We have always observed PNoy using his Daang Matuwid team in campaigning for the presidency of his bosom friend Mar Roxas. He has done this throughout his term instead of confronting the country’s problems and seeking their solutions.
Lately, he has been campaigning more frenziedly, and we suspect— even if we don’t see—that he is also forging secret deals with Mar’s potential fat-cat campaign supporters about pseudo public-private partnership projects.
He never stops reminding us about his administration’s accomplishments and the need to sustain the Daang Matuwid agenda that he has started, never satisfied with what his mass media machinery is repeatedly broadcasting to us.
Does he really believe in his charisma to magically sway the people into voting for his candidate?
He probably fears that if his candidate is not elected, he wouldn’t be spared from the same government persecution that he has made President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and his other personal enemies suffer.
He has no qualms whatsoever, contrary to law, in “utilizing government resources such as personnel, including job order or contract of service hirees, time, and properties” for political purposes.
Thus, he tirelessly campaigns, crisscrossing the country while flying on board military planes and helicopters that he presumes he is entitled to use as president. He doesn’t mind riding these vehicles that are consuming expensive aviation fuel using taxpayers’ money as he makes air force pilots fly them neither to rescue disaster victims nor to defend our people and the country’s territories.
In fact, these are nothing compared to how he had placed the entire government resources at the disposal of his anointed successor since Day One of his administration.
For instance, Secretary Mar knew that PhilHealth officials would back him up when he asserted during last Sunday’s presidential debate that its program had been effective.
Mayor Digong unnecessarily contradicted this.
It was enough for Mar to convince the viewers that he was partly right and that the mayor was categorically wrong.
Instead, Mar—like a spoiled child who couldn’t wait to grab a lollipop that was being dangled at him—immediately dared the mayor to withdraw his candidacy if he, Secretary Mar Roxas, could prove that PhilHealth had released to Davaoeños millions of benefits.
It only highlighted his naivete, pettiness and desperation to win the presidency.
As expected, PhilHealth’s president—a true-blooded Liberal Party loyalist—promptly released unverified Davao City PhilHealth statistics within hours and published them a day after in a national newspaper. Suddenly, PhilHealth has become very responsive.
Most government officials and employees—with the exception of Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman and a few cabinet secretaries—are opting to keep quiet and conveniently claiming political neutrality.
Perhaps, they are heeding the publicity-shy chairperson of the Civil Service Commission—Alicia dela Rosa-Bala—who reminded them recently of the constitutional provision that “no officer or employee in the civil service, as well as any member of the military, shall engage, directly or indirectly, in any electioneering or partisan political activity, except to vote.”
Of course, the president, vice president, cabinet members and elective local officials are exempted from this prohibition but not barangay officials.
The prohibition, according to her, “does not preclude a civil servant from expressing his or her views on current political problems or issues, or from mentioning the names of candidates whom he or she supports.”
Moreover, “social media functions such as liking, commenting, sharing, reposting, or following a candidate’s or party’s account” are allowed “unless meant to solicit support for or against a candidate or party during the campaign period.”
Still, civil servants are quiet, satisfied perhaps after receiving their salary standardization adjustments, which PNoy gave away through an executive order unlike before when they were granted by Congress.
Those from the Social Security System, Government Service Insurance System, PhilHealth and other government corporations are quiet, too, but for another reason. The Governance Commission for Government-Owned or -Controlled Corporations—which PNoy created by law and includes as ex-officio commissioners his finance and budget secretaries—is still evaluating their 2015 productivity bonuses.
They certainly wish that PNoy would order the release of these bonuses before Election Day. Meantime, they are being treated like desperate voters who await from their barangay officials a few hundreds of pesos in exchange for their votes.
Before, the biggest campaign donors of Senator Grace Poe and Vice President Jojo Binay—and even Secretary Mar—were executives of San Miguel Corporation, Araneta Group, Aboitiz Group and other private companies.
In this election, PNoy is Mar’s fat cat contributor. Spending government funds as if they were his own, he is going down in our history as the most obsessed president who ever campaigned for his successor.
Curiously, Mayor Digong declared as his principal contributor Emilio Aguinaldo from “bukid.”
In fact, Emilio Aguinaldo represents the poor Filipinos—mostly rural folks—who could hardly afford to donate but still give to his campaign kitty their last five-peso coins.
There for us to see and feel is the profile of our nation’s first president.