Pus of past

Vindictive venom was back with a vengeance as former President Noynoy Aquino, the prince of the yellow cabal, came out from his pit to deliver the dose of rhetoric that Filipinos had grown tired of.

“Noynoy reminding the public of what happened during the Aquino terms, Cory’s and his, helps in the discernment of voters on who to choose by May.

Before a thin crowd of EDSA uprising supporters, Noynoy claimed signs of a return to a dictatorship which he claimed his parents led a movement to end.

The basis for his assertions was the recent turn of events, including the creation of the Department of Human Settlements, which Congress has approved, and President Rody Duterte’s statement posing to the public the idea of changing the name of the Republic to Maharlika that was first broached by the late former President Ferdinand Marcos.

Those were idiotic throwbacks to the post-EDSA 1986 coup d’état period when his mother, former President Cory Aquino, demolished everything associated with Marcos resulting, among other things, in plunging the country into an energy crisis.

While the power crisis was the hallmark of Cory, the carmageddon in the roads of Metro Manila was for Noynoy and both were the result of failure of governance.

Cory’s energy crisis came about after her government failed to set up new power plants to meet the higher demand for electricity as the economy grew after the 1986 uprising that placed her in power.

Cory abolished the Ministry of Energy and discarded all the power plant projects under its wing merely on the argument they were a Marcos creation.

Cory also scrapped the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant which was the Marcos solution to anticipated energy problems.

Without any energy program and investors not inclined to put up new plants amid uncertainties in the new government, the country endured 10 hours of power outages daily.

There were comparisons then of the country going back into the stone age due to the darkness that envelops the nation and the economy.

To address the power crisis, emergency powers were given to Cory’s successor, former President Fidel Ramos, that resulted in the indiscriminate signing of power plant contracts that generations of consumers until now are paying as a result of huge debts accumulated with independent power plants.

Noynoy, being her mother’s boy, followed on her heels and upon assumption of the presidency ordered a review of most of the contracts signed during the term of his predecessor, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Again, investors were turned off from dealing with government.

The gridlock in Metro Manila and other urban centers during the entire term of Noynoy was a form of deja vu since it was rooted in the failure of government to meet the demand of an expanding economy.

Noynoy’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program failed to take off the ground worsened by the scheming yellow mob around him who caused the underspending of the budget.

Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno estimated that Noynoy underspent some P1 trillion during his entire six years in office which should have been spent for government projects and services.

Only 12 of some 53 major infrastructure plans under the PPP had progressed during the six-year term of Noynoy.

The PPP scheme stalled as a result of doubts on the government’s reliability to honor contracts.

Thus, it needed the Duterte administration to make assurances to investors that past contracts will be honored to rekindle their interest.

Noynoy reminding the public of what happened during the Aquino terms, Cory’s and his, helps in the discernment of voters on who to choose by May.

The yellow bets, based on the arguments of Noynoy, will restore the old incompetent ways while the candidates of Rody are agents of change who use means regardless of political color.