BY the low bar set by this administration, the admission last week by Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya was remarkable.
In an interview with CNN Philippines, Abaya acknowledged that the problems on the Metro Rail Transit system and other woes such as the intractable daily traffic snarls in Metro Manila were hurting the presidential bid of administration standard bearer Manuel Roxas II—who himself was Transportation secretary between 2011 and 2012.
Abaya, who is also acting president of the ruling Liberal Party, called this “a fact of life and a reality” that even President Benigno Aquino III and other Cabinet members accepted.
Any rational person who listened to this admission might be led to believe that finally, the untouchable Secretary Abaya—whom not even the President could fire—was finally owning up to his horrid performance at the Department of Transportation and Communications and its contribution to candidate Roxas’ poor showing to date in all opinion polls.
That rational person, however, would be flummoxed by Abaya’s next statements, which disavowed any responsibility for the MRT mess or the worsening traffic in Metro Manila.
The unspoken and incredible assumption that Abaya wishes us to swallow is that the Aquino administration had no part in the worsening transportation environment in the almost six years that it has been in power. Does he believe, we are compelled to ask, that the role of government is to sit idly by and watch as public services deteriorate? Is it the job of a Cabinet secretary to conjure up excuses for this poor state of affairs, and not to find ways to make things better? And the question germane to the coming presidential elections is, if you have failed to fix any of the country’s transport problems in six years, why should we give your party another six years?
But the impervious Abaya plowed on with his dubious claims.
He said that his conscience was clear, and that he had followed the procurement law to the letter in his four years as Transportation secretary—even though he had signed on his first few days in office what was clearly an anomalous contract with an unqualified maintenance service provider for the MRT, the price for which millions of commuters are now paying. Today, the commuter trains break down so often that these occurrences are no longer considered newsworthy.
They are, as Abaya says, a fact of life.
What is it that Abaya has over the President that he can fail so spectacularly and still hold his job? This was the valid question recently posed by Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos.
But maybe we do not give the secretary enough credit for thinking things through.
While his admission last week was clearly only partly true, perhaps like Alfred Lord Tennyson, Abaya realized that a lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies.