Pag hitik ang puno, binabato ang bunga. (Kids throw stones at a tree heavy with fruit.) Noynoy Aquino is now the tree heaviest with fruit. As he consistently tops public opinion surveys, the more his detractors throw stones. But lately, the attacks have become nasty.Once more, the only son of a martyred opposition leader and a widow-turned-president has topped surveys about whom respondents want to be president. This time, the surveys conducted by politicians supporting Aquino, were done in vote-rich Davao City and Batangas province, with the Liberal Party standard-bearer enjoying the highest approval ratings of 52 and 58 percent, respectively. [See: Noynoy tops polls again, this time in Davao City, Batangas]
Last month’s nationwide survey by Pulse Asia showed Aquino leading the poll with a 44-percent approval rating. Earlier, in September, two surveys done by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed Aquino enjoying wide margins of 60 and 50 percent.
The Aquino ratings are a record high. It surpassed the SWS poll results for Joseph Estrada at the height of his popularity, when his pre-election approval ratings were just 36.52 percent in May 1998; and 18 percent in January 1998.
However, while the LP standard-bearer continues to bask in his position as the acknowledged front-runner in the coming presidential polls, the mudslinging against him has also gotten worse.
Personal attacks
From the more legitimate hacienda and highway issues, political attacks against Aquino have become personal, one of the more outrageous of which was apparently launched by the camp of Joseph "Erap" Estrada, who is himself taking another shot at the presidency.
In his column, former senator Ernesto Maceda, campaign manager and senior political adviser of Estrada, floated a rumor that "a major national candidate" was autistic.
“Autism is the talk of the town because of indications that a major national candidate is autistic," said Maceda in his column, Autism on the rise, published in the broadsheet The Daily Tribune last November 10.
Associating Noynoy with autism would surprise anyone who has heard the glib and lucid Aquino speak on a range of issues.
But Maceda's insinuation was picked up by columnist Butch del Castillo, former president of the National Press Club.
In his November 16 column, What, pray tell, is autism?, published in Business Mirror, Del Castillo divulged “little anecdotes" about Noynoy, which he said he got from the “circles that I circulate in." He claimed that the anecdotes “only seem to add credence and depth of suspicions of (Aquino’s) actual condition." (sic)
Del Castillo went on to relate another anecdote, supposedly from another old acquaintance of the Aquino family: That when Noynoy the “hyperactive tot" was three years old, the family’s guard dog, a Doberman, escaped from its kennel. “It took a courageous Kris Aquino to save her helpless brother from being mangled, but she herself got bitten in the lower leg."
Unborn Kris saved Noynoy?
In the blog of veteran journalist Raissa Robles of the South China Morning Post, she demolished Del Castillo’s claim. Robles asked how could Kris save her elder brother when the purported incident happened at a time when she wasn’t even born yet.
“This must be true, I thought in horror. Except for one tiny detail. Let’s see, Noynoy was 3 when this incident happened. And how old was Kris? Noynoy was born February 8, 1960 and Kris was born February 14, 1971. So when Kris saved Noynoy from the Doberman she was what – a mote in God’s eye?" said Robles.
Robles further pointed out what she thought were other inconsistencies in Del Castillo’s column. She said that in one part of Del Castillo’s column, he described Noynoy as a “quiet" boy who would just “sit in a corner and never say anything." But in another part, Del Castillo described a very different kid: “hyperactive tot… His boundless energy made him run around here, there, and everywhere."
The issue became viral. Manuel L. Quezon III took up Robles’ arguments in his November 19 column, Back to the future. He said the campaign against Aquino, whose tone was set by Maceda, “fell apart when Robles decided to do an internal consistency check on Del Castillo’s column."
Overpriced deal?
An earlier attack against Aquino came from the camp of another 2010 poll rival, Manuel Villar Jr. of the Nacionalista Party. Party stalwart Cavite Rep. Crispin Remulla claims that the Aquino family hugely benefited from the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx) project.
Remulla accused the Arroyo administration and the Aquino-Cojuangco clan of Tarlac of sealing an “overpriced" deal for the purchase of land from the 6,400-hectare Hacienda Luisita for SCTEx’s right-of-way. The Hacienda is owned by the Aquino-Cojuangco clan.
Meanwhile, the third attack against Noynoy and his family is the long-unresolved issue regarding Hacienda Luisita, which was placed under a non-redistributive scheme of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program during the Aquino administration.
Under the scheme called the stock distribution option, the largest part of the landholding – 67 percent - remains in the hands of the Cojuangco-Aquino family. The rest is under the supposed control of the farmer-beneficiaries.
Hacienda Luisita is a long-standing issue that may have legs in the upcoming campaign. The farmers of the sugar hacienda have long been demanding that they be granted ownership of the land they till.
The autism and SCTEx attacks may prove easier to fend off. But Hacienda Luisita will require a more substantive response - especially for someone whose family rose to power on the backs of people power. - ANNIE RUTH C. SABANGAN, GMANews.TV
Source: http://www.gmanews.tv/story/177488/attacks-get-nasty-as-noynoy-maintains-high-survey-ratings
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