Dear Noynoy,
First of all, congratulations on your apparent victory in May 10’s polls. By all indications, you will be my president for the next six years, and although I must say you weren’t my personal number one choice, I guess the results could have been a lot worse.
I must, however, make clear my apprehensions about your election, the chief of them being that many of those who voted for you voted not for Noynoy Aquino, but for Ninoy and Cory. Your campaign, after all, incessantly invoked the image of your deceased parents. Their faces figured prominently in your brochures and campaign posters. You drenched yourself and your partymates in yellow, just as your mother did in 1986. As I watched you and your Yellow Army during the past few months, I couldn’t help but think that the message you wanted to convey was, “vote for me because I am the son of a martyr and the woman who gave us back democracy,” when what you should have said was, “vote for me because I have the qualities we need in a president.”
But the campaign is over, and in the end, the people chose you to lead our country. As the day of your inauguration and the start of your term draws near, I hope you realize that although your parents helped you during your campaign, they won’t be there for you when you take on the daunting task of governing a country of 90 million (and counting). The difficulties that lie ahead are manifold: you will have to address the corruption that still pervades through our nation’s politics, answer the problem of a burgeoning population, and continue the fight to alleviate poverty—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Admittedly, being Gloria Arroyo’s immediate successor is no easy job, but you signed up for it and made us believe you were up to the challenge. Now let’s see you prove it.
I hope you have fully understood the responsibilities of your presidency, Mr. Aquino. Succeeding the most unpopular post-EDSA (and maybe even pre-EDSA) government, your administration will have an especially difficult job to do. You will have to take on the gargantuan task of leading a people jaded and disenchanted by nearly a decade of self-serving and incredibly greedy politics. You have to make us willing to believe in promises again. You need to be able to assure us that our money will be safe with you. You need to prove that the Philippine government can work to the advantage of the masses, and not just to that of an elite few. I am part of the generation of Filipinos who grew politically conscious during the Arroyo regime and thus have a hard time believing that any of the above is possible. That will be perhaps the most important aspect of your presidency: you will need to make us believe again, not through the power of words, yellow ribbons, or Laban signs, but through deed.
You may not have been my number one choice during the campaign, Mr. Aquino, but all signs say you are going to be my president for the next six years, so I’m placing all my hope in you—my hope that you can make this nation great again, that you can make the future promising by the time I graduate college, that you can live up to the hype of your rise to power. I am not alone in this, I’m sure—countless other Filipinos are doubtless looking to you with the same hope as I. You have the burden of an entire hopeful country on your back. You promised a change from the previous administration. You, the son of a martyr and the woman who gave us back democracy, cannot afford to disappoint us as your predecessors did.
For the love of God, Noynoy, do not allow your term to end with this country in as dismal a shape as it is in today. Prove our distrust in government misplaced; prove to us that this country can move forward. Prove to us that the Philippines is still worth our sweat, tears and blood, that there is indeed still hope underneath the grime of corruption that blankets the country today. All of my life I’ve seen nothing but despair and hopelessness. I’ve seen nothing but the promises of food to the hungry, education to children, and justice to those who need it, go unfulfilled. I’ve seen nothing but the rampant abuse of power across government. I’ve seen nothing but the suffering of Juan dela Cruz under the whip of his own countryman. Mr. Aquino, prove that this is not what the Philippines is. Prove that we can feed our hungry, teach our youth, and make justice reign in the Pearl of the Orient. Show us what we have never seen—our country as it should be.
I wish you well as you assume the presidency, Mr. Aquino. Please prove that we were right in our decision to vote for you. Please do not let us down.
—Dean.
Posted on May 22, 2010
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