We wish it were satire, but it isn’t.
President Benigno Aquino III actually talked about the nuances of his facial expressions in an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post.
The President has drawn flak for appearing to smile in the most inappropriate occasions, such as during the wake of the 44 policemen slain in January in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, and much earlier in his term, while inspecting the bus where eight tourists from Hong Kong were killed by a dismissed policemen after a botched negotiation and rescue operation.
Mr. Aquino explained that he has different smiles for different occasions.
“I have a particular smile when I am so fed up,” he said.
Another would seem to say: “Stop it, you’ve crossed the line.” Yet another, of delight.
What the President suggests however is that his notorious smiles are his way of coping with the absurdities that he encounters as president of the country. He likened his smile to cursing, or shouting to high heavens – something to resort to control his emotions.
The SCMP piece, written by Raissa Robles, suggests that Mr. Aquino has always had the predisposition to smile away in the face of tragedy. Photos of when he was still a presidential son in 1987 show him smiling while narrating how he almost died and how three of his security escorts were killed during an attempted military takeover.
What we find an absurdity is the idea of a president trying to explain his facial expressions as though these were deliberate decisions he makes. Unless one does not have anything better to do, body language cannot be planned or explained. Its impulsive nature is what betrays the person making it. Body language, facial expressions, and spontaneous speech are all windows into a person’s nature.
These tell us only one thing: a gaping disconnect between the President’s senses and what is actually happening, such that he insists on his own world-view no matter the evidence laid out before him. This view can fantastically be summarized into a few tenets: his friends can do no wrong, his enemies are always to blame, everything good that happens is because of his righteous administration, and that those who dare criticize him are part of a grand sinister plan to bring him down so the forces of evil can rule.
Alas, when you have a chief executive thinking this way, there is absolutely nothing to smile about—even when he is grinning from ear to ear.