BY ROMMEL YNION
P-NOY, blundering throughout his four-year-old presidency, seemed to have blundered again yesterday. Why? He forgot to issue a hold departure order to “Glenda”!
Had “Glenda” stayed longer, the issues over the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) and the Supreme Court ruling on it would have been forgotten, putting them in a state of suspended animation, so to speak.
But no, “Glenda” waltzed out of the country yesterday, leaving behind a trail of devastation, prompting other places to declare a state of calamity.
And so, the joke went the rounds yesterday in media circles.
Kidding aside, a quick look at the national dailies yesterday indicated that no matter how brief “Glenda’s” visit was, it was enough to bump the DAP-related stories off the front-page banner headlines, at least.
The “Philippine Star”, with a huge photo of a fallen acacia tree encroaching around its masthead, just bannered: “Glenda pummels Luzon”.
“Manila Bulletin”, photos of destruction in the wake of the storm occupying half of its front-page, simply intoned: “Glenda’s wrath”.
“Philippine Daily Inquirer”, its front-page dramatized by an image of a Meralco post obstructing a road in Cavite, headlined: “Glenda shuts down Metro”.
However, the stories right below these Glenda-related banner stories are still DAP-related, lambasting P-noy’s bullying tactics to get the Supreme Court to reverse their earlier ruling which deemed DAP unconstitutional.
As a battle-scarred media-practitioner (as opposed to just being a journalist as I have been around all aspects of media operations, some of which are unprintable as they might discombobulate some readers), I think P-noy’s descent into obscurity has begun, gaining momentum as we speak, irreversible, inexorable. Sad, but true.
It’s just a matter of time before the dam breaks loose, the onslaught of tsunami-like waves obliterating P-noy administration for good. But I still hope I am wrong. I really do – because I was one of the Filipinos who hoped against all hope that P-noy could do justice to the legacy his father bequeathed not only to him but to his countrymen.
Ninoy was one of my childhood heroes. I remember spending entire afternoons in libraries reading all Ninoy’s writings, one of which was his letter to Soc Rodrigo in which he outlined his suffering in solitary confinement in Laur and his spiritual conversion.
That letter left an indelible imprint in my consciousness, its words sometimes flashing on the screen of my mind especially in times of personal crises.
Ninoy’s heroism was unquestionable; but the motives of the other Aquinos who followed in his footsteps were questionable.
Yes, what a waste, a terrible waste.
What I have learned from my years of immersion in media is that once natural calamities of cataclysmic proportions are deemed necessary to bump off stories like the DAP and its peripheral issues, then such stories are destined to linger long enough to annihilate the villains in them. Look what happened to Marcos after Ninoy’s assassination, and also to Erap after Chavit exposed his intimacy with jueteng lords, and to Gloria Arroyo after the “Hello Garci” scandal.
And now, it is happening to P-noy after DAP.
Let me offer to P-noy my unsolicited advice which, I believe, can help him regain lost ground in his scandal-torn presidency.
Mr. President, please remember the word humility and its meaning.
Being humble is not a sign of weakness but of strength.
And with humility, face the Supreme Court and your “Boss” who happens to be all Filipinos, as you said; then simply say, “Let us talk and iron these out in a spirit of cooperation instead of belligerence – not for the sake of our egos but for the future of this country.
“We cannot allow ourselves to be swallowed by these issues temporarily besetting us. We must unite and move forward, eventually leaving these DAP issues behind us like nightmares in our past.”
Mr. President, please try this. And I guarantee miracles will happen immediately thereafter./PN
