'Rotten to the core.'

SABBATICAL NOTES. 13 JUL 2014. SUNDAY. N1. 
'Rotten to the core.' 

In two weeks, President Aquino will come up with a recital of the good things his administration has done during his four years of office. 

I remember that at one point in his earlier State of the Nation, I was there at the Commonwealth Avenue (or is it Marcos Avenue now?) and there, alongside the Leftist groups of all kinds, saw Mar Roxas doing the police trafficking work.

Yes, the wannabe president was on the road, and not in expensive barong or americana like the others who always regarded each SONA afternoon as some kind of a party to parade the best gown or the best suit. He was in his jeans and shirt, doing a delicate dance of trafficking men and metal with an engine, and enjoying the experience of having people gawk at him as if he were Exhibit 101. Was this the precursor to his giving away checks of one million to mayors in the Haiyan-stricken Eastern Visayas years after?

At the SONA, the men's clothing is always bland and predictable, like a burger from any of the food chains that have all conditioned us to eat the same thing, and called it God's blessings even if this has been manufactured courtesy of the capitalist ogling for the fastest profit. The women's, oh, theirs are always a delight, and each SONA afternoon turns into a fashion show. The fashion designers of a wretched land could not be happier.

He will give the SONA at the appointed time, and he will praise men and women, and he will not own up the problems of the land. He will sweep it under the rug all our troubles, preferring to talk about development from the DAP, which is not the case. Some socially-oriented economists have shown that the economic development came from the sustained inflow of dollar remittances courtesy of OFWs, and I swear to God, financial infusions from some 12M people now living abroad because the homeland has stopped becoming a kind home.

Neal Cruz, in his column at the Inquirer on July 14, said of the real state of the antion: "I think the people already know the real state of the nation: it is rotten to the core. For years, almost all government officials—from presidents to members of Congress to members of the Cabinet and their subordinates, to the local government officials down to the barangay captains—have been feasting on the people’s money like predators feasting on the carcass of their hapless prey."

Now, we will see what else is to be said by the president of the land.

FELIPENAS/