My three-part exit strategy for Noynoy
Noynoy Aquino should consider Mamasapano as an irrecoverable loss. There is nothing he can do anymore about the anger, resentment and sense of betrayal people felt about the incident. It is too late to say sorry and to assume responsibility. He should have done that early on when it still meant anything. But he has allowed all the opportunities to do so pass without doing either. Doing so now will only portray him as a fake and a hypocrite.
But believe it or not, all is not actually lost for Noynoy. With still about a year left in his presidency, he can still exit with a bang of sorts, Mamasapano and all his other excess baggage notwithstanding. I have always been critical of Noynoy for two reasons -- one, he never had what it takes to be president, and two, he himself knew he can't hack it but still took the job and had everyone expecting. Still, as a citizen, I am proposing a three-part exit strategy he can use.
My three-part exit strategy is this: 1) Scrap the K to 12 program. Noynoy is only being told lies about it. The Philippines is not ready for the program. That we are supposedly one of only three remaining countries in the world with a 10-year basic education curriculum is too frivolous a reason for us to go jump in the lake where we can all drown. If Noynoy scraps the K to 12 program, he can instantly become the darling of everyone.
2) Scrap the 4Ps program as well. Every indicator, whether publicly or privately generated, has shown it has not lived up to the hype and is only a total waste of people's money, a large part of it possibly even stolen by untrusworthy guardians. Despite massive cash doleouts, there are now more poor people than ever. Instead of keeping children in school, a requirement for the dole, more and more have dropped out, ending up in the streets where they become vulnerable to crime and abuse.
3) Start firing some of his aides, especially those who are turning out to be as corrupt as the high profile victims of his much-ballyhooed anti-corruption campaign. The only way such a campaign can gain the credibility it has miserably failed to attain in all of the five years that he has been at it is if he makes no distinctions on where the axe may fall. As it is now, he is only pursuing his known enemies but has spared and protected his allies and friends.
And why am I trying to help the favorite target of my criticisms? Well, because six years of a wasted and wasteful presidency are too high a price for all Filipinos to pay. Six years of a wasted and wasteful presidency are still six years of our lives as a people thrown needlessly away. That is too much of a burden for all of us to carry into the future, even if we carry it all together.
Good if it is only Noynoy who gets to suffer from his failed presidency. But we all get to suffer as well. It is simply an unimaginable tragedy for a nation to see an entire six years of its national life, an entire six years of its history, just go by without anything to show for it. That is an entire six years down the drain. If, somehow, some part of it may still be recovered, then by all means what little of it has to be recovered.
And the only way to do that, if my assumption is correct, is to provide Noynoy some measure of steadying force from which he can tweak a little the wrong direction he had been pursuing. Not forcing him to step down was a good and sober start. At least the Filipino still had the good sense to do that, despite having gone through the wringer with Noynoy at the helm.
But Noynoy should be given a grace period, an opportunity to redeem himself. My three-part exit strategy is not studiously perfect but it is not dumb either. In fact, it just might work, that is if Noynoy cares to listen, and willing to try out new things. Believe me, scrapping the K to 12 program will earn Noynoy only one enemy -- Armin Luistro. The rest of the country might even ask him to stay on as president (just kidding).
There may be a little problem with scrapping the 4Ps program. Taxpayers will hail him for it. But the beneficiaries will howl in protest. Well, if they must howl, let them howl at the politicians, who will soon be knocking on the doors to the heart of poor people. It will soon be 2016. If Noynoy wants to be rid of the poor problem, he can do so right now. Let the poor be the worry of politicians in 2016. And save the country a lot of money for other services.
After scrapping K to 12 and 4Ps, which should make Noynoy an overnight sensation, he should start turning on all his friends who used his unstinted dedication to friendship to enrich themselves. Noynoy must remember that corruption does not only involve stealing and getting rich on the money of others. It is a far worse form of corruption to know who the corrupt are and to just turn the other cheek and feign innocence. Tolerating corruption is far worse than the actual act of stealing.
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