Retreat

There is no more pitiful sight than an army, or a presidency, in disorganized retreat. When that happens, the foot soldiers trip on each other while taking casualties from friendly fire.

What the Aquino presidency need right now is a Retreat Master — not the one who leads in prayers but the one who supervises a more organized political withdrawal. Someone who could lie brazenly, don the thickest of faces and make defeat appear like victory.

The most urgent thing is to prevent more and more of what is left of the President’s allies from falling on their own bayonets.

The past two weeks were particularly gory for the Aquino presidency. The task at hand is to contain the political damage and prevent things from going out of hand.

This debacle began when Mar Roxas, in what appears to be a planned float, expressed preference for extending Aquino’s stay in office during a TV interview. The idea was quickly seconded by Roxas’ LP allies as well as by the army of trolls kept for the purpose of shaping public opinion — or, more precisely, displacing public opinion with an orchestrated semblance of it.

In the days that followed, the debate over the Roxas scenario was largely between Aquino allies identified with the Balay faction and those with the Samar faction. The people of Balay tried to inflate the scenario of self-succession while those of Samar tried to diminish it. The battle was largely internecine and the message became increasingly confused.

Sonny Coloma, identified with the Samar faction, tried to play down the scenario of self-succession, conceding that it was not constitutional. The same person, we will recall, tried to play down Aquino’s call for supporters to wear yellow ribbons (a call that flopped immediately) by saying the President was “joking.”

Edwin Lacierda, of the Balay faction, allowed the possibility that the President would consult with his “bosses.” He allowed for the possibility that, if there was a popular clamor for it, the President might consider self-succession.

Eventually, Aquino himself used a rare television interview to announce his openness to constitutional amendments (which he heretofore vehemently opposed). The purpose of such amendments, however, was to curb the judiciary’s excessive “reach.”

Lacierda played up the possibility of self-succession. Coloma insisted this was not what the President said. Either way, Aquino’s sudden change of heart sparked a storm of adverse reactions. After all, once the process of amending the Constitution is opened, anything could happen.

The very idea of amending the Constitution to curb judicial independence was an outrage. The CBCP, the Integrated Bar, the Philippine Constitutional Association, business groups and civil society organizations quickly chorused against the idea. Vice-President Jojo Binay, for the first time ever, openly disagreed with the President’s desire to clip the powers of the judiciary.

Even congressional leaders of the LP admitted the matter was not discussed at the party level. It is a matter that appears to have been hatched by a very small conspiracy around the President.

Consequently, the anti-pork rally scheduled for next Monday will likely morph into an anti-Aquino rally, unless the Palace quickly retreats from the provocative scenarios it has been floating. In last year’s “million-man march,” Palace operatives were quite successful in keeping the President out of the line of fire. This year, the President himself quite successfully put himself squarely as the principal target of popular rage.

The President’s late change of heart on the matter of constitutional change was not preceded by any visible exercise in public consultation. The fact is, this has never been a consultative presidency. Most of the time, the President seems to be talking to himself. The rest of the time, he seems to be talking only with the small cabal of Palace associates who have maintained the tightest cordon sanitaire around their principal.

Judging by the quality of Aquino’s speeches, the factual errors that riddle it, the impolitic language used and the very superficial grasp of complex policy issues, it does seem that these utterances of public record are discussed only between the President and his very sophomoric speechwriter.

Aquino’s bizarre inclination to announce things by innuendo, rather than by taking full intellectual responsibility for forthright statements, adds to the murkiness surrounding this strange fling with Charter change. It is never a good leadership trait to want in forthrightness.

Is he still trying to intimidate the Supreme Court to get it to reverse its DAP decision? Is he merely (and vainly) trying to delay the onset of lame duck status by raising the specter of self-succession? Is he really opening a possibility for extending his rule and saving his party from extinction by messing with the rules of the game?

The more charitable among us describe Aquino’s latest string of erratic utterances as “audacious.” I disagree. There is a whale of a difference between audacity and not thinking things through. Given precedence, the latter is more probable.

In the next few days, it will become more evident Aquino overestimated his own base of support and underestimated the strength of our civil society institutions when he said what he did. That is bound to happen if one talks to the mirror rather than to real people.

To avoid compounding his already dire political predicament, Aquino needs to call a hasty and humiliating retreat from all the scenarios advanced the past two weeks.

I nominate Sonny Coloma to be Retreat Master for all the qualities enumerated at the top of this piece.