Position Paper

A Position Paper on the Aquino Clan Corruption
By: Nikka C. Gerona
“People who live in an age of corruption are witty and slanderous; they know that
there are other kinds of murder than by dagger or assault; they also know that whatever
is well said is believed…”
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Ever wonder why up to this day the Philippines remains to be part of the third world
countries in Asia? It is due to graft and corruption in the government from the leaders
whom we voted for their integrity and excellence. It is disappointing and shameful that
even the greatest leaders of the Philippines are involved in this kind of unscrupulous act.
For decades, the Aquino’s were able to keep with such perfect façade to hide their
personal vendetta and schemes from the Filipinos in order to deceive the citizens that
they are the true heroes of this nation.
Corruption is a broad set of behaviors based on dishonesty or unethical conduct

of a certain person in authority, while graft is just a specific type of political corruption.
Highly-placed government officials, who are able to use public funds to improve their own
fortunes, are usually the ones who are charged with graft and corruption. When a
government official utilizes his access, influence, knowledge or power that comes with his
current high position and at the same time engage in graft, he betrays the public’s trust;
thus, he must face the means of his action. Penalties depend on the type of corruption
that one has committed, but a typical penalty for deliberate involvement in graft would be
five years' imprisonment. Moreover, graft and corruption continue to be rampant here in
the Philippines. Just like a wildfire, as time goes by, it escalates and get worse causing
casualties around it. The hunger of the Yellow Cult for money and power grows in sync
with the rising casualties and deterioration of our economy due to corruption. With this,
the paper is in favor with the video presented that criticized the Aquino administration.
As dictated by facts and evidences, the Aquino clan are indeed not saints as we
were led to believe they were. They were involved in anomalies that were hidden from
the public for many years. However, supporters of the yellow bloods opposed to these
evidences. One of their claims is the presidency of Cory Aquino who was the first woman
in history to hold the office of the president. She was also the woman who ended Marcos
regime when she won against him in the snap presidential election in February 7, 1986.
Her supporters believe that she was the one who ceased the long oppressed freedom
and the life threatening abuses executed by the Marcos government, and most of all, they
believe that she was the person behind the empowerment of democracy.
When Corazon Aquino became president, one of her biggest moves was to take
down monopolies that were perpetrated by Marcos. She focuses on developing and
restoring our drifting economy from dying. After twenty years of misgovern and
mismanagement during the Marcos administration, our government was drowning from
bankruptcy and debts. Since 1986, the Aquino administration has paid off $4 billion of the
country's outstanding debts to regain good international credit ratings and attract the
attention of future markets. Nevertheless, the administration borrowed an additional $9
billion, increasing the national debt by $6 billion within six years time since the expulsion
of former President Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.
During the Ninoy Aquino administration, the following improvements were said
accomplished: the poverty incidence rate decreased from 28.6% to 26.3% according to
NEDA; the number of the out-of-school children decreased from 11.7 M to 5.2 M
according to PIDS-UNICEF study; the social services budget increased from 415.8 B to
1.1059 T according to DBM; the unemployment rate lowers from 7.3% to 5.8% according
to NEDA.
These are all good intentions but a predator never tells a prey their real intentions.
One of the controversial issue of the Aquino’s was the Hacienda Luisita. Hacienda Luisita
is a 6,453 hectare sugarcane plantation owned by the Cojuangco family, which was
supposed to be distributed to 6,296 landless farmers. Cory Aquino envisioned agrarian
and land reform as the centerpiece of her administration's social legislative agenda upon
taking the position of being the new president. But this all change when on June 10, 1988,
the Republic Act No. 6657 (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law) was signed into law
by Cory Aquino. The law includes a Stock Distribution Option (SDO) which would allow
landowners to distribute the stock shares of the land to the farmers, instead of actual land.
This causes land reform disputes where many farmers and Aquino critics died. Though
in 2013 the Supreme Court awarded to farmer beneficiaries about 4,000 hectares of the
Hacienda Luisita, still many farmers continue to condemn the land title distribution as a
hoax when Ninoy Aquino delivered his last SONA. "Like his mother Corazon Cojuangco
Aquino, President Aquino promised social justice and land reform in Hacienda Luisita as
part of his electoral campaign. But Aquino’s actions speak differently," according to Luisita
Watch, a group of individuals and organizations advocating the cause of Hacienda Luisita
farmworkers.
Noynoy Aquino, only son of democratic icon and former leader Cory Aquino held
liable of mishandling of funds during his administration. On November 8, 2013, Tacloban
City was devastated by the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded, as well as the
deadliest recorded typhoon to make landfall in the country with over 10,000 estimated
casualties. Typhoon survivors seek assistance to the government during the devastating
aftermath of the typhoon. The national and local government offices even experienced
difficulty with communications as regular lines were down in the affected areas. As this
gained attention internationally, the government started receiving assistance aids and
donations from other countries. The government specifically Noynoy Aquino was
criticized for allegedly mishandling the said money which was nearly one billion pesos
meant for recovery operations. Marcelino P. Escalada, Jr., who replaced Vice President
Leni Robredo as head of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council
(HUDCC) after she resigned from the cabinet last December, added the government is
still gathering evidence against the previous administration over allegations of missing
Yolanda funds, which include those allotted to housing projects. He said officials under
former President Benigno Aquino III are still not off the hook. "Sinisilip pa namin sila,"
Evasco said.
Another controversy Ninoy Aquino was involved in was the Priority Development
Assistance Fund scam, also called the PDAF scam or the pork barrel scam, which was
first exposed in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on July 12, 2013 during his administration
with Janet Lim-Napoles being the mastermind. It was estimated the government loss 10
billion.
In this paper the negative outweighs the positive. Corruption here in the Philippines
is very sickening. Justice must be served for those innocent people who suffered under
the regime of the yellow ribbon. One way we can serve justice is fighting ignorance and
deception here in the Philippines. We also have to educate ourselves in order for us to
understand and be aware of the political and economic situation of our country.

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A Position Paper on the Aquino Clan Corruption

By: Nikka C. Gerona

Corruption is a broad set of behaviors based on dishonesty or unethical conduct

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