Aquino Presidency: An unfolding drama of hope

By CHITO DELA TORRE
August 7, 2010

“The Almighty has a plan for all of us and I agree that the All Seeing Eye does not play dice with our destinies. Indeed, even pain has a purpose.” - Chief Justice Reynato Puno (lifted from Atty-at-Work).

To some observant Filipino eyes, the current administration of President Noynoy Aquino is repeatedly committing blunders in decision-making and approaches in its haste to right what it perceives to be wrongs committed during the more than nine years of an Arroyo regime.  To a few, mostly loyal to ex-president Gloria Arroyo, the blunders of the new administration are serious and could be contested up to the Supreme Court, such as the creation of the Truth Commission which is given a limited executive mandate of only two years to complete its mission.

Be that as it may, criticisms such as these don’t bother Malacañang.  Malacañang just does what it believes it must do.  It goes with the best speech of the year, President Aquino’s first State of the Nation Address (SONA) – which I rate 100 per cent, for its being honest, down-to-earth, and purposive, bereft of pomposity and euphemisms.

It seems, when making decisions, Malacañang always looks back to the promises made by PNoy.  Decisions must approximate the solutions to problems, crimes, and failures that never saw the truth in the past regime, until Malacañang hits the right chord.  Hence, the constant need for consultations and for cabinet meetings, and the need for accordingly responding to feedbacks from and grievances of the Filipino people.

Of course, those decisions could be wrong or simply lack some basic requirements to be universally acceptable.  That’s why, PNoy, and his early-erring Secretaries and heads of agencies, are fundamentally prepared to make the necessary corrections, and they do the immediate corrections, taking note of lessons and insights learned their own way.

All these are normal.  It’s normal for a new leadership, to err or to lack.  And it will always be normal, until the present dispensation can correct the wrongs of the past that have been carried to the present, or that had caused the big problems of today.

Sifting the sands of options - of which many are available and are multifarious, especially when just everyone gets on to the television screen or is quoted in newspapers and magazines or is heard over the radios – sometimes lead leaders to courses of action that are vulnerable to open attacks.  It will be so, for as long as there still remain the bitter fruits of seeds of discontent that had been planted during the past 33,000 days before June 30, 2010.

But the All Seeing Eye has let these things happen, always beyond our expectation, beyond even what the most perfect systems on Earth could predict or interpret.  Those who are like PNoy who strongly believes in God’s purpose see that as a normal occurrence.  Hence, they hope to find hope in whatever their hope can provide, convinced that in the end, they will see and enjoy the fulfilment of the simpler times that they have for long been sighing for.  And they are convinced that President Noynoy Aquino is that hope, their hope, who can give unto them that fulfilment, even little by little, even through thick and thin, even inch by inch, notwithstanding the monstrosity the appearance of every policy nemesis may be, and even if it may only take pragmatism to eradicate the evils in governance and of society.

For that has been happening in Philippine republicanism and in this country’s battle for independence as a one-identity nation, and for sovereignty over its own territories, natural wealth, people, aspirations and future.  God – probably, because not all Filipinos can see one thing from one and through one view at the same time, hence the urge to question each other’s claims and contentions – lets us get what we wish through the drama of His sole authorship.  Ramon Magsaysay, a guerrilla and auto-mechanic, and then a “mere housewife” Corazon Aquino, became president.

Not far from a fading memory, Leyteños and Samareños had a Basaynon high school drop-out but a “voracious reader” who became the Waray region’s first Budget Commissioner – Serafin Marabut, for whom Marabut, once a barrio of Basey, was created as a new town in Samar in recognition of his achievements for the whole Philippines.

Now, we have a not really simple citizen whom millions of Filipinos have asked to be their leader.  Now he is our President.  He resembles the simple hope of the ordinary Filipinos, the poor and the hopeless.  Thanks God he accepted to lead us all.

Wherever his actions may presently lead this nation to, whichever his strategies may be, they could only be part of God’s grand plan.  Man proposes, but God disposes, so it has been said time and time again.  And behind all these, we are comforted with the thought that the Catholic Church in us and the religious leaders of various congregations are praying that through PNoy we can all get there.

Yes, harsh criticisms and negative feedbacks will continue to pester the present dispensation, but let those all be just to HELP GUIDE the leadership so that it will succeed in its avowals.  This, even if it is the unquenchable abnormality of this nation to always demand for unity rather than a rebellious division in the ranks of those in power, for it has always been an equally cacophonous abnormality to reject government action and demand at the same time for rara avis measures that will only preserve and perpetuate evil whims – such as corruption via pork barrels, dynastic power through malevolent authority.

Yes, some measures adopted by the current leadership may not be what others see should be, but let those all engender their own desired results.  For, the current leadership also knows that, and in knowing that, it knows what are its impact consequences and what courses of action to take. It can refine until it gets the best.  That’s why no war is briefly fought, for strategies interplay from both sides of the war.  We have 9 years war enemy behind and in front of us all, and today’s 6 years of a PNoy presidency may not be enough.  But, like every refined hope, PNoy’s administration gets its strongest determination to get over from the inexhaustible arsenal of hope from People Power, the power that is behind him.