LOWDOWN, TOO
By Jojo Robles

“Noynoying” is not completely defined by the condition where the President does nothing at all and is inaccurately applied to him as a full-time occupation. The comprehensive definition of the neologism would have to include President Noynoy Aquino doing things that he truly believes are important (like removing the chief justice of the Supreme Court), even if these do nothing to improve the lives of his fellow Filipinos.

Indeed, it is unfair to say that Aquino does nothing of importance at all. It's just that he has a list of things to do that bears no resemblance to what the vast majority of his countrymen ask him to accomplish, if they were to make up a list of their own.

The disconnect between what Aquino wants done and what the people want him to do was recently illustrated by a visit paid by the President to Eduardo Manalo, the head of the politically powerful religious group Iglesia ni Cristo. While Aquino went to Manalo to enlist INC's support in the conviction of Chief Justice Renato Corona, the head of the church wanted the President to focus on improving the lives of Filipinos.

The “Noynoying” charge is thus unfair, if it simply means that Aquino is a do-nothing leader who spends his time in thoroughly juvenile pursuits unworthy of a Chief Executive – or even of a grown man and a responsible person. The unwavering focus (bordering on monomania) displayed and the energy expended by Aquino as far as matters that interest him are concerned are legendary; to those who believe he is doing needful things, he is actually well on his way to fulfilling what he set out to do.

Unfortunately, more and more people – like Manalo and his flock, who supported Aquino in the 2010 elections – are starting to realize that what the President seeks to accomplish and what the people want him to get done are as different as night and day. And unless Aquino realizes that people consider problems like rising pump prices of petroleum and the lack of official intervention on the matter more important than Corona's impeachment, he will have to contend with charges that he actually doing nothing at all.

In other words, Aquino is “Noynoying” when he appears to be really doing nothing important and, worse, when he disappears from public view, which he does periodically. But when Aquino does emerge from his regular disappearances and exerts his energies exclusively on the things that he considers his priorities, he is not “Noynoying” – he is merely out of touch and increasingly irrelevant.

There is a difference, though there may not appear to be one to ordinary citizens reeling from stagnant economic growth, a regime of ever-escalating prices and the overall degradation of their quality of life. But no one can blame the people if they judge Aquino merely by the identical results of both his perceived indolence and his misguided exertions.

Now, if the people who dreamed up the term “Noynoying” will go beyond illustrating the new word with various poses of presidential laziness, to include the pointlessness and ultimate lack of necessity of most of Aquino's actions, then I will have to agree that the Chief Executive is often engaged in that activity. Only then can Aquino be rightly said to be “Noynoying” all the time.

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I don't normally listen to what Senator-judge Kiko Pangilinan has to say. I may be wrong, but I think of Kiko as Drilon Lite – pro-Malacanang to the core, with less calories.

Pangilinan framed a question concerning the long-running controversy about the Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth of impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona, to the effect that perhaps the court should consider if the rules that are being applied to grill the top magistrate on his assets can be considered the same for public officials working in the Executive and in Congress. The court must compare “apples to apples,” Pangilinan explained, as opposed apparently to fruits that are not similar.

Pangilinan's plea for an uneven application of the rules on the declaration of any official's net worth came at a time when a top official of President Noynoy Aquino and some of Corona's chief tormentors in Congress have come under fire for also reportedly misrepresenting or wrongly declaring their assets. Aquino has gone so far as to absolve Budget Secretary Florencio Abad Jr. for declaring some assets based on assessed value (like Corona) instead of fair and current market value.

It is clear that both Aquino and Pangilinan are calling for the selective application of the SALN law – tougher on the palace's most-wanted and less so on its officials and political allies. After all, a common administration propaganda line states that the chief justice must be held to a “higher standard” since he is the highest judicial official in the land.

Many have already noted the clear double standard that Aquino employs when it comes to his friends and allies, on the one hand, and his political enemies (or people who have had no previous relationship with him), on the other. Pangilinan, therefore, is just mouthing the palace line – by making it clear that there should be a different interpretation of the law on declaring assets, depending on whose assets are being examined.

This is what's truly unfortunate: That Aquino, Pangilinan and other allies of the palace will never dream of applying the law on themselves, even if they will willingly comb through the statements of their foes for any tiny irregularity.

But it should matter little if Corona is convicted or not, as long as the law on officials' assets is applied evenly to all, whether they be part of the President's inner circle or not. There's your apples to apples, right there.*