Seares: P-Noy is no GMA but will he use her tricks?

IF IT were Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, would she have accepted blame for the Aug. 23 hostage incident fiasco? Would she have, as President Noynoy Aquino did, stopped fault-throwing at the president’s door?

If GMA thought the problem would go away and in admitting guilt she’d stink less, she would. But given her public trust rating, she would’ve deemed it unwise to allow blood-letting at her level unless totally unavoidable.

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Unlike GMA, P-Noy enjoys vast goodwill from the May mandate.

Throwing away some for his trusted people might save a career.

As Machiavelli would, P-Noy “must think of his minister,” honor and place him “under obligation to the prince.”

Jesse Robredo, local government chief and under attack for the botched PNP operation in which eight Hong Kong tourists were killed, needed help. Media whipped him and legislators talked of blocking confirmation of his appointment.

And Robredo wasn’t running the police after all. It was P-Noy’s gun-practice-buddy Rico Puno who was on top of the crisis force.

Mea culpa

Maybe sensing what the probe will uncover, P-Noy declared “mea culpa,” scrambling for damage control as any other leader would.

P-Noy is no GMA but he can use devices of the presidential office. What may trouble him, a Gloria hater, is that GMA used some of those tricks herself.

And reference to GMA is only due to a recurring gripe of the P-Noy team that its crises are inherited from her nine-year reign.

P-Noy may be shedding off his “dangerous naivete.” Have no fear though. His vaunted integrity should save him from anything “bad” that they’d associate with GMA.

(paseares@yahoo, paseares@sunstar)