“WHEN I took this office, I recall that it was only for one term of six years. Now, after having said that, of course, I have to listen to my bosses.”
President BS Aquino III veritably pulled the cat out of the bag – some say the rabbit out of the hat, with its dubious rather than magical undertones there – in his exclusive interview with TV5 Wednesday: He is amenable to, if not desirous of, amending the Constitution to extend his term.
Listen to his bosses, BS Aquino may well be doing. But, what bosses? His yellowed public, can there be any other?
The very ones that flooded Facebook and Twitter with posts like “One more term! Sigaw ng Bayan: Ipagpatuloy ang nasimulan sa tuwid na daan” or “Mahirap ng (sic) makahanap ng matino at magaling na Presidente, One more term” and some such like.
Aye, those that Malacanang just a week back distanced itself from, professing how the President is committed to just one term in office. Thus, presidential loudspeaker Edwin Lacierda: “We are counting down the number of days left under this administration. So it’s not coming from us. We’re looking forward to the day that we’ll be passing on this government to another equally transformative, transparent administration.”
Underscoring: “Maraming nagsasabi sana (Many are saying and hoping) six more years. But the President has committed himself to one term.”
Overstretching for effect: “…as far as the President is concerned, we have 696 days left in this administration.”
A liar of Lacierda, BS Aquino made with his change of mind. The President now: “Before all of these happened, I admit I had a closed mind. But now I realized that there is judicial reach. Congress and the executive may act but they can be punished anytime.”
There, it’s all about the Supreme Court. True to form, BS Aquino is unforgiving for the slap on the wrist he got from the SC with its July ruling that the Disbursement Acceleration Fund (DAP) was unconstitutional.
True to form, BS Aquino is rousing his congressional minions with the stinging slap the SC delivered on the House with its declaration of their Priority Development Assistance Fund as unconstitutional. How dare the SC rebuked him!
He of the noblest of aims, the most immaculate of intentions, the straightest of ways, to lead his people! To check – and thereby to imbalance – the co-equal branches of the executive and legislative, the SC has been doing, BS Aquino charged: “It’s like instead of exercising restraint, this power (is used) more often. Now, as a result, the balance between the three branches appears to be gone.”
That may well be the “collision” BS Aquino warned about, in the wake of the DAP ruling. And, it is incumbent upon him, the President, that this had to be remedied. This, by his acquiescence to calls for another term. And by necessity, the amendment of the Constitution.
This BS Aquino is no son of his mother. Nunquam iterum. Never again. So it was that the 1987 Constitution – drafted, promulgated, ratified through the revolutionary government to the subsequent republican incumbency of Cory Aquino – ordained the six-year limit to the Presidency, the nation reeling from the long dark night of the Marcos dictatorship.
So it was that the 1987 Constitution was imbued with as much as the power of a people to rise above their selves to exert their democratic rights, as the spirit of the now sainted Cory Aquino. To tinker with that Constitution now in the pursuit of some vested interests is blasphemy of the most abject kind, a betrayal not only of one’s kin but of the people. It is akin to Ferdinand E. Marcos declaring Martial Law to save the Republic.
As therefrom birthed the martyrdom of Ninoy Aquino, this BS Aquino is no son of his father. In his SONA last month, BS Aquino turned emotional when he invoked the legacy of his parents: “Mga boss, binigyan ninyo ako ng pagkakataong pamunuan ang transpormasyon…
Kung tinalikuran ko ang pagkakataon, parang tinalikuran ko na rin ang aking ama’t ina at ang lahat ng inalay nila para sa atin. Hindi po mangyayari iyon. (My Bosses, you gave me the chance to lead the transformation… if I turned down that chance, it was as though I turned my back on my father and mother, and all they sacrifi ced for us.
This will not happen.)” By your power-tripping, you just made that happen, boy. Aye, Marx hitting it right anew. History repeating itself: the first, in Ninoy and Cory, a tragedy; the second, in their BS son, a farce.
