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There was a general sigh of relief when President B. S. Aquino III failed to blast the Supreme Court again, after doing so at least twice before, for declaring his P167-billion Disbursement Acceleration Program null and void.
But he could not end his 92-minute “State of the Nation Address” without creating a “hate object;” so he pounded his “critics” in lieu of the Justices. He called them “the enemy of the people” and accused them of running an “orchestra of negativism” to deny the people their rights.
They are a noisy throng with closed minds, living in a world all their own. And they are desperate, PNoy said. Even before he became president, they were already serving him negative commentaries for breakfast, slander for lunch, insult for supper, and intrigues for midnight snack. He doubts they would stop even after he’s out of office.
He spoke of his “second life” after he survived an ambush during the 1987 coup attempt against his late president-mother Cory, where he was wounded. Then be bared his darkest fears. He said he could not help but think that one day someone just might succeed in planting a bomb on stage where he was going to speak.
That, I thought, was a most unfortunate imagining and imagery, which should not have been articulated by this President.
I cannot imagine any critic wanting to do him any physical harm. I would risk life and limb to protect him from any physical harm within my power to prevent, no matter how poorly I thought of his fitness for the office. As head of state, he has the grace of state; as a Christian, I see in him, as in everybody else, the face of Christ.
Therefore any suggestion that his life could be threatened by a critic could only serve to muzzle criticism and stifle dissent. That’s rather cheap.
There is one other reason why I find PNoy’s imagining a bomb being planted on stage a bit unfortunate. It recalls one incident in our political history which the Aquinos may not want to play around with. I refer to the August 21, 1971 Plaza Miranda bombing incident.
On that day four grenades were thrown into a Liberal Party grand political rally. Nine were killed, 98 injured, including nearly all the LP senatorial candidates on stage. Communist and LP propaganda instantly blamed the incident on Marcos, who in turn blamed it on the communists.
It took years for the truth to surface, and when it finally did, it vindicated Marcos and exposed the hand of the communists. But then, as now, people asked the question: where was PNoy’s late father, Ninoy Aquino, the LP secretary-general, during the incident? Why was his absence never sufficiently explained?
To the best of my knowledge, that question was never satisfactorily answered. Now, in confessing his darkest fears, PNoy, might end up giving this long unanswered question a new lease on life. This is no way to protect his parents’ legacy, which, he said, he would never put at risk. Will Filipinos now demand that we open up the historical file on the Aquinos? And what if the facts do not bear out the myth?
With at least three impeachment complaints filed against him in the House, all from his former supporters and allies on the Left, and thousands of police and seven sets of razor barbed wire road blocks on Commonwealth Avenue to prevent some 15,000 leftist marchers from coming close to the SONA site, PNoy tried to put up a brave face. But the evident fracturing of his support in the House must have had a truly jarring effect on his psyche.
This could explain his increasingly somber tone as he spoke. Although PNoy had begun his speech by saying he still had one more SONA to go, he ended recalling what he used to hear as a young adult, “Finished or not, pass your paper.” And he could feel the pressure building up.
Should he pass his paper now? He seems to believe that if his role is just to begin what others would finish, then he could count on others to do just that. From the religious sector, he believes he could count on Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, INC Supreme Leader Ka Eduardo Manalo, Brother Eddie Villanueva of Jesus is Lord, Father Catalino Arevalo, S. J., resident theologian of the Ateneo and said to be Aquino’s spiritual adviser, and Father Jet Villarin, S.J., president of the Ateneo.
This is a bit pretentious because these men have long been in the service of the common good long before he erupted into public space. He is like a small candle asking the sun to take over when it signs off.
Somehow the media saved the day by focusing on PNoy’s flight to emotionalism and sentimentality, and not talking about the emptiness of the SONA. But nothing could prevent reality from staring the nation in the face. It laid bare a failed presidency, a debauched Congress, a fractured republic, a betrayed citizenry.
Aquino has reached a deadend. As a famous wit once said, the end has come except that it is not yet. But he is finished, for all intents and purposes. He can no longer govern. Caught in his quagmire, he can no longer move without sinking more deeply. Whether it’s time or not yet, he’s got to pass his paper now.
fstatad@gmail.com
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