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Friday, March 29, 2024

Enrile hits Aquino’s ‘three-day presidency’

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SENATE Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile slammed the leadership of President Benigno Aquino III and described it as a “three-day presidency” that frequently cannot provide timely action on pressing national concerns.

“My God, they are sleeping,” said the 92-year-old Enrile. “This is a three-day presidency. Three days during the Mamasapano, three days during [Typhoon] ‘Yolanda.’ It took them three days before they acted on these matters, just like in Kidapawan [City].” 

Enrile was referring to the deadly 2015 Mamasapano operation last year that resulted in the death of 66 people, typhoon Yolanda that battered the country in 2013 that claimed thousands of lives.

Juan Ponce Enrile

The Kidapawan incident in Cotabato province was the violent dispersal of about 6,000 drought-stricken farmers who were demanding food aid that resulted in the death of three farmers and injuries to scores of others in Kidapawan City.

Enrile said Aquino could have prevented the violent dispersal and the fatalities had he acted immediately in a timely manner.

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“What did they do the first day there was a gathering of that size? You have to ask yourself, what’s happening there?” Enrile said.

If he were the president, Enrile said he would have flown immediately to Kidapawan, distributed rice to the farmers and dispersed them “to see whether that’s a legitimate rally or one that is contrived to provoke a conflict.”

But Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said Aquino intensively focuses on all important events happening in the country and the whole world in order to ensure the protection and immediate addressing by the government on all needs of the Filipinos in the country and abroad. 

 ‘‘The President is in partnership with members of the Cabinet and officials of the government in their work as a team. Maybe, Senator Enrile said this because he was used to the style of government when he was part of the Cabinet of former President [Ferdinand] Marcos under a dictatorial and military rule,’’ Coloma said.

But Enrile said the same thing happened during the Marcos administration when there was a food shortage and he was made the officer-in-charge.

“Did anyone of you feel that?” Enrile asked journalists. “I had everything sent to Mindanao, but there were some who criticized martial law. I sent all the corn to Mindanao. We ground it and mixed it with rice so there would be a supply.” 

“The people did not complain,” recalled Enrile, who separately served as justice and national defense secretary during the Marcos administration. “In fact, they found the mixture delicious.”

“Until now, they haven’t learned, from Day One, how to run a country,” the senator said. 

“Now [it’s] democracy or demo-crazy,” Enrile said. “They shoot at people because they have no training in handling social problems like this, because they never knew what kind of social problems affect the feelings of the real people that they consider their bosses.”

“You know this is a question of leadership, a question of common sense, innate common sense of a person. That shows the character, the values that he knows,” the senator added.

“Why didn’t he take action? That’s why I said it’s a three-day presidency. They will think about it first. There is no spontaneity. His actions and movements are not spontaneous,” Enrile said.

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