BY ROMMEL YNION
LOYALTY, cut down to size, has become just a word bereft of any meaning, used more often than not as a tool for the furtherance of a hidden agenda.
Nothing illustrates this more than the Aquino sisters’ much-ballyhooed support for Vice President Jejomar Binay’s bid to become the next president of this republic as their token of appreciation for the latter’s, well, loyalty, tested and proven through the years, for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health, until, most likely, death do them part.
Clothed with layers of euphemisms, loyalty just one of them, the truth, in this case, becomes a submarine relevant only to submariners who are familiar with the art of survival in the ocean, its depths unfathomable, its currents oftentimes jolting them hither and yon, its vastness immeasurable, its endlessness stretching into infinity.
Tossed to and fro in the sea of history, the Aquinos have survived them all: the patriarch Benigno Aquino Sr. facing charges of collaborating with the Japanese during World War II and dying of a heart attack in 1947, robbing his little boy of his hero; the incarceration of Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. and his solitary confinement in Laur and his assassination purportedly by a Malacañang-backed death squad; Cory Aquino’s rise to the presidency later on bludgeoned by six coup attempts; and now Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III’s presidency and his bloopers in the course of his rocky ride to the finish line less than two years away from now.
No doubt, as is often the case in most families who have hoisted the flags of their legacy to the world their forebears had left behind, the Aquinos have a brand name that encapsulizes their reason for being, a brand name that has become synonymous with democracy or, at least, its restoration after the 1986 EDSA Revolution, a brand name that strikes fear in the hearts of corrupt officials who have become poster boys and girls of the kleptocratic nature of our government.
“The most important thing now is to protect that legacy admittedly already tarnished by controversies that now surround the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) issue,” a source close to the Aquino family said. “Nothing will permanently damage that legacy more than the certainty of a jail term for Noynoy after he steps down in 2016.”
The source, asking not to be named, said the truth behind the Aquino sisters’ backing of Binay in his bid for the presidency is the fact that only Binay alone, once he becomes president, can protect Noynoy from landing in jail.
“Mar Roxas keeps lagging behind in surveys and the sisters cannot risk alienating Binay by supporting Roxas,” the source added. “The truth is not about Binay’s loyalty to the Aquino family but the fact that once Binay becomes president, the sisters can be certain Binay will not send Noynoy to jail.”
The unconstitutionality of DAP has, no doubt, risen as the Damocles sword that threatens to whittle Ninoy’s martyrdom down to a mere footnote in history as a farce. For it led only to his son’s bastardization of democracy for which he died, his death a signal for the march towards the systematic dismantlement of the democratic institutions Filipinos hold dear in their hearts.
“It was only under Noynoy’s leadership that the Constitution has been treated like a mere scrap of paper,” the source said. “Noynoy has led us to perilous times in which, once the dam bursts, we will all be thrown back to the Dark Ages.”
Hemmed in on all sides by controversies hounding Malacañang, the Aquino sisters have pinned down the root of all evil: The Hyatt 10 whom they see as the ones orchestrating the machinations that eventually led to the malodorous DAP. But aware that they cannot just put all the blame on them, exposing P-Noy’s do-nothing presidency, they simply opted to sweep the truth under the rug and go all-out for Binay in the name of “loyalty.”
Alas, fear of jail, euphemistically called “loyalty”, has become the dominant force that will propel P-Noy’s administration up to its dying breath in 2016. Everything, from redefining “savings” in Congress to amending the Constitution to prolong P-Noy’s term, sprang from that singular motive: To keep Noynoy away from jail at all costs.
“In effect, since that is the all-consuming purpose of this administration, P-Noy has become a lame-duck president, unable from now on to perform for the welfare of the country obsessed as he is, along with his sisters, with ensuring his freedom from jail after his term ends in 2016,” the source said.
No doubt, Malacañang itself has now paved the road for the president-in-waiting, Vice President Jejomar Binay. All Binay needs to do from now on is just to sit back and relax until P-Noy himself signals for him to take over, confident that “Rambotito” will remain true to form, protecting the Aquino family at all costs as he gloriously did, especially during the six coup attempts that rocked Tito Cory’s administration.
With a Binay presidency carved on granite slab, Filipinos can only wait and see whether they will see more of the same or absolutely none of it in the future that awaits them. Backed by no less than Malacañang and the Aquino sisters behind the scenes, Binay has become an unsinkable ship, heading full-steam ahead to his destiny.
But who knows? Didn’t the builders of “Titanic” say that not even God could sink her? God, indeed, moves in mysterious ways. Like He did to the United States, He might again do the unthinkable: Anointing the first-ever black president for the Filipino nation./PN
