PNS — IT TOOK only one man to expose the weaknesses of the present administration and destroy the reputation of President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III which was anchored on the heroic deeds of his parents and was cleverly used by his image makers to give him victory during the last elections.
This after the political opposition has scored the Aquino administration over its failure to act decisively and save the country’s image abroad in the wake of the worst hostage taking crisis in Manila’s history.
This developed as two of the three Chinese recipients of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards for 2010, both government bureaucrats, will not be coming to receive the honors on Aug. 31.
Fu Qiping, a farmer and village chief in China’s Zhejiang province, and Pan Yue, a vice minister in the Ministry of Environmental Protection—were reported to have cancelled their flights which many believe was a result of the government’s mishandling of the hostage taking during and even after the incident.
“This is another serious blow to the country’s reputation, it appears that the leadership’s failure to act decisively and convincingly during the incident and the apparent insensitivity of no less than President Aquino after the bloodbath have caused irreparable damage to our image” said Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez.
The RM Awards is one of the most prestigious awards in Asia and is comparable to the Nobel Peace Prize Awards that are being handed out to individuals who have shown exemplary vision and zeal in their pursuit of promoting the cause of humanity.
Diplomatic tension between Beijing and Hong Kong on one hand and the Philippines on the other caused by the Aug. 23 hostage crisis in Manila that ended in the killing of eight Hong Kong tourists, had taken a turn for the worst especially after the Aquino government has failed to genuinely show its sincere sympathy to the victims and their families.
At one time, the Hong Kong government has protested that Aquino who is obviously on a cordon sanitaire even refused to answer the call of HK leader Donald Tsang at the height of the incident and also when TV footages showed that a Philippine flag was wrapped in the casket of hostage taker Senior Insp. Rolando Mendoza.
‘The damage done to our reputation as a people was made even worse by the series of events after the hostage taking incident and they clearly exposed the lack of experience and know-how of our current crop of leaders in managing the highly-sensitive affairs of the country” Suarez stressed.