BY ROMMEL YNION
WHAT is alarming now is not the voice of the people which in pre-PCOS era, was purported to be the voice of God, but the voices of “bosses” that P-Noy hears in between his ears. Whose “bosses” are those, Mr. President? Apparently, these voices have caught his attention, signaling him to consider another move to amend the Constitution to equip him with the right to extend his term in Malacañang.
What a lollapalooza of a twisted situation! Aren’t we supposed to be P-Noy’s “bosses”? According to the latest Pulse Asia surveys – which the President’s men used to cite especially when results were favorable to them – Aquino’s approval rating has plummeted below 50 percent already, meaning that based on our population, at least 54 million Filipinos don’t want him anymore.
Not only Pulse Asia, but the public pulse itself throbs with discord, disillusionment and despair, painting a portrait of a sinking ship that will be hitting the ocean floor in six months. Ah, the Ides of March? At the rate P-Noy’s rating is plummeting into the abyss, he can be a goner in the first quarter of 2015.
Who wants to board a sinking ship? Vice President Jejomar Binay? What? Is this a joke? The most outlandish thing Binay can do now is allow himself to be whisked on board a Titanic after slamming into an iceberg in the middle of the ocean! Methinks, the president-in-waiting is not that stupid that Palace crackpots can just woo him into such a quicksand where the more one struggles to extricate himself, the more he finds himself enmeshed.
Aren’t we in a democracy in which the majority should rule? In theory, yes. But in practice, no. Since Congress is the house where representatives of the people represent them on matters concerning affairs of the state, P-Noy must have heard their voices, not really those of the majority who, matter-of-factly, are just sick and tired of him.
But in this day and age, are our congressional leaders really our leaders? Again, in theory, yes; but in practice, no. Both houses of Congress are home to the representatives of the ruling families of this country whose interests have nothing to do with the electorate who elected them into office. For they are just interested in protecting their interests, both political and economic in nature.
With this engine of motives propelling them into action in Congress, our “representatives” have become prone to the carrot-and-stick approach of Malacañang to them. Therefore, they have become lapdogs of P-Noy, slurping every morsel of largesse on the floor.
Ah, these are the voices that P-Noy must have heard, the voices of his boot-lickers, sycophants and hangers-on in Congress who do not represent the people at all. Once their feet are firmly anchored in that supposedly hallowed ground, they suffer from severe case of amnesia, relegating all their campaign promises on the back burner as they reap windfalls from Malacañang.
If the president has only heard his “tong-congressmen”, then he has not really heard his real “bosses” who are now salivating over the prospect of his stepping down from office. The clamor is for him to leave, not the other way around. This is, sad to say, the truth and nothing but the truth.
Mr. President, let me paraphrase what your father warned Marcos at the tail-end of martial law: Learn the lessons of history if you still want to end your term in a blaze of glory. Otherwise, you will just end up in a blaze, unable to extinguish the fires of Armageddon engulfing you and your ilk.
The vox populi is loud and clear: P-Noy must go as soon as possible, his fall inexorable, his tragic end already written in the Book of Life. Nobody has ever bounced back from this kind of crisis now bedeviling Malacañang. Look at Erap after the jueteng scandal. And Gloria after the Hello Garci scandal. The magnitude just about the same or even worse. But if there is a commonality among them, it is the fact that once a president loses the confidence of his “bosses”, he can never win it back.
Get your feet on the ground, Mr. President. Because the only voices you can hear above it are those of spirits who may not be of this world but of another dimension created only by an evil genius. Your “bosses” need facts, not fiction; truth, not delusions of grandeur./PN
