JOJO Binay’S speech was met with brickbats. Here’s how Binay should have said it. “I have resigned from the Aquino Cabinet with a one-line resignation letter. I do not mince words or waste them. I am grateful for the privilege of serving in the Cabinet of a man of unquestioned sincerity. But I cannot go on working alongside colleagues of indisputable insincerity who work against me—sadly, with no electoral advantage to themselves.
“I resigned because it is approaching that time when those of us in the Cabinet who intend to run in next year’s election must tell the electorate why we are running—on a level playing field and along a straight and narrow track by not taking advantage of Cabinet positions and the funding that goes with them.
“I do not want what I will say in the coming campaign to be taken as criticism of an Aquino administration; in the first of which I served proudly as OIC mayor, in the second of which as a Cabinet member.
“But the platform on which I will run might be taken as criticism of the President I served, even as I served his mother in a lesser capacity. I do not want that. His mother put him in my care when she was president.
“I shall promise a swift resumption of light-rail operations by any means that work; and I shall implement a profound overhaul of the entire system so that breakdowns are not repeated to the detriment of ordinary Filipinos—compounding the long hard work they do with the long hard walk they must take to and from work in the dark before dawn and in the darkness of midnight. Wherever urban centers have reached a point of irremediable congestion, I shall implement the same efficient transport system.
“I promise justice, security and peace for our Muslim brothers and sisters, and for their Christian brothers and sisters. I promise ironclad security for their families and communities against armed elements seeking to take complete control of their lives by executive action rather than by democratic election, and to put peaceful communities at their mercy without the protection of our Constitution and the laws. All this in one indivisible republic, dedicated to freedom and justice for all regardless of religion.
“I believe it is possible, nay, it is mandatory, to deliver good government without taking shortcuts that violate the rule of law. That is the challenge of a democratic presidency and the oath that presidents take to uphold the Constitution and the laws.
“If government cannot govern well without bending the law, it may still achieve short-term reforms but the ultimate result is the long-term deformation of our democracy—against which Ninoy Aquino fought and for which his life was taken.
“In foreign affairs where there are no permanent friends, I shall make no permanent enemies for our country. I will pick no fight that is not directly in defense of homeland security.
“If at all possible, I will incur no deep enmity with a powerful neighbor and adhere to a course of peaceful dialogue but without the smallest infringement of our sovereignty or the tiniest loss of national territory—neither to a foreign power nor to domestic terrorists.
“Other than what I have promised, I will promise nothing more in my campaign that I have not performed. I will attempt nothing I have not already achieved; so the work of government shall entail no waste and invite no disappointment. But this much I promise you, my government will not begin and end with a massacre.
“I will not berate the Holy Father if he comes again to visit.
“I will make mistakes; I am only human; but I will say sorry for them. Not to apologize is tantamount to threatening more of the same.
“From first day to last, my administration will be marked by the continuing and increasingly inclusive progress that was started by this administration; by the unbroken peace that this government threatens to lose through a unilateral and uninformed initiative prompted by foreign governments.
“And always, ever and foremost, my administration will be marked by unrelenting devotion to the best interests of all our people, poor and rich, and the growing numbers in the middle for which we must credit this admin.
“You have heard much against me. Please take the trouble to see what I have done for one city.
“Look at what is there before you: every child in school, including the children of Taguig; every elderly person given attention and respect because people retire only from work and not from life itself—and we all…we all get old.
“See for yourselves, rather than hear from my enemies, what I have done—and what I aim to do if, God willing, the people let me.
“At a certain point in our lives we are confronted with the choice: their way or the highway. Well I’m on the road. I hope to see more of you there. It will be hard but who wants easy? It will be a fight but what else is worth doing? I will take questions now.”
I am not saying that this and just this, word for word, is what Jojo should have said; but he should have been more reflective, taken the trouble to sound more thoughtful—and less baduy by peddling the opposition hook, line and sinker.
source: Business Mirror
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