True color showing EDITORIAL 8/16/2010

True color showing

EDITORIAL Click to enlarge 08/16/2010 Noynoy is evidently trying to show political will in his anti-government intervention stance in most issues that he is confronted with the latest of which are the Hacienda Luisita land distribution problem and the value added tax (VAT) on toll, along with his expressed statement in his State of the Nation Address about government subsidies on the National Power Corp. and the mass rail transit system. The effort is something that the past administration was never entitled to, due to former President Arroyo’s abject unpopularity and the evident public’s distrust of her every moves. With an 85 percent or thereabouts net approval rating based on the latest surveys, Noynoy, if the public sentiment, as gauged by the survey, is accurate, could then do no wrong in whatever policy thrust he takes for now. Yet the outrage over the hacienda scam being perpetrated by Noynoy and his Cojuangco clan on the poverty-stricken workers, along with the insensate increase in tax toll fees, not to mention his doing nothing at all to get the toll fare increase lowered to reasonable levels instead of a 250 to 300 percent hike, all show that his so-called popularity is just an illusion drummed up by his image makers. Increasingly, however, his bias against populist measures is starting to cost Noynoy’s cosmetic image of being a pro-masses leader which was the gist of his “Kayo ang boss ko” inauguration speech. Where Malacañang stands on the land reform and the VAT on toll issues is giving the public a window on the true character of the new President who is not evidently the strong-willed and caring leader that his backers have tried to depict him..... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100816com1.html

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