The Irate Spectator

I'm sure everyone who had a TV watched Aquino's swearing in today. Of course, it's not hard to miss seeing as today was declared a holiday in honor of the occasion, that is, if you weren't part of the crazed horde of moviegoers taking advantage of the rest day to watch the latest installment of that hideous vampire franchise. I wasn't really looking forward to the inauguration, not having voted for Noynoy. Actually, I didn't vote because I was too busy working as an election monitor, but I wouldn't have voted for him in any case. Still, with every station preempting their regular programs to broadcast the Inauguration live, I really had nothing else to watch.

As expected, Quirino grandstand was inundated by a sea of humanity, PNP said there were half a million souls there, all jostling to watch Aquino and Binay take their oaths of office. If I had been there, I would undoubtedly be cursing, I would understand that they would want to have a few musical numbers to set the mood but please, they called in so many that it was starting to get boring. I mean, do we really have to listen to an a capella rendition of You Raise Me Up? And Noel Cabangon, a great artist and songwriter, but he really got into my nerves for hogging the mike for too long. I do believe that a Presidential Inauguration is an affair steeped in history. Too much star power and intermission numbers debases the solemnity of it all and distracts from the true highlights of the day - the oath taking and inaugural speech.

Which brings us to the speech. Ever since I heard Aquino's plan to cut his speech short I've been up in arms. Especially after the giggling organizers kept going on and on about his "song number" It would be outrageous for a new president, especially somebody who promised to bring change in a change-hungry nation, to skip the speech and concentrate on the singing. Does this mean we're back to the age of Bread and Circuses? But kudos to Aquino himself who revised the speech nine times to come up with an exhaustive address that took up nearly twenty minutes. In addressing his constituents at least, he proved how serious he was.

Nonetheless, if you take out the "Daang Tuwid" rhetoric that he's been using since the election campaign he sounds quite typical, especially with the part where he lays down the plan for his administration. You find the typical infrastructure-heavy approach to almost any problem from education to agriculture and neoliberal buzzwords like "levelling the playing field" that it almost sounds as if you're listening to GMA's Sona. He never even mentioned Hacianda Luisita or giving land to landless farmers for that matter. Apparently he believes they should have irrigation before they can have title to their lands. He wants to solve the education problem by building more classrooms also probably forgetting that tuition and other fees have skyrocketed. Now that doesn't make sense to me.

Still, Aquino took several positive steps by appointing respected CHR chair Leila De Lima to the DOJ and setting up a Truth Commission headed by ex-CJ Davide. The biggest and most pressing challenge for the Aquino Administration, aside from resolving the Luisita dispute of course, will be making their predecessors account for the accusations leveled against them. By making these designations and vowing to look into Arroyo's midnight appointments, Aquino showed he has every intention of taking up the challenge.

The eminent Cebuano historian Resil Mojares wrote that Philippine politicians rely on manipulating symbols while avoiding the real issues since tinkering with them might disturb the status quo which they seek to preserve. Now we see how the Laban sign and Bayan Ko, both powerful symbols of the anti-Marcos struggle and earlier waves of protest, got de facto copyrighted by the Liberals for use in their election campaign. Now we have a pledge to have "no reconciliation without justice" even as we find a convicted plunderer with a place of honor among VIPs. Now we hear words like "social reform" and "equitable justice" being thrown around while agrarian reform and nationalist development are nowhere to be found. Now we see a leader who promises Pagbabago but sounds just like any other politico.

Fourteen years ago, another sea of humanity washed out a twenty-year dictatorship and ushered in the first Aquino Administration. But after those historic days at Edsa, the pre-Martial Law elites regained their former places after being rudely displaced by Marcos and his cronies. Changing presidents is just the beginning. Genuine change can't be brought about by a single person even if you invest in him all the powers that the Constitution can confer on an individual. It can only come when the people themselves shake off the indifference and passivity that has allowed the privileged few to dominate the oppressed many here in our country. When Arroyo first took her oath of office at the Edsa Shrine she too was surrounded by adoring crowds hailing the return of democracy. Now, as President Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III takes office in the midst of so much promise, let us sober up and remember that the hard part is only beginning. It is now time to hold Noynoy accountable for all his campaign pledges. For those who watched Aquino today, we should keep watching.