Big disappointment

The big let-down we continue to experience under P-Noy is intensely frustrating and deeply revolting especially to us who elected him as President last 2010. His acts and conducts especially the recent ones are obviously so unbecoming of a leader of this country and exactly the opposite of his known traits as repeatedly touted by his PR men. They are indeed enough to goad us into another people power revolt and force him to step down. Never have so many Filipinos felt this way since he assumed office.

Even if there were already so many grumblings and doubts about his capacity and qualifications to be our President, most of us continue to give him the benefit of the doubt because we still believe that he is upright, sincere and honest to the core as repeatedly professed by people close to him who apparently know him better. We tried to cling to the conviction that he is truly the kind of leader he projected himself to be when he ran for President in 2010.

But now we know much better than what he and his spin-masters picture him to be. We know that this is the one and only administration which runs this country through publicity gimmicks. There is clearly nothing authentic and real about him and his administration at all; it is all form and no substance especially P-Noy, the one at the helm. Worse here is that there are so many deceptions, lies, cover-ups and misinformation designed to enhance his image as clean, honest and doing his job for the best interest of the people.      

When he welcomed the visiting Pope Francis in Malacañang, he went to the extent of attacking the members of the Catholic Church headed by his visitor for “suddenly becoming silent in the face of the previous administration’s abuses” which his administration “are still trying to rectify to this very day.” Such silence, he said, is in contrast to their present stance of “finding something to criticize even to the extent that one prelate admonished (him) to do something about (his) hair, as if it were a mortal sin.” He accused them of rendering judgment “without any appreciation of facts.”

Aside from his rudeness to an important visitor of this country he heads, P-Noy evidently lied on his accusation that the clergy has remained silent on the previous administration’s abuses. As early as 2006, Bishop Vicente Navarra of Bacolod led a rally to denounce Arroyo’s declaration of a state of national emergency and threats of the re-imposition of martial law. Then in 2008, the CBCP President at that time Archbishop Angel Lagdameo strongly condemned the “culture of corruption from the top to the bottom of our social and political order.”

Another clear case of concealing the truth is that during Pope Francis’ visit, about 500 street children and poor families were rounded up by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD and brought to the posh Chateau Royale Resort in Batangas obviously to hide them from the Pope in an apparent attempt to avoid the embarrassment of exposing the ugly but real economic situation in our land where extreme poverty still prevails. Obviously such “camping out” was timed and was done only when the Pope was here because a few hours after his departure, the children were back in the streets of Manila. This is indeed a “costly hypocrisy” as my esteemed colleague in this Paper, Ding Pascual, Jr. called it.

Another deplorable deception and corruption committed by this administration which are quite damaging to the peoples’ welfare happened way back when the RH law was being deliberated in Congress. At that time, the main objection against the bill is its violation of the Constitutional precept protecting the life of the mother and of the unborn from conception because of the use of artificial birth control drugs and devices. Even if the alleged main purpose of the bill is the women’s reproductive health, the main objection to its passage remained valid because the Government will appropriate and spend the taxpayers’ money to purchase contraceptive drugs and devices that may affect the life and health of the mother and the unborn.

To deflect this objection and to give in to Obama’s demand for the passage of the RH bill, this administration introduced the phrase “Responsible Parenthood” in the title of the bill. P-Noy and his cohorts tried to point out that the main purpose of the bill is to enable couples to limit the size of their family based on their means of livelihood by giving them the right to choose the birth control methods they want. And if they choose the contraceptives, the government will purchase them and provide them to those who cannot afford. “Responsible Parenthood” was thus used in removing further objection to the bill.

The deception here lies in distorting the meaning of Responsible Parenthood which is actually a Church teaching. As recently explained by Pope Francis, this phrase simply means that couples should not “be like rabbits” in bearing children by practicing self control in their sex life. It does not mean that they can freely engage in sex without being open to life by controlling births through artificial contraception. In other words, in exercising “responsible parenthood” we should still adhere to Pope Paul VI encyclical prohibiting the use of contraceptives in planning the size of the family. Responsible parenthood does not mean artificial birth control which the RH law supports and sanctions with the use of public funds.

P-Noy is really a big disappointment to the electorate who chose him as our President last 2010.

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