Sa daang matuwid

Sa daang matuwid, it is wrong for Maria Elena Bautista Horn, spokesperson of former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, to go public about an alleged threat on the life of Arroyo based on a source she refuses to identify.

 But in the same daang matuwid, it is all right for Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to go public about a supposed bid for political asylum by Arroyo based on nothing more substantial than an anonymous text message.

 Sa daang matuwid, it is a crying shame for Arroyo to spend $20,000 dollars, or roughly a million pesos, on dinner for her delegation at the posh Le Cirque restaurant in Manhattan during an official trip to the United States while she was president.

 The same daang matuwid makes it heroic for President Aquino, the commander in chief, to give a cash gift of P5 million pesos during a secret meeting with the enemy (the MILF) in Tokyo even if this enemy is killing and mutilating his own soldiers.

 Sa daang matuwid, it was obscene for Arroyo to pack the Supreme Court with her appointees despite the fact that it was necessary and obligatory on her part to do so, the vacancies having occurred as a matter of course during her nine-year watch.

 The same daang matuwid finds nothing wrong in Aquino naming family friends and drinking and shooting buddies to sensitive government positions solely on those bases, and never mind if they shame the country in the process or jeopardize its interests.

 Sa daang matuwid, there are no qualms in casting aspersions on the professionalism and integrity of top caliber doctors at a top caliber hospital simply because they happen to be the physicians of choice of Arroyo.

 In the same daang matuwid, you are supposed to believe without question the Department of Health’s anti-smoking campaign, simply because its campaign poster boy happens to be no other than Aquino himself, the heaviest smoker of all presidents on the planet.

 Sa daang matuwid, it is the height of arrogance of power for Arroyo, when she was still the president, to pour tens of millions of pesos for the development of her district in her home province of Pampanga.

 Yet in the same daang matuwid, allocating hundreds of millions of pesos for Batanes, the home province of Aquino’s campaign manager who now occupies a high position in government along with his wife and daughter, is seen as the height of conscientious fiscal management. 

 Sa daang matuwid, the constant travels of Arroyo, both within the country and abroad, are viewed with scorn and disdain. They are labeled as wasteful and expensive, never mind if these are all working trips by a president who simply happens to be a workaholic.

 In the same daang matuwid, frequent nights out of boozing by Aquino and his constant tardiness in coming to work betray a twisted work ethic that his supporters just gloss over. He refuses to meet even his own Cabinet as a whole. But that is a topic no one talks about.

 Sa daang matuwid, all opposition is stifled. Those who happen to take a different opinion are called all sorts of names. The son of democracy icons and his supporters brand them as paid hacks and liars, for no other reason than that they happen to take a contrary view.

Yet in the same daang matuwid, Aquino henchmen are the all-knowing keepers of truth, as if they are the only ones God singled out from among 100 million Filipinos. Many were embedded in media as early as the elections to peddle bias. One anchor got repaid with a Cabinet position.