So who’s good and who’s evil?

Posted on | January 13, 2010 | No Comments

Surely, there must be something mentally dishonest about dismissing an SWS presidential poll as “nabibili sa Quiapo” after trumpeting the very same poll when it was reporting you in a commanding lead in the months earlier. Actually, the latest SWS poll — the December 27-28 one — still shows Mr. Aquino’s 44% voter base basically unchanged, but it also shows Mr. Villar’s growing to 33%, putting him within striking distance. What this confirms is that it’s really just a two-man race.

Of course, one risks getting trampled by the yellow army if one were to actually call Mr. Aquino mentally dishonest. Let’s therefore just say that his handlers — in some inexplicable lapse — simply neglected to prepare a reply for him to a foreseeable question so that he was forced to produce an answer all by himself. It probably did not occur to him that impugning the integrity of the Social Weather Stations then raises doubt about the voter support that SWS surveys also report him to have. “Nabili din kaya ’yun sa Quiapo?” is a legitimate follow-up question.

Well, let’s leave SWS to deal with this rather curious assault on its integrity and reliability. More intriguing in this two-man race is the issue, what is it about? Mr. Aquino’s camp describes it, always breathlessly, as “a fight between good and evil.” This makes undecided voters like me decidedly attentive. A fight between good and evil is the grand stuff of all classic myths. The images it conjures — God versus Lucifer, Beowulf versus Grendel, Faust versus Mephistopheles, Luke Skywalker versus Darth Vader, Clint Eastwood versus Lee Van Cleef — stirs up the amygdala, that neural trigger of all our most ancient reactions to danger. We become anxious, we panic, then, our adrenal glands pumping high-octane boosters into our bloodstream, we either run or prepare to do battle.

Obviously, Mr. Aquino and his well-heeled cohorts see themselves as representing the forces of good and want to stir us up to do battle against the evil represented by Mr. Villar and his scruffy followers. This is a dangerous tack to take because it compels us voters to now hold Mr. Aquino to the lofty standard he himself has set. In that light, we are forced to judge him not only for his untainted virtue but also for his ability to perform miracles. Even assuming that he is without sin, can he turn water into wine or multiply five loaves and two fishes into food for the multitudes?

As the self-proclaimed epitome of good and the lily-white messiah who will rescue us from sin and iniquity, Mr. Aquino must then explain to us why those disciples he has gathered around him include a) politicos who used to be with Mrs. Arroyo until they abandoned her only because they thought she was on her way out, b) eager businessmen already putting together the lucrative deals they intend to carve out for themselves in the anticipated mapapaikutan Aquino administration, c) former Cory Aquino henchmen who so botched her administration that the country was (among other things) condemned to daily 12-hour brownouts, and d) those responsible for the orders that killed tenants at Hacienda Luisita and, earlier, massacred demonstrators at Mendiola.

Mr. Aquino himself is a puzzlement. He says, “What’s important is what you have done. I can [implement reforms]. I will.” Yes, yes, but that raises the question, what exactly have you done? In about a decade-and-a-half in Congress, what significant laws have you managed to get enacted? What reforms have you even advocated? Indeed, I would ask — because for the life of me I cannot think of any — what causes have you passionately fought for? What battles have you fought and what dragons have you slain that should make us, the public, believe that you have the courage, strength, and moral fortitude to be the champion who will save us from the darkness of poverty and despair?

Mr. Aquino’s drumbeaters should come up with a reasonable answer to this basic question — what have you done with your many years in public life? — instead of forever harping on the virtues of his parents. Virtue or courage or strength or fortitude cannot be passed on in the genes. If it could, the history of all monarchies since time immemorial would not be filled with countless examples of weak, incompetent, or evil sons following strong, able, or virtuous rulers. In fact, history suggests this is the rule rather than the exception. To take just one example, Suleiman the Magnificent — after raising the Ottoman Empire to the peak of its glory in the 16th century when it was poised to dominate the world — was followed by a string of 13 weak and incompetent descendants. That character tends to get watered down in succeeding generations — by softness in the upbringing? — can even be seen to be exemplified by the common observation that business fortunes built up by strong and capable entrepreneurs are typically squandered by the second generation and lost completely by the third.

On the other hand, evil is supposed to be the absence of virtue. Making us voters accept Mr. Villar as evil personified means forcing us to overlook the fact that, by dint of hard and unrelenting work and without special deals from the government, he raised himself up from a Tondo slum and built a multibillion-peso business enterprise. Surely there is virtue in that extraordinary effort?

In his political life, surely there must be virtue in Mr. Villar’s boldly orchestrating that gavel-banging session that would send former president Estrada to an impeachment trial for corruption? Surely, also, there must be virtue in his upholding the independence of the Senate and in unwaveringly rejecting “requests” from Malacañang even if he knew it would finally cost him the Senate presidency? And, surely, there must be virtue in never having been involved in any of the various rackets or overpricing deals that an administration in power can parcel out to those it likes or favors? (Those who really take the trouble to dig deep into the C-5 double insertion or realignment case would discover that the whole issue was fabricated by a special interest group that needed leverage with a potential president.)

Anyway, all in all, I cannot seem to make the case for branding Mr. Aquino the “good” and Mr. Villar the “evil” in the “good versus evil” morality play imagined by Mr. Aquino’s vaunted one thousand advisers. Perhaps the good Mr. Aquino can be more enlightening to us voters? Ano ba talaga ang nabibili sa Quiapo?

Strategic Perspective — by René B. Azurin

Business World – http://www.bworldonline.com/main/content.php?id=4520

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