Is the President Still After a PR Victory?

By Joey Salgado

When Christmas came and went without a “big fish” behind bars, the Palace thought it would be a good idea to blame the public, sort of, for expecting too much from the President.

Responding to accusations that the President failed to deliver, a Palace official asked the public to be patient, and reminded everyone that the administration “did so much” since the July “shame” speech before members of Congress.

Well, the Palace also needs to be reminded that it wasn’t the public who set the deadline. It was the President. Sorry po at naniwala kami sa ating Presidente. Sa susunod po, hindi na.

As the year came to a close, it was clear from the surveys that the President has been damaged politically by his anti-corruption gambit, perhaps to a point where legacy building has been sabotaged by the desire to get a quick jump in satisfaction numbers on an issue that has not historically been his strength.

For the remainder of his term, the President’s political fate lies in the hands of a considerable number of undecided, but how long this indecision will hold depends largely on what steps he and his team will take this year. And they need to be - to borrow from the language of corporate planners - big, hairy, and audacious.

For one, he needs to send more people to jail. If evidence warrants, he should not spare former and current members of his Cabinet and known allies. The arrest of Sara Discaya was a foregone conclusion, seen by the public as an anti-climactic ho-hum affair. The people want the heads of big public personalities, nothing less than the former and current senators and congressmen knee-deep in budget insertions and flood control kickbacks. And it needs to happen this month, not later, for any delay will be seen as either a loss of fortitude, selective prosecution, or the result of backroom deals among the powerful.

There also appears to be a divergence in the way the President and the Ombudsman approaches the issue of flood-control corruption. This needs to be reconciled.

The President and his team continues to view the issue as a redemptive undertaking, a seemingly smart play meant to recover from a humiliating midterm loss, reenergize flailing satisfaction numbers, and bring more followers into the fold, including sectors who had begrudgingly given him the benefit of the doubt, despite his family’s tarnished past. The surveys have discredited this approach.

A quick win will only be tactical and short-lived, in the sense that prominent personalities will be charged and jailed and the President will claim the campaign a success. But that would be an empty victory, and one gained through deceit.

If one were seeking a legacy, the proper way is to stop treating the anti-corruption campaign as a tool for redemption. It should be embraced as an opportunity to make systemic changes even at the cost of popularity. In the courtrooms, the fight will be won or lost not on how well the Palace manages the optics but the strength of the evidence. A real, enduring win is in conviction.

On the part of the Ombudsman, this would require patience, meticulous investigation, and ironclad evidence. And the public should be made to accept that the trials will outlive the present administration.

Given his recent brush with death, the Ombudsman, with his colorful history as politician and political player, is perhaps looking at the issue with a different, more lofty objective. The President is after a PR victory. The Ombudsman wants to leave a legacy.