P-Noy needs more empathy

“You are starting to sound like you are sorry you supported Noynoy in the last election,” a long time friend ribbed me last week. I just smiled and he continued, “Well, if you aren’t sorry, you should be.”

No, I said. I still pretty much support P-Noy and pray that he succeeds in getting the country on track in the next five and a half years. I can’t say I am confident he will be able to do it but at my age, all I can really do is hope, pray and write.

I explained that when I decided to shift my support to P-Noy last May, I was well aware of the candidate’s vulnerabilities but decided we have to fight our battles one step at a time. First order of business is to vote for an honest President. I figured Mar Roxas can cover P-Noy’s deficiencies in running anything more complicated than a gun club. Who would have thought things would happen the way it did?  

Now it seems that with P-Noy, we have to constantly remind him where the daang matuwid is. No, he hasn’t done anything yet to make us doubt we were wrong to think he is honest. But he constantly gets himself in trouble with self inflicted problems, no doubt due to lack of experience or lack of empathy or both. Sadly, he had been less of the Leader we thought he could be.

This week, media and the social networks were riled up about P-Noy’s third hand Porsche. Indeed, if Ate Glue showed lack of empathy to our suffering people by dining in Le Cirque in New York, the same can be said of P-Noy’s romance with a four and a half million peso Porsche or for that matter, Imelda’s 3,000 pairs of shoes. What was wrong for Ate Glue and Imelda is wrong for P-Noy for the same reason… it displays lack of empathy.

It hardly matters that he used his own money. Like Ate Glue’s feasting on caviar and fine wine supposedly courtesy of Congressmen Romualdez and Suarez, getting that Porsch is scandalous in a nation where half the population consider themselves poor and close to 20 percent actually go hungry. It shows the insensitivity of a cacique. It shows an inability of P-Noy to transcend his social class origins to feel the sufferings of a majority of his people.

I understand too where P-Noy is coming from when he bought the Porsche. He is obviously going through mid-life crisis. Being an old bachelor in his 50s with a thinning hair line (I can empathize with the thinning hairline bit) and a limited ability to keep relationships can be emotionally challenging. P-Noy is tao lamang and he obviously needs a testosterone fix real badly. A Porsche, rather than Prosac, is his preferred prescription for that problem.

But then again, P-Noy forgets he isn’t a normal anybody. He is President of the Republic. He presented himself to the people and promised to be the leader we can be proud of. He made a contract with the Filipino people that limits what he can do… something like the vow of chastity that priests take.

When he took that oath at the Luneta, he should have realized the Constitution he vowed to uphold called upon public officials to “lead modest lives.” Thus, he effectively agreed to push back satisfying his own wants if doing so delivers a mixed message that accentuates the great divide between our social elite, of which he is a part, and the masses. In the fishbowl world he now lives in, everything he does must inspire his people.

I also sort of recall a similar provision of the Civil Service Code which requires public officials and their families not to indulge in extravagant or ostentatious display of wealth in any form. There is also the Administrative Code that talks of “thoughtless extravagance in expenses for pleasure or display during a period of acute public want or emergency.” And because he has apparently violated the spirit and the provisions of Law requiring government officials and employees to live simply, he has also lost the moral authority to demand it from the bureaucracy.

The one word that P-Noy must learn and understand well is empathy. Without it, he cannot be the leader who will make a difference. Ate Glue is a fairly competent and even hardworking leader but the one other thing she lacked other than trustworthiness was empathy. She projected a coldness that alienated people. P-Noy, on the other hand, cannot be just the honest President who will not steal a centavo. He must be someone who empathizes with his people, even if he comes from a family of hacienderos.

Maybe what added to the gravity of the Porsche story was bad timing. The Porsche story came out in the same week that SWS released its latest report on the rise in the number of people calling themselves poor and admitting going hungry. It was also the same week when the P-Noy administration took a relatively tough line on increased toll rates, increased MRT-LRT fares, increased taxi rates and granted permission for bakers to increase the prices for bread.

The Porsche story was heaven sent for the likes of leftist propagandists. The Porsche story presented a visible image of a government leader who is not of the people and could therefore not be expected to understand their problems meeting the high cost living.Other than the fact that it might actually violate our laws, getting the Porsche goes against the image of egalitarianism that P-Noy himself proclaimed with his no wang wang message.

What we are left with is the image of a spoiled brat, not of a leader who would deliver his developing country from poverty. What he is facing after all, are problems that should keep a devoted leader busy working on affairs of the state up to way past midnight.   

For many of us who voted for him, we knew he wasn’t the sharpest pencil in the box but he did present himself as someone who is a quick learner. We figured he should be enough to get the nation to at least go in the right direction. What we found more important was his potential to inspire the people. Unless the leader inspires, our people will not do their part in nation building but rather, continue to just look out for themselves.

Unfortunately, our Great Leader has proven himself less than inspiring so far.

Empathy. Wikipedia defines empathy as the capacity to recognize and, to some extent share, feelings (such as sadness or happiness) that are being experienced by another. In other words, empathy means being sensitive to the sufferings of other people. A certain amount of empathy is needed before a person is able to feel compassion. Empathy covers a range of feelings that includes demonstrating a concern for other people that creates a desire to help them.

An effective leader must show lots of empathy to the plight of his people. And that empathy is conveyed by giving the right messages… not just what he says but what he does. It isn’t easy being President. And now that he is President, P-Noy will have to start thinking and acting like he is indeed, our Great Leader.

We apparently have to keep reminding P-Noy that the tuwid na daan is not about a race track for his Porsche. It is about getting government to function like the fine tuned engine of a Porsche. I guess if that thought comes to mind when he is speeding around in his new toy, maybe the Porsche is the best thing that has ever happened to the Filipino people. Let me remind you however, it is suicidal to hold our breath.

Beemer

A middle aged man walks into a BMW dealership. He browses around, spots the Top-of-the-line Beemer and walks over to inspect it. As he feels the fine leather upholstery, he inadvertently breaks Wind.

He looks around nervously to see if anyone has noticed his little accident. As he turns around, he sees a salesman standing right behind him. The salesman greets him, “Good day, Sir. How may we help you today?”

Very uncomfortably, but hoping that the salesman may just not have been there at the time of his accident, he asks, “Sir, what is the price of this lovely vehicle?”

He answers, “Sir, if you farted just touching it, you are going to shit when I tell you the price.”

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is  [email protected].