Real culprit

One of the well established principles we lawyers have learned in law school is that allegations and statements are believable not so much because they come from the mouth of a credible person but because they are credible in themselves “as to hurdle the test of conformity with the knowledge and common experience of mankind.” So even if a person lacks credibility, his assertions may still be believable.

This is the principle that immediately came into my mind as I read the news report about the “True State of the Nation Address” (TSONA) delivered by Vice President Jejomar Binay at the Cavite State University in Indang, Cavite last Aug. 3. Obviously, most if not all of what he said in that TSONA is substantially believable even if it came from somebody like him whose credibility has been apparently tarnished.

Indeed, the truth of his address has not been affected by the fact that for the last five years, he has been part of this administration which has brought our nation to this present rotten state. What he said about the present state of the nation is still believable even if he and some members of his family have been linked to the same kind of anomalies he is now denouncing; anomalies and corrupt acts allegedly committed during the so many years he and members of his family have held the position of Makati City Mayor, undoubtedly one of the most “profitable” posts in the country.

Binay is indeed telling us the truth when he said that “after five years of the Aquino administration, the economic growth it flaunted failed to benefit millions of workers, farmers and the urban poor” obviously because the “rewards of growth remained exclusive to those already rich, and who have become richer for the past five years including our President’s friends, classmates and colleagues in the Liberal Party.”

Thus he is also quite correct in pointing out that despite the figures flaunted by P-Noy in his SONA showing a decrease in the number of poor in this country, five in every ten Filipinos still considered themselves poor; and this means “more than 11 million people saying that up until today, after five years of traversing the right path (tuwid na daan) they remain stuck in poverty.”

Even on the situation of our overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), Binay appears to be correct in disputing P-Noy’s claim that there are fewer OFWs now because “there are more job opportunities in the country.” Citing the very statistics of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), Binay showed that “there has been an increase in the number of Filipinos wanting to leave the Philippines to find work in other countries.” He pointed out that before Aquino became President, there was only 2,500 average daily deployment, but during the first  quarter  of  this  year alone the number rose to 6,092. And VP Binay also sounds believable in pointing out that while it is true that more OFWs are returning to the country, it is not because of more job opportunities here but because of the wars, the financial crises and policies in other countries giving priorities for employment to their own citizens.   

He is also correct in observing that even if the foreign direct investment (FDI) exceeded P6 billion in 2014, P-Noy did not tell us that it is still the “lowest FDI in Southeast Asia” and it “did not result in employment for the majority” because the bulk or 21 percent went to financial and insurance activities which did not generate enough jobs,” whereas the “labor intensive sectors like manufacturing and mining got only 6 percent.”

Hence there is also some truth to his observation that while “our country’s upgraded credit ratings helped attract the interest of foreign investors,” such interest did not translate into actual investment because of the Constitutional provision limiting certain areas of investment like the operation of public utilities to citizens of the Philippines or to corporations or associations at least 60 percent of whose capital is owned by Filipinos (Section 10 and 11, Article XII). So, Binay’s suggestion to amend the economic provisions of our Constitution seems to be necessary and proper and should have been adopted by this administration.

Even on the issue of bad governance and graft and corruption, VP Binay appears to hit the nail right on the head when he singled out the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) mess and the anomalous utilization of public funds under the newly concocted “pork barrel” dubbed as funds for Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).

Indeed it was only during the Aquino administration when the MRT has encountered so many accidents, breakdowns, delays and other irregularities in its operation endangering the lives of millions of passengers and causing so much inconvenience to them. And it all started only when the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) replaced Sumitomo as the maintenance service provider with a relatively new and inexperienced company whose incorporators are allegedly related to or have some connections with MRT and DOTC officials. There is really something fishy in this move because Sumitomo is the supplier of the trains and so is expected to be more capable and better equipped in maintaining those trains. Why it was replaced is indeed a million dollar (or millions of dollars) question.

Then of course, the anomalies surrounding the use of DAP is also of common knowledge. The public knew that such pork barrel never existed before and was devised only by this administration. Most Filipinos already know how this fund was used by the Aquino administration in swaying members of Congress to pass controversial laws and impeach antagonistic public officials, which as Binay claimed, is the “brightest example of wasting government funds in our history.” Filipinos now know that this DAP has already been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court itself. 

And so it seems that Binay’s TSONA is more credible than P-Noy's SONA. While Binay’s lack of credibility has not affected the truth of his address, it has nevertheless given P-Noy and his boys some means to counter it. Either side will have their own believers because both of them are playing politics to promote their selfish interests. Politics is therefore the real culprit in the sad state of our country now.

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