Noynoy Aquino’s inaugural speech

A friend of mine from the Noynoy Aquino camp in Manila emailed me last week, right after the initial election returns came out, to request that I prepare a draft for the president-elect's inaugural address. He told me to write whatever I want, and he'll take care of bringing it up with the new president. Here's the draft I sent back.

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Mga kababayan, magandang araw po sa inyong lahat.

Today marks a new dawn for all of us and for our country.

When asked what one can do for his country during the darkest hours of martial law, my father, the late Senator Benigno Aquino Jr., said that each of us has been assigned a role to play. That we must keep lighting the beacon-light of unity for those who have lost their way. That we must articulate the fervent hopes of a people who have suddenly lost their voices. And that we must stand with courage in the face of seemingly hopeless odds so that hope, no matter how dim or distant, will never banish from sight.

On August 21, 1983, my father fulfilled that responsibility when he gave up his own life so all of us could be one again. So that our voices could be heard again. So that we could rise from the ashes of hopelessness and from the dark abyss of repression.

It would, however, take our country three more years before it could stand up again and assert its rights, through the sheer power of the people, when you installed Corazon Aquino, my beloved mother, as your president.

Now as I stand humbly before you and our entire nation, you have once again rekindled that hope which my parents always wanted to preserve, to fight for and to prevent from banishing from our sight.

Yes, we can hope once more. Yes, we will always keep our hopes alive.

At first, I refused to be drafted as your candidate for president. The problems our country is facing today are enormous. I was afraid I would take over a government that is ridden with so much graft and corruption that is beyond redemption. People distrust the government and its leaders. Our people have lost their hope.

I was grieving when key members of my party approached and asked me to run. My mother Cory had just passed away. I told them to give me time so I can reflect. As I ponder whether to accept the challenge, I thought of my parents. What would have they done?

My father came home on that historic day only to spill his blood on the airport tarmac. Full of courage, without fear, he faced his destiny. My mother, who had always been the calming presence in our family, without the savvy and experience of a seasoned politician, answered the people’s call for her to lead our nation in its darkest hour.

This is their legacy: a selfless love for our country and our people.

How could you not accept the challenge to lead your country? When the two closest people, your very own role models in life, left you with the right and moral choice when it is your time to decide? So, I accepted your challenge, and here I am on the threshold of this political journey. You and I, together, we shall march forward to greatness. Greatness not for our self-gratification, but for the empowerment of our people.

During the election campaign, I have said that I will not only steal, but I’ll have the corrupt arrested.

The first thing I will do as your president is to establish a Truth and Redemption Commission which will investigate all corrupt practices of the previous government. This Commission will identify those who were responsible and will recommend their prosecution in our court of law. No one will be spared. Every guilty person will be held accountable. That is what our people want our leaders to be — to be accountable for their actions. If they did anything wrong, then they must suffer the consequences of their illegal deeds.

But this Commission will not stop there. I will instruct this Commission to develop and implement the standards upon which our government will be measured. There will be a code of ethics for all those in government, whether you are elected or appointed. This code will supplement all existing laws and regulations governing the conduct of all government officials. Every elected or appointive official will be subject to this code of ethics. You violate it, you are gone. Strike one, and you are out. There is no second chance.

In my government, there will be no room for corrupt behaviour. It is about time for us to redeem ourselves from a nation of corrupt leaders, to a nation of honest and responsible leaders. This is our time to shine.

Good and honest governance is the foundation of a strong government. This shall be the guiding principle for my administration, and hopefully for all succeeding administrations.

In the first two years of my presidency, I am committing my administration to use all resources available in the pursuit of the following goals:

We are committed to the achievement of effective and meaningful economic reforms that will benefit the people, through job creation and policies that encourage and promote investment in all sectors of our economy.

We will strengthen our educational system that will prepare our young for the technological demands of the future, not to export our new graduates and skilled workers abroad because there are no jobs for them in our country.

We will foster equal rights for men and women, embrace our cultural and religious differences, and respect human rights.

We will provide opportunities for our Muslim brothers in the south to exercise self-determination and political autonomy in their region.

We are committed to end all armed conflicts, between our military forces and rebel groups. We will continue our quest for genuine peace, for this is the only way we can achieve prosperity.

During one of the military coups staged against my mother’s administration, I was hit by bullets from the soldiers who participated in the unfortunate coup. I sustained injuries in the neck and hips, but that’s past now. I learned and picked up a principle from my father that we must respect the rights even of your enemies. Because this makes democracy shine. As for me, genuine reconciliation is democracy in action.

Lastly, we will continue the legacy of comprehensive land reform started by my mother during her presidency. As a testament of my good intention, I have instructed the members of the Cojuangco family to withdraw its opposition to the redistribution of the farmlands covered by Hacienda Luisita to its farmers and tenants. We will ask the Supreme Court to vacate the temporary restraining order which has stopped the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council from parcelling out Hacienda Luisita to its workers.

My opponents and critics during the election campaign said that Hacienda Luisita is the bane of my candidacy, the litmus test of my competence for the presidency. I want to prove all of them wrong.

I have invited to this momentous occasion Mr. Lito Bais, the head of the farm workers’ union at Hacienda Luisita along with some of their members.

Ka Lito once believed that as long as the Cojuangcos are in Hacienda Luisita, they’ll never give up the land. To which his answer was, “And as long as we’re here, we’ll never give up the struggle for this land.”

Well, we can now bury the past. The future is now. Hacienda Luisita is now the farmers’ land!

My fellow countrymen, today we start a new journey. I will not be able to be the kind of president you want me to be, unless we do this together.

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You think this is really going to happen? This is just a made-up speech of president-elect Noynoy Aquino. Maybe, all these wishes will be fulfilled — in your dreams.

The accidental president –Part 2

After coming to Toronto sometime in 1987, I read a story published in one of the city’s major daily newspapers endorsing General Fidel Ramos as the most likely successor to President Cory Aquino, one who could continue the country’s arduous path toward a full-pledged democracy and stability. The story credited Cory Aquino for restoring democracy in the Philippines after almost 20 years of dictatorship.

Fresh from our experience with the sporadic coups against the Aquino government at that time, and struggling through the repressive Marcos regime, I wrote to the newspaper to demystify the belief that Cory Aquino saved the Philippines from the throes of a dictatorship and delivered a new era of democracy. My main argument was that Cory Aquino was a reluctant leader, who ascended to the presidency by accident, that it was the Filipino people’s sentiment and debt of gratitude to her husband Ninoy for his martyrdom that gave her their vote.

Now, history is repeating itself. Noynoy Aquino, the son, also rises on the strength of his parents’ legacy. An inconsequential and do-nothing member of Congress, both as a congressman and senator, Noynoy is at the cusp of becoming the country’s next president. Early results of last Monday’s election gave Noynoy an insurmountable lead over his opponents.

The present political reality in the Philippines is not a rarity. When Rajiv Gandhi, the prime minister of India, was assassinated, party members loyal to him wooed his wife Sonia to succeed him. Sonia refused, perhaps for fear for her life and family. Her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, suffered the same fate that befell her husband Rajiv. Sonia Gandhi later became the president of the Indian National Congress and currently serves as chair of India's ruling United Progressive Alliance.

Sri Lanka’s Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike was the world’s first female head of government, ahead of British PM Margaret Thatcher. Bandaranaike was the widow of a previous Sri Lankan prime minister, and the mother of Sri Lanka’s third president, Chandrika Kumaratunga.

When Kim Sung-il passed away, his son Kim Jong-il ascended to the leadership of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Everyone in North Korea now considers Kim Jong-il as their “Supreme Leader.”

Even former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yee of Singapore did not leave his post quietly. He ensured that his eldest son Lee Hsien Loong would become the country’s third prime minister when he stepped down from power.

This is the same narrative of politics in the Philippines. It runs in and around the family. Almost every congressman or senator is a member of a political dynasty. Noynoy Aquino happens to be the most recent of scions of a political family to assume the reins of government. He will be succeeding another president who came to power on the coat tails of her father’s name and tenure in Malacanang.

But what is so different in the case of Noynoy Aquino?

Prominent among Noynoy’s serious shortcomings is his continuous self-denial of the right of the thousands of farm workers to own their piece of land at Hacienda Luisita. Because of the Cojuangco family’s intransigence, Hacienda Luisita has earned an infamous place in the history of agrarian reform in the Philippines.

The Cojuangco family took ownership of Hacienda Luisita from Tabacalera y Compania in 1958 through a loan from the Government Service Insurance System and a private loan from the Manufacturers Trust Company of New York under a guarantee by the Central Bank of the Philippines. It was President Ramon Magsaysay who offered the sale of the hacienda to the Cojuangcos through his protégé, Ninoy Aquino, a Cojuangco son-in-law. The sale was consummated during the term of President Carlos P. Garcia.

One of the terms of the loan agreement between the Cojuangcos and their creditors was the transfer of the hacienda to the hands of the farmers by 1967. This never happened.

When Cory Aquino ran for president, she promised to redistribute the hacienda’s land to its farmers under a comprehensive land reform program. After assuming the presidency, Cory Aquino changed her heart and the Cojuangcos continued to hold ownership under a stock distribution option, which meant that the farmers would be considered co-owners through stock ownership and the hacienda would be exempt from land reform because it was now a corporation. Stock options were never distributed and the farmers were never considered co-owners.

Noynoy Aquino insists that there are no tenants or farmers in Hacienda Luisita based on the stock option plan, hence there is no need to redistribute the land. If there were any land, according to Noynoy, it would be too inefficiently small to distribute among more than 5,000 farmers. Thus, it was unrealistic to give every farmer one hectare of land to till. But Noynoy Aquino doesn’t understand that the farmers can still own the land as members of a farmer’s co-operative, which is in existence and operates in Hacienda Luisita.

To insist and to deny that there are no tenants or farmers in Hacienda Luisita reveal something is definitely awry in Noynoy’s frame of mind. Some of his opponents voiced their concerns about reports that Noynoy was seeing a psychiatrist and raised the issue of competence. There is nothing wrong about consulting a psychiatrist, and even if this were true, would not prove Noynoy’s incompetence for the highest position in the land.

What could be more damning evidence of incompetence than Noynoy’s continuing resolute defence of his family’s stake in Hacienda Luisita? The father of one of the victims of the massacre during the farm workers’ picket at Hacienda Luisita on November 16, 2006, aptly summed up Noynoy Aquino's incompetence when he said: “How can Noynoy lead the country when he cannot manage to solve our problem here at Hacienda Luisita? This is a small piece of land, a very small problem compared to running the country. Yet, he can’t do anything about it.”

For the farmers who have been tilling the hectares of land at Hacienda Luisita, the continuing ownership of the Cojuangco family mirrors the oligarchic control of the country by its powerful few. To them, the agrarian dispute at Hacienda Luisita stands out as an issue of competence for Noynoy Aquino.

But the presidential election would soon be over in a few days, and when all the votes have been counted, Noynoy Aquino will be proclaimed the country’s new president. Just as reluctant as his mother Cory to lead the country, expect Noynoy and his accidental presidency to yield nothing more than a mandate of false hopes and empty rhetoric to Filipinos.