Noynoying

During his presidency when insults were heaped on everything from his English proficiency to his ’60s pompadour and his late-night (till early morning) carousing, Joseph Estrada said he heeded an advice to ignore the carping.

“Ang napipikon, talo,” Estrada famously said in April 2000, attributing the advice to El Shaddai spiritual leader Mike Velarde.

The one who gets peeved, loses: it’s an advice that the incumbent Chief Executive would do well to heed.

Erap, for all his formidable natural charm and infectious sense of humor, was only human; he could also be pikon, and onion-skinned about criticism. He was known to be particularly sensitive to comments about his women.

In fact if the worst suspicions about Erap are accurate, he could be so pikon he could give a tacit green light for the elimination of those who had wronged him.

Erap’s successor was not pikon when it came to criticism, or at least she did not show it in public. Gloria Macapagal-arroyo wasn’t called the Sphinx for nothing. But she was known for her temper.

President Aquino is also known to have a short fuse, and we all know he is unstoppable in his public criticism of people he dislikes, such as Chief Justice Renato Corona.

P-noy can also be obsessive when he wants to refute critics. His reaction to the coining of “Noynoying” to depict his work ethic has made his critics point out that truth hurts.

In reacting to criticism, P-noy takes after his late mother. Having risen to power partly by pitching the virtues of sincerity and honesty, Corazon Aquino did not hide her dislike for certain individuals.

When she was president, she memorably described one of her prominent critics – her vice president Salvador “Doy” Laurel – as a “bangaw” or bottle fly. She also sued The STAR for libel – the first Philippine president to do so – after our columnist Louie Beltran wrote that she hid under her bed at the height of a coup in 1987. Early in the morning when the column came out, I was invited to see her bedroom (I was the only reporter around at Malacañang at that hour) to prove that she had a box-type bed and it would be impossible for her to hide underneath.

Louie was convicted together with our late publisher Max Soliven and other STAR executives. Louie was already dead and Cory was no longer president when the conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeals.

In P-noy’s case, the subjects of his ire tend to find themselves out of public office, facing criminal and administrative cases, or impeached like Corona.

But so far, the militant activists who coined “Noynoying” and participated in that mass protest, replacing “planking” with a what-me-worry? stance, are still laughing and relishing their success in getting the President’s goat plus international attention.

* * * Someone more confident of his leadership would have simply laughed along with the militants. Left-wing militants, especially the youths, can be truly creative and hilarious in their mass protests, and their effigies are impressive.

The latest Pulse Asia survey on the performance of public officials should put to rest P-noy’s insecurities in his job. His approval rating is steady at a comfortably high 70 percent. Nine percent disapprove of his performance while 21 percent are undecided, according to Pulse Asia.

The 70 percent is still lower than perennial No. 1 Jejomar Binay. The Vice President, by most accounts estranged from the man he used to guard like a son, garnered 84 percent approval in the Pulse Asia survey, with only three percent disapproving of his performance.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, who has impressed the nation with his handling of the impeachment trial, rated higher than P-noy with 71 percent approval and seven percent disapproval.

Corona, meanwhile, saw his ratings worsening, with 58 percent disapproval, 14 percent approval, and 26 percent undecided.

P-noy in fact is moving to fulfill his principal campaign promise, which is to fight corruption to ease poverty. Those who sent him to Malacañang by a landslide see Corona’s trial (plus the impeachment and resignation of Merceditas Gutierrez as ombudsman) as part of P-noy’s efforts to clear the way for his anti-corruption efforts.

The business community is also reacting positively to P-noy’s reforms, if we are to go by the performance of the stock market and the peso as well as the results of surveys on business confidence.

Those positive signals, however, do not easily reach the grass roots. P-noy also suffers from external developments such as rising world crude oil prices and global financial woes.

* * * Amid the laughter, “Noynoying” has also gained some traction because while P-noy isn’t exactly sitting around and twiddling his thumbs, he or his officials can be slow in acting on certain issues.

Even the World Bank, in its latest Philippines Quarterly Update, said there is an urgent need to accelerate reforms to achieve higher growth and “significantly improve” the lives of more poor Filipinos.

The WB cited low and stable inflation, manageable government finances, a “well-targeted” social protection system, and a central bank “awash with dollars” from foreign investments (some quarters will question this) plus the remittances of overseas workers. Political stability and a popular government “strongly committed to improving governance and reducing poverty” were also cited by the WB.

But the World Bank also stressed the need to improve regulatory capacity, enhance competition and reduce the cost of doing business, improve infrastructure and service delivery, raise tax revenues, strengthen public financial management, and improve workers’ skills.

The warning yesterday about blackouts in Metro Manila, including in the Makati-taguig financial and commercial district, can only be bad news for a nation where power supply has long been unreliable and costly.

P-noy is approaching the middle of his six-year term – usually the point when public patience runs out and disappointment with the president fully kicks in. This will be reflected in surveys, and P-noy could see political support for painful reforms erode with his ratings.

He must not waste any moment, and he must find ways of making his reforms produce tangible results. “Noynoying” should remain a joke rather than reality.