How do we heal a "wounded presidency"?
The President has still fourteen months to go, assuming that he will not abdicate. And so, meanwhile, it is not good for the nation to have a President whose effectiveness is being seriously hampered by a "wounded" moral authority to govern. Thus the primordial thrust of Malacañang today should no longer be advancement but survival, no longer progress but self-preservation. The presidency is severely battered, seriously injured and deeply wounded. Not out yet, the presidency is down. It is trying hard to stand up, gasping for breath, and hoping to regain strength and momentum.
It would seem that the ship of state has been hit by a guided missile and has indications of many dangers of sinking. The captain is hit and bleeding. And given the culture of opportunism that afflict most of our politicians, the probability is high that many of Malacañang comrades in arms are now about to abandon ship. For their own survival, these trapos will jump ship in order to seek refuge in some nearby political haven, dominated by the opposition. This trend has been proven to repeat itself time and again, in our rather colorful political history. Most of our politicians are not principled. They only think of how to perpetuate themselves in power. There are few exceptions, of course.
And so, for the unexpired portion of Aquino's presidency, the greatest challenge confronting the administration party is how to mend a badly broken presidency. The President's credibility has been badly tarnished, his prestige seriously besmirched, and his moral authority to govern gravely put under a very dark and looming cloud of doubts and suspicions. The President is no longer the darling of the press. When he speaks, he no longer captivates his audience, even with his Coloma-style Tagalog, which carries the eloquence never heard from his late father, and his Valte-style English which could even be better than his late mother's.
In the latest poll surveys, the ABC sectors of Philippine society have virtually withdrawn their trust and confidence in his leadership. The President's trust ratings among the Visayans also have nose-dived. If not for the fact that he has only about a year to stay in the Palace, the clamor for his resignation would have gained momentum. Such clamor emanates not just from the usual suspects, the leftist ideologues and their wide array of sectoral allies, coming from the urban and rural poor, from the student and labor sectors. They now come from the business communities and the Church. Thus, there is a convergence between the left and the right anti-Aquino elements.
No, it was not the Mamasapano debacle that undid Aquino's presidency. It was rather the manner by which he behaved immediately thereafter, and the rather disjointed, incoherent and confused ways by which his trusted men and women handled the task of cleaning up the mess, those series of denials and finger-pointings. The incoherence and the confusion could only happen due to lack of clear direction, and above all, by the crude attempts to tell blatant lies to the people. Well, as the political sage says: "They can fool some of the people all the time. They can fool all the people some of the time. But they cannot fool all the people all the time."
The problems with liars is that they tend to contradict themselves. That is why, someone said that liars must have good memory. The only way by which this administration can redeem itself from the disgruntled citizenry is to own up to the problems and accept responsibility, to start again by telling the truth and apologize. But, is the President humble and secured enough to take such a risky proposition? If President Cory were alive today, she would most probably tell Aquino to go to confession and ask for forgiveness from those he offended. By that, history might judge him more kindly, and God might look at him with mercy and compassion. Hopefully.
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