Immoderate

Dictatorship springs from a single idea: that national salvation lies in one man alone.

Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III, the only son of two democracy icons, seemed to be the most unlikely Philippine president to be afflicted with this belief.

Until last week, when P-Noy dropped the bombshell that he was open to amending the Constitution. Not just to lift economic provisions – something he had always insisted was not necessary to attract foreign direct investment – but also to curb judicial overreach and, if it would lift his single-term limit of six years, well, his reforms after all need continuity.

The morning after the interview with TV5 was aired, a talk radio host played over and over in his show, with uproarious effect, the opening lines of Victor Wood’s “One More Chance.”

Over the weekend social media and talk radio were awash with jokes, from the hilarious to downright nasty. Some of my favorites:

P-Noy needs an extension… a hair extension.

P-Noy has been listening to the “bosses” all right… of the Liberal Party. You know the nation is in trouble when its president is starting to hear voices… the boses of the LP’s MAD bosses – for Mar, Abad and Drilon.

An official can tell when he’s in serious trouble in this country by the amount of derisive punch lines made at his expense.

*      *      *

If we look back at our recent history, P-Noy’s about-face on the possibility of a second term is not a complete surprise.

Bear in mind that the presidents who lost their way (all of them would insist that they never strayed from their path) started out just as popular as (or more than) Noynoy Aquino.

Ferdinand Marcos was a brilliant senator and, armed with his lethal campaign weapon – a stunning, charming wife – he dashed Diosdado Macapagal’s dream of a second term in 1965 by what could be considered a landslide.

Pardoned ex-con Joseph Estrada won the vice presidency and later the presidency also by a landslide. As his current political fortunes indicate, Erap remains immensely popular.

If term limits are lifted, Erap is likely to make a third bid for the presidency. He already tried in 2010. And how about the other retired chief executives, Fidel Ramos and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo? Do they also believe once is not enough?

GMA had high approval ratings as Erap’s vice president, which she sustained for at least two years after people power brought her to Malacañang.

Dubbed The Sphinx when she was the veep, the workaholic, no-nonsense, overachieving GMA also rose to power with unreasonably high public expectations. People also believed she would not do anything that would dishonor the memory of her father the former president, that she would be Erap’s opposite.

People expected that having been handed the presidency on a silver platter, GMA would be strongly guided by the belief that to whom much is given, much is also expected, and she would not disappoint.

Tragically, our nation’s recent history is littered with the carcasses of failed expectations.

*      *      *

To be fair, P-Noy is not alone in complaining about the lack of judicial restraint, which he hopes Cha-cha will cure. With the Supreme Court readily poking its nose into anything tossed its way and overturning its own supposedly final rulings meant for execution, judicial overreach and the specter of perpetual litigation are real problems that hinder national competitiveness. P-Noy’s tantrum should lead to serious soul-searching in the SC.

Again to be fair, P-Noy is not the first president to want to have control over discretionary public funds to make venal lawmakers support his legislative and related agenda.

Also, our wily politicians went around constitutionally imposed term limits a long time ago by fielding their spouses, children and even mistresses and their children in their place once their terms are up. The relatives often serve as seat warmers until the politician is eligible to seek the position again.

These days dynasty-building has reached atrociously shameless proportions, with families fielding members to occupy every possible elective position in their turf, and even beyond. Not content, dynasties resort to gerrymandering to install even more relatives on the payroll of the employer with seemingly unlimited resources: Juan de la Cruz.

Local officials must refresh their mandate every three years, but they are entitled to three consecutive terms.

In the case of the president, given the immense powers vested on the nation’s chief executive, framers of the Constitution deemed one term to be enough. The pre-martial law four-year term was extended to six as a sweetener.

With the term limit, the president was expected to focus on his work without being distracted by partisan politics and reelection. But now P-Noy seems fully distracted by the need to see his party’s presumptive standard bearer elected in 2016.

Six years in power (nine in GMA’s case) by an increasingly arrogant and underperforming president and his gang may be tolerated by the patient Pinoy, but 12 years? This is inviting a revolution.

Also, the single term for the president was approved in the so-called Freedom Constitution for another reason, with an ousted dictator in mind: to make it hard for any Philippine president to perpetuate himself in power. Charter change was designed not to be simple.

In case the MADmen of the administration manage to railroad political Cha-cha in the little time that’s left before the 2016 election campaign, they should be reminded that any lifting of term limits must not benefit incumbent officials. As Pinoys like to put it: Ano kayo, sinuswerte? (Our favorite translation: What are you, lucky?)

Why people even have to give this reminder to officials of daang matuwid, who are now deliriously dreaming of staying in power up to their last breath, indicates how far P-Noy’s administration has strayed from its path. One term was enough for Corazon Aquino, but apparently not for her son.

Malacañang, on damage control amid the firestorm, is now spinning that people have read too much into that TV5 interview. But people heard the question and got the context right. P-Noy replied in Filipino: he’s open to Cha-cha, which could pave the way for the lifting of his term limit.

If it was a mere trial balloon, it burst in the administration’s face. Six years is long enough; wanting 12 years is greed.

Someone once admonished his fellow public officials to moderate their greed, raising comments that greed is intrinsically immoderate. But this was in a previous administration.

No one thought the advice would ever have to be given to daang matuwid.