As with BS, so with His Rudeness

“FRIENDSHIP stops when the country’s interest is at stake.”

Outgoing President BS Aquino III gave short shrift to accusations of his tenacious loyalty to his friends. This, in what could be his exit interview with Rappler.

Of course, every Tuming, Carding and Aring in all corners of the archipelago knows only too well of the BS’s standard of selection for and preservation in his official family encoded in the Triple K – Kaklase, Kaibigan, Kabarilan – that’s classmate, friend, shooting buddy, for those outside the Taga-Ilog tribe.

The BS’s self-professed primacy given to the country’s interest over personal friendship falls flat as a thick-faced lie given the BS’s dogged defense of his doggone Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Aguinaldo Abaya amid his epic failures in the dysfunctional MRT and LRT, in the physical and moral dilapidation of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, and in the incredible scarcity of registration plates and driving licenses at the Land Transportation Office, but the more publicized ones.

To the history-steeped among us Taga-Pampang, Abaya has the dubious distinction of living up to his great grandfather’s abomination toward our Kapampangan nation. Aguinaldo’s burning of Macabebe town where women, children, the elderly were not spared from damnation with extreme prejudice at the time of the Revolution, transposed to Abaya’s stillborning at every turn any effort to make the Clark International Airport the country’s premier international gateway.    

How the country’s interest was ever served when the BS cleaved the supervision of the Philippine National Police from the then Jesse Robredo-headed Department of the Interior and Local Government and handed them over to his friend and kabalen Undersecretary Rico Puno – not the singer, but the former gun-and-ammo supplier – nobody but the BS can irrationalize.

Given, precisely so, Puno’s implication in the scuttled P408-million firearms deal of the PNP. The PNP declared a failure of bidding in August 2012 for the procurement of 1,500 units of M4 assault rifles worth P178 million, so we are reminded by Rappler.

So, the BS – after less soul-searching and more handwringing – let go of Puno? Officially, yes. But not fraternally, if covertly, if we go by the tittle-tattle still prattled in the home province.   

How about the close friendship between the BS and then-LTO chief and later Customs broker wannabe – allegedly over P100-million worth of smuggled sugar – Virginia Torres? The issue only rested with Torres’ passing to eternal rest.

No other instance in his presidency can the lie in BS’s paean to patriotism over friendship be bigger than in the Mamasapano Massacre.

Already suspended by the Ombudsman, PNP Director General Alan Madrid Purisima was allowed the BS to still play a key role in the police operations to neutralize international terrorist Marwan which led to the slaughter of the SAF 44.

And in the aftermath of the botched operations, the BS stubbornly defending Purisima, even against the overwhelming proof of his guilt as established in the Senate hearings.

As Mamasapano is in the country’s interest, so is Purisima in the BS’s. No brainer which really came first.

As we now bid the BS fare the well, so shall we see the riddance of vested interests in the presidency then? Ah, the promise is all there. Change is coming, ain’t it too often blabbered?

For country, period

"Let me be very clear, my friendship with my friends ends when the interest of the country begins. I would as much as possible make you happy if you are my friend, but I will not allow anybody to color my decisions in government. From now on it is always the interest of the people of the Republic of the Philippines that counts, period."

Declared Rodrigo Duterte, president-elect, at the time his good friend of over 30 years, the Pastor Apollo Quiboloy was reported to be hurting over his exclusion from the circle vetting candidates to the incoming Cabinet.

Soared to the highest firmaments Duterte’s iron-willed image. Here is a patriot at last! Why, if he can say an unqualified “NO” to the “Appointed Son of God” himself, there is absolutely no one he will not decline, aye, refuse, if the interest of his country so warranted?

I was beginning to feel remorse for all the negative opinions I held against Duterte. Until he was asked if he would follow the tradition of handing a Cabinet portfolio to the vice president, in this case Leni Robredo of the Liberal Party.

Quick, and as definitive, was Duterte’s riposte: “Non-committal ako diyan kasi kilala ko si Bongbong. I know Bongbong Marcos. I don’t want to hurt him. Leni will understand, she’s from the opposite side.”

(Un)reasoned he: “Kaibigan ko si Bongbong. That is the political reality. My father (Vicente) was the Cabinet secretary of the late father [of Bongbong], besides, I won in Ilocos Norte.”

Too bad, neither Duterte’s myrmidon Panelo nor his mind-filler Cayetano contextualized his declaration so as to avoid any misinterpretation of it as: Bongbong over Robredo, and above the country’s interest.

Made even more absolute with Duterte’s strong approval, rather than acquiescence, to inter the remains of Marcos Senior at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

So Duterte’s friendship ends where the interest of his country begins. How can anyone but the unreasoning take his word, when under the same breath he says, again on giving Robredo a Cabinet post: “Sabi ko, I have not considered anything for her because I’m more worried about where I would place the friends that nagkautang ako ng loob…I should not be looking beyond my borders yet.”

Sicut erat in principio et nunc…As it was with the BS, so it is with His Rudeness.

Same shame. Change is coming?

No, I won’t be so shameless as to dignify here parallelisms being now proffered between an egressing abnoy and an ingressing d’gunggong.