CARANDANG'S response...

“How can an atmosphere of constructive debate flourish in such a toxic “somos o no somos” environment? Why does this administration immediately label all criticism as emanating from people who wish it ill—and proceed to ignore them after they are so labeled?” Columnist Jojo Robles has this to say about Carandang and his ilk!

Communications Secretary for Something or Other Ricky Carandang has taken the low, not necessarily straight, road in dealing with the latest criticism of his boss from Mae Paner, a.k.a. Juana Change. Carandang, trying his best to look serious yet again, said he does not know nor does he care about the video Paner created castigating President Noynoy Aquino for buying himself a Porsche Carrera Turbo.

“There are so many more important issues, so I’m not going to get upset about another critic of the President,” Carandang said. “We don’t have to respond to everybody who criticizes the President.”

It’s easy to imagine Carandang responding to Paner, of course, had she remained one of the Aquino faithful. The actress and advertising personality, after all, created a sensation on the video uploading site YouTube in a series of pitches for then-candidate Aquino previously, even if she has now decided to become just another critic of the government.

Now, Carandang, who has found better things to do (if not a shorter official title that nobody can remember), cannot be bothered to respond to anything that Paner does. Worse, he even questions the sanity of the administration’s latest critic.
“I cannot speculate on [Paner’s] mental state. She says she’s a supporter then you have that [video], so I don’t know. We don’t know what her perspective is right now,” said Carandang.

In Carandang’s world, apparently, an Aquino supporter loses his or her membership in that exclusive club when he or she starts to criticize their idol. And when that happens, Carandang will no longer care about what these apostates do, since they are no longer of the faith.

Paner has explained that she remains a supporter of Aquino, regardless of what Carandang thinks. The super-sized actress says the video she made was just an expression of “tough love.”

Carandang will not be moved. “There’s constructive criticism [and] there’s non-constructive criticism,” he explained in his usual self-important television news-reader’s tone; Paner’s latest production, in Carandang’s mind, falls definitely in the non-constructive category.

And, if you’re a non-constructive critic, you can talk to the hand, as they say. Or, in Carandang’s beautifully diplomatic language, Paner deserves to get his response to her video: “I haven’t seen it and I don’t care.”

Frankly, I liked Carandang better when he was just trying to decide whether he liked the red or the white wine better. Of course, now, he’s got more important things to do, like figuring out a shorter, punchier title for his arcane, nebulous and ultimately incomprehensible job.

Paner’s five-minute video, which has her with four other actors representing different poor people waiting for Aquino’s Porsche to pass by on a deserted roadside, does look like it came from a longtime critic of the President, not someone who help elect him into office. In her usual florid style, Paner goes to great lengths to explain in the video that while Aquino may have every right to buy himself a nice, expensive car, perhaps he shouldn’t have if he was really sympathetic to the plight of his “bosses,” the people.

We’ve all heard all of Paner’s arguments before, of course. And we’ve all heard of the defense of the Palace and the various supporters of Aquino of his purchase, as well, including the Imelda Marcos-like “Inggit lang sila.” [They’re just envious.]
If anything, the Porsche purchase is already old news, having been already superseded even in Aquino’s apparently never-ending quest for the best ride by the leased, bulletproof Lexus SUV that is now his daily commute. So it can’t be Paner’s criticism of an action that the Palace believes Filipinos (with their short attention spans) have already moved on about that must have gotten Carandang’s goat. What really rankled, apparently, was that it was Paner who did the criticizing.

And that people from its own loyalist ranks would dare criticize Aquino—whether they be Catholic bishops who claim to have been taken for a ride on the RH bill or disaffected private citizens like Paner—is something that this administration and its supporters will not countenance. That’s how the news Web sites get flooded with comments about the bishops being “Padre Damasos” for opposing Aquino on contraception and crude remarks about Paner’s weight.

How can an atmosphere of constructive debate flourish in such a toxic “somos o no somos” environment? Why does this administration immediately label all criticism as emanating from people who wish it ill—and proceed to ignore them after they are so labelled?

As for Carandang, we’ve always believed that he is one of the poster boys for the “student government” that has been installed in Malacañang. So far, he hasn’t done anything to prove us wrong–especially nothing of importance, regardless of what he says he does.

Now we know that he will not take any criticism from anyone, not even from people who helped put him in his worthless office. What a jerk.