Jerry Tundag

Noynoy Aquino is getting it all wrong, as usual. Recently, he was seized by an almost uncontrollable joy on reading the latest surveys in which Filipinos were shown to feel a fair sense of optimism that their lives will get better this year. He quickly saw it as an indication of trust in his government's ability to bring on beneficial changes to the nation.

He is in for a big disappointment, however. What optimism Filipinos feel regarding their lives and how they believe things will get better this year has never been about trust in his government and its ability to effect change for the better. For the enlightenment of Noynoy, Filipinos are suddenly feeling optimistic because they know that at noon of June 30 they will have a new president.

For the Filipinos, it does not matter who gets to be elected president, for as long as it will be a new one and no longer Noynoy. This is not to say that the new president will not eventually prove to be far worse than Noynoy. That is entirely possible. But that is a bridge that Filipinos know they will have to cross when they get there. But for now, that is still a long way off.

What is important to Filipinos right now is the certainty that by June 30 there will be a new president. And that is truly something to be happy about. That is truly something that inspires hope and optimism even in the most frustrated and hopeless among the population. The long and seemingly endless years of hypocritical and ineffectual governance is finally coming to an end. If the dead could rise, they will.

The promises made at the start of the Noynoy presidency have not only remained unfulfilled, the people to whom they were made were in fact betrayed, were taken for a ride. "Daang matuwid" was a farce. Corruption did not go down, it actually went up. According to the latest corruption index of Transparency International, the Philippines fell 10 notches from where it used to be near the bottom of the heap.

But the ranking is not as important as the fact that, by falling 10 notches, corruption in the Philippines was shown to have significantly risen. And the thing about Transparency International's report is that the political enemies of Noynoy have absolutely nothing to do about it. The report is by an independent international body done independently.

This is not to say Noynoy and his government did not wage war against the corrupt. It did. But it did it the wrong way. It waged war only against its enemies. Not only were the corruption of political friends and allies being ignored, they were actually being protected, and as a consequence, encouraged. The distinction on who to target and who to protect and encourage became so marked and blatant it could not have escaped notice by highly motivated independent observers.

And what the observers saw was something far worse than if Noynoy had been corrupt himself. There have been attempts to underscore the fact that Noynoy himself has not enriched himself. That may be so, concededly. But what Noynoy did was far worse than if he corrupted himself. By going only after his corrupt enemies and then ignore, and even protect, his own corrupt friends and allies, he has shown himself to be afflicted with a corruption far worse than stealing for material gain.

There are so many evils associated with Noynoy's selective war on corruption. He is not really against corruption. He is just using it as a battle cry to go after his enemies, often without proof, and in violation of due process. In so doing, he betrayed those who honestly believed in him. Then to prove the mantra that there will be no poor if the corrupt are gone, he manufactured emancipation by giving the poor cash doleouts, much of which got lost, where else but, to corruption.