‘Continue what we started’

That seemed to be the singular criterion that the one-dimensional statement that Benigno Aquino III repeatedly refrains, much like a warped broken record when he declared the qualities of a leader he felt would merit his endorsement, support and the billion-peso funding his administration and the ruling Liberal Party would array against challenges to the presidential throne in 2016. He encapsulated not just his vision of the future but in such a skinny manner he drew the totality, the expansiveness and profundity, the length and breadth of the next presidency under the word “continuance.”

Aquino, of course, does not mean and cannot be alluding to the Vice President, as he has arrayed a slew of charges and an even bigger array of political and legal weaponry, noise, publicity stunts and explosive ordnance set against the Vice President, who continues to lead in the opinion polls, whether those consider urban voters or constituents outside the political bloodlust flowing through the highborn in Metropolitan Manila.

Let us be clear and attempt to identify in very specific terms and pinpointing exact and undeniable incidents and circumstances within the six-year Aquino watch, and from the specificity see what that legacy is comprised of, so the other feeble-minded in the Palace or among Congress may not mistake the message as an endorsement of the ineptitude and bungling incompetence that seem to be the hallmark of the presumptive presidential candidate with the greatest most humongous ambition.

What is it that Aquino wants to continue? More of the Bangsamoro Basic Law, or whatever alias it is now called after months of congressional debate? Another Mamasapano Massacre – that classic example of war-gaming this administration is notorious for?

Another pork-barrel reincarnation like the presidential Disbursement Acceleration Program that has corruption written all over it, but only for the more discerning and not for the KKK coterie? More signature noynoying?

More infrastructure underspending so development remains non-inclusive and unfelt by our poorest? More politics of vengeance where demolition jobs become the default in the hopes of gaining popularity? More extrajudicial killings that augment policemen incomes and have become the most viable industry next to illegal drugs both run by the same agency?

Who will perpetuate such complex legacy of bungling? Lets check out the shortlist. Another easily manipulated neophyte facsimile of a dead pop icon from the far left field who the Mafia-like traditional political (trapo) bureaucracy can run circles around, prod, steer and control like a Pavlovian canine experiment? Or, perhaps, a blue-blooded cacique, albeit a sorry, pathetic, egocentric and temperamental born rich, Born Loser?

Sadly, Aquino’s options do not fall far from the tree. So much bravado. So little balls. Even less brains.

So that there can be no mistaking, no allowance for debate and no quarter surrendered to uncertainty, what Aquino was referring to when he said that his anointed successor must carry on the agenda that he thinks he had set into play refers to the straight-path paradigm of anti-corruption programs he would like to leave constituents with as a legacy and heirloom to remember his presidency by.

Should we subscribe to the paradigm that advocacies are concretized by example, then Aquino might find himself in a rather confusing situation, mostly through his own deliberate undoing and as a result of ambivalence, his surrender to political partisanship and his constant straddling of terribly gray areas between good and evil, corrupt and clean, acceptable and unacceptable.

His governance has not exactly been characterized by a definitive squeaky-clean anti-corruption agenda. That is not simply his fatal failure; it is the undeniable hard and painful reality that might just perpetuate, denials by rabid supporters, suck-ups and sycophants notwithstanding.

Really now. Do we need to perpetuate the culture of buffoonery we’ve been inflicted with?