How P-Noy’s popularity nosedived

If you’re still wondering where did things go so wrong for President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III, whose popularity nose-dived from very high +70% ratings (of course, I still believe that those Social Weather Station (SWS) and Pulse Asia surveys were doctored to make people believe that the President did reach those high marks) and down to +25% let me count the ways. After all, these things can be explained.

Most people perceive that the ratings of the President plummeted after his 20-minute speech last July 14 when he lambasted the Supreme Court (SC) for declaring the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) unconstitutional. Let me just say that that speech was the last straw wherein many Filipinos finally realized that the President wanted all the power of the government under his full control. That’s where P-Noy’s popularity fell off the cliff so to speak. But there was a beginning to all this.

The first amongst the many things that made the President unpopular started very early (wasn’t he a minority President?) in his Presidency. On Aug. 23, 2010 a bus carrying 25 Hong Kong tourists was hostaged by former Philippine National Police Senior Officer Rolando Mendoza and that incident ended in the untimely deaths of 8 Hong Kong tourists.

That hostage taking incident took 10 hours from the time the news TV crew got hold of the big breaking news and by the time it ended, CNN, BBC, Al Jazzera International news networks had this hostage drama on live international TV and the world saw the carnage done by one man. Everyone saw how the newly installed Aquino regime mishandled that hostage crisis and worse, this story never ended because P-Noy refused to apologize for that incident. It was only this year when former President, now Manila Mayor Joseph “Erap” Estrada went to Hong Kong to apologize for that incident that put an end to this crisis which strained our diplomatic ties with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The fallout of that incident worsened not only our ties with the people of Hong Kong, but also with the People’s Republic of China wherein months after that incident, the Chinese Coast Guard began bullying Filipino fishermen with uncanny regularity, Taiwan included.

The second incident was when he made many Filipinos suspect that President Aquino was sympathetic to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) that happened on Dec. 10, 2010 when the so-called “Morong 43,” that group of Communist sympathizers pretending to be health workers who were arrested during the time of then Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo were ordered freed by the Justice Secretary Leila de Lima.

Based on military intelligence, those health workers were captured in flagrante delicto by a legitimate military operation when they were teaching residents in that area on bomb making techniques. But they were all freed on orders of P-Noy, which dismayed many Filipinos, especially the military and those in the anti-communist movement. Of the freed Morong 43, five of their members turned against them to become witnesses to the truth that they were members of the New People’s Army (NPA).

In short, the military lost in the Communist propaganda campaign to free the Morong 43. Yet in the subsequent years, many members of the Morong 43 were captured again by the military during clashes between NPAs and the military. Last Aug. 2013 in a clash in Bulacan, Ramon Dela Cruz was among the 3 NPAs killed. They had his photos when he was captured in Morong in 2010 and his parents claimed his body. All this was confirmed by then Gen. Gregorio Pio Catapang Jr. Incidentally, this is the same Gen. Catapang who is now the Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Surely people didn’t forget this.

On May 26, 2012 President Aquino attended the Akbayan 5th Regular Congress at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) and confirmed his close ties with the left-leaning groups when he said, “Akbayan and I think alike.” Back then, I wrote a column that if only P-Noy admitted this during the Presidential campaign he would not be President today.

There are many incidents that made a great number of Filipinos disgruntled at the President. For instance, P-Noy is a gun shooter, yet he allowed the centralization of the firearms licensing to be done in Camp Crame, which millions of gun owners bewailed. I’ve talked with many of them and they blame P-Noy for this stupidity!

Then finally there’s the campaign of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) that targeted doctors, lawyers and many others…all these resulted in people blaming it squarely on P-Noy. This is why P-Noy’s popularity nosedived and like toothpaste squeezed out of the tube, it cannot be brought back to the tube anymore. There’s still more reasons why P-Noy lost out.

* * *

Email: [email protected] or [email protected]