- Written by Charlie V. Manalo
Lately, Noynoy Aquino is being heavily criticized not only for his gross ineptitude in handling the latest calamity to hit the country, but also for outrightly lying in times when his bosses, the Filipino people, were expecting sincerity from him.
Going viral in the social media are excerpts for his nationally televised speech hours before “Yolanda” made landfall somewhere in the island of Samar wherein Noynoy claimed that the country’s C-130 aircrafts were “fully mission-capable,” that 32 Philippine Air Force planes and helicopters were on standby and that 20 Philippine navy ships were positioned in Cebu, Bicol, Cavite and Zamboanga.
In that speech, Noynoy had also claimed relief goods were “pre-positioned in many of the areas expected to be affected by the super typhoon.”
However, after Yolanda devastated much of Eastern Visayas, only two of the 32 aircrafts Noynoy claimed were on standby mode have been servicing the affected areas and still no Navy vessel has been in sight yet. With regard to the relief goods Noynoy said had already been pre-positioned, it had to take days before the goods could reach the super typhoon’s survivors. In fact, a woman who had been interviewed by a foreign media stated that while she and her baby had survived the wrath of Yolanda, she was not sure if they could survive the relief and rescue mission of the government.
And then, just minutes after the Supreme Court (SC) issued its ruling on the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) Tuesday, Noynoy, despite the promise he made that he would not leave Tacloban until the relief operations are very much well in place, arranged an immediate flight back to Manila.
Well, maybe he had to celebrate as the SC ruling striking down the pork would only mean he now has the only access to the entire national budget and all the lawmakers now, given the fact they are members of a co-equal body, would now become beholden to him, seeking his blessing for every project they intend to sponsor or initiate. But that’s a different story.
Anyway, in fairness to Noynoy, I think his critics are very wrong this time. I don’t think Noynoy is a liar. When he mentioned those aircraft and sea vessels on standby and the pre-positioned relief goods, I don’t think he was prevaricating. It was never his intention, I believe.
As I see it, he made mention of those things because that is what he wants to believe — that he is a ruler of a super power with fleets and fleets of aircraft and vessels he could command at the flick of his fingers and stockpiles of goods he could drown down to the people like manna from heaven whenever the need arises.
When he made a promise he would not leave Tacloban until the relief operations are well in place, I believe that the way he saw it, the government relief operation was already in place the way he envisioned it.
So, was he lying on those two instances? No, I don’t believe so. To put it more accurately, Noynoy made those pronouncements because he is living in his own make-believe world — a dreamland.
In fact, going viral simultaneously with Noynoy’s statements which some of his critics claims are lies, is a video footage of newspaper columnist Carmen Pedrosa.
In the video, Pedrosa, though a close friend of Noynoy’s mother, the late Cory, forewarns the Filipinos into electing Noynoy to presidency.
Pedrosa, in her video uploaded in YouTube, confirms the suspicion Noynoy is suffering from some sort of mental disorder, taking medication for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Being a close friend of the Aquinos, Pedrosa claims Noynoy’s father, the late Ninoy, confided to her that he had asked a doctor friend, Steve Agular, a psychiatrist to take a look at Noynoy because in Ninoy’s own words, “walang ka-drive drive ang anak niya.”
In one instance, Pedrosa claimed Noynoy was eating halo-halo with some politician friends when he suddenly spewed the halo-halo he was eating on one of them. And instead of apologizing, Pedrosa said Noynoy just laughed!
Does Pedrosa have reasons to vilify Noynoy? I don’t think there are. Aside from having been close friends of his parents, Carmen claims she and her husband were directors of the Ninoy Aquino Movement International.
Thus, I don’t think Noynoy ever lied to us even from Day One. Even his illusionary lines of daang matuwid and walang mahirap kung walang corrupt were not intended to deceive us. Maybe, drawing strength from Abilify and Seroquel, Noynoy was hallucinating when he coined those terms.
With regard to his unrelenting persecution of his predecessor, maybe he sees them as the villains in his fantasy world and that his KKKs are only his available allies in his fight for whatever reasons those drugs dictate him.
It is now up for the right-minded officials of our land to do something about this. In Ecuador, its Congress ousted from office President Abdalá Bucaram who was nicknamed “El Loco” (The Crazy One) on the simple suspicion of his being mentally unfit to rule.
But here, all indications maybe would point to our president having some mental disorder as evidenced by his one-track thinking (Imagine, sticking to his pronouncement that Yolanda’s casualties would not reach 2,500!).
It is time to let him go. And if he insist on being a leader, well, we could confine him to the presidential suite of a mental institution where he could be the leader of all the patients there.
Back to her old ways. A friend of mine who had the privilege of working with the previous administration alongside Dinky Soliman said it was not unusual for the Social Welfare Secretary to repack imported relief goods and replace them with local ones as she had been doing that ever since.
It is Dinky’s belief, he said that recipients of relief goods do not deserve imported items or even food thus, she has to replace them with available local products such as sardines, noodles, National Food Authority rice and beddings acquired from local cheap stores, then keeping the imported goods for herself.
No wonder it is taking an infinity before the relief goods reach the intended recipients. Dinky still has to repack the hundreds of thousands of bags coming from foreign donors.
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