It was like listening to a state of the nation address (SONA) when President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III delivered a speech aired live from Malacañang Palace last Friday. The SONA-like speech was made before the presence of leaders and members of the 16th Congress with Cabinet secretaries and other high-ranking government officials and familiar faces of administration allies from civil society groups in the audience.
It was only last July 28 when President Aquino delivered his most emotionally charged SONA at the joint opening of the second regular session at the Batasan Pambansa in Quezon City. With almost the same audience and almost the same length of speech, it looked and sounded like another SONA. The only difference was the venue.
During his SONA-like speech, the President tried to address each and every criticism being dished out on his leadership at the last stretch of his administration. P-Noy answered some of the problems that make people suffer, from blackouts and energy woes to traffic gridlocks, port congestion, rising prices, and transportation travails over breakdowns and accidents involving the Metro Rail Transit (MRT-3), lack of infrastructure and criminality. The President spoke lengthily in Tagalog anew.
In broad strokes, the President outlined the various measures being done by his administration to address, if not solve at the soonest possible time these problems and national issues.
With his latest popularity rating continuing to decline, President Aquino exhorted Filipinos in his SONA-like speech to continue to trust him and his administration.
In obvious attempt to respond to these leadership issues, President Aquino ended up with a long-winded speech defending Cabinet members and other government officials who are supposed to be in charge of these tasks.
As usual, P-Noy blamed these problems on the previous administrations. This is the standard and most repeated reason (or should I say alibi) that P-Noy invokes whenever his own people are under fire.
The Palace billed the event as agenda-setting dialogue with members of the ruling Liberal Party (LP) and its coalition allies in the House of Representatives and the Senate whom he called upon to help his administration counter negative publicity.
The event at the Palace was reportedly organized by Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Mar Roxas, LP’s presumptive standard-bearer in the next presidential elections in May, 2016.
In that gathering, Mr. Aquino, who sits as LP chairman, echoed his lament why some political parties could not support the reform measures his administration had started. It was seen as a potshot at Vice President Jejomar Binay who belongs to the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) that has become the anti-administration coalition.
Conspicuously missing at the Palace event was Vice President Binay. While the Vice President may not be a member of the ruling coalition, he, however, is part of P-Noy’s official family. Binay is concurrently the presidential adviser for housing and at the same time the presidential adviser for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) concerns.
According to the Binay camp, the Vice President was not invited. No reason was given for this obvious snub. If it was a show of political unity of administration allies, then there is no need for an explanation why the Vice President was not invited. Incidentally, Makati Rep. Abigail Binay, one of the daughters of the Vice President, was seen in attendance at this gathering of political allies at the Palace.
There was no explanation as to rhyme or reason for the Palace event except that it was noticeably staged on the eve of P-Noy’s departure for his first-ever official trips to Europe and later to the United States.
It was a good time to clear the air before P-Noy embarks on his first long journey abroad. At least ten Cabinet officials led by Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto del Rosario flew with him last Saturday night as part of the presidential entourage.
P-Noy will be out of the country for almost two weeks. With modern communications technology, the President would be running the country on remote basis. Ostensibly, Executive Secretary Paquito “Jojo” Ochoa Jr., the so-called “little President” holding office at the Palace, along with Roxas and the rest of Cabinet officials staying behind, will keep P-Noy updated on affairs of state on a day-to-day basis.
The Executive Secretary must apprise though and coordinate these matters of state with the Vice President while the President is physically out of the country. This is standard operating procedure since the Vice President is next in the line of succession as defined by our country’s 1987 Constitution.
Speaking of succession, P-Noy took the occasion anew at this Palace gathering to highlight the reforms that his administration’s “tuwid na daan” has been implementing that he stressed must be continued.
“I know that the 2016 elections are in the minds of some. Indeed, the time will soon come when the straight path will choose a new candidate,” President Aquino told his audience. “I hope it isn’t me,” he quipped to the giggles of his audience that included Roxas whose TV interview started the talks of term extension of P-Noy.
For all intents and purposes, P-Noy will never be a presidential candidate again even if LP-controlled Congress succeeds to include lifting of term limits for all elected officials in their Charter change initiatives by legislation. As incumbent President, he cannot sign anything into law that will benefit him.
All that P-Noy wants is not to be seen as “lame duck” during these less than 25 months left in his term. Actually, what he dreads are the prospects of facing plunder case after he steps down from office.
So definitely, it is a deep concern of P-Noy to put up a very winnable presidential candidate he could endorse come May, 2016. Obviously, he is finding difficulty to ferret out a winnable bet from his ranks to be the next President who can protect him from such jail prospects that befell his two immediate predecessors.
But is there no one else other than P-Noy himself?