Take a bow

For all the criticism he received throughout his six years in office, when the president called P-Noy by Filipinos bows out this Thursday, he is bound to receive applause from the public.

Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III is stepping down at noon of June 30 with no corruption scandal tainting him personally. This is no small feat in a nation that has thrown out two presidents (Ferdinand Marcos being the first) for large-scale corruption, detained and convicted one for plunder, and is currently keeping another under hospital detention on accusations of the same offense.

The adherence to the much-touted straight path by some members of President Aquino’s official family is a different story. There are those who wonder how much P-Noy knows; by law, officials who look the other way in the face of wrongdoing by their subordinates are guilty of an act of omission and are just as liable for graft.

Unless a credible investigation links him conclusively to corruption, however, P-Noy can still say that he kept his promise to his “bosses” and his late parents – to stay clean and leave office with his head held high.

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Pollsters have pointed out that P-Noy will be exiting with the highest satisfaction rating among all presidents since polling started after the Marcos regime. P-Noy’s so-called gross satisfaction rate of 66 percent – his average in six years, according to Social Weather Stations Inc. – tops those of Fidel Ramos (59 percent) and Joseph Estrada (58). Cory Aquino, who holds the record high net 72 percent satisfaction rating, averaged 56 percent; Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo got 37.

P-Noy topped all his predecessors since 1986 in addressing issues where pollsters have taken the public pulse, including helping the poor, easing hunger, keeping prices down, foreign relations, fighting crime and fighting corruption.

He got his congressional allies to pass the Reproductive Health Law and excise tax reforms, and even in his final months managed to enact the liberalized Cabotage and Competition and Anti-Trust Acts – measures that were resisted by powerful lobbies.

President-elect Rodrigo Duterte, who has promised to “really level the playing field” for business, must sustain the gains and ensure the effective implementation of these laws.

Some people say that with his enormous popularity, President Noynoy could have done much more. Because he is said to have genuinely counted the days to the end of his term and never wanted to stay a moment longer in power, certain quarters had hoped Charter change would have worked best under his watch since he would surely not personally benefit from it.

Having been a congressman and senator for many years, however, P-Noy harbored a deeply cynical distrust of lawmakers. Cha-cha never stood a chance under his watch, despite his announced threat last year to go ahead with it so he could seek reelection and clip judicial powers.

Cha-cha proponents can rejoice over the fact that Duterte, the black swan in the 2016 presidential race, has made Cha-cha and a shift to federalism his priority.

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In 2010, candidate Noynoy Aquino was the black swan, borne to the presidency by his mother’s death, basking in the glow of a landslide victory that astounded even himself.

President-elect Noynoy memorably said in a TV interview that he knew he wasn’t elected for his managerial abilities.

What he could promise, he repeatedly said, was to faithfully serve his “bosses” the people while pursuing his campaign platform of eradicating poverty by eradicating corruption: kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.

Early in his term, P-Noy did the unprecedented and persuaded his congressional allies to impeach two officials he believed were colossal roadblocks along his straight path: the ombudsman and the chief justice.

Merceditas Gutierrez opted to quit and fade away, avoiding an impeachment trial. Renato Corona decided to fight it out before the Senate impeachment court, and lost.

And yet corruption and poverty remain serious problems. It’s unfair to expect these to be licked in six years, but P-Noy and his daang matuwid team raised public expectations for dramatic results. Just a few days to the end of his term, official statistics show that about 40 percent of Filipinos remain poor, despite the expansion of the conditional cash transfer program that was launched during the Arroyo administration.

P-Noy and his team obtained investment grade for the country. But the credit rating has yet to translate into significant levels of job-generating investments. Inclusive growth also remains elusive, as even P-Noy’s team has admitted.

Throughout the bureaucracy, corruption remains so pervasive that Duterte is threatening to deal with crooks in the same way that cops are now dealing with drug suspects.

Corruption has been blamed for the disaster that is the Metro Rail Transit, for which outgoing transport chief Joseph Abaya, although spared by the Aquino administration’s clearinghouse the Office of the Ombudsman, may face reinvestigation and indictment.

Also likely to face trial is outgoing budget chief Florencio Abad, over the Disbursement Acceleration Program. Key DAP provisions have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, which also said those responsible for daang matuwid’s version of the pork barrel could be held liable.

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P-Noy valued loyalty to a fault, making several lemons in his official family co-terminus with him or giving the disgraced ones government sinecures. Agriculture was neglected but he didn’t have the heart to let go of the one in charge.

The lemons were among the reasons voters rejected P-Noy’s anointed successor. But Mar Roxas’ election loss probably didn’t matter to P-Noy as much as the prospect of losing the friendship of his (and his mother’s) trusted aides Jose Angel Honrado and Abaya. The President was pained enough by the fall of the man who would take a bullet for him, disgraced Philippine National Police chief Alan Purisima. P-Noy didn’t want to lose more of his loyalists.

The kid glove treatment enjoyed by Abaya and Abad has been cited as examples of selective justice under P-Noy’s watch, with only leaders of the opposition arrested and held without bail for corruption.

Citizen Noynoy himself may yet be indicted and arrested not just over the DAP but also for multiple murder in connection with the Mamasapano deaths, for allowing a suspended Purisima to take charge of the operation.

But I believe history will be kind to this President. And for now P-Noy can take comfort in his personal ratings, which indicate that he is leaving office with many Filipinos satisfied with his work.

P-Noy can honestly say that he did his best to serve his bosses. For this, President Noynoy Aquino can take a bow.