This is what you get when you choose symbols over true leadership. – Carlos Celdran

Cris IMed me and told me that this article in AntiPinoy.com was so me.

And indeed, a lot of the points it had were concerns I’ve already raised in a post I wrote last May

So early in the game and it seems like things are turning out the way we had anticipated.

For the record, everything I say below may sound harsh and pessimistic, but I still try to cut the current administration some slack – after all, at this juncture we’re quite literally stuck with them for a few years. I just feel that I need to raise these points so that people who support him would listen – for the next time we have to vote for a leader.

It’s a long shot, but hopefully this post can give enough solid arguments to convince people that you should not vote with sentiment, but with logic.

Excuses Schmexcuses

I may have to re-state a bunch of arguments the AntiPinoy article said, but will try to be more calm in explaining them. My worry with the article was how it could get its point across when it’s written so aggressively. Anyone who’s in denial would simply disregard it as propaganda when the points it makes are quite sound.

So here’s my attempt in trying to debunk what I’d like to call PNoy supporters’ “cop-outs” in a more calm manner.

On Divine Intervention

Honestly, I don’t even know why we even have to discuss this – but apparently it is something PNoy supporters use as a basis for arguments, so I’ll address it just like the article did.

The reason why we (non PNoy supporters) find it hard to swallow the “all we could do is hope for the best, let’s just pray” card. Is because we believe it’s an unhealthy mindset to have. Not necessarily because it’s wrong, but because it’s too convenient a reason to excuse all sorts of shortcomings.

It’s a cop-out because when you drill down to the “root” of it – our frustrations become quite clear: There has always been a tangible element that was faulty (i.e. PNoy’s inexperience, Pnoy supporters’ sentimentality, etc.), and instead of acknowledging that fault and fixing it, people would rather make themselves feel better by lifting up their worries to their deity of choice – and make themselves believe that as long as they “voted with their conscience,” it suddenly makes everything ok.

They fail to realize that everyone ultimately votes with their conscience – so that hardly should be the determining factor of a vote.

As far as crises like this go; we shouldn’t have had to hope for the best; we shouldn’t have [had] to pray – because this has nothing to do with [INSERT DEITY OF CHOICE] and everything to do with proper leadership and management. You only hope and pray when you know you’ve done everything you could and the only thing left to do is exactly that – hope and pray. Otherwise, human effort should take precedence over hopes and prayers

Unfortunatley, that wasn’t the case with PNoy. There were clearly things he could’ve done ¹ At the very least he was in the perfect position to control the Media It’s aggravated not necessarily because he didn’t do everything he could – but that did diddly squat!

Also, “hoping for the best” suggests that was is the best we could get – and there are two names I can easily mention that would shoot that argument right in the face: Gordon or Gibo. Whenever someone says “lets just hope for the best,” I’m tempted to say “yeah, lets hope that time rewinds – so you can vote for the right person… then we wouldn’t have to be in this situation in the first place.”

On Personal Accountability/Responsibility

My personal favorite, since this is where the distinction between the rationalists and idealists is made perfectly clear. The whole “we all share the blame, we have to do our part” argument(s). I touched on this in my post last May as well (under the What exactly IS our role? header), but I’ll try to reiterate it with a few new points.

You know, if it really were up to us… then why bother with a having a leader in the first place – hell, why not abolish the government? Tutal, it’s all up to us pala eh… it’s that simple eh? So tell me again why we’re not a first world country when left to our own devices? We tried believing in ourselves and our potential when we kicked the US bases out – tell me how that turned out for us? Why are we still continuing to spiral down the shitter?

I’ll tell you why; because no amount of wishing, hoping, and praying will change the inherent nature of a diverse society. No amount of preaching and posturing will change the fact that there will be a [im]balance of good and bad people in the world – and ultimately in every society, the sad reality is [just like with any other country] we’ve got more opportunists than we have martyrs.

Simply put, that statement is a sensationalized claim that is far removed from the actual reality of things. It sounds good, I grant you that, just as good as Quezon’s famous “I would rather have a country run like hell by Filipinos than a country run like heaven by the Americans” The truth though, is that however warm and fuzzy that makes you feel, in practice, it simply doesn’t work.

What we need is someone on top that can move us – wether we like to or not.

I can only speak for myself, but as an example; the reason I chose someone like Gordon, is because he was the type of guy who would get things done regardless if had public support or not. He doesn’t fuck around, and would never have to cop-out with shit like “I can only do this with your help.”

“This is what we’ll do, and I’ll make sure it gets done” is the sort of thing he’s more likely to say.

Trying to believe in the good of each person (i.e. honor system) seldom works. I can even prove that fact with concrete examples from the Ministry I’m in… and mind you that’s already a ministry ² Meaning people there should be more zealous than your average Joe what more a whole country where not all are God fearing, not all are even trying to be morally upright, and the majority would rather be opportunistic (and I don’t blame them. Randy David said it well:

It is time we recognized the gap between our idealized notions of ourselves and the actual functioning of our society.

It’s more prudent to be preparing for the worst instead of hoping for the best. Because hoping is always 50/50 – it could go either way. But being prepared [for the worst] always gives better odds. And the only thing that can prepare you for something is experience – which directly translates to qualifications.

So, transposing this idea to the whole “Filipino pride” thing. Sure, it’s good to strive for what we believe to be “The Filipino potential,” but to “operate under the assumption of” (i.e. believing in the best of people) – is downright foolish, naive, idiotic, and stupid. You can say how proud you are to be Filipino all you want – but at the end of the day, you doing your part and being an exemplary citizen doesn’t necessarily mean the rest the people in this country will do the same.

What we need is a leader who could act regardless if the people are behind him/her or not. Having charisma comes in at a very close second because it will make their job easier. But putting charisma/popularity over actual skillset and qualifications is a recipe for disaster.

You want proof of how that approach doesn’t work? Try PNoy’s mom. Don’t get me wrong, Cory was a splendid individual. But never make the mistake of equating that as being a good leader. The Philippines was only saved from Marcos, but she did nothing to improve our predicament as a nation ³ In fact, I thought that getting rid of the bases was a mistake – and that was done during her watch

The reason why it’s doubly frustrating is that this past election, our country wasn’t in a desperate situation like we were during Marcos’ era. We weren’t voting just so we could “get rid of Marcos.” Even the collective hatred for GMA was just secondary – because it was inevitable that she would be replaced, and we all knew she was going to step down without incident.

All in all, this time around, we had all the time to study the facts and potentials of each candidate in the context of not just preventing a turn for the worse (which is essentially why Cory was elected) but to actually make things better. And sorry to say, this is where we as a people failed. I’ve already said it before; we really had a shot in making things right this time around, and we blew it.

On Patriotism

This is probably the most problematic argument we of the “rational” approach have to deal with. I think it’s unfortunate – and downright unfair to question the patriotism of those of us who are critical of someone they (PNoy supporters) believe the whole country should be supporting.

You know the argument as well as I do: Why do we insist in pulling each other down instead of supporting each other? Or “How can the president function properly if his people are too critical of him.”

The answer to the second statement is quite simple… there ARE people who thrive with criticism – and I firmly believe we need a president who can do the same. Given the previous topic’s point, if you’re a person who relies in the people’s potential to perform, instead of being a person that can force that potential out of them (if need be), then you are simply not fit to be a leader in general.

So contrary to their claims, it think it’s the leader’s job to get things rolling… not the people – all we need to do is follow their lead (assuming they’re leading correctly) – all this talk of magis from the common folk would be an added bonus, but not a requirement.

The first statement on the other hand, is a bit tricky cuz it’s really a balancing act between being part of the solution or problem. You want to be supportive enough that at the very least, you’re not a hindrance. But you should also be critical enough to not be treated like a chump.

There’s a time to be supportive, and a time to be critical. And the problem I see with PNoy supporters is that they are trying to be supportive all the time – when you clearly have to be more stern with your candidate. ⁴ This reminds me of an argument Cris and I have about punishing your child physically – she believes it shouldn’t be done under any circumstance, while I say it would depend on the type of child you have. And most of time it’s just because they just hate to be proven wrong (that they chose their president for the wrong reasons)

To me, this mindset is similar to when Ron Paul was accused by Rudy Giuliani of being unpatriotic when the former asserted the reason terrorists hate the USA is because the latter meddles with the former’s national affairs. Ron Paul obviously hit the nail right on the head. But Guiliani pandered to the patriotism of Americans who would never want to admit possibility that US, indeed invited such aggression because of how it meddles with other countries’ affairs.

Naturally Ron Paul, despite being in the right, was painted to be unpatriotic – which didn’t help since he was supposed to be a Republican to boot hahahaha!

But you can see how dangerous a misguided sense of patriotism can be. And it’s unfortunate to see that PNoy supporters, being more sentimental than logical, tend to think this way – it’s very impractical and in some cases unrealistic. I’d hate for the day to come when everything we non-supporters have been trying to say becomes a reality – and the only thing PNoy supporters would do is hide behind the excuse of patriotism and say “Well, he’s [already] our president, we should support him no matter what.”

So that’s it? It took you this long to realize that he wasn’t the best choice, and now we have to put up with the “we have to make the best of what we have” argument?

How can our president possibly feel the urgency to step up if he knows the people who support him will just keep on forgiving him? There has to be some tough love – no matter how uncomfortable/awkward it may be to the kinder souls. And if PNoy supporters can’t do it, then us non-supporters would gladly do it for them – consider it “doing our part” 😉

On Qualifications, Inherited Issues, and Responsibilities

Now, let’s go to the arguments where they invoke the “to err is human” and “I didn’t start it” concepts. I decided to lump them together because I basically have the same answer for all variants of these arguments.

I posted a status on FB which I think explains why those arguments are unacceptable in any way, shape or form – no matter who the president is:

I’m not certain if the Malacañang peeps have any idea exactly what being president actually entails. Lemme give you a hint: You know how Jesus took on the sins of the world? That should be pretty much the same – the difference is that those who ran for presidency had a choice in the matter.

At the end of the day, we aren’t required to lead the nation. It takes a certain kind of person to be a leader – moreso the leader of a whole country. When you run, you, quite literally, asked for it. And when you run, you’re practically promising that “I’m the person who can fix this country.”

It has nothing to do with being reasonable or unreasonable, or if a person could actually do it. It simply is because all candidates claim that they could fix the country – and we believe that some candidates are more capable on delivering on those claims more than others.

So when a candidate wins over those who [we believe] are more qualified – that doesn’t give them an excuse to lower the standard of what people should expect from no less than the highest office in the land.

Inheriting problems from previous administrations isn’t a good excuse for the same reason: Sure, it wasn’t your fault, but as current president, it’s your job to fix it, just like it would be GMA’s job to fix if she were still president… and it would be Gordon or Gibo’s job to fix it if they were president.

If you want a polite explanation of that concept, read Conrado De Quiros’ article

If you want a politically incorrect but more truthful assertion, then let me share this post by @shitmydadsays:

Put the rake down. I don’t wanna sit around watching you ‘give it your best.’ Either stop sucking or get the fuck out of the way.

The Crisis

While I discussed general concepts related to the hostage crisis in the previous paragraphs. Let’s now try to apply it directly to the issue – just to prove that everything gels.

Facts

The given is that everyone involved at the “ground” was ill-experienced and ill-equipped – that would be our “control variable.” That is to say that regardless if Gibo, Gordon, or PNoy was president – those departments would most likely still be ill-experienced/equipped.

This is where it gets interesting: given the “ground units” are in disarray – what is the natural thing one should do? Escalate the issue up the echelon. Naturally, if a certain rank/level/paygrade doesn’t have the answers, you escalate the issue up the ladder of authority and ask the person directly in charge what to do – if that person doesn’t know as well, they escalate it again and ask the next person up – the process continues until you hit a person who can deal with your issue. Mind you, this process is universal; it doesn’t matter if it’s a government, organization, or corporate entity – that’s how issues are escalated.

And I don’t think that’s being unreasonable the slightest bit. If I were to use a school analogy: If a student fail, that certainly could be from a student’s shortcoming… now if the whole class is failing… then it’s the responsibility of the teacher responsibility to re-evaluate and adjust their curriculum regardless if they’re doing everything properly or not. And if it just so happens the teacher doesn’t know what to do, they have to escalate the issue higher and ask for advice on how to proceed. It’s the same damned procedure.

While the PNP, Media, etc. had their share of shortcomings, it was also clear that everyone was in disarray, and if you do the standard “escalation” sequence, given the chaos… was it really surprising that accountability would ultimately fall unto the lap of the president?

Scenarios

Just imagine if someone like Gordon or Gibo was at the helm – the former had direct experience with hostage situations, the latter has more experience with dealing with the military.

Gordon would’ve been perfect for this situation, but I must admit that the “hostage crisis” certainly was/is an isolated case, so it would be unfair to use this single instance to vindicate him.

Gibo would’ve probably done fairly well too – since he was Secretary of National Defense.

PNoy, well you know how that turned out – and it’s not surprising because did you really expect someone who did nothing as senator to be able to handle something like this? While I certainly would want him to step up, the fact that he did nothing isn’t really “out of character.”

And again, you see our frustration because that lack of qualification/experience was one major thing that made people like us recognize Gibo or Gordon as better choices during the elections.

You see what I’m trying to get at? Experience/qualifications matter! And that’s what the whole PNoy camp disregarded in favor of what they believed to be “conscience.” The majority still drank the yellow Kool-Aid. And it takes crises like this to make us realize how high a price we have to pay for such naivete.

Overall

I think the reason why PNoy in particular is being subject to almost “unreasonable scrutiny” is because of the platform he put himself in.

Those of us who didn’t support his campaign, like what the article says, already knew that what he was promising was fantastical. I don’t think those of us who think that way are pessimists – we’re just “keeping it real.” We do the best we can given the situation just as much as the next guy (what other choice do we have right?). Unfortunately, the picture of “change” PNoy painted seems too fantastical. And he seems to contradict his very platform.

To those of you who know me, while I can be very critical, I only am critical to hypocrites. If someone has shortcomings and admits them, I tend to be more lenient.

That’s why I tend to not mind Gordon being an asshole, or Gibo being endebted to GMA – because at the end of the day, those shortcomings are exposed from the onset, and it’s easy to spot if they are interfering (and to what degree) with the output of their leadership. And it makes you understand better their decisions based on such givens. I normally also wouldn’t mind PNoy being the low-key (i.e. useless) person he is… that’s his prerogative – but that’s also the reason why I wouldn’t vote for him as president.

But the thing is, PNoy’s platform makes him a hypocrite. He claimed to be zero-tolerance on corruption, pami-pamilya, and whatever fantastical ideal he promised.

He was quick on the gun to [wrongfully] publicly accuse the Villarica’s of tax evasion, and firing the Pag-asa cheif for a mistake that is within the bounds of weather forecasting.

But he tries to “distance” himself from issues such as Hacienda Luisita – which arguably is a clear form of corruption and oligarchy.

I’d understand if it was Gibo as president, and GMA owned the land… then we’d know why he would want to avoid tackling the issue – and he wouldn’t be a hypocrite because Gibo didn’t promise the same things PNoy did.

Or why not go against his own VP? Binay seems to have been accused of corruption just as well right? ⁵ Wasn’t that the reason why a lot of people didn’t like him as VP? They have no problem grilling people for the most mundane of things, but something blatantly clear as that is left to slide – because of the ties they have with the people involved. ⁶ Binay after all, is an Aquino loyalist How can anyone say that it’s not hypocrisy?

Again, I can be very lenient. In fact, you’d be surprised that I personally am tolerant of “corruption” as long as it isn’t blatant. Of course I wouldn’t condone it, but honestly it’s not that big of a deal as long as the person gets results. Like I wouldn’t be surprised if people like Gordon, Binay, Bayani (anyone who successfully ran what I’d like to call “high-standard communities”) had to do some shady deals in order to get their communities where they’re at now.

But when you align yourself with a platform that promises to end corruption, or to be void of relationship biases – the you’re really asking for it – and I will hold you to the same standards your fantastical platform suggests. And it’s obvious that PNoy’s selectively choosing when to apply his “promises” when his platform clearly states otherwise.

Remember PNoy; I didn’t make those promises, you did. And remember PNoy supporters; we don’t believe it could be done, but you do – so all the same, you should accept credit OR accountability (the latter being most likely hehehehe).

Conclusion

So all you PNoy supporters who think we’re just being vultures; hopefully the points raised in this post make explains why we feel this way. And why we feel a lot of your arguments to be very weak – because they really are.

And it’s not like I personally want to ridicule you, as a lot of you are my friends, but at the very least, please consider these points I’ve raised the next time you vote for a leader. Because really… really!?

Peace.