Ledesma: Roxas empty rhetoric

SO MAR Roxas sounded like he knows the problems of the nation and has a solution to each. Actually he may sound well-informed but when one weighs his knowledge against his tack there is really nothing there to prove he is the better man for the Presidency.

In short, his was simply plain rhetoric and at best a compendium of ideas that had gathered cobwebs in his imagination. In fact, by his own recitation of problems and solutions, Roxas only successfully revealed and confirmed that he was the problem and never the solution.

From day one in the presidency of President Benigno Aquino III Mar Roxas already assumed a major role and influence on the decision process of his mentor. True there is a ban to hire a losing candidate within the year, but the bum goes around the country flaunting his influence. What made you think Jess Dureza resigned from his post as Secretary of Mindanao Development Authority despite the security of his tenure? But the statesman in Jess is simply beyond reproach. Mar, need not wait a second for an answer for Jess acceded to his wish.

Mar came out with a litany of solutions to the traffic problems and congestions in Metro Manila. He rattled off with answers which are too good to be true. He conveniently forgot that the problems of MRT and LRT started at the time when he was appointed as Secretary for the Department of Transport & Communications.

The maintenance contract of the trains and railway facilities were awarded to inexperienced groups and relatives of his appointees under creative manipulations. He too transferred the simple but multi-billion peso-contract for the supply of car license plates and drivers license. Never in the history of transport industry did we experience an unconscionable delay in the issuance of car plates and driver’s license. What took during the GMA administration to accomplish, it is taking the Aquino government under the tutelage of the anointed Roxas years to deliver.

Now, he is telling us how he will solve the problems which he created!!!! What a classic irony and his fans dubbed his rhetoric the winning piece.

But the height of braggadocio was when he unabashedly made the claim he fathered the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) in the Philippines. Roxas was not aware that Mr. Oscar Sanez, former CEO of the IT and BPO Association of the Philippines was listening. Sanez asserted that that in fact it was during the watch of President Arroyo that the BPO industry grew from 2400 call center workers in 2000 to nearly 500,000 workers by the end of 2009. It has an impressive growth of 65 percent per year for about a decade.

The IT-BPO industry grew from $1.3-billion to $8.9-billions in 2010 when GMA bowed out of office.

So what is Roxas crowing about?

Roxas obviously was attempting to drown us with figures and statistics but in the process he earns a deluge of reprove.

He was not listening when Mayor Rodrigo Duterte was explaining why Philhealth benefits is so inadequate he has to source additional funds from Pagcor. Duterte of course was taken aback when Roxas retorted that there are many beneficiaries in Davao and that he can prove his claims that there are. The Mayor allowed him to go farther even daring him to withdraw from the race if he (Mar) can prove that there are Philhealth beneficiaries.

This childish impertinence of Mar has boomeranged Apparently he is not aware that Philhealth benefits were never enough. He is also ignorant of the fact that in Davao City for example, Duterte has to put up “Lingap Foundation” to come to the aid of indigent patients who are with or without Philhealth membership because the benefits are never enough. What is worse is that when you seek medical treatment for the same ailment, Philhealth will no longer give you additional single centavo.

Duterte is pretty clever when he allowed Roxas to perorate. It was not Duterte he was trying to put one over, he was in fact delivering a strong message to the masses that they are not entitled to any additional assistance because this is only how much you deserved.

It is therefore a big surprise why despite the denigration of Binay, Roxas, Poe, Robredo and Escudero, the support of the masses for Mayor Duterte only increases each time they speak ill of him. Duterte connects with the masses because he connects with them. He speaks their language, unrefined, unrehearsed, course and very provincial. What of his political adversaries? Their language are refined, always grammatically correct, does not offend the sensibilities of the clergy and Gabriela (?), always with finesse as the womanizer Erap would counsel.

This election marks the rise of the oppressed, of the dispossessed, of those who suffer the endless conflict in Bangsamoro Land. Finally they found the man from the hinterlands in the south who had been Mayor for 23 years but, as columnist Teddy Locsin would surprisingly described is also an elite (although really far from it) but does not steal from the government’s coffers.

Indeed, Digong is a rara avis. Last Monday, he rescued five policemen who were captured by the New People's Army. Three hours after he turned them over to their families Rodrigo Duterte proceeded to the birthday party celebration of Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy where nearly 75,000 people also converged after hearing that the Mayor will be present to watch the annual Disney-like extravaganza which the pastor gift the children with.

What was a birthday celebration turned out to be a jovial rally as the spectators shouted in a tumultuous cadence; Du-ter-te, Du-ter-te! Throughout his more than an hour talk, which held his audience spellbound, the Mayor still smelling sweat and hoarse in voice never mentioned a word that about three hours ago he laid his life at risk to save the lives of five policemen. All these happens while his opponents are campaigning and defaming him for the bad joke he made a week ago.

Trending

No stories found.

Just in

No stories found.

Branded Content

No stories found.
SunStar Publishing Inc.
www.sunstar.com.ph