As it stumbles through its last months in office, the Aquino administration is doing its best to get what it believes to be the most needful things done in the little time it has remaining. High on the list—and this is no joke—is the passage in Congress of the Bangsamoro Basic Law.
Yesterday, President Noynoy Aquino called an “all-party caucus” of the members of the House of Representatives in Malacañang Palace to ask lawmakers to approve the BBL. There were no reports of large amounts of cash being handed over to the 120 or so congressmen who came, so I’m guessing the law ceding large territories and immense powers to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is just not going to get approved.
You can, if you’re president, lead most congressmen to the palace. But if you’re not going to spread some Christmas cheer, you can’t make them drink any more of that Yellow Kool-Aid.
Why Aquino refuses to give up on the passage of his BBL is really hard to understand. After all, if the President had really wanted to get important stuff done, he could simply agree to lower income taxes for both businesses and individuals; or maybe he can ask the House to just pass the Freedom of Information Act already, like he promised when he was just campaigning solely on the strength of being Ninoy and Cory’s only son.
But why BBL, which no one except the MILF and Aquino’s peace negotiators wants approved anymore? Why BBL, when he can’t even solve the traffic mess or even fix the airport?
I swear I don’t know. All I know is, this President will be remembered for, among other things no one in his position and in his right mind would be proud of, his single-minded determination to give up large swaths of territory and nearly all his government’s powers to a rebel movement that can’t even bring its own “soldiers” to justice after killing 44 elite state troops in Mamasapano.
Because Aquino is who he is, he can’t even get it through his head that no one, not even gift-seeking congressmen, believes that passing BBL is such an important thing. And if he were truly honest, not even Mar Roxas will concede that Aquino is still relevant in the national conversation—or even a real political force—anymore.
If I were Aquino, I’d continue accepting invitations to travel abroad from anyone who still cares to listen to me whine, blame and paint rosy pictures of progress and growth that have absolutely no connection to reality. Here, in his own country, Aquino is simply a non-factor, a total lame duck whom everyone expects to make as little a fuss as possible until he returns to the obscurity that he enjoyed all his life prior to somehow ending up as President of this troubled land.
Nobody wants to hear you push your BBL anymore, Mr. President. And now that you can’t even cajole, threaten or bribe your Congress allies into doing what you want, not even they will want to hear a word from you until your valedictory speech at the end of June next year.
If you feel a compelling urge to open your mouth to speak (as opposed to keeping it open for no reason other than that is how it is, whether you are speaking or not), just stick a Marlboro in it. Don’t trouble us anymore with your doomed BBL or any more of your last-minute “priorities.”
You’re still president, yes. But no one wants to listen to you anymore.
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Speaking of Mar Roxas, a would-be meme from the Aquino-anointed candidate has the chief of the Philippine National Police, Director General Ricardo Marquez, testifying about a supposed sterling quality of his former boss in this manner: “It is very rare that you see a secretary [like Roxas] holding meetings as early as 6 a.m. and working as late as 10 p.m.”
I really don’t know if Marquez said this. But I think that, far from being a virtue, holding early-morning meetings and working until late at night isn’t really a positive attribute.
All Marquez’s testimony tells me is that Roxas probably enjoys conducting meetings. And that, given his well-known penchant for “paralysis by analysis,” what Roxas accomplishes by working so long on a daily basis is so disproportionate to the time and effort he puts in.
Consider Roxas’ stint as transportation secretary, his first gig under this administration. Roxas got nothing done in that sensitive department except prepare the awarding of the maintenance contract of the MRT Line 3 to officials of a shadowy company that is now charged with various offenses that caused the breakdown of that all-important commuter rail line.
And yet, the maintenance deal was signed only after Roxas had moved on to the post of interior and local government secretary, thus allowing his successor to claim as his defense the fact that he approved it even if he had just been on the job for a couple of days. And that’s just one deal.
Roxas may work all day and most of the night. But he never seems to get anything—except the odd “epal” photo op—done.