With the Holy Week behind us, it’s “business as usual”. And that means—Back to the Mamasapano hearings, yehey!
Eating up a good deal of time as the Congress hearing began was the
issue of whether or not the President should be invited to the hearing to
“answer questions”. Malacanang was
said to be willing to answer the questions in writing—if the Congress would email
them to the President. (Hah, tactical moves by texts and investigation by
email—how techie could we get?)
If the prolonged, repetitive and noisy debate on the issue accomplished
anything, it was merely to separate not exactly the sheep from the goats, nor
the wheat from the chaff, but congressman from congressman, according to
color. Same genus, different
species—some yellow, others not yellow; some noisy, others noisier.
Seriously do they still hope or expect that their needling will bring
out the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth? After having followed the hearings since the BOI
investigation started, I now find the matter rather tiresome, if not a hopeless
case. It’s been more than two
months now since the bloody encounter, and the same questions remain
unsatisfactorily answered.
Meanwhile, so many side issues crop up regarding the other aspects of
the tragedy, but these serve only to distract us from the principal one which
is—why such a delicate operation was entrusted, and clandestinely, too, by the
President to a suspended police chief.
That is the crux of the matter—which only the President can resolve. Why
won’t he do so?
Because the President is not capable of doing it, and can you blame
Noynoy for just being himself?
Surely our Congressmen and Senators without political ambitions for 2016
can read the writing on the wall and show this to the people! From the start he has consistently been
his apathetic self—missing in times of disaster, disabled by crises, silent
when his “bosses” are clamoring to hear from a leader. (What a short memory we have if we’ve
forgotten about the Luneta hostage-taking incident and the Yolanda
tragedy!) The forgiving Filipinos,
however, would no longer tolerate Noynoy’s low EQ (Emotional Quotient) so that
when he chose to attend a car manufacturing event over meeting the 44 fallen
soldiers coming home in coffins, his popularity began to spiral to an all time
low.
The headlines recently blared out: “Pinoy trust approval, sumadsad sa
pinakamababa since 2010”. But does he care? “Palasyo, binale-wala ang bagsak na rating ni Pinoy.” So there.
There was short-lived clamor for the President to apologize (at least
for the sake of the bereaved families), since he was perceived as the main
playor in the Mamasapano plan, but it was ignored or dismissed as silly. Palace spokesmen even had the temerity
to announce, “The President has already stated that he owns total
responsibility, etc. etc.” Do
things look like this man would ever “answer questions”? And if he does open his mouth would the
answers be–or at least point to—the truth?
This is the only President we have had who refuses to wear a Philippine
flag pin on his chest—instead he clings to the yellow ribbon, a contradictory
symbol of tragedy and victory in his personal life. What else can we do?
Noynoy is being himself, very “personal”, not “national” in spite of his
position. He values his friends
and brutally excoriates his enemies, because he sincerely believes only those
who are with him can be right.
He capitalizes on his
“spotless record” and his family name which the vagaries of history have
lacquered and magnified to superhuman proportions. He needs friends to run a country like a legless man needs a
crutch; and he has friends to coddle his self-image as a righteous leader. When ordinary citizens in social media
comment on his less-than-gentlemanly behavior, his friends in the Palace and
his celebrity sister come to the rescue: “Poor poor Noynoy, why do you do this
to him? You’re so cruel!”
Noynoy’s friends come from far and wide, and with the prodding of
powerful allies that make him feel he is superior to the Constitution, he gets
away with murder: public funds go to pots and pockets unknown to legislators,
laws are passed devoid of conscience, wars are plotted in secret with friends. Will the President tell the truth? I don’t think so. His hands are tied; he cannot tell the
whole truth without risking national security and even his life. That is what happens when in a man’s
conceit he fails to see that his powerful friends have turned him into a
dummy. Will Noynoy apologize? At the way he’s sounding, he believes
he has done nothing wrong. Self-righteousness blinds a man to his own errors. His Holy Week messages, aired
repeatedly on tv, surprisingly rang like homilies—so strange, coming from a man
whose hardness of heart has made him consistently disregard Church teachings.
Will the President ever tell the truth about Mamasapano? His years in office have uncovered his
limitations. Expecting Noynoy to
say more than he has said, or to stoop in remorse over the consequences of his
actions would be like squeezing milk out of stone. And that’s the truth.
