Two contradicting positions

I did not want to go to the farm yesterday because I felt that when I was with my farm hands the last few Saturdays, the heat of the sun took its heavy toll on me. To use my time wisely, I did two things: (1) honor an invitation of the Toastmasters' by attending its function called "Breakfast with the champions" in Lapulapu City, and then (2) go thru the pile of local newspapers for items that I might have missed.

Indeed, I discovered that few days ago, Cebu's dailies reported the campaign visit by His Excellency President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III. Of course, the president would not want us to accept the fact that he came to court of votes. Really, I do not understand why he should hide the truth when it could have set him free! Like what he has been doing in his other sorties in other provinces, the president covered the façade of his election campaign with a dismissible coterie of official activities.

Well, to be accurate about it, I knew the president was barnstorming in our province but I was unable to read the details of his official public endorsement of his candidates. While in our midst, the president asked us to put his allies in the Senate. He wanted us to elect his senatorial candidates. Fine. That was his foremost objective in setting foot in our island province which he colored with announcements of the implementation of certain public works projects here.

It is always good for President Aquino III (or for that matter, any president) to have both the Senate and the House of Representatives dominated by his allies. Such a circumstance will facilitate whatever programs he has in mind. A cooperative legislature props up the executive branch of the government in terms of needed appropriation. It will hopefully be in the idealistic context of  "matuwid na daan"  never mind if, as history is replete, such kind of presidential persuasion allowed former presidents Ferdinand Marcos and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to achieve what we, as a country of docile citizens, eventually abhorred.

According to the news reports printed in the back issues I read, President Aquino III was endorsing not only an ally but candidate Bam Aquino, actually his namesake, to succeed him in his senate office. What the media did not carry was whether such a presidential endorsement would mean an endorsement of his undesirable achievement as senator. Perhaps out of respect to the office, it was not mentioned in the reports.

More importantly for me, President Aquino III, showed his unabashed disrespect for the Constitution. He should realize that his own mother, then also our president, assembled a group of respected men and women to write a new charter. In our fundamental law, there is inscribed a theory that upholds the truest form of democracy and republicanism. When the Constitutional Commission of 1986 wrote, as a state principle, a proscription of political dynasties, the commissioners only wanted to concretize President Cory's distrust of political dynasties.

 Also from the back issues that I scanned, I remembered Edgar Allan Poe's term out-Heroded Herod.  The president's candidate for governor in our province (thank God that I do not have to vote for provincial government positions) by out-performing him out-Heroded Herod. When the president asked us to support his candidates from the known political dynasties, he seemed to suggest that he still would bow to the decision of the electorates. That was why, he "asked" us. But, not his gubernatorial bet. This candidate for governor, according to the papers, promised the president that he would deliver a 12-0 card.

Examine the two positions. The president, even as he proposed the continued bastardization of the "Anti-political dynasties" provision of the constitution, was still cognizant of the democratic rule of the majority. On the other hand, his candidate for governor already assumed that Cebuanos would all vote for the president's candidates for which reason, he promised the country's chief executive such an election result! In the Toastmasters' function that I attended yesterday morning, the speaker used a term which should be appropriate to apply to the gubernatorial candidate's promise - Ouch!