Faith in the Pinoy

Out of 100 million Filipinos, the nation’s hope lies only in one person: Noynoy Aquino. This is hubris, manifested in the hope of keeping him in office for another six years after his single term ends.

President Aquino should have more faith in the capabilities of his own compatriots. In fact he and his bunch of whispering sycophants – the bulong brigade – should have the humility to believe that perhaps someone might actually do better than him as president.

Especially because when Noynoy Aquino accepted his party’s draft and ran for president, serious doubts were also cast on his capability to govern a land of the ungovernable.

To this day, certain individuals even within his inner circle manifest such doubts, and tend to underestimate him.

Doubts were also raised on how he could sustain his straight path or daang matuwid within the framework of the country’s transactional politics. We’re seeing the results in his current woes regarding the scrapping of the congressional pork barrel and the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).

P-Noy didn’t promise us vision, and it shows in the nation’s current woes. He does have one clear target: to see at least one of the prominent personalities currently detained without bail for plunder convicted before his term ends.

He has won bruising battles along the way, getting rid of an ombudsman and a chief justice that he considered obstructions along his straight path. He vanquished powerful lobbies to enact the Reproductive Health and sin tax laws.

But his anti-corruption campaign is losing traction as his allies are implicated in crooked deals, and he is perceived to be protecting them.

The New York Times weighed in with an editorial in its Aug. 28 edition, headlined, “Political mischief in the Philippines.” Criticizing P-Noy’s interest in a second term, which will require constitutional amendment, the NYT op ed observed that “there will always be unfinished business” for any president.

This was true even for P-Noy’s mom Corazon, the NYT observed: “Despite her efforts, the presidency remained a fount of patronage and a source of corruption.”

The newspaper said P-Noy “should stop butting heads with the court and gracefully step down when his term is up.”

Malacañang brushed aside the article, saying the NYT was not well versed on the issues involved. Perhaps P-Noy feels he doesn’t have to listen to foreigners, who are not his “bosses.” But he can listen to constitutionalist Fr. Joaquin Bernas, who has advised him to step aside after six years and give others a chance.

Specifically, Bernas said others such as Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago should be given a chance – an endorsement that energized the senator, who is fighting late-stage cancer.

We don’t know how serious Bernas was in his endorsement. But whoever succeeds P-Noy, he or she will be the people’s choice, warts and all. It will be democracy at work; it will be people power at work. Unless dagdag-bawas, or vote padding and shaving, comes into play, as some quarters fear if a term extension fails.

Filipinos have tried all sorts of presidents: brilliant lawyers, brilliant economists, a soldier, a movie star-turned-mayor, a housewife with a degree in math and a lot of guts.

We have been disappointed by many of our choices, but hope springs eternal for the Pinoy. And we tend to pin high hopes on elections in bringing change. Through the power of the ballot, we hope the next president will be better than the incumbent.

And no matter how much we criticize our electorate for putting incompetent, illiterate clowns and accomplished thieves in high office, we still want to respect the choices expressed in a free vote. This is both the strength and weakness of democracy.

We want leadership change to happen with the regularity prescribed by law. If anyone wants to tinker with term limits, the change should not benefit incumbent officials.

This is what P-Noy is up against in his desire to lift his term limit and seek reelection. Palace officials insist there is mass support for a second term for P-Noy. Critics scoff that you know people have been in power too long when they start believing their own press releases.

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At one point, P-Noy said you have to be a masochist to want to serve more than six years in this country. Public expectations of a president are so high and we tend to believe the government is supposed to solve all our problems.

Many of the individuals who do well in their chosen fields in this country are those who don’t have such expectations. They are people who intuitively understand the message in John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, about asking not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

There are always role models to be found in the annual Ramon Magsaysay Awards. This year the RM awardee for emergent leadership is a Filipino teacher, Randy Halasan, whose work is dedicated to bringing education and livelihood opportunities to the Matigsalug tribe in Davao.

This year’s awardees, according to the award foundation’s president Carmencita Abella, “are creating bold solutions” to entrenched problems in their societies.

The other awardees are Hu Shuli of China for her work as a journalist; Indonesia’s Saur Marlina Manurung for her protection and improvement of the lives of her country’s indigenous forest people; Omara Khan Masoudi, for protecting the cultural heritage of his conflict-torn country, Afghanistan; and China’s Wang Canfa, for making environmental law work to prevent the abuse of human rights. An organization is also being honored – The Citizens Foundation of Pakistan – for running schools that provide quality education for all, regardless of creed, gender or economic status.

Magsaysay, who rose to the top from humble origins, did not finish his four-year term, with his presidency tragically cut short by a plane crash. But in just a little over three years, he accomplished enough to leave a legacy of good government that endures nearly six decades after his death.

“The presidency is so great an honor, no one deserves to have it again.” That line, as we all know, is from Cory Aquino.

P-Noy and his team seem to be as stunned by negative reactions to his possible term extension as the unanimous Supreme Court ruling against the DAP. From his reactions, P-Noy seems to be taking it as a personal rejection: How can people not want him to be in power for six more years?

His wounded indignation is matched only by the pained reaction of many of his admirers to his hope for a term extension: “Oh no, Noy, how could you?”