‘Nobody home’ President on the ‘war’ path

EACH TIME President Benigno Aquino III’s public opinion ratings dive, he emerges from hibernation inside Malacañang, attempts to raise his profile and goes on a rampage against persons he has singled out as obstructing his campaign to stamp out corruption in the government.

On April 11, the President gave a speech at the 10th Student Catholic Action of the Philippines national conference at St. Paul University in Manila. His speech confirmed for the first time that his sanctimonious government was in a “fight” with Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez.

Gutierrez faces trial in the Senate in May after she was impeached in a lynch-mob style vote by the House of Representatives on charges of “betrayal of public trust” for failing to act on several corruption allegations against former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, her family and associates.

“We have a fight with the Ombudsman,” he said, referring to the case which, he claimed, was bungled by the Office of the Ombudsman when it entered into a plea bargain agreement in a plunder charge against former military comptroller Carlos F. Garcia, downgrading it to a less serious offense.

Evidently outraged by the deal, the President said, “General Garcia offered to return over P130 million to the government because he was accused of plunder of over P300 million. They (the Ombudsman’s office) attempted to have a plea bargain, and they weren’t even asking for half of what he stole, and they expected the government to say, thank you?”

In taking the case to the students, Mr. Aquino appeared to have preempted the trial at the Senate, where House prosecutors are expected to present their evidence to back their case accusing Gutierrez of “betrayal of public trust.”

Gunslinger as mentor

The President took another high-pressure tactic to infuse animo to his anticorruption drive when he urged government prosecutors to carry firearms to protect them from threats and harassment.

He told the prosecutors at their convention in General Santos City, “If you need a (shooting) instructor, I am willing to volunteer.” He offered to teach them how to fire a gun.

The President is a gun fancier, with undaunted competence, as well as an authority of vintage racing cars. He said, “We are concerned about the dangers you face, especially when taking on high-profile cases … and we cannot allow mere intimidation from doing our job.”

With that pep talk, the prosecution arm of the government might yet turn out, with the mentorship of an expert gunslinger, as better sharpshooters than effective crime fighters, i.e., crimes related to corruption.

Businessmen grumbling

Mr. Aquino took these high-profile approaches to show he is doing something after his public opinion ratings received a battering in the first week of March.

The moves came amid increasing grumbling in the business community as businessmen had started to call him the “nobody home” president and ask what he had accomplished during his first 100 hundred days other than wage a vendetta against the intensely reviled and disgraced Arroyo administration with the impeachment case against Gutierrez serving as the lightning rod.

First signs of decay

The first signs of decay in the President’s popularity appeared in the opinion survey of March 4 to 7—a period that may now be considered the beginning of the downhill slide of the Aquino administration.

Two findings stood out from this survey of Social Weather Stations.

The first was the steep drop of the net satisfaction rating of the President to plus-51 from plus-64 points in November 2010—a 13-point plunge in just five months of his presidency. This plunge was blamed on nothing more profound than the issue that bothered the public a lot, the issue that stuck in the public mind, involving his capriciousness in acquiring a second-hand Porsche sport car, and revealing his priorities as president.

The other disturbing finding was that the President’s net rating of plus-51 was two points inferior to that of his mother, the late President Cory Aquino, whose first net rating in May 1986, four months after the People Power Revolution, was plus-53.

Less optimism

In the March survey, respondents were found to have become less optimistic in their outlook on how the economy would fare in the year ahead. The survey found 35 percent of respondents claiming that their lives would improve in the next 12 months, more than three times the 11 percent who said otherwise.

The survey showed that the “high” net personal optimism score of plus-24 in March plunged from the “very high” 35 of the November 2010 survey—a drop of 11 points. The respondents’ outlook plunged 26 points to just plus-4 from plus-30 last November. Asked about how their lives had changed in the past 12 months, 36 percent said it had worsened and 26 percent said it improved, resulting in a net gainers-losers score of minus-13, eight points lower than November’s.

Sloganeering not enough

These results send a warning to the administration that it had to deliver concrete results to improve the economic conditions of the people beyond blaming external factors, manufacturing empty slogans on good governance, and looking for convenient local scapegoats, including minor officials at the Ombudsman office and the media, which he has berated for their obsession on his private life rather than on the “good news”—i.e., the alleged accomplishments of his nearly invisible presidency.

This goes to show that P-Noy cannot keep on banking on the reservoir of goodwill of his mother, and must show something more than just proclaiming his honesty, must deliver results, more than the capacity to bash Gutierrez in the effort. In a few weeks, the impeachment trial will provide circuses to the public to distract their attention from the scant performance of the Aquino administration.

There is no sign that the personal back-seat driving by the President of the impeachment case against the Ombudsman will reverse the slide of his ratings—no matter how many more scalps he takes in his “war” against corruption.