The social cancer is not pronounced

I am not a great fan of His Excellency, President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III, but like many other Filipinos, I took time to listen to him as he fulfilled his constitutional duty to tell us the state of our nation. The president does not still have my unqualified admiration on the way he leads our country, but, despite having said that, I must confess that I, too, noted some great strides in the multifarious workings of his government.

After listening to the long speech of the Pres. Aquino, last Monday, I now do not find it awkward to say that that he, in the middle of his term, could, indeed, be doing better than any of his predecessors within similar mid-term time frames. He might have delivered a longer SONA than those whom he succeeded, but, as borne out by his message, made monotonous by his inability to use vocal variety, he probably had more things to report to the nation. So, the one hour and about forty minutes of his speech was still worth my while.

Truth to tell, though, there was a specific word I was waiting to hear. To my unconcealeddisappointment, the president did not say it. His speech writers must have arduously tried to steer him away from what could perhaps be perceived as hackneyed term. It would have been, to me, more emphatic if he used the word “cancer” to describe our people's affliction with graft and corruption. Though its medical basis would make it difficult to comprehend, still it would have been easy to associate its medical gravity to the social plague that it has apparently become.From that pad, he could have launched a more vigorous campaign versus the various shenanigans of government power holders.

I was really hoping that the president, after mentioning corruption as a social cancer, would tell us how much has his administration done to fight it. I noticed the bragging rights contained in the comparative figures in stretches of three years that he cited in tourism and in the savings of such government owned or controlled corporation like MWSS. They were a study in tedious details.

When he became our country's chief executive, how many cases, involving high strung personalities, were being investigated by the Ombudsman?That would have been a good reference point of his exposition. If those issues were not covered by some rules on confidentiality, the impact would have been more forceful if he told us who were the objects of those investigations and for what?

The “matuwid na daan” impression lingered in my mind when the president talked about “wang-wang”. That impression would have been more dramatic and vivid had he narrated what percentage of those inquests has been terminated within half of his term and better still, who were eventually hailed to court to answer for their corrupt acts. For instance, if there were cases against the former president being were investigated by Ombudsman, what happened to them?

Of the cases pending at the Sandiganbayan when the president came to power in 2010, how many top government officials were accused? Who were they? What for? Matuwid na daan is not only about a straight path but walking on it a bit faster. If the cases lodged before the Sandiganbayan and other courts, even if they involved possible infliction of penalty for corruption, were to take too long to litigate, the specter of jail terms is not enough deterrent to others similarly minded. So, I really hope that the president's leadership is matched with dispatch in the disposition of those cases and his report on this topic was what I was awaiting.

In other words, there was a failure on the president to update us on his fight against graft and corruption. The blanks were glaring. Details like how he scored on the former TESDA for purchasing supplies in unbelievable sums of money were ominously missing in his report card.  If the disease continues to eat our social fiber, it may be because the president has not taken the boldest step of informing us what he has accomplished, thus far. Alas, he preferred not to pronounce the cancer that we are plagued with.

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