Sincerity of purpose

The President maybe be called stubborn and may have perhaps overstepped his authority by agreeing and implementing a unique economic stimulus program known as the DAP, but certainly is not to be faulted for his sincere desire and appetite to accelerate the nation’s progress for the benefit of the greater majority of our people, his “bosses.”

He was a reluctant President to begin with, and only responded to the irresistible force of the will of the people, to fulfill the revolution of change and reform that began at EDSA in 1986, triggered by the martyrdom of his father, Ninoy (EDSA began with Ninoy), defended and enhanced by our Icon of Democracy former President Cory. This is his Sincerity of Purpose. He has aimed to reach this seemingly overwhelming objective with his “Daang Matuwid” policy. As he said during his latest SONA, “The Filipino is worth fighting for.”

Nobody should realistically expect him to achieve the vision of 100% without the commitment of the people to support him, even when the support requires unswerving vigilance, which the people provide with much enthusiasm now, precisely because we have a President whom we know lives and breathes by example his daang matuwid /walang wang-wang program. His only fault perhaps is to listen with too much confidence on those closest to him in governance. But we are all blessed with a leader who has not been tainted with any iota of corruption after four years in office.

Those who wish to impeach him is not only ludicrous but absolutely unjustifiable, coming from the usual group aggrupations who have historically found fault and convenience under a democratic setting. The President has clearly acted in good faith and did not willfully violated the Constitution.

As for Charter change, we are for strictly economic features to be amended. I vividly recall President Cory’s message to me when President Ramos contemplated on Cha-cha towards a parliamentary form of government where she said, “President Ramos is our friend and I endorsed him against other’s wishes, but no one is indispensable. If we allow the Constitution to be open for amendments to include a term extension of the President, it is not only wrong, it will create a precedent for future bad presidents. Then we will become a banana republic. As for the parliamentary form of government, our government is not yet politically mature.” Even if our country under President Ramos term was considered a new “Tiger of Asia,” and admired President Ramos’ hands-on-management, we still did not support Cha-cha.

You can blame P-Noy for some character flaws, as all human beings share in this human imperfect condition, but to impeach a President who chooses to navigate on the righteous path as the compass of his sincerity of purpose is truly ludicrous.    —  CHRISTOPHER L. CARRION