High expectations

In terms of competence in governance, presidential candidate Noynoy Aquino set low expectations.

But from the moment he decided to replace Mar Roxas as standard-bearer of the Liberal Party, Noynoy Aquino set the bar high for exemplary behavior among public servants. The people are his boss, he likes to say, and he has vowed to lead by example.

With that promise, the public expectation is that his alter egos in the Cabinet, if not the entire bureaucracy, will follow his lead.

We know the perils of high expectations: they can lead to deep disappointments. And the smallest infractions can draw flak. Having previously tooled around in a BMW with no one raising a fuss, Noynoy the President looked genuinely baffled by the furor stirred up by his acquisition of a pre-owned Porsche.

He’s showing the same befuddlement over the flak generated by reports about one of his aides being caught in the act of buying P2,000 worth of pirated DVDs.

The Philippines is on a watch list of countries that aren’t doing enough to enforce intellectual property rights. Some security officials have also voiced suspicion that earnings from pirated movies and music are funneled to terrorist organizations.

But despite regular raids on known havens of pirated DVDs, and despite those warnings about being in trouble with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation if caught selling, buying or watching pirated stuff, film and music pirates continue to enjoy a booming business in this country. When the price of an original-quality blu-ray pirated DVD is less than a tenth of the genuine article, who will buy the original copy in this country? Not the majority of Pinoys.

For reasons cited earlier in this article, however, P-Noy and his alter egos are supposed to set an example to the majority in being law-abiding and responsible citizens.

So Ronald Llamas can cry himself hoarse about the hypocrisy of his critics, but his critics aren’t the adviser for political affairs, with Cabinet rank, of the President who has promised to be different, to lead the nation along the straight path or daang matuwid.

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Llamas could have simply sent his bodyguards to the DVD dealer along Congressional Avenue in Quezon City. But he’s probably more careful these days about the tasks he assigns to his security escorts. The last time two of them attracted media attention, they were found with an AK-47 and four other guns in his Mitsubishi Montero when the vehicle figured in a traffic accident while Llamas was in Switzerland in October. The AK-47, licensed to Llamas, was taken out of the vehicle before investigators arrived.

Only the licensed owner is allowed to carry the gun, especially outside one’s residence, so that was a case of illegal possession. And taking it out of the Montero constituted tampering with evidence in a case of illegal gun possession.

Llamas was abroad so he was off the hook, but he got all the flak. P-Noy reportedly ribbed him about the incident. We don’t know what happened to the bodyguards, or to the person who took the AK-47 out of the vehicle; their defenders hoped the incident would simply be written off as a case of carelessness and be forgotten.

But Llamas seems to have a knack for attracting controversy. Recently he was rumored to be negotiating for a government position for exiled Communist Party founder Jose Ma. Sison.

Just days after that DVD story, Llamas was again in the news. Yesterday he was identified in one news report as the one who allegedly asked a go-between to persuade retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Serafin Cuevas to withdraw as head of the defense team in the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona. In exchange, Magtanggol Gatdula supposedly would get some leniency in the kidnapping and extortion case that led to his sacking as chief of the National Bureau of Investigation. Like the supposed go-between, both Cuevas and Gatdula belong to the Iglesia Ni Cristo. Llamas denied the story.

Llamas’ defenders have decried what they believe is an ongoing demolition job against him. But Llamas himself could be fueling some of the nasty speculation. Independent observers who have encountered Llamas in the past months have marveled that he must be the one who’s actually running the government, because that’s the impression he gives when discussing his role as presidential adviser.

If P-Noy always takes his advice, then Llamas must be doing an excellent job. And P-Noy can’t be expected to replace his favorite adviser over something that he probably believes every Filipino with a DVD player engages in, regardless of those FBI warnings.

People still remember the President firing the nation’s chief weather forecaster, who had been with the weather bureau throughout his professional life, for an erroneous forecast that led to P-Noy being awakened by a storm in the middle of the night.

Officials have bowed out of the Cabinet in the past year. Since the reasons for their departure were vague, the impression was that they left simply because P-Noy had grown tired of their faces.

For officials perceived to be close to him, P-Noy has shown greater forbearance. This has given the impression that like his predecessors, P-Noy has his own privileged cabal whose members, in his eyes, can do no wrong.

This is the impression in the case of Llamas. P-Noy should decide if it is an impression that he wants sustained along the daang matuwid.