Wenceslao: Why I won’t flog P-Noy

I WAS for Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III in the May 10 presidential elections.

So am I ready to flog him from pillar to post after the mishandling of the Rizal Park hostage crisis last week? Nah. I would be too narrow-minded if I do that.

Updates on President Benigno Aquino III's presidency

But I do understand there’s a segment of the population out there who so hated Noynoy’s guts during the campaign period that they are finding ways to hit him if given the chance now that he is president. Again, that reminds me of the predicament of US President Barack Obama.

Weeks after Obama assumed the presidency in January 2009, I received e-mails from a local religious group that was obviously linked to some Christian fundamentalists in the US. I was amazed at the vitriol they heaped on Obama, including accusing him of being a communist. Every policy the US president introduced was met with the same harsh and insulting, often personal, attack.

For Obama and P-Noy, that goes with the territory, of course. I don’t have the figures about this, but I think no president in the country has maintained the same high public approval rating that they got when they assumed the post. That’s because running a country is difficult and there are always ways for critics to find fault in your every move.

But here are some reasons why I won’t go all out against P-Noy just yet:

l Peacefully resolving a hostage-taking incident was not the main reason why I chose Aquino over the other presidential bets in the May polls. (Who would have thought at that time that a hostage crisis would erupt now?) Purging government of the corrupt and restoring decency in governance were.

Granting that the Aquino administration mishandled the hostage crisis, that act is but a small blot in the overall context of its rule. I was in the local office of the Bureau of Internal Revenue office recently and I gathered there that the cleansing process is ongoing. Change is palpable in the entire bureaucracy. If only for that, I won’t be harsh on P-Noy.

l Some of the criticisms against the President relative to the hostage crisis are misplaced. I already wrote about the “smile” controversy and the insinuation that P-Noy was cooling his heels while the police were trying to resolve the crisis.

As I wrote earlier, there were things that Aquino could have done better, like easing the worries of his constituents by at least issuing a press statement at the height of the crisis. But surely, the responsibility for the mishandling of the incident and the deaths of eight tourists from Hong Kong should not be heaped on him. He doesn’t deserve the label incompetent.

l The hostage crisis happened barely two months after Aquino took over the presidency on June 30 this year. Before that, he was with Congress. P-Noy is therefore still feeling his way in his new job and is expected to fumble sometimes. One can’t be an instant expert in administration work, more so if the area you are administering with is a country.

And it’s not only Noynoy who is new to the job. Many of the members of his Cabinet are, including those handling government’s p.r. department. It would be wrong, therefore, to expect too much from a fledgling government or to compare it with that of the Arroyo administration on its 9th year in Malacañang.

Expect no miracles here. The bird is still learning how to soar.

(khanwens@yahoo.com/ my blog: cebuano.wordpress.com)