Is Rico Puno P-Noy's FG?

There was a time early in the term of Ate Glue when she found it necessary to send FG into exile because he was attracting so much flak that’s affecting her ability to govern. There was the conventional wisdom at that time, long before we realized it was a conjugal conspiracy, that Ate Glue was a hardworking President who meant well but her husband was getting in the way.

So the FG went into exile to San Francisco. But it didn’t last long. Besides, the exile was more symbolic than anything else… a PR gesture to ease pressure on Ate Glue. With existing technology, he could be anywhere and still make his influence felt back home if he really wanted to.

The case of the President’s “significant other” supposedly causing problems of governance is nothing new for us Pinoys. During the Marcos regime post-Dovie Beams, it was said that the Great Dictator could no longer say no to the Imeldific. What Imelda wanted, she got.

So that even if he was essentially a simple man who prefers to eat saluyot and pinakbet over caviar and foie gras, the Marcos regime was associated with the excesses of the First Lady. That means frequent shopping trips to the best shops in Europe and America and flashy parties with celebrities abroad. 

In the case of Erap, there were those who said the man is simple and well meaning enough and whose concern for the poor is genuine. But he was waylaid by his midnight Cabinet who got him linked to jueteng payoffs, corporate takeovers and stock market manipulation in the BW scandal.

It was such that I once suggested our next President should be a monk, on the assumption that a celibate President will not have the normal distractions of family and lovers as he manages the country. No wonder P-Noy presented so much hope because he was seen as inherently honest. Best of all, he is a bachelor, so there is no chance of a spouse and her family peddling influence or worse. And it was very encouraging that he had the reputation of not having too many friends. But no one saw the danger of his close friends, kabarkadas, turning out to be his Imelda and FG.

We are now finding out that P-Noy is extremely loyal to his friends almost to a fault. It is now entirely possible, after reading the account of an interview USec Rico Puno gave a daily newspaper, that P-Noy may even resign the Presidency if push comes to shove and the public forces him to fire any one of his friends. He in fact, took several bullets of public criticism for Mr. Puno in the hostage fiasco and the jueteng expose.

Puno boasted in that article that the ties that bind him with P-Noy run deep and go way back. By Puno’s own account, P-Noy would think twice before letting him go. And from all indications, it is apparently not an empty boast.

I don’t know how P-Noy felt after reading that article. But any normal person would feel betrayed that someone he considered a close friend would publicly humiliate him by claiming that he has him tied neatly around his little finger. Puno made P-Noy look weak, hopelessly needy and totally dependent on him. The implication for us who voted for P-Noy is simply, we actually elected Mr. Puno.

Is friendship all that holds Mr. Aquino to Mr. Puno? According to the article, Puno was so indispensable to Mr. Aquino so that he got the special assignment at DILG that circumvents the legal head of the agency. “Puno said he didn’t want to go through the arduous confirmation process of the Commission on Appointments,” the article explained.

WOW! That explains another boast Puno made in another media interview that he could have been DILG Secretary. He settled for Usec because he didn’t want the scrutiny of the confirmation process. I wonder what he is afraid of exposing to the light of a public review.

In case the reader missed his point about the power he holds over P-Noy, Puno told the daily that his work went beyond “what is written” in his job description… From the affairs of the state to the affairs of the heart, Puno seems to know the bachelor President all too well. Almost sounds like blackmail to me… in street lingo, hawak sa balls.

In fact, Puno told the daily, he was among the few people who could “tame” Mr. Aquino. Puno pointed out that nothing has changed in their relationship as friends despite the firestorm he’s now facing. It will take more than just a jueteng exposé or a hostage fiasco to even make a dent on their relationship, Mr. Puno boasted to the daily.

Mr. Puno sounds like a national security risk, if it is true, as he implies, P-Noy is just his puppet. We are now being told Mr. Puno is effectively Mr. Aquino’s FG… the person P-Noy cannot say no to and will defend to death. That means he will be blind to Mr. Puno’s faults and P-Noy will take personally any questions against Mr. Puno.

Too bad none of us realized that voting Noynoy is a “vote one take one” proposition with Mr. Puno as part of the package. This sounds like a breach of contract over which we can do nothing about but hope for the best outcome.

What else is new?

Indonesia

Pinoy technocrat Marcial T. Ocampo sent this e-mail reaction to a previous column that made a comment about Indonesia’s progress.

I am happy to note that you finally wrote something about Indonesia, how it is reforming its system - eliminating graft, good governance, and pursuing scientific planning.

I just arrived from a 31-day stint to advice the Indonesian government, through UNDP funding, on how to jump-start their wind-diesel-grid connected project to tap the country’s 9.2 GW of wind energy resource that has so far remained untapped.

With their top five scientists under their BPPT (the DOST of Indonesia), we were able to identify wind sites using Doppler radar satellite wind speed measurements over a 365 x 24 hours period to arrive at the annual generation of a given wind turbine manufacturer/model to determine its annual capacity factor, and thus determine the economics of wind turbines in both grid and off-grid (remote) applications.

Indonesia is also reducing subsidies on oil and electricity, expanding its vast renewable energy potential, since it is now a net oil importing country. Indonesia is also aggressively following the China Model, I think, by going into low-cost, low-margin manufacturing that will provide massive jobs to its 250 million citizens. 

They are also improving their education system, learning more of English, and investing in science and technology. They have a free-wheeling democracy and free speech as you can see the comments in their Jakarta Post. They also are improving their infrastructure – roads, communications, broad band, airports, ports, transmission line, power generation systems (which is 40 percent oil-based).

I wrote Pres. Noynoy on the need to have a long-term energy and economic development plan.

Deadly vices

This one is from Robin Tong.

Three desperately ill men met with their doctor one day to discuss their options. One was an alcoholic, one was a chain-smoker, and one was gay.

The doctor, addressing all three of them, said prophetically, “If any of you indulge in your vices one more time, you will surely die.”

The men left the doctor’s office; each convinced that he would never again indulge himself in his vice.

While walking toward the subway for their return trip to the suburbs, they passed a bar. The alcoholic, hearing the loud music and smelling the ale, could not stop himself. His buddies accompanied him into the bar, where he had a shot of whiskey. No sooner had he replaced the shot glass on the bar, he fell off his stool, stone cold dead.

His companions, somewhat shaken, left the bar, realizing how seriously they must heed the doctor’s warning.

As they walked along, they came upon a cigarette butt lying on the ground, still burning.

The gay guy looked at the chain-smoker and said, “You know, if you bend over to pick that up, we’re both dead.”  

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is  [email protected]