EDITORIAL : THE DAILY TRIBUNE, THE PHILIPPINES

 

 

Three options left

 
Noynoy Aquino, said his deputy spokesman, can still change that which Vice President Jojo Binay recommended on the burial site of the late strongman, Ferdinand Marcos.
One wonders therefore why he even bothered to ask Binay to come up with a recommendation on how to handle the Marcos burial issue.
Earlier, he had said he was giving the job to Binay, because he was biased. So what is he then going to change? Not giving Marcos full military honors and have his remains buried in Ilocos Norte, his hometown?
If so, then there would have been no need for Noynoy to farm out the job to Binay, because there is nothing by way of any recommendation presented by Binay that would have served the purpose, since there is no need for Malacañang to decide on the issue.
But perhaps Noynoy (maybe even on the advice of Mar Roxas) has asked Binay come up with the recommendation, for Binay to lose political points, at least with the Ilocanos and Marcos loyalists. Both Binay and the Roxas Liberal Party (LP) need the votes, come 2013 and especially 2016.
What is not being factored into the equation by the LPs is that Noynoy’s endorsement of the LPs and even of his vice presidential bet in 2010, hardly made a dent, vote-wise.
In a vote count analysis, the voters of Noynoy failed to give his vice president a larger pecentage of their vote to Mar. Also, a lot of his senatorial bets, lost out to the other parties’ bets. And Noynoy’s vote endorsement of his candidates came at the height of his popularity.
The voters of former President Joseph Estrada, on the other hand, mostly voted for his vice presidential bet, Binay, which proved that Estrada’s endorsement still carries a lot of weight, while Noynoy’s doesn’t. More to the point, when 2013 and worse, 2016 come around, Noynoy would have become fairly unpopular. Most Philippine presidents’ popularity dives the longer they stay in office.
It may be sometime before the presidential elections, but it is hardly any secret that both Binay and Mar are eyeing the presidency in 2016 and the Ilocano vote can be important to either, just as the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) votes are.
This is also factor that figures in the equation of Noynoy and his LP for the 2013 polls, and perhaps the reason Noynoy insists on having the power to kick out the ARMM elected incumbents and have them replaced with his appointees.
Noynoy’s appointees will then have control of the ARMM and the cheating machine in Mindanao, which would naturally spell victory for the LP candidates.
Still, this early, there is little chance for the ARMM postponement bill to be enacted into law because even if Noynoy does get the numbers in the Senate and even if he signs it into law, the fact is that this measure will certainly be questioned before the high court on constitutional grounds. What this translates to is that the Commission on Elections will have no more time to drop the polls as the ARMM polls must be conducted.
In recommending that Marcos should not be buried at the Libingan ng Bayani but for him to be given full military honors, Binay appears to have edged out Malacañang and the Balay group, since what he recommended was a pretty Solomonic and balanced recommendation: One part — the burial at Libingan ng mga Bayani is denied, while another — the military honors — is given.
And because Binay had already submitted his recommendations to Noynoy — whatever changes are made by him, will impact on Noynoy, not on Binay.
There are really only three options left for Noynoy on the matter of the Marcos burial issue: One is to reject the Binay recommendations in toto; two, to approve them in toto, or to shelve them for the future — after he leaves Malacañang.
Either way he decides will now be his problem — politically.