Lame mind, lame excuses, lame duck

PerryScope
By Perry Diaz

Two of the most intelligent presidents the country ever had turned out to be the most corrupt. So much for intelligent people running the government. How about those with a lame mind “ampaw” (rice crispies) as President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III called them last March 13 when he advised voters to elect someone with substance. “In essence, who really has substance and who is ampaw?” he asked the students at an open forum at the Hope Christian High School in Manila. “With ampaw, you might be happy for a while but after 10 minutes, you’re hungry because there’s nothing in it,” P-Noy said in Filipino. “Ampaw” is a pejorative for people lacking in substance.

Ampaw (rice crispies)

But P-Noy is also the target of his critics who questioned his qualifications to run the country during the 2010 presidential elections. They claimed that in his nine years in the House of Representatives and three years in the Senate, his legislative record was zero; that is, none of the bills he authored have been enacted into law. “A real ampaw,” they said.

Actually, before P-Noy raised the issue of ampaw presidential candidates, his critics have already been calling him “ampaw” for what they believed was his incompetence in governing the country. His disappearing acts during crises further exacerbated public perception of his incapacity to deal with the country’s problems.

Favorite scapegoat

P-Noy and Gloria in better days.

But nothing is more pathetic than P-Noy’s string of lame excuses for everything that had gone wrong. And his favorite excuse was to blame his predecessor Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for a lot of things that went awry under his watch. Retired Archbishop Oscar Cruz calls Gloria as P-Noy’s favorite scapegoat. P-Noy even blamed Gloria for the dip in his satisfaction ratings from a 2013 survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS). While admitting that the “pork barrel scam” had an effect on his ratings, P-Noy blamed the administration of Gloria because it occurred during her presidency from 2007 to 2009.

“In time people will see what we are doing to stop the shamelessness that happened – from 2007 to 2010 were the worst,” he told reporters in an ambush interview. “On the surveys, I have said before that we should not be governing based on ratings. We should be governing based on what is right, that is what should be our basis in making decisions,” Aquino added.

But while P-Noy believes that governing based on what is right is the way to go, it should – nay, must — always be within the purview of the law. And this was the gist of the recent Supreme Court decision, which ruled that three parts of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) are unconstitutional.

Debilitating blow

Supreme Court

The high court’s 13-0 decision had caught P-Noy by surprise. At the very least he was expecting his four appointees, including the Chief Justice, and two other justices to support DAP. There were two more justices that P-Noy had been lobbying so hard to get their support. That would bring eight votes, which would have been enough to uphold the constitutionality of DAP.

In the end, after an extended delay in issuing a ruling, the justices did what was right, not what was politically expedient. Once again, the Judiciary manifested its independence from the influence of its co-equals, the Executive and Legislative branches of the government, who used every trick to persuade the justices to uphold DAP in its entirety. But the justices resisted and dealt P-Noy a debilitating blow.

But P-Noy, wounded politically, counter-attacked and delivered a scathing tirade against the Supreme Court. In a broadcasted speech last July 14, P-Noy lambasted the Supreme Court for its ruling that DAP is unconstitutional. He warned that the Executive Branch and the Judiciary might run into a head-on collision because of the ruling. And, cryptically, he said, “My message to the Supreme Court is: We do not want two equal branches of government to go head to head, needing a third branch to step in to intervene. We find it difficult to understand your decision.” He said that the Executive Branch would file a motion for reconsideration and called on the justices to “see DAP his way.” But the justices were unfazed by the veiled threat of impeachment. They vowed to uphold “the rule of law,” not the “rule of men.”

A Manila newspaper reported that a source said that the high court is “solid” in its ruling and the justices wouldn’t be swayed in their decision. “There are no more Arroyo or Aquino appointees. It is the institution, the Supreme Court, which must be protected,” the source said.

Hacienda Luisita

Last July 21, it was reported that the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) filed an impeachment complaint against P-Noy for the P5.4 billion from DAP that was allegedly used to pay his family – the Cojuangcos — for Hacienda Luisita and other landowners under the agrarian reform program. The KMP said that the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) website carries an “admission” by its head that the agency had received the DAP funds for the landowners’ compensation.

Although, it is doubtful if an impeachment complaint against P-Noy would gain traction in the House of Representatives, it would put him on the defensive for the rest of his term and he’d be hounded to no end.

Quo vadis, P-Noy?

With an imminent defeat on his motion for reconsideration, P-Noy wouldn’t have many options left. It’s either he accepts the high court’s ruling or declare martial law and fire all the Supreme Court justices. But would he go to that extent? If he did, that would be the end of the legacy of his father, Ninoy Aquino, whose martyrdom had broken the Marcos dictatorship. Is P-Noy too bull-headed that he would dismantle the democratic institution his iconic mother, Cory Aquino, had built from the rubble of martial law? No! P-Noy wouldn’t dare do that.

But to accept defeat after all that hullabaloo of attacking the Supreme Court, P-Noy faces the inevitability of becoming a lame duck too soon. Normally, a sitting president doesn’t become a lame duck until his successor was elected, which is about 60 days prior to the end of his term. But when a president lost his political power due to diminished influence, he becomes a de facto lame duck, which begs the question: Will P-Noy’s influence wane as a result of his ignominious defeat at the hands of the Supreme Court justices?

At the end of the day, there’s nothing harder a president could swallow than being a lame duck for the last two years of his presidency, which makes one wonder how history would treat P-Noy? The last things that he’d like to be known for are: lame mind, lame excuses, and lame duck.

(PerryDiaz@gmail.com)