saw those two photos posted side-by-side on Facebook, showing Cory Aquino addressing a jampacked joint session of the US Congress--and beside it the forlorn-looking image of President Bongbong Marcos, Jr. addressing a near-empty hall of the UN General Assembly.
No caption is necessary, the message is clear: pro-Cory quarters are proud to say their icon was more popular than the son of the reviled dictator she ousted in 1986.
I agree, and I didn’t even need to see those two photographs to think so. The unseen subtext to those two photographs, of course, is that Bongbong Marcos is not a worthy leader--the sparse audience being a reflection of the unflattering world opinion about him, notwithstanding the fact that 31 million Filipinos elected him their president.
I agree with that, too, but I’ll discuss that later.
First, the two side-by-side images. There is no fair comparison between them. Cory was invited by the Americans to address a joint session of the US Congress, so there had to be 100% attendance, it being obligatory on their part as hosts.
Not only that, but both chambers of the US Congress, the House and the Senate, combined and sat together in the Session Hall normally occupied only by the House.
Unlike our largely-ornamental Senate composed of only 24 people, the US Senate is a real working body composed of 100 senators elected by state (so they have REAL constituents), and for that audience with Cory, these 100 people had to squeeze between 435 members of their House. It was going to be a jampacked hall, in any case.
The little caption in the meme said that Cory was, thus, the toast of world leaders.
No, those are not world leaders. Those are politicians representing only one country, the United States.
Cory Aquino was never invited by the UN.
Cory supposedly addressed the opening of the 41st session of the UN General Assembly, too, on September 26, 1986. I found a transcript of her speech that she "delivered" but I couldn't find any footage of her actually delivering it, which is really strange. Were these videos all taken down? I'm curious to see how "standing room only" the UN crowd must have been during her turn, because to my best recollection, Cory did not even attend a single session of any UN body. We had a permanent Philippine representative to the UN who went to all these events.
President Bongbong Marcos went to the UN General Assembly to attend its opening session ahead of the international celebration of UN month in October.
I don’t know why.
To be sure, he was NOT invited to deliver that special address, either. Special invitations to address the UN’s General Assembly are voted upon by a special committee and ratified in the open plenary. If the general membership itself had petitioned to hear from the Philippine president, that hall would be bursting at the seams and filled to the rafters, too, trust me.
Weeks before Cory delivered her speech to the US Congress, the build-up in anticipation of the historic moment was unprecedented. We counted down the hours to THE MOMENT and regaled ourselves during the long wait with endless senseless trivia—what would she wear, who would she mention, will she blow a kiss, will she deliver from memory or read a script (she did) etc.
Contrast that with this unheralded speech of President BBM to the UN body, we heard practically nothing by way of advancer.
Some bobo in Malacañan thought it would be a brilliant idea to gatecrash a UN General Assembly to deliver a sunny speech about the Philippines’ pandemic recovery efforts, which is neither unique nor remarkable, by any stretch. The whole world went through COVID-19. So, yeah--a speech about that nasty virus the whole mankind is fed up with would be a hit.
What were they thinking? That a UN speech would be a cost-free way to get world publicity? They have a lot to learn.
Addressing the UN General Assembly is NOT is not some kind of People’s Choice award. It is not a way to measure the approval rating of the person addressing the body. Attendance bears a direct corelation with the stakes that audience nations hold on the issue being deliberated.
That hall was jampacked when the representative of the Palestine Authority essayed the squalid conditions in the occupied West Bank, certainly not because UN members approved of the involvement of the terrorist Hamas faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization. There was growing concern that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is becoming as big a human rights issue as the terrorist attacks that spawned the Jewish state’s arab containment policy in the first place.
I have watched televised UN events for years. Sparsely-attended sessions and near-empty session halls are not uncommon. There have even been meetings of the UN Security Council with only one or two members present, especially during the Cold War.
In this case, having to face an “audience” of 150 empty chairs and only 35 occupied ones is no big deal.
President Bongbong Marcos, Jr. facing “only” THIRTY-FIVE other heads of state is certainly not worthy of a toast, popularity-wise. But at least he WAS facing WORLD LEADERS (plural) few as they were—unlike Cory who only spoke to the Americans representing ONE country.
Mainstream media, acting juvenile, took shallow pleasure at mocking the sparse attendance, missing a golden opportunity to do their real job: WHO were these 35 heads of state who STAYED and LISTENED to Bongbong Marcos?
Nobody took note.
In fact, among the 35 were all representatives of the ASEAN plus Venezuela, Nigeria, Libya, Iran, Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
None of the countries from the European Union were present. That probably explains the uninspired coverage by media—none of the “glamorous states” were around, you know, your France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, Netherlands, or your North American marquee stars US and Canada.
But never mind the Europeans. The Philippines never belonged to that league.
Why not take a look at the unglamorous 35—especially the ones I named—what is common among these countries? They are are all OIL-EXPORTING COUNTRIES.
Members of the OPEC wanted to listen to the Philippine President. Why? What do these strategic oil-exporting countries know that WE do not know or are simply taking for granted?
I will certainly put in the manhours needed to ponder that question but the point is we all could have gotten a good headstart if only we were not focused on just deriving pleasure from pointing out how unpopular our president is internationally.
Of course he is unpopular. He is a Marcos. To me and to the international community that is just par for the course.
What is concerning is that while WE think we are on the same page as the rest of the world about Marcos, we evidently are NOT, after all.
Many who despise the new president doubt if those “31 million” votes were “organic” or the mere result of a clever manipulation of virtual election returns. So there is that lingering “Not My President” sentiment, a defiant declaration that BBM does not truly embody the Filipino people, or even honestly represent the Philippine government. We’re telling the world the guy is NOT the Philippines, and vice versa.
Well, guess what—the international community is not splitting any hairs about it. If you have really read their statements, they are not criticizing Bongbong Marcos for getting elected, they are criticizing all of us, the FILIPINO PEOPLE for electing him! So when they boycotted his speech, they were not boycotting HIM, they were boycotting the Philippines whose citizens they don’t particularly hold in the highest esteem.
And for a moment there you thought these mature international observers were our dearest friends. At the end of the day, the governments of nations do NOT really care about the peoples of nations, only with their governments whom they take to represent their people—whether that is true or not.
THAT is what representative democracy is all about. In other words, whether we like it or not, how the international community will treat our president is exactly how they will treat the rest of us AS A PEOPLE. Do NOT expect any difference. That BBM does not represent ALL of us—only some of us are still saying that and those of us who do are the only ones who still believe it. The rest of the world either do not believe it, or do not care. It is what it is.
And why should that be any surprise to anyone? When I think of Joe Biden, I think of him as representing ALL Americans, those who love him as well as those who don’t. I thought the same way of Donald Trump. I also thought, “how could America, home of some of the greatest intellectuals, ever ALLOW someone like Donald Trump to rise to become their NATIONAL LEADER?”
Thence, I considered Donald Trump the president of every Democrat who did not do enough to prevent the outcome that bedevilled them.
The same thing is true of President Bongbong Marcos, Jr. He was voted President in an election we all participated in and to which results we swore to be bound by.
I don’t care about the circumstances under which those “31 million” voted—in ignorance, in denial, under fraudulent solicitation, on bribery and other considerations—the fact remains our electoral system COUNTED their votes.
I’ve never conceded that the computerized election results were correct because we never saw the SOURCE CODE of the software program that totalled those votes. The problem is, no matter how shrilly I and countless others shouted “Check the source code! Check the source code!” the people in the Leni-Kiko camp did not even seem to know WHAT a source code was.
An examination of the source code HOLDS THE KEY to determining whether BBM really won or not. And the camps of Leni and Kiko are not without help available. They had computer experts with them—they MUST HAVE known.
But it is all on record for everyone to FACT-CHECK: despite the compelling and overwhelming mathematical and statistical improbability of a BBM win, Leni Robredo DID NOT FILE an election protest. She accepted the election results. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. is unequivocally Leni Robredo’s president, as he is mine. As he is yours, and he is everybody’s in the entire Philippines.
So watching the president receive so cold a reception from the international community should make every Filipino feel the shivers, too.
If you delighted over that, you are not a worthy Filipino and it makes no difference who you voted for president.*
