As the pressure from Filipino Netizens intensified and became too hard to ignore, Malacanang had no choice but to finally address President Benigno Simeon Aquino’s promise to get run over by a train if the Light Rail Transit (LRT) extension doesn’t get delivered by the end of 2015.
According to Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma, the President’s statement that he and Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya were ready to be run over by train if the extension would not push through within two years should not be taken literally. He said that when BS Aquino promised in 2013 that the project would be completed in two years’ time, “the bidding process was just about to take place” and the whole process of awarding the project was completed only in September 2015.
President BS Aquino: His promises do not match his ability to deliver.
Coloma’s statement is a classic example of how BS Aquino government conveniently issues lame excuses to avoid taking accountability for its failure to do what they said they would do. The people running this current government thinks all members of the public are idiots who could not see through their deception.
The problem with Coloma’s statement is that, if we are not supposed to take BS Aquino’s promise to fix the LRT extension by 2015 seriously, then what statements from him are we supposed to take seriously? Should the public assume that he is merely joking or doesn’t know what he is talking about all the time? To be fair, the public should take some blame for taking BS Aquino seriously as a Presidential candidate in 2009 in the first place.
The voters should have treated Noynoy Aquino as a nuisance candidate back in 2009 because he became a nuisance and a waste of people’s time during his entire term in office.
BS Aquino never really got over being in permanent campaign mode even after he already won the Presidency. His speeches quite often contain motherhood statements and promises most rational folks know he won’t be able to keep. Some would say he is full of bullshit. As the saying goes, the person who is slowest in making a promise is most faithful in its performance. That’s not something we can say about BS Aquino. He is quite the opposite. He is too quick to make promises without bothering to study if his promises are realistic. He promised to pass the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill but apparently realized later on that the bill when passed into law would mean he has to be more transparent with his transactions. That measure, once implemented, would have exposed all his shenanigans.
The reason why BS Aquino quite often lands in hot water with the public is because he brags about his proposals or plans as if they had already been accomplished. This could be the reason why he became so obsessed with some of his proposed policies like the Bangsamoro Basic Law. It is likely that he already made a deal with the leaders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front even before the bill was passed into law in Congress. He probably bragged that the deal would be in the bag and would not encounter any objections. No wonder he was in panic mode after the Mamasapano clash happened.
Going back to BS Aquino’s promise to have himself and Abaya run over by a train, it’s not hard to realize that he did not coordinate properly with his cabinet members about the correct time frame and the details of where the project was at. His own staff should share the blame for not giving him the right information. They are either too beholden to him or too scared to correct him. Either way, they all look like fools now.
In some societies like Japan, public servants resign when they break their campaign promise. That doesn’t happen in the Philippines. Most Filipino public servants are too thick-skinned and hold on to their positions as long as possible even when their incompetence already causes misery or sometimes death.
Unfortunately for Coloma, though he insists that BS Aquino should not be taken literally, a lot of Filipinos are serious about their demands for the President and Abaya to throw themselves under a train by the end of 2015. It’s something they have been looking forward to for months.
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See President BS Aquino’s promise captured on video:
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