Not yet time for goodbye

Except for the excruciating length, it was a predictable final State of the Nation Address (SONA) for President Aquino: he had already given a glimpse of it in his speech last month assessing his first five years in office.

It would have been rude for guests to stand up to even take a bathroom break in the middle of a presidential speech. You have to wonder about the state of mind of anyone who makes guests sit through two hours and 12 minutes of self-praising monologue.

But then you can’t really expect public officials to pan their own performance. P-Noy’s glowing assessment of his five years will just have to be balanced with those of his critics. I have written that he has earned bragging rights to several solid achievements, and the main theme of his sixth and final SONA was to ask the nation to sustain the path that made those achievements possible.

He became emotional as he thanked his supporters, but all swan songs are emotional. It’s always touching to watch the nation’s highest official preparing to hand over power and actually leaving office. Such was the case with Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos and even Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. (Joseph Estrada didn’t relinquish power.)

It’s still 11 months too early for P-Noy to say goodbye and thank all his supporters (some names were conspicuously missing). But I guess he wanted to give everyone his or her 15 minutes of TV fame while the networks are still interested in recording his every utterance.

Since P-Noy believes all is well in his kingdom and some of his officials are merely being unjustly pilloried, we shouldn’t expect drastic changes in the way daang matuwid is doing business.

This is fine for the good performers, among them Kim Henares, Mon Jimenez, Armin Luistro, Albert del Rosario, Rogelio Singson, Amando Tetangco Jr. (originally a GMA appointee) and PEZA’s Lilia de Lima (an FVR appointee).

Several officials get fair grades and changing them will simply be disruptive to public services with just 11 months left. But Cabinet members who have shaken public confidence in the straight path, or whose incompetence is costing daang matuwid a lot of public goodwill, are home free. P-Noy made it clear in his SONA that he’s not in a firing mood. The public will be rid of these non-performers only if they resign to run in 2016.

For P-Noy, it’s always been iba ang may pinagsamahan. He has shown again and again – the latest being the case of Alan Purisima – that loyalty and friendship trump public interest and his avowed straight path, until he is left with no choice but to let go of his bosom buddies.

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In a two-hour speech, there was no mention of Purisima and the scandals under P-Noy’s watch involving his own trusted aides and political allies.

He was not done with GMA-bashing. People do appreciate the changes since the days of the NBN-ZTE, Jose Pidal and Hello, Garci. This was expressed in the 2010 elections, when association with GMA became the kiss of death.

But P-Noy has had five years to correct the ills of the previous administration. At a certain point the blame game starts wearing thin. Especially when he also takes credit for programs started by his predecessor, such as the conditional cash transfer.

Filipinos tend to vote for (or support, in the two cases of people power) leaders perceived to be the antithesis of the incumbent. Cory Aquino the sincere and honest housewife replaced Ferdinand Marcos. Soldier-cop Fidel Ramos was seen to have the firm hand and unifying team-building ethic to end ruinous divisiveness, restore the lights and strengthen the economy.

After six years of Team Philippines, Pinoys were bored and voted for excitement. But Erap gave the nation too much excitement and proved his worst critics right. He goes down in history as the first president to be kicked out after less than three years in office, and then to be arrested, detained and convicted of plunder.

Erap was readily given the boot because his constitutional successor was perceived to be his opposite: an academic overachiever with an impressive work ethic, an unexciting personality and a prayerful life untainted by scandal. Years later, Erap would have the pleasure of reminding the nation to be careful what you wish for.

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Today, with P-Noy using his final SONA to fire a preliminary salvo for the 2016 elections, he should make an honest assessment of his weaknesses for an indication of what voters might look for in picking his successor.

Of course everyone wants his anti-corruption reforms to continue. Anyone aspiring for the presidency must convince the electorate that this will be high in the candidate’s agenda.

P-Noy’s weakness is similar to his late mother’s: when it comes to friends, he is trusting to a fault.

A number of the officials whom he lavished with thanks in his SONA for being with him through good times and bad are widely perceived to have enriched themselves in the past five years while hiding under his skirt, undermining daang matuwid. They might stick with him in sickness or in health, but for richer or poorer is another story.

P-Noy is seen to be lacking in vision and management skills. Under his watch, Filipinos fight with each other rather than compete as a team with the world.

He could have used his enormous popularity when he assumed office to resist pressure from the .001 percent so that he could level the playing field to make the nation more investment-friendly, create jobs and promote inclusive growth. This did not happen, as Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio will attest. The passage just last week of the Anti-Trust Law is encouraging, but its test will be its proper enforcement.

Finally, P-Noy lacks empathy. He showed it in dealing with the deaths of the 44 Special Action Force commandos, in his initial response to Super Typhoon Yolanda (remember “you’re still alive, aren’t you?”), and now in his response to the mess in the Metro Rail Transit.

P-Noy was summarizing his five years in office so it was inevitable that he would compare the state of the nation when he took over to where it is now. But Pinoys tend to remember presidents only for their acts in their final years in office. We saw this in all the presidents since Marcos.

If P-Noy wants Filipinos to vote for continuity, he must dazzle us in his final year. It’s not yet time to say goodbye.