On Cory Aquino Presidency (No Holds Barred)

(This is an exposition of my liberty. I don't know what's going to happen next.)

Wasting an opportunity, for me, is worse than plunder. Plunder is just money lost while wasting an opportunity means lossing the future of the next generation. 

The much-vaunted 1986 EDSA Revolution, which everyone thought was the final salvation from the evils of the Marcos administration, tossed Ninoy Aquino's "housewife" Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino to the seat of power. As the head of a revolutionary government, the then president was bequeathed with vast amount of power that she could have used to change the course of our destiny as a nation. Amidst that power, the then president lay powerless. What an irony!

All the while, she and her EDSA cohorts were thinking that they had stamped out a monster. It would turn out it was just the head of a hydra-monster. In time, the monster would turn around, grow back its head, then wreck havoc to our society more viciously than ever before. Unbeknownst to her, she would even help nurse that monster back to life and help it grew more heads. 

As a result, the country is still plagued by such issues as poverty, corruption, inefficacious civil service, political dynasty and warlordism, patronage politics, among others. These are all the evils that were brought back to life during her six years in office. I couldn't imagine what kind of monstrosity she could have created had she stay in power for six more years. Until now we are still haunted by the phantom of land redistribution; and a great eyesore for those clamoring for a "genuine agrarian reform" is her very own Hacienda Luisita. In a pamphlet, "We are responsible for each other", the author Jose Almonte, candidly said:

"Not even the revolutionary government that drove out the strongman Ferdinand Marcos in February 1986 dared to pass a comprehensive agrarian reform law. Its iconic leader, Corazon C. Aquino, waited to pass the buck to a restored Congress. Dominated (as usual) by the landlord interests, this conservative legislature riddled the law with loopholes--shielding, among others, President Aquino's own hacienda, Luisita from its effects."

The temerity of those who patronize her so-called legacy is preposterous. 

Under her  watch, the country ratified one of the most--if not the most--rigid and inefficient constitution ever drafted. The 1986 Constitution perpetuated in power the same traditional politics and political dynasty that have been suckling on the lifeblood of every Filipino. Traditional politicians nourished themselves under the current system while leaving the people in abject malnutrition. (A funny reference to malnutrition: It turns out that the orange ribbon a counterpart of the yellow one representing the EDSA revolution is the awareness ribbon for malnutrition.)

The Cory Aquino backed constitution created an economic system centered on protectionist ideologues and a rotten political system dominated by the same political and economic elites whose aims are to perpetuate their power and influence. A case in point: The country remains an import driven economy with only human capital (brain drain) as its main export product, which has very serious social repercussions by the way. The protectionism espoused in the current constitution not only drives away the much needed capital to jumpstart our industries but it creates an economic mediocrity. We don't want to compete anymore and we shy away from excellence. The pamphlet quoted above further expounds, "The elite has deployed the rhetoric of nationalism to justify monopoly profits for its inefficient "infant" industries...that penalized agriculture, kept down workers wages and condemned the entire economy to near stagnation."

Twenty-five years or so after the EDSA revolution, we still have the much-hated evils in our political system and they stick like leeches draining our bureaucracy. That's because the system keeps them their. To say that we have stagnated as a nation is an understatement. 

The issues we had during the Marcos regime like corruption and human rights abuses have not been eliminated. In reality they have been compounded. Her presidency was the breeding ground of the evils hounding our present society. The succeeding presidencies, including her son's, only reap the fruits of her labor. 

Is it too much of me as to say that she committed a gross immorality into condemning this country into its present situation? Isn't that she squandered the enormous power given to her during her time when she could have effected relevant and lasting changes for the good of her people. As Benjamin Disraeli says, "Power has only one duty--to secure the social welfare of the people". By that, the presidency of Cory Aquino failed miserably and she would go down my "history book" as one of the worst presidents that this country cold ever have.

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Copyright © 2011 by Leonel Agir