Her royal hollownesses

As ironic as her recent appointment is, even starker paradoxes surround her as we continue to battle the continuing scourge inflicted by Aquino and his notorious Fates.

Time and again, like a bad penny that constantly reappears, the question of Leonor Robredo’s intellectual gravitas, or its stark absence, repeatedly enters the public discourse, there sinking beneath its lowest levels under the slime and mud when she was unfairly described as “boba,” the female “bobo.”

That was uncalled for. First of all, whether she’s is “boba” or “bobo,” gender issues however continue. She’s called a “czar,” instead of “czarina.”

More important, the sitting Vice President is a lawyer and has a master’s degree from the same prestigious university as the President. Theoretically, she cannot be “boba.” Moreover, she occupies the second highest position and can thus step into the shoes of the President under conditions set by law. There is a presumption she is qualified. We seriously pray that she is.

Heaven forbid that an intellectually-challenged politico be handed such a powerful position, especially now that she’s been assigned a critical portfolio where over 81 percent of the public approve of the manner by which it is currently run. Should approvals fall then problem analysis methods would likely identify her as a factor.

Lesser mortals have however made it to the presidency. We’ve inflicted on ourselves a housewife, an actor, and perhaps even one mentally challenged. With a degree in economics from the University of the Philippines to boot, Robredo, by far, is more qualified than past bunglers and one notoriously lazy president.

Most of the barbs hurled her way result from our highly politicized environment and the manner she chose to tackle that. Bad pennies are those that are counterfeit, damaged and of little or no value that reappear at inopportune times. When we needed unity and cooperation, surrounded by proximate whisperers, Robredo had seemed to think those are when she was needed to symbolically don both cape and cowl as the opposition’s vigilante dark knight.

On her role in government, there is no doubt Robredo is the crowned queen of the opposition. Judging by the volume of her attacks against the government both here and abroad, it is understandable that she would consider herself their queen bee.

It is to her credit that her acceptance of the rare challenge to serve once more as an integral and productive member of the Cabinet might result in mutually beneficial multi-partisan productivity and exponential synergies in the government’s advocacy to rescue us from the narco-politics the previous administration plunged us in.

Extracting us from the quicksand Benigno Aquino III’s scandals and scams had pushed us into requires all hands on deck, especially from an extraneous office we carve out substantial amounts from the budget to fund.

As ironic as her recent appointment is, even starker paradoxes surround her as we continue to battle the continuing scourge inflicted by Aquino and his notorious Fates.

Imagine the surreal optics Robredo has in her employ, a court jester.

Lying by her feet is an accused “big fish” drug trafficker and self-confessed adulteress who, from her detention cell, built a mountain-high barricade of legal motions to delay justice until an allied Malacañang occupant sets her free.

On Robredo’s flank, lies a media dark knight — an accused tax evader and securities fraudster who embarked on a multimillion strategy to quarterback mindless international demolition campaigns and lobbies demonizing not simply our President but also 81 percent of the public standing behind his advocacies.

Among the opposition on Robredo’s opposite flank is Aquino’s former schoolmate who he recklessly appointed to the Supreme Court as our highest magistrate despite her dearth of relevant experience both on a judicial bench and behind the administrative desk on one end, and a profusion of integrity issues on falsified financial statements on another.

Standing behind Robredo, one senator echoes a proposal to legalize illegal drugs as a solution to the drug problem.

Examine their absurdity. Why don’t we also legalize adultery and graft and corruption? We might also eradicate rape, prostitution, carjacking and bank robberies by legalizing these.

For the senator, that probably makes sense. Legalizing illegality reduces her legislative load and thus frees up time for street parliaments and leftist protests.

As in “Macbeth,” surrounded by a triad of Shakespearean Fates, Robredo’s opposition royalty busily brew a diabolical hell-broth of “double, double toil and trouble.”