Maybe Noynoy Aquino was “triggered,” as young people say these days, because—as one of the media outlets that still cannot resist fawning over all things Yellow reported—President Rodrigo Duterte did not lay a wreath at the grave of Noynoy’s mother Cory. But whatever it is that motivated him, Cory’s son recently gave a stinging critique of Duterte’s anti-drug war: “It’s like nothing happened.”
Aquino explained that he had actually brought down the number of drug users in the country during his term without resorting to an all-out war like Duterte has. And Noynoy said it would be good if the current administration can explain why the number of drug users nationwide has remained the same since his term, despite Duterte’s campaign.
The often unheard-from former president also had a thing or two to say about the killing of Ozamiz Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Jr. and more than a dozen others at the mayor’s residential compound last Sunday. As if reminding us of his obsession with the minutest details of covert police-military operations, the commander-in-chief of the Mamasapano Massacre wondered why not enough raiders were hurt in the firefight that took place before dawn.
“The raiders and those raided were about the same in number,” Aquino said, citing newspaper reports. “Assuming that the victims went into hiding after they were first fired upon, perhaps there should have been more casualties on the police side.”
See, this is why voters last year turned out in droves not only to elect Duterte but also to reject Aquino, represented by his sidekick, Mar Roxas. Noynoy displayed once again his “lovable” qualities of detachment from reality, an infinite capacity for lying and his propensity to claim that he achieved more than he did, despite all evidence to the contrary.
But let’s break down Aquino’s fake news, why don’t we? Let’s first look at the his analysis of the anti-drug campaign.
Aquino said that when he took office in 2010, the official estimate of the number of addicts was at 1.8 million. He said he was able to bring this number down to 1.3 million without a Duterte-style campaign, only to witness, by 2015, the number return to its 2010 level of 1.8 million. Up to now, according to Aquino, the number is the same, which is why he is questioning the efficacy of Duterte’s war on drugs.
Now, as I recall, Aquino is citing figures of the Dangerous Drugs Board which were in direct conflict with the estimates made by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. PDEA, through its head at the time, former general Dionisio Santiago, was the source of the three million estimate; this is why Duterte, who has since put Santiago at DDB, fired Aquino’s appointee at that agency for misrepresenting the severity of the national problem despite the figures presented by PDEA—which is more believable since Santiago and his agents have verified information “on the ground,” as they say.
Aquino lied when he said he brought down drug addiction because he never, for some reason, even openly acknowledged the problem. In six State of the Nation Addresses, in fact, Aquino never once mentioned the drug menace, even if the heads of anti-narcotics agencies during his time regularly briefed him about the fact that more than 90 percent of all barangays nationwide had already been infiltrated by drug pushers.
But Aquino says he was the one who brought down the number of addicts without lifting a finger. Only a diehard Yellow will believe that, of course.
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Then there’s Noynoy’s belief —stolen directly from Senator Kiko Pangilinan—that the fact that there were no casualties on the police’s side in Ozamiz City put in question the official report of a firefight. Like Pangilinan, Aquino seems to believe that policemen have to have died, or else no gun battle really took place.
Think about that for a moment. Then remember that Aquino allowed 44 elite police commandoes to die in a cornfield in Maguindanao two years ago, all because, in his desire to do the bidding of his American overlords who wanted to capture a Malaysian bomb-maker, he forgot about the troopers he had sent into Moro rebel country after they had completed his “mission.”
By Aquino’s standards, the Mamasapano Massacre must have been an unqualified success, judging purely from the number of deaths on the government side. The armchair special-ops agent president, who has been widely criticized for not sending air or artillery cover to the Special Action Force commandoes trapped by rebel fire in that godforsaken battlefield, seems to think so little of the lives of our men in uniform to this day that he will doubt the legitimacy of an operation where none of them die; shouldn’t he be applauding them instead for staying out of harm’s way and still getting the job done, if he had half a brain?
As for me, I don’t really criticize Aquino as much as I used to, mainly because he has wisely chosen to keep quiet since retiring to his refurbished Times Street man-cave. But Aquino still cannot resist coming out once in a while and reminding me—and many others who now see him for the fraud that he is—of why I was so unrelenting in my criticism to begin with.
Stay at home and shut up, Noynoy. Conserve your energy for when you start defending yourself in court against all the charges that are coming your way.