The ‘ampaw’ in P-Noy & the ‘ampaw-ness’ of it all

By Al S. Mendoza

 

I like what a friend of mine had texted me only a while back.

“Let us support the recent call of President Aquino,” he said.  “Let us not vote for an ‘ampaw’ in the coming 2016 presidential election.”

And then my friend’s punch line.

“His call means let us not commit the same mistake again.”

Brutally, Aquino is an “ampaw.”

So, let us not vote another like him.

Some jokes are cruel.

But aren’t jokes disguised as truths?

And truths—99.99 percent of them most of the time—are cruel?

You tell me:  Isn’t Aquino an “ampaw” all this time?

But what is “ampaw” again?

Roughly defined, “ampaw” means a person of no substance.

One can talk endlessly and, sometimes, that person appears erudite.  Learned.

But upon deeper analysis of what that person is saying, it has nothing in it.  Ampaw.

I had supported Aquino.

No regrets.

In every election, we should at least pick someone who we believe would come out a good leader.

Even as every election is a gamble, it also spells hope.

Like lotto, an election promises a ray that might peep out of the clouds.

Aquino was a gamble, hope and a ray in 2010.

Among all the “presidentiables” then, Aquino was the least tainted.

Villar had skeletons in his closet, what with his alleged involvement in dubious roads built to favor his real estate business.

And Erap, my soul mate (we have the same birthdays, ahem!), had just come out of presidential pardon arising from his conviction of plunder that triggered his ouster from the Palace in Edsa II in 2001.

The only good thing going for Aquino four years into office is his being not corrupt.

Really?

I can give him that.

But is not being corrupt enough to make one get a passing grade?

What about his soldiers?

Aren’t they stained?

Why the shakeups at Customs and NBI?

Why the persistent talk of irregularities plaguing agencies like the National Food Authority and departments like Agriculture and Environment and Natural Resources?

And if, indeed, P-Noy isn’t corrupt, is his being indecisive at some concerns like the mishandling of supertyphoon “Yolanda” in the area of quick and material response to victims, and other matters of national interest like the 2010 Luneta hostage tragedy not reflective of “ampaw” leadership?

As I said, I supported Aquino.

Even campaigned for him—studiously.

But when he fired Transportation and Communications Secretary Ping de Jesus in a rather shameless act to save LTO chief Vicky Torres—a mere subaltern of Ping’s—that’s when I started to doubt P-Noy’s sincerity and adherence to good governance.

Then I found out that Torres, P-Noy’s fellow Tarlaqueno, was the President’s “kabarilan.”

Maybe Torres wasn’t only a “kabarilan” but P-Noy’s fellow “ampaw” as well because years later, Torres would bow out, finally, after she was photographed doing the slot machine in a casino—a no-no for a government official.

Bad, bad, bad.

As Gonz would love to say, “Ampaw-no la sirin, ey?”

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