DUCKY PAREDES‘PNoy’s mantra of good governance and pursuing the straight path cannot be easily dismissed as empty sloganeering.’ THIS has been my mantra: "Let us have three more presidents as clean and honest as PNoy; then, we can leave this country to our grandchildren knowing that they will have clean and honest presidents from then on." Four presidents is only 24 years, not much but enough for the voters to realize what clean and honest governance is. I cannot imagine that they would go back to a Ferdinand Marcos or a Gloria Arroyo, once they have had good governance – clean, honest and competent. When the Supreme Court voted to give his family’s Hacienda Luisita to the farmers, President Aquino could have taken the line that others unconnected to the family saw: that this was part and parcel of the Arroyo-Aquino war with the SC again taking the side of their Ninang Gloria who appointed most of them. The President did nothing of the sort. Instead, he advised his relatives to accept the SC’s decision and give up the land to the farmers. That’s a president (certainly, not a landowner) talking! PNoy presumed regularity with the SC decision. With that, President Aquino proved himself to be the leader of not just one sector but of the entire country. While the farmers will be given their share of the land, the President noted that the landowners will also be paid their due. But of course! That, after all, is our law. As for his miniscule share in the Hacienda, on assuming the presidency, he apparently gave up his share by divesting. Still, considering that the owners were his blood relatives, a tradpol would have had his fingerprints all over how the hacienda’s problems were settled. Clearly, he is no tradpol or trapo, He is a true leader who leads by example. P-Noy’s vow to lead the nation to the "daang matuwid" has already been tested many times; the people have always rallied behind him, as when the Department of Justice (DoJ) stopped the Arroyos from fleeing the country and the many cases they will be facing. Although some foreign observes see his moves against the Arroyos as political vendetta (which it is not), the fact that he has the people’s support proves that, as the Solicitor General says. "This is not about vengeance. This is about accountability." Is this political vendetta? Was there cheating in the 2007 elections? Did Mike Arroyo not sell his personal five year old helicopters as brand-new to the Philippine National Police (PNP)? The Arroyos have only themselves to blame for the legal problems they created for themselves! As it turns out, however, the SC itself, admitted in a 7-6 vote, some days later, that the SC’s temporary restraining order (TRO) that Mike and Gloria tried used in trying to leave the country last Nov. 15 was still inoperative. What saved the day and prevented wide-spread embarrassment was the firmness shown by the government to bar the Arroyos from leaving. This was the only just and right decision, especially, with the recent admission of the doctors of Mrs. Arroyo that her medical condition was neither life-threatening nor did it need medical treatment abroad. Called upon by the Pasay City Regional Trial Court to testify, Mrs. Arroyo’s doctors said that, in fact, she never even needed hospitalization and could be treated as an outpatient. But, wait, the next day, according to her lawyers, she now needs a colonoscopy and a possible colon operation. I laugh out loud at Gloria’s desperate antics but PNoy ignores her as an unimportant insignificance to what he has to do to fix the country that she ran ragged, One-and-a-half years into his administration, President Aquino is proving to be a non-traditional politician with a distinct leadership style. Filipinos perceive traditional politicians, as tradpols" or "trapos." Dirty rags! Trapos take on popular causes in order to win votes in the next election; their loyalty is not to the country but to their party—and themselves—first and foremost. The last thing that anyone can call the President is a "trapo". While he may have been the candidate of the Liberal Party in the May 2010 election and did appoint some of his party mates to key positions later, PNoy has shown that he makes decisions not on the basis of politics, but on his judgment of what is good for the country over the longer term. He is his own man. This year, PNoy flew to Tokyo to talk directly with key leaders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. While many see this as a treasonous act since the MILF was an insurgent force that engaged government troops in skirmishes despite a temporary ceasefire being in place, PNoy insisted that this was necessary to show his commitment to the peace process. Later, when MILF elements killed 19 government soldiers in Basilan, PNoy refused to heed the strident call of some to launch all-out war against the MILF rebel group, saying that his policy is "all-out justice", which meant sticking to the peace process while running after rogue MILF elements and bringing them to justice. (This actually turned out to be a realization by the MILF that "all-out justice" can be a lot worse than "all-out war.") PNoy’s non-traditional leadership style is also very much in evidence in his decision to postpone the election in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao to 2013 and appoint officers-in-charge in the interim so that urgent reforms could be undertaken in the region. While this decision was initially greeted with much skepticism and even reviled as contrary to the Constitution and the law that created the ARMM, PNoy’s position was upheld by the Supreme Court and therefore a new ARMM government would take over to implement the necessary political, economic and social reforms in Muslim Mindanao until 2013. As I see it, the resolution of the Hacienda Luisita issue is a defining moment for the Aquino administration, and gives hope to other farmers elsewhere in the country that agrarian reform works and social justice is an achievable goal. PNoy adopted as his campaign slogan "kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap". In his inaugural, he said his administration would be focused on the "daang matuwid", or the straight path, as its overarching goal. Vociferous critics of the administration can say everything they want about the "daang matuwid", but I think that in the past 18 months, PNoy’s mantra of good governance and pursuing the straight path cannot be easily dismissed as empty sloganeering. The administration’s decision to hold former president Gloria Arroyo accountable for plunder, electoral fraud and human rights violations during her nine-year rule offers ample proof that the "daang matuwid" is here to stay. Thus, those bent on taking the crooked path of stealing from the public coffers, cheating in elections and killing political adversaries had better mend their ways, or else they are likely to spend the rest of their lives behind bars.
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