Noynoy exposed!

A publication described Sen. Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino’s candidacy as “running on a platform of hope and change.” But pundits think he is running on a flat tire given his performance last Friday at the De La Salle Santiago Zobel School in Ayala Alabang. Unlike in previous debates when the candidates were more cordial, Noynoy was not just skewered this time, he was asked pointblank what has he done so far as a public official. As backgrounder, Noynoy was catapulted to prominence as congressman without even running for barangay captain. His political pedigree, so to speak, provided him the elements of victory, especially that his first political test was held in his parents’ turf. But Sen. Richard Gordon, on of his rivals for the presidency, asked in the forum: “Even in legislature, what law did he craft whose benefits are being felt by the people?” To rub salt to injury, Gordon, the man credited for reviving Subic Bay after the Americans left, has another telling blow on Noynoy, saying the senator from Tarlac “had in [his] family a president, a vice president, four senators, congressmen, governors—all the posts in Tarlac, but how is Tarlac?” To borrow Noynoy’s platform that he is running for hope and change is to sound presumptuous. How can Sen. Aquino claim hope when he has not given hope to the laborers of Hacienda Luisita which his family partly owns? And, how we expect change when all the people surrounding him today, even with all the credentials after the names, are nothing more than turncoats? Aquino even talks about dreams which, for all we know, will be always just be dreams. In the campaign trail (which has prematurely gone full blast already), Aquino has monotonously repeated the mantra of ‘change.’ It is a bruised line that other clever candidates have evaded by attacking more serious popular issues the people are yearning for explanation. For instance, to amplify the position of his party for Cory-inspired principles, he has gone on an Arroyo-bashing, the same strategy his tandem, Sen. Mar Roxas, has repetitiously harked. It’s as if the only way to winning the presidential polls is by knocking down an ongoing President, and the only other way to highlight the Noynoy candidacy is by delivering blows to people who are not even immediate rivals for the position he is aspiring for. If Noynoy is running for president, he should deal with his presidential rivals. Unless, otherwise, he plans to seek a congressional seat with President Arroyo as opponent, then that dream bout can only happen in Pampanga where the President is running for a seat in national legislature. Noynoy’s has vehemently disclaimed he is an ampaw (hollow). Fine, But if the basis of our assessment would be the way he argues and explains in case in recent debates, it’s not farfetched to see the senator from Tarlac being devoured by his rivals. According to the recent SWS polls, Noynoy lost 2 percent from his previous rating while his closest rival, Sen. Manuel Village, has gained 6 percent. To justify this unsettling development, Aquino shrugged off his shoulders by saying that there was actually no adjustment in the survey because the poll had a 2-3 percent margin of error. But isn’t that statistical periphery also applicable to all other presidential bets covered by the SWS survey? When asked in the De la Salle forum about his declining numbers, Noynoy answered clumsily, saying “there are credible surveys and there are surveys that can be bought in Quiapo.” Is the man who the Liberal Party has anointed as its presidential timber suggesting that the SWS survey was rigged? As if this was not enough, his party came out with a statement saying that the conduct of the survey was done to time with the coming out of the Villar informercials. So what? Isn’t every one of them in the presidential wagon guilty of the same subliminal (read: ‘premature) campaigning? To show his unpreparedness even in elementary issues, Noynoy, when asked why he has associated himself with the group known as ‘Hyatt 10,’ indirectly admitted his preference of old bureaucrats to be appointed under his administration because “they have experience already.” But Noynoy is misinformed. Being experienced does not mean credibility. Just because the ‘Hyatt 10’ members resigned from the Arroyo dispensation due to the ‘Hello Garci’ scam does not mean they are trustworthy. Has Sen. Aquino forgotten that a former DSWD secretary now enlisted as one of the members of his cheering squads is the same lady who pleaded for her position but later betrayed the person who appointed her? Is this the better way to underscore loyalty by stabbing a master on the back? If she had the common sense to leave her post, she would have done it politely! Noynoy’s party is frenetically stonewalling every effort to pry open what is inside Sen. Aquino’s mind. His latest showing at the Ayala Alabang forum—which was disastrously inferior—should ring alarm bells for the public to discern which presidential candidates really make sense. This country cannot continue to live on hope, dream, and change. What this nation needs are leaders who have a clear vision on what to do and are not afraid to defend their platforms amid public dissatisfaction criticism. The presidency is not about yellow ribbons, Hyatt 10’s and peripheral visions. It has something to do more with concrete achievements—accomplishments that are now found in acutely delivered speeches but on the actual performances that are tangible and visible. Voting a candidate into office should not be about somebody else’s popularity; rather, it should be anchored on the principle of execution—which the Aquino menu does not include.