MARIE YUVIENCO | SONA Valuation

By: Marie Yuvienco
InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5

But of course he wasn’t going to go on pitbull mode at his fifth State of the Nation Address.

To those who were drooling at the prospect of another broadside by President Aquino against the Supreme Court for its decision on the Disbursement Acceleration Program, the President’s speech left them with a bad case of dry mouth when it concentrated on the milestones of his administration for the last 12 months.

Gone were the threats and rebukes, which was sort of a downer because everyone was expecting the President to follow through.

Apparently, the good people in Malacañang forgot about the rules of plant-and-pay-off: the plant was unmistakable enough two weeks ago when on July 14, the President appeared on national television to defend the DAP and to criticize the Court, and everyone was expecting the pay-off to be spectacular during the SONA last Monday.

Instead, there was a whole lot of credit sharing. Darn!

This isn’t to say, though, that Malacañang has capitulated on the issue of the DAP. That the President barely mentioned the DAP at all should not be construed to mean that bygones have become bygones and to be honest, I am keenly interested in seeing how the drama plays out in the next few months while the Court deliberates on the government’s pending motion for reconsideration.

In any case, a probable reason why Aquino chose to let the issue of the DAP slide, at least for the occasion, can be discerned easily enough. At this point, we need to review a little history.

Recall that Aquino is not really the sort to let titles and the occasion prevent him from speaking his mind, and in fact, he can get testy with even a Chief Justice who, in theory, is his peer.

To this end, stop thinking in terms of license plates and start adhering instead to the doctrine that the executive, legislative and judicial departments are co-equal and coordinate branches of the government.

During his inauguration, Aquino delivered a very public slap on the face to then Chief Justice Renato Corona when the president-elect chose to have his oath of office administered by Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales who, after she retired from the Court, Aquino appointed as the Ombudsman.

Corona managed to put a good face on things, yet later proved that revenge is a dish best served cold when he led the Court into declaring unconstitutional Aquino’s first executive order creating a Truth Commission to investigate the mysterious dealings of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

And then, in December 2011, during the First National Criminal Justice Summit organized by the Department of Justice, Aquino ramped it up.

In front of a formal gathering of the country’s highest-ranking officials in law and law enforcement, Aquino, who was invited as the keynote speaker, took the podium to attack the Supreme Court while the personal object of his ire, Renato Corona -- also a valued guest -- sat only an arm’s length from him.

To believers of the saying that there is a time and place for everything, Aquino’s tirade was unfortunate, but again, Corona put on a happy face -- he was getting adept at doing that.

Going back to a possible explanation why Aquino’s SONA all but ignored the DAP issue, it could be because sitting in the gallery was Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

The point, I think, has been made that Aquino is not wont to give someone a free pass even if that someone is a Chief Justice. He was openly derisive to Corona who, we need no reminding, was appointed Chief Justice by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. At the time, he could afford to do that.

It would, however, send the wrong message if he were to treat Sereno the way he treated Corona: Aquino, after all, had chosen Sereno to be Chief Justice even though she was then one of the most junior members of the Court. What would it say about her and -- more importantly -- what would it say about him had he used the SONA to rebuke the Court in the presence of his personal choice for the most senior magistrate in the land? Any ill feeling between appointer and appointee will of course not be shown in public.

So no, I don’t think Malacañang has surrendered on the DAP. Far from it. If anything, I’d say the administration is weighing its options, the supplemental budget proposal being one of them.

The time during which the 13 Justices who unanimously voted against the DAP -- a number of whom ironically include Aquino’s own appointees to the Court -- mull over the government’s motion for reconsideration could be the calm before the storm.

Based on past behavior, Aquino did not back down on Corona, so it’s unlikely he’ll back down on the DAP given the vehemence of his public venting.

We live in interesting times indeed.