MikeLigalig.com

TO PRESIDENT-ELECT SEN. BENIGNO SIMEON "NOYNOY" C. AQUINO III


Dear Mr. Aquino:

For what this is worth, I would like to congratulate you for clearly receiving the mandate to lead the republic for the next six years. Even though I may have been (and I still am) one of your most ardent critics online and in the real world, I am very much willing to give you a chance to prove yourself and to prove us critics wrong about you. I appeal that you stand up to the claims you made during the campaign and deliver all of the promises for which more or less 40 percent of the electorate voted for you.

Sen. Aquino, or allow me to call you President-elect Aquino if you may, please prove us critics wrong by showing that you are going to put an end to the long-standing Hacienda Luisita issue by finally having the lands distributed to the poor farmers who have long been claiming for their law-given rights. Your relatives have apparently declared that they will abide by whatever decision you make on the HLI, and as president starting July 1, 2010, please deliver the promise you made sometime in December 2009 that you will ensure that the long-disputed lands will finally be distributed by 2014.

Please don't go saying now that you will leave everything up to Congress and to the courts to settle that issue, just as you recently did during the press conference you held in HL a day after the elections. You were a congressman for 3 terms but never did anything to finally settle that issue, what makes you think that simply leaving everything up to Congress will solve everything?

In December last year you categorically promised that whether you win or lose, you will see to it that the HL lands will be distributed by 2014, so please don't say that the matter is still in court so you can't have any real say in the issue. You claim to have the convincing power over your relatives, why not convince them now to withdraw the motion they filed in court against the PARC recommendation to enforce land distribution in 2005?

President-elect Aquino, I also appeal that you please recant your pronouncement of a power-sharing scheme with your vice president. Saying that you will share from 50 up to 80 percent of the president's responsibilities to your vice president is virtually saying that you can only do from 50 down to 20 percent of the presidential obligations. You ran for the presidency, you should have been ready to bear 100 percent of the burden of responsibilities that come along with the seat of power. Asking for help and guidance from others in your performance of your job is one thing; sharing much of your job for others to perform is different, and outright irresponsible. Even though you may claim to be a "people's president", prove that you are your own man and that you can bear all of the burden you chose to bear.

I also appeal that you prove that the people, especially the TRAPOs, around and behind your candidacy and campaign did not support you because they wanted a piece of your pie. You have been criticized for having some of the exact same people in one form or another of Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's administrative team, people who chose to turn their back on the administration when the opportunity for convenience presented itself. Prove that you're not going to compose a cabinet that is highly reminiscent of that of the "evil" administration you've been strongly criticizing. Your pronouncement of placing Ms. Dinky Soliman back in DSWD is starting to prove some of our criticisms to be correct, so I suggest you think things over. There is still much time. Prove that you are not going to be beholden to and be dictated upon by the people who goaded you to run for the highest post in the land.

I do hope that you measure up to your claim/promise that there will be no corruption in our society during your term. One of your slogans is "Kapag walang corrupt, walang mahirap", implying that to ensure that poverty in our society is solved, you are going to ensure that corruption in the society will be eradicated. No more lip service, please. I may not have any doubts on your promise not to steal, but as I have pointed out many times, it is not enough for the sitting president not to steal. It may be something, but it is not enough. Corruption is not only equivalent to stealing from the public coffers. I have emphasized over and over again how it is impossible to eliminate corruption in our society, so I'm very much looking forward to how you and your administration are going to fulfill the heaviest (and most questionable) among your promises and claims.

I would also like to appeal to you, President-elect Aquino, to exercise temperance and to not be very sensitive against criticisms. As we have seen during the course of the campaign and in your press conferences, it would seem that you are even more onion-skinned than PGMA. You and your team even tend to dictate to the press what and what not to ask. Now that you are soon to be the one in the same shoes as PGMA, imagine how it would be to receive the brunt of all of the accusations and criticisms against the administration. And you might be thinking that the issues thrown against you during the campaign have been enough? Wait until you step inside the presidential office. I believe you will be able to relate to PGMA on what she has been going through these past 9 years. It may not even be impossible for you to sympathize with her once you're in the office. Expect, President-elect Aquino, that because of your and your party's participation in one of the
dirtiest mudslinging bouts in electoral campaign history, the rabid predators on the other side of the fence (with whom you had that mudslinging bout) will be more than ready to pounce on you and go for the jugular should you let your defenses down even for a split-second. Please don't think I'm being morbid about things, I'm just warning you of the harsh reality in the devil's playground -- that is Philippine traditional politics -- in which you chose to play along.

Lastly, I would like to ask of you, President-elect Aquino, to please stop your smoking habit by all means, especially in public. If you really want to set a good example to the people, you can start by complying to the provisions of the Clean Air Act. Besides, as a biologist I can assure you that smoking brings more harm than good (if there ever is any benefit) to your body. As president of the republic, your body is now not only yours to be concerned about; it is now also the concern of the people you're going to govern for the next 6 years. Hence, you need to keep yourself healthy if you want to make sure you survive, figuratively and literally, the next 6 years. You are also compromising the health of people around you when you smoke in public. Thus, I am appealing, as a concerned non-smoking citizen and as a concerned somebody who understands human physiology and health, that you stop your smoking habit.

Again, let me reiterate that even though I did not (and still do not) think highly of you as a presidential candidate, I am very much willing to give you, President-elect Aquino, a chance to prove yourself. Please do not disappoint the more or less 40 percent of the electorate who chose to trust you to lead this nation the way you promised to do. Please prove that you are more than merely being a person bearing a revered family name.

Thank you very much. MABUHAY ANG PILIPINAS!

Sincerely yours.


P.S.: I believe it will do you much good if you get some pointers from your cousin, Atty. Gibo Teodoro.

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TO EACH ONE OF THE MORE OR LESS 40 PERCENT OF THE ELECTORATE WHO VOTED FOR SEN. NOYNOY AQUINO


Dear friend:

For what this is worth, let me express my congratulations to Sen. Benigno Simeon "Noynoy" C. Aquino III for receiving the mandate to lead the republic for the next 6 years.

My friend, I am congratulating only Sen. Aquino and not you, for I am not yet about to concede that you have been right all along in choosing to support him. It will only be after 6 years that we will know if you really made the right choice or not, so please pardon me if I will not congratulate you at this point in time.

If I wrote or said anything that may have offended you as an ardent supporter of Sen. Aquino, I humbly apologize. But until my arguments against him are disproven, I will never take back any of what I wrote or said. Again, your candidate may have won the presidential election, but that does not mean that you made the right choice and we, the ones who did not vote for him, made the wrong choice. While you may invoke the adage "Vox populi, vox Dei" ("The voice of the people is the voice of God"), always bear in mind that popular sentiment is not always the right one, thus it is not always "the voice of God". Recall how the Jews unanimously chose to free the criminal Barrabas instead of Jesus Christ? That was the popular sentiment then, but it was not really the right choice if we were to talk about justice being properly served.

More or less 40 percent of the electorate, including you, have chosen to go for painkiller therapy, and I respect that and the fact that only a much smaller fraction of the electorate chose to go for a proper anti-cancer treatment under a competent oncologist. Nevertheless, I am very much willing to give Sen. Aquino a chance to prove himself and to prove his critics (including myself) wrong. He has all of 6 years to do so, I hope you, being a supporter of Sen. Aquino, will be more vigilant of his administration rather than of the opposition.

I hope you constantly remind President-elect Aquino of his claims and promises for which you chose to support him. Do not let him make any excuse not to fulfill any of his promises, or even justify for him should he fail to do deliver. Remember, it was he who chose to offer the electorate all those promises and claims, regardless if those promises and claims are realistic and doable or not, to convince you to support and vote for him.

Please do not let him or yourself justify his failure to deliver his promises by claiming that the Aquino presidency only "inherited" the many problems from the Arroyo administration. Remember how President-elect Aquino confidently promised to solve those many problems during the campaign period, so there should be no excuse for him not to be able to do so.

Always bear in mind how President-elect Aquino promised to finally resolve the Hacienda Luisita issue by ensuring complete land distribution by 2014. This issue has always been a point of contention between you Aquino supporters and us critics, and you have always answered debates by invoking that promise by President-elect Aquino, outright rejecting the validity of the arguments we have raised. Thus you and your fellow Aquino supporters should be the first to make sure that President-elect Aquino really owns up to his promises, including that concerning HLI.

Please make sure not to give us any reason to say "We told you so!" Again, be more vigilant of President-elect Aquino's administration than of the opposition.

Rest assured that, even though the presidential elections did not go the way I wanted it to be, I am willing to work for and be governed by President-elect Aquino. I have always believed that regardless of whoever is in power in Malacañang, I am still in charge of my own life and my own progress. Regardless of whoever is the president, I still have the capability to effect changes in my life, and in our society in my own little way.

I have always believed that A LEADER IS ONLY AS GOOD AS HIS PEOPLE and not the other way around.

MABUHAY ANG PILIPINAS!

Sincerely yours.




 
 


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