PNoy’s Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio “Jun” Aguinaldo Abaya is beyond doubt a certified bright boy who has hurdled with flying colors probably all the academic tests that he had taken.
After obtaining his elementary education from the De la Salle University, he proceeded to graduate first honorable mention at the school where most parents wish their children could enter—Philippine Science High School. He then passed the University of the Philippines admission test to pursue a degree in electrical engineering, which he discontinued after only two semesters despite obtaining high grades in pre-engineering subjects that made him a college and university scholar.
His father—three-term Congressman Plaridel Abaya—who had studied for four years and graduated at the Philippine Military Academy probably challenged him into taking its entrance examination to determine how a PSHS honor graduate like him with a one-year UP education in advanced mathematics and physics would score.
As expected, he topped that exam, but as a consequence, he could only stay for three months as a plebe at the academy and had to pursue his military studies at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He was again a consistent honor student there, and graduated four years later with a BS Mathematics degree with distinction. He ranked second among all BS Mathematics graduates and 23rd out of 1,041 graduates.
He then proceeded—again, on fellowship—to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York where he completed his Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering.
Not contended with his already impressive academic credentials, he still studied law at the Ateneo and passed the bar exams while already a congressman.
By then, he had inherited the legislative seat of his father. Like him, he would complete his three terms in Congress and turn over that seat as if it were a piece of inheritance to his own son Architect Francis Gerald Abaya in 2013.
Outside of the academe and in real life, Secretary Abaya has been an underachiever. Despite being groomed by PNoy for higher executive responsibilities, he has been running his transportation department like an amateur since his appointment to this position in 2012.
PNoy even tagged him a future president with whom he was willing to be run over by a train if the light rail transit project from Baclaran to Bacoor would not be completed by Dec. 2015. That was how confident PNoy was with his abilities.
Consequently, Malacañang’s apologists had to admit that PNoy was only joking about being run by a train when the project failed to even get launched as of today. They just blamed the failed bids.
Only 46 years old then, the Caviteño was a nine-year veteran congressman whose best contribution to our country’s legislation was in dividing his province into seven legislative districts.
He had supposedly received P408 million from the unconstitutional Disbursement Acceleration Program, yet he was only able to provide educational assistance to 40,000 scholars, medical and financial assistance to thousands of constituents and “tens of millions of pesos worth of infrastructure and social welfare projects.”
But the residents of Soldiers Hills in Molino 6, Bacoor insist that they have not benefitted from any of his infrastructure pork barrels because they are still stuck in the present blighted conditions of their dusty roads.
Obviously, running the Transportation department is a task too manly for him to perform. His being a great-grandson and inheritor of General Emilio Aguinaldo’s genes has not helped him at all.
He is being blamed for all the chaos in our transportation system—undelivered vehicular license plates and registration stickers; expensive, unreliable, and unsafe Metro Manila light rail transit system; and mismanaged international airports with their “tanim or laglag bala” scams.
Like PNoy, he downplayed the suffering of the public who endure hours navigating their trips along Metro Manila’s traffic-congested roads.
These trips are not fatal, he declared at first. But after receiving an incessant barrage of criticism in all media—especially on social media type—he had to apologize but only after a futile attempt to justify his insensitive remark.
The latest complaint against him is his department’s failure to build toilets worth P351 million in train stations, seaports and airports under its “Kayo ang Boss Ko” toilet improvement project.
The list of complaints against him has become kilometric that long-suffering commuters and motorists as well as populist politicians are now angrily demanding that he be fired.
But PNoy would likely keep Secretary Abaya in his cabinet until June 30, 2016 for reasons he alone could appreciate.
Maybe he needs to reminisce with him the last days of PNoy’s mother as president in Malacañang when Secretary Abaya was still her aide-de-camp.
They then could compare those happy days with PNoy’s own last uncertain days as president. Secretary Abaya could even disclose the real truth about Gen. Aguinaldo’s legendary animosity with Katipunan Supremo Gat Andres Bonifacio —our supposedly first president of the republic.
But would they talk about the secretary’s now highly improbable presidency? He would have been the brightest academically among all our presidents—a scientist, military man, mathematician, engineer and lawyer.
