TRIBUNE EDITORIAL: 8th MOST DANGEROUS COUNTRY
MANILA, JANUARY 27, 2011 (TRIBUNE) Peace and order in this country have gone from bad to worse under the Aquino administration and no amount of claims that the perpetrators are going to be caught and justice being done will change the peace and order picture.
If one goes by categories, at this point, under the presidency of Noynoy Aquino, the country has become not only the eighth most dangerous country in the world, with the Philippines going up two notches in this year's global terrorism risk assessment, but it has also become a failed state.
In such international surveys that cast a negative picture of his government and the state of corruption, terrorist activities, criminality and even human rights abuses, the predictable reply from Noynoy's defenders in the Palace always points to the surveys as still referring to the previous administration of Gloria Arroyo.
But Noynoy has been in office for some seven months, and blaming his predecessor for everything going wrong under his stewardship is getting too tiring. Noynoy is president. It is his administration today — and has been for some seven months, and he has done nothing, but nothing to fix things in this country.
That he is incompetent can hardly be denied, even if his incompetence is described by his yellow media as "laidback."
The truth is that Noynoy has certainly been proving all these months that he can't hack the job of the presidency. And because he can't hack it, it will be the nation, and the entire country, that will suffer.
According to the global terrorism risk assessment, the country is now in the same danger level as Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestinian Territories, Colombia, Thailand, Yemen and Russia on the matter of terroristic activities.
Ironically, the foreign countries appeared to have more intelligence information, compared to Noynoy and his intelligence network, for which the Filipinos pay billions from their hard-earned money, on terrorist activities that were predicted to hit the country — including Metro Manila.
Foreign countries all issued travel warnings to their citizens against imminent terrorist attacks in the country, which irked Noynoy, who claimed then that these foreign travel advisories were baseless, and demanded at least seven countries to withdraw their advisories, which they didn't anyway. After all, Noynoy may be president, but he is still a global nobody.
But it seems that the foreign advisories proved to be spot-on, as the other day, a bomb planted under a seat in the bus travelling through Edsa-Buendia went off, killing at least five passengers and injured at least a dozen — as of last count.
Terrorist activities, as well as other crimes, will continue to come, one after the other, and what is worse is that people have lost all confidence in Noynoy in his being able to restore peace and order in this country by decisively stemming criminality.
Even a group of businessmen, known to be Noynoy's supporters, has come out publicly to state that it will be forming a "shadow cabinet" to ensure that the Noynoy government takes stronger steps to address the problem of rising criminality and yes, unchecked corruption occuring in Noynoy's administration.
The group's leader, Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) president Felino Palafox was quoted as saying: "We are a broken-hearted society."
Forming a so-called shadow cabinet with the goal of ensuring that Noynoy takes stronger steps to curb criminality is a very polite way of saying that Noynoy hasn't been doing anything and is not likely to do anything either in his six-year presidency.
But that isn't all Noynoy's fault, really. He just doesn't have it in him to be a leader and a doer, much less a president of the republic. His fault is in running for the presidency, despite his awareness of his palapable limitations.
The blame really should fall on those who wanted him to become president despite knowing that he is utterly unqualified for the position while exploiting the death of his mother — which is nothing but political opportunism.
And so, it is the country and society that suffer.
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Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
© Copyright, 2011 by PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE
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