‘What Noynoying when there are 3.3 M jobs?’

By Celso Amo

The Philippine Star

LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines – Albay Gov. Joey Salceda has joined the chorus in debunking the negative connotations of “Noynoying,” which activists have coined from the President’s nickname to denote a do-nothing demeanor.

Salceda said President Aquino was able to produce 2.1 million jobs last October and another 1.2 million jobs in January.

The job creation is something historical compared to the 1.7 million jobs created during the Estrada administration in 1999, as well as the 2.4 million jobs created during the Arroyo administration.

“I don’t see it as Noynoying if we know the numbers and know which numbers to look at,” Salceda said during the 4Ps press briefing at the Oriental Hotel Monday morning.

Wikipedia defines Noynoying as a protest gimmick in the form of neologism portraying Aquino as doing nothing on major issues such as disaster response and rising oil prices.

The free Internet-based encyclopedia has picked up the term and defines it as “a play on the term planking and Aquino’s nickname, Noynoy.”

“Noynoying involves posing in a lazy manner, such as sitting idly while resting their head on one hand and doing nothing,” it said.

Transportation Secretary Manuel Roxas II earlier defined Noynoying as referring to someone who always tells the truth and is careful about the people’s money, not one who is profligate with public funds.

Salceda said job generation does not include the disbursement acceleration program of Aquino, which he computed to be not less than 5.7 percent of the country’s gross domestic product and double compared to the country’s GDP growth last year.

Salceda, an international financial consultant, said Aquino is benefiting from the rebound of the US economy.

“President Aquino is lucky because the US is producing more jobs and with a 2.5 percent US gross domestic product growth which benefits the country as Americans consume more products from the Philippines,” he said.

“This is not Noynoying but a rational and verifiable study based on accurate available statistics in the past two quarters,” he said.

Critics should take a hard look at the job statistics and not look sideways just to criticize President Aquino, said Sen. Teofisto Guingona III at the same forum.