynoy simply because he was sired by proper genes. Gloria’s father after all was not a bad president, but look at how she has abused the public trust. In the twelve years that Aquino III has been in public life, we have not heard any unseemly deed. And I should admire the fact that Noynoy has not acted like the spoiled sons of those of his land-owning class, that he has in fact been living a simple life, and revels in simple joys. I should respect how he and his family suffered the pains of humiliation and personal tragedy when once upon a time, a dictator whose son Villar now famously sires as political ally, incarcerated their father, later to die in the hands of a yet unknown assassin at the bidding of yet unknown mastermind(s). And I do admire how the same family bore grief in dignity, and how Noynoy’s mother comported herself when a grateful nation accorded her the highest public trust. And how two decades later, that grateful nation wept when she died, still loving her, because she never betrayed their trust.
Ladies and gentlemen of the benighted land: It’s all a question of trust. Upon who of these two gentlemen should we repose our trust? Upon who of these two gentlemen should we pin our hopes for change, whether revolutionary in scope or marginal, as like a stone upon the edifice of nation-building?
On one who swears upon the graves of parents we trust that "hindi ako magnanakaw"? Or one who tells us of his vision of a polity and a society where "hindi na kailangan pang magnakaw", as if to say that there is some justification for all the stealing and all the cheating and all the accompanying lying, that has bedevilled this nation and its people? And tells us that he would remove the justifications for "pagnanakaw".
Once more I repeat: It’s all about trust, and who to trust.
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