Questions for Noynoy

8 September 2009

by Antonio C. Abaya
from Standard Today

In my article of August 18, titled No, no, Noynoy, I posed four questions to Noynoy Aquino as he goes on spiritual retreat with the Pink Sisters, to “discern” whether he should run or not for the presidency in the May 2010 elections.

My sense is that Noynoy had already decided to run when he talked to Mar Roxas two weekends ago, before he left for Davao and Zamboanga for his retreat. That is what Roxas said, that Noynoy had told him at the start of their four meetings, that he had decided to run for president.

So going on a spiritual retreat to “discern” whether to run or not, is just political theatre, a deliberate effort to recapture the Cory Magick in 1986 when she went on her spiritual retreat, also with the Pink Sisters, to “discern” whether or not to run in the snap elections of February 1986.

The four questions I asked of Noynoy in my Aug 18 article were as follows:

Question One: Will President Noynoy mix pro-Communists and anti-Communists in his Cabinet, as his mother Cory Aquino did during her watch? That would be a precursor to endless conflicts within his government, as it was in Cory’s.

This would have some bearing on his presidential decisions as they affect some other key issues, as I will explain in the other questions. It should be kept in mind that two of the loudest drumbeaters for Noynoy were the most virulent critics of his mother Cory Aquino’s Magick during her watch, as Kris Aquino knows only too well, when they were beating the drums for Joma Sison’s Magick.

Question Two. Will President Noynoy release the 14 “consultants” of the National Democratic Front detained by the military, as demanded by the Communists as a pre-condition for the resumption of “peace talks,” as his mother Cory Aquino did Joma and other top-ranking Communists in 1987, which directly led to military coups against her?

Again, how will President Noynoy navigate this mine field, given that his noisiest drumbeater retains his anti-military mindset, even if he has apparently tacitly, though not publicly, admitted that Joma’s Magick was a juvenile delusion?

Question Three. Will President Noynoy exempt the family crown jewel, the Hacienda Luisita, from land reform, as his mother Cory Aquino did during her watch? What would such exemption do to his presumed goal to be seen as the Reformer of Philippine Society.

Question Four. Will President Noynoy refrain from lifting a finger against the Arroyos, as his mother Cory Aquino refrained from lifting a finger against the Marcoses during her watch. Twenty three years later, not a single Marcos heir has gone to jail for his plunder. Can we foresee that 23 years from now, not a single Arroyo heir will have gone to jail for her plunder?

There are additional questions that Noynoy should ponder as he goes on retreat.

Question Five. Will President Noynoy refrain from investigating and prosecuting officials who were/are personally loyal to him, as his mother Cory Aquino did officials who were personally loyal to her?

In 1987, the beauteous mannequin and socialite Conchitina Sevilla-Bernardo ran for vice-mayor of Makati and won. Months into her new job, Conchitina was aghast at the corruption rampant in the Makati municipio (Makati was not yet a city) under Jejomar Binay, and complained about it to President Cory Aquino.

President Aquino is said to have begged off doing anything about it, on the grounds that Binay was a loyal follower and supported her and Ninoy during the dark days under Marcos. Whereupon Conchitina resigned from her position. Would President Noynoy learn anything from this episode, since Binay is one of his backers?

Question Six. Will President Noynoy dilly-dally – or go on retreat again with the Pink Sisters – on the question of the Visiting Forces Agreement with the US, as his mother did on the question of the US military bases agreement in 1991?

During the debate on the US military bases in 1990-1991, President Aquino pointedly took a neutral position, no doubt torn between the advice of her pro-Communist Cabinet members and their allies in media – including Noynoy’s principal drumbeater – to scrap the bases agreement, and her own instinctively pro-American leanings to extend it.

President Aquino did not take a position until the last few weeks before the Senate vote. She led a march in favor of the bases agreement that pointedly passed in front of the Senate hall (in the old Legislative building on P.Burgos street) and into the Luneta where she spoke before a pro-US bases rally.

But by that time, it was too late. Public opinion had shifted against the US bases, thanks to a virulently anti-American Manila media – including Noynoy’s noisiest drumbeater – and the US bases agreement was scrapped by the Senate. How would President Noynoy and the Pink Sisters handle the VFA?

Question Seven. How will Present Noynoy and the Pink Sisters solve the looming power crisis?. In 1987 his mother Cory Aquino, under pressure from environmentalists and anti-US bases activists (who connected the horror at the US bases’ presumed nuclear weapons with the horror at nuclear energy in general) ordered the mothballing of the completed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.

That removed 620 mw from the projected capacity of Napocor’s power generation program. This major slack could have been made up for by the about-to-be completed 300 mw Calaca power plant in Batangas and 300 mw Masinloc power plant in Zambales. But these two power plants were not commissioned by President Cory because of environmentalists’ objections to their use of coal, then as now considered a dirty fuel.

The resulting power shortage resulted in debilitating power outages in Metro Manila and other areas that lasted up to 10 hours everyday in 1991-92, and stunted the country’s GDP to negative 0.6 percent in 1991 and positive 0.3 percent in 1992, causing the closure of hundreds of enterprises and the loss of jobs for hundreds of thousands of workers.

It also forced thousands of private households (including mine) and thousands of offices, shops and factories to buy and operate their own generators during the outages, adding considerably to their overhead expenses and, more importantly, generating more pollution than what the environmentalists had hoped to prevent by blocking Calaca and Masinloc from operating.

There is a lesson to be learned from this and the other episodes, and that lesson is: wishy-washy leadership cannot solve the country’s problems, even if it is blessed by the Pink Sisters, glamorized by genetic lineage, and fortified by Magick.