A call for a National Transformation Council now!

Last Monday, President Benigno Simeon Aquino shocked Filipinos with his defiant words against the Supreme Court. He seemed bent on creating a constitutional crisis confident that he can persuade Filipinos that he is right. After all, they voted for him despite being so totally unqualified to be the President of the Philippines.

And this, may I remind readers, did not come from the ignorant masa but from educated Filipinos with vested interests. To them, better to have an ignorant president so long as he is a useful tool for their agenda. It is they who are to blame for they should have been expected to know better.

Moreover, he threatened even before the 2010 elections that if he did not win he would organize another “EDSA.” He was confident that he could use an advantage that he thinks he still had — his name — a mantra that would protect him no matter what he did because Filipinos generally can be swayed by slogans and platitudes.

He thinks of himself as EDSA personified and that Filipinos will always take his side if he would just keep reminding them that he is the heir of the legacy of his parents, Cory and Ninoy. He and his friends conveniently ignored that his own parents were aware that he was poorly equipped for leading. That was the condition from which he was persuaded to lead the country.

Fears were confirmed later when as a congressman and a senator he did not have anything to show for these positions of responsibility.

So why should it surprise anyone that he would not do well as President of the Philippines? Why can’t we confront the question that his election (PCOS or otherwise) had been a terrible mistake and the reason for his failures in governance?

I think it is time for somebody who truly cares for him to tell him that the Aquino brand is past its due date. It doesn’t work anymore. He is now being made to account for his own actions. I don’t blame him for being elected as President. He was put up. I blame those who put him up for their selfish agenda. They should have known better given his limitations and history.  His zero work while in Congress told it all.

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The more important statement made that day was not the President’s defiance of the Supreme Court that was in character for someone who should never have been president.

It was the statement made by Archbishop Ramon Arguelles of Lipa who said “we do not have to wait for 2016 (that is when the term of Aquino ends). We must create a temporary government today.” In plain words, the Archbishop of Lipa said this president has to go because  there is no justification for him to stay. 

Elections 2010 gave us an extraordinarily incapable person to become president. It was a mistake. It is time to face the truth. It would be foolhardy to keep such an inept leader drunk with power who is bent on destroying the rule of law. That was saying it like it is. The country is in peril. To wait until it is destroyed beyond repair would not only be dangerous but terribly foolish.

 We must be grateful to Archbishop Arguelles for making the statement that is already in most intelligent Filipinos minds but who refrain from accepting the urgent need to do so. We have to act now.

By the way, the Lipa archbishop was suffering from pneumonia on the day of the conference. He was coughing and nursing a high fever but insisted it was more important for him to go to the Club Filipino press conference to be able to say that we have to act now. (As expected such important news was suppressed in mainstream media).

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I’m glad that former Chief Justice Reynato Puno has added his voice to come out categorically that “the Disbursement Acceleration Program” was illegal and unconstitutional. Moreover it was more serious than the PDAF on which the court had earlier ruled with the same unanimity.

“Unlike PDAF projects, DAP projects are not covered by the national budget,” Puno said.  He added that the SC decision on DAP was consistent with the high court’s decision on the PDAF. 

The former Chief Justice is a staunch advocate of constitutional reform and will be invited to the panel of experts by bayanko.org.ph the website of concerned citizens for crowdsourcing a new constitution for a new country. The website has been successfully putting together the basis for a people-authored constitution through crowdsourcing.  It now has more than a hundred thousand hits and visits from Filipinos here and abroad who understand that we direly need to change the present system that gave rise to President Aquino’s abuse of power.

Puno also rejected the President’s claim that he did the DAP in good faith to stimulate the economy.

On what law would a “claimed good faith” be based? Puno also rejected that because of the “positive results on the country’s economy” was an uncceptable excuse for the president to break the law.

 “The people should be on the lookout, should be vigilant that the budget that will come from Congress will follow the decisions made by the high court,” he said.

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Other legal experts who weighed in on what looks like a developing constitutional crisis were Ranhilio Aquino, dean of the San Beda Graduate School of Law and constitutionalist Joaquin Bernas. They also said that the President erred in citing Section 49 of the Administrative Code to justify the creation of the DAP.

San Beda’s Aquino (not related to Aquino) commented that it was funny why the President should say that the SC decision was “difficult to understand.” The separation of powers in our system of government should be basic knowledge to any student of law. Aquino was a “C” student when he was studying law at the Ateneo.