FINALLY, Manny Villar has thrown a punch at Noynoy Aquino. That’s by way of asking Noynoy what he has done to deserve to lead the people.
It’s not exactly a haymaker. And Manny may soon find out that what he has thrown is really a boomerang.
It pays to read history, as Santayana bids. The history of that accusation is a curious one and demonstrates its potential to be something that comes right back at the accuser. Ferdinand Marcos did it to Noynoy’s mother, Cory, ridiculing her as someone with no experience, or indeed as walang alam.
The epithet turned out to be a badge of honor, helped in no small way by Cory readily admitting she had no experience. She had no experience jailing people, torturing people, murdering people. Or indeed, if implicitly, she had no experience ruling so horribly she succeeded in making people clamor to be ruled by someone who had no experience.
History repeated itself in 2004 and proved Marx’s famous aphorism that history has a way of doing things twice, first as tragedy and second as farce. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo also said Fernando Poe Jr. had no experience. The repetition did not lack for uncanny features, not least GMA being a loud echo of Marcos and FPJ being a simple man with a good heart, a thing that would become more patent after his death.
That one, however, was farcical in that FPJ’s handlers, for reasons known only to them, figured it was in his best interest not to be seen, heard, or felt. Thereby missing an opportunity to turn a bad thing into a good thing, sending the accusation right back at the accuser. FPJ could also have readily admitted he had no experience. He had no experience saying one thing and doing another, he had no experience stealing the socks off people (literally: the Oakwood mutineers cited as one of their reasons for mutiny the foot soldier in Mindanao having no boot on his foot, courtesy of pillage by their commander in thief), he had no experience cheating.
But I don’t know that it would have greatly mattered. The 2004 vote was not decided by verbal jousting but by electoral “Garcisting.” It was not decided by ample nuance but by the Ampatuans.
History repeats itself a third time. First as tragedy, second as farce, third as suicide.
The parallels remain uncanny in that the cast of characters are not pale echoes of their predecessors. And exactly the same answer is solicited by the charge. Of course, Noynoy has no experience. He has no experience figuring in a corruption scandal. Of course, Manny was cleared by his peers in the C-5 case, but given that no one has really been found guilty in Senate hearings – not even the people who kidnapped Jun Lozada – that will always hang on his head. The presumption of innocence merely means that we may not jail people who figure in corruption scandals until they are proven guilty, it does not mean we ought to make them president.
The other side of having no experience living under the shadow of a scandal is having every experience living life honestly. The question of what one has done to deserve to lead the country merely draws attention to meaning of “done.” A quiet, honest life is an epic accomplishment as opposed to a loud, attention-grabbing, hustling one. It’s time we got our values right in that respect. A public school teacher who has spent a lifetime putting light in the minds of impoverished kids is far more qualified to be president than one who has spent a lifetime cultivating friends in high places, the better to put him in the highest place.
One might of course object that Noynoy is not a teacher. But that only makes us ask what teaching really means. Example is the best teacher of all. A quiet, honest life is the best lesson of all. You cannot exhort a people to greatness while lying, cheating and stealing.
More importantly, Noynoy can always argue that he has no experience abiding tyranny. Of course, he and Cory were among those who supported GMA in 2004, but he and Cory too were the first to part ways with her after it was shown by the “Hello, Garci” tape that she never won the elections. They called on her to resign. A thing GMA never forgave and forgot, and made them pay for by treating Cory shabbily while she lay on her deathbed.
Put more actively, Noynoy has made his opposition to GMA clear. He is no loyal opposition in the way that Joker Arroyo and Manny are, Joker being a maverick only in his own mind and Manny being opposed only to his current lot in life. GMA, Noynoy says, was his teacher only in school, not in life. He is not sure about the quality of GMA’s lessons in economics, but he is sure about the quality of her lessons in governance. He is not sure about what will happen before she leaves, but he is sure about what will happen after she does. She will be made to answer for her sins.
Manny has not. That is the sound of the boomerang rushing back full speed. In the end, he will not be seen for what he has done, which is bad enough as it is, he will be seen for what he has not. He has not raised a voice against the oppression, preferring, like Joker, the other loyal oppositionist, to criticize only the people around the fake ruler, as though she were not the source, animator and instigator of what they do.
He has not said anything about what steps his government will take to bring to justice someone who has ushered in a culture of pillage, a culture of impunity, a culture of rottenness that has devastated the land more than “Ondoy” and “Pepeng.” He has not done anything to dispel widespread public belief that he is in fact GMA’s own, the secret candidate of Malacañang, the “sleeper” who will spring to life at the proper time like the Manchurian candidate to do as bid, or as negotiated.
Charge it to, well, experience.
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