EDITORIAL- What is going on?

It is increasingly getting more difficult for Filipinos to make heads or tails of what is happening in their country, particularly in the fight against corruption, which this administration has made the linchpin of its governance.

First, the president made so much noise about the most corrupt agencies in his government in his state of the nation address, identifying in a very public tongue-lashing which of these agencies are. Yet, when the head of one of these agencies, the Bureau of Customs, resigned, he rejected the resignation.

Not only did the president reject the resignation of Customs commissioner Ruffy Biazon, he even texted him that he continues to enjoy the unstinted confidence of the president. So what is the message of all this that the public can derive some enlightenment from?

Another agency that the president singled out in his state of the nation address was the Bureau of Immigration. And yet, after the same very public tongue-lashing, guess what is happening to the immigration bureau -- it is getting a P9.5 million bonus for its personnel, that's what.

Wow, if there is anybody more masterful in the art of doubletalk, it is the president. A lot of people who refused to vote for the president in 2010 on the notion that his intelligence is questionable are dead wrong in their appreciation. The president is a genius.

The trouble is, he is a genius in the wrong way. Consider the billions of pesos in cash doleouts for the poor that he implemented right off the bat on his first term. The economic degree he got from Ateneo should have told him he can never hope to solve poverty with such a program.

So what gives? Because the president knew that it is the ranks of the poor that can cause him real trouble once his leadership starts to come under serious question. He has to mollify the masses, keep them from rising against his regime. And the only way to keep them mollified is by buying them out.

The cash doleouts, expanded with each passing year, is a stroke of genius. At least he is secure with the masses. So next he pacifies the military by titillating them with visions of modernization, acquiring used and mothballed ships to be passed on as warships, thus emboldening our pride-starved military men.

And yet, while he appears to be on the side of patriotism and nationalism, he has at the same time sold out the nation with regard to the Muslim question, handing over patrimony on a silver platter as if patrimony was going out of style. So what is really going on, Mr. President?