You can't take security for a ride

There wouldn’t have been such a big fuss over the plan to buy a bullet-proof/bomb-proof vehicle for Noynoy Aquino hadn’t he been such a hypocrite in the first place. Popular or reviled, a president needs to be protected and it is the duty of the state to give him that protection.

Had Noynoy been given that kind of protection the moment he stepped into office, there wouldn’t have been any controversy regarding the intended purchase. Noynoy may have his critics, but there are some things they accept as a given.

Presidential protection is one such given. I did not vote for Noynoy and I never believed he was fit to be president. But having won, it never became part of my criticisms to deny him the protection his office required.

In fact, in many articles I have written about his stupid “no wang-wang” policy, I have repeatedly insisted that it was ridiculous for him as president not to use sirens during his road trips and for his convoy to stop at every red light they encounter.

To me the use of sirens and for somebody as important as a president to be able to move on land unhampered is not a matter of arrogance but of security. Causing minor traffic jams is too small a price to pay for the security of a president.

“Pero maghinambug man gyud si Noynoy. Gusto man gyud ingnon nga pareha ra siya sa common nga tao nga mo-urong pud og stop light. Unya karon, unsa na man. Motiabaw man diay. Hadlok man diay sa iyang seguridad.”

Sorry I had to say that in Cebuano because it is a language that can sometimes convey the message in its purest context, due to its unique nuances. To those who did not understand it, all it meant was that, for all his pretenses, he still realizes the need for protection.

Now, this is not to say that I am now against the plan to provide Noynoy with a vehicle designed to give him maximum protection. I have never wavered in my conviction that it does more harm to the nation if something untoward happens to a president, even one I dislike.

Therefore I fully agree with the plan to provide Noynoy that bullet-proof/bomb-proof car, no matter how much it costs. I am just bringing this issue now because, if this is where we were eventually headed, why the heck did Noynoy have to drive us around.

That is the problem with pretenses, because the truth will still ultimately emerge. Now Noynoy is faced with a question he will be hard-pressed to answer: What was all that high profile albeit risky business of driving around with no sirens and stopping at red lights all about?

I am beginning to suspect that all along Noynoy had been scared for his life but that the people around him thought it would make for good copy and wonderful photo opportunities to have the president move about unprotected like the common man, sharing with him life’s daily miseries.

As his popularity waned, which is what happens when you do not walk the walk and talk the talk, Noynoy became increasingly scared until one day he simply snapped. In a speech at the anniversary of the Presidential Security Group, the president said people were out to get him.

As I described that disclosure in a previous column, it looked like a bolt of lightning in a clear blue sky. Nobody saw it coming. Everybody was caught flat-footed. It was so unexpected because it existed only in Noynoy’s head. All along Noynoy was scared stiff. 

On hindsight, his friends shouldn’t have made Noynoy go through such a living hell. Can you imagine his heart thumping out of his chest as he sat in his ordinary car with no “wang-wang” and getting stuck in traffic? And you thought he was enjoying it?

The revelation by Noynoy that a plot to remove him was afoot sent everybody scurrying with explanations that eventually clashed. What took the cake for me was when the Palace denied that such a plot existed, in effect contradicting the president. Ha ha ha.