President Aquino’s Dry Humor

This photo of President Noynoy Aquino is "awful but genuine" according to Raissa Robles (raissarobles.com). Photo from Raissa Robles' blog.

I hope President Noynoy Aquino refrain from cracking his dry, boring, uninteresting jokes about beautiful women and his love life. I am not interested to know his love life; and many of us – Filipinos – don’t care about it. I would like to hear him talking about the affairs of the state than his personal affairs.

Since President Noynoy was not very visible talking about serious matters when he was in Congress when he was in the Senate, I try to understand why he loves to talk his personal affairs more than the concerns of this nation.

I can forgive the President if he sometimes sour grape the previous administration. That could be his best excuse (perhaps for doing little things) but talking much about getting stressed, about seeing beautiful women, and about not being married are almost unforgivable.

I suspect deep within him the presidency is not a serious matter.

President Aquino has appealed to us to spare his love life and yet he keeps on talking about it. I wonder why the President is acting this way. I don’t know if his reputation makers have noticed that the President appears childish when he talks about beautiful women, about his love, about not being married. If he was just kidding or just wanted to make things light, then it doesn’t make sense at all.

The President talks about his personal affairs everywhere. When he visited Singapore, I could remember a story in entertainment section that the President exchanged SMS with a beautiful reporter based in Singapore. Why media pick up this kind of stories is very obvious! And the reason I pick this up is my disappointment.

Recently in City of Naga (Cebu), the President cracked another boring line that made him land in the entertainment section of newspapers. During the inauguration of the KEPCO-SPC Cebu Power Plant he told in his speech (as quoted by Willard Cheng in ABS-CBN News):

Sa kada bisita nako dinhi sa Cebu, mas daghan gwapa, apil si Governor Gwen (Mas dumarami ang magaganda dito sa Cebu, kasama na si Governor Gwen)

The President reportedly admired a Korean media personality who hosted the event. We’ll the President almost admire any young and beautiful women he encountered.

The President is no longer 14 years old to sweetly talk in public his admiration to women. Besides, he is the President and he should show some dignity to his office by not acting like a teen who always got a crush at school campus.

He should keep his feeling to himself unless his intention as President is to meet many beautiful women and to get married – not to serve this nation. But I doubt. I think, he just enjoy talking about it as his alibi. Maybe, he knows he has no interesting accomplishment to share.

Let’s go back to Cebu incident. In the same ABS-CBN report Willard Cheng wrote: President Aquino is considering using Malacañan sa Sugbo in Cebu if only to meet a partner in life.

Was the President serious on this? Was the President just tried to make us laugh? It was not funny. It was very senseless!

I hope the President don’t talk too much the way he talk now. If he has nothing to talk then he better shut up. Being the President, he should act the way the people expect him to be. President Noynoy Aquino should act like President!

I hope his men would advise him not to ad lib his state of the nation (SONA) address with his dry, boring, uninteresting personal affairs.

The Davao Mayor, the Sheriff, and the Rule of Law

No one is above the law – not even the Davao’s mayor!  The rule of law is better than that of any individual, declared Aristotle, the teacher of Alexander the Great.

The July 1st evening news became so disturbing because of the video clips that show how Davao Mayor Sarah Duterte was beating up a sheriff who enforced a demolition order. It looked very inhuman, very demeaning. I could feel the shame.

The following day, newspapers (such as this story in Philippine Daily Inquirer) and broadcast networks carry the news with the reactions from government agencies and various groups.

Theodore Te, a law profession in the University of the Philippines (UP) as quoted in Philippine Daily Inquirer report said, what she (Duterte) did was not justifiable, not acceptable. In the same report, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) in Davao City told that there seem to be traces of human rights violations.

Instead of hearing apologies from the Mayor Duterte, I hear the sheriff’s apologies instead.

Now, it saddened me because many people put high regard on what the mayor did than what is right in a democratic society. Lately, some people and leaders in Davao City show support the action of their mayor in a rally.

Meanwhile, the Sheriffs Confederation of the Philippines (Scophil) condemn Duterte’s attack on a Davao sheriff.

We are now living dangerously in a society with the culture of impunity.

I am afraid what happened in Davao City will also happen in Cebu City. I am afraid that it happened in our town in Mindanao. I am afraid we will soon be ruled by men and not by law.

I am afraid that I wake up one day when everyone forgets the rule of law.

Mayor Sara Duterte should be held liable to what she did. We should not asked her to apologize now expect her and her father to think and believe the way we do but let us let them feel that we are and they are in a society ruled by law.