He said he wasn’t going to be like any traditional politician, and even shunned activities that would be seen as a photo-op, and yet Noynoy today has become a certified trapo who even engages in political patronage and yes, bribery to get his way.
Like his mother before him, he uses his position and his activities to campaign early for his obviously weak Liberal Party (LP) senatorial bets by taking them with him, along with his sister Kris Aquino, while traveling in a huge Army truck that drove through the flooded area of Muntinlupa, ostensibly to distribute relief goods that came no doubt from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) packages.
With him were Bureau of Customs Commissioner Rufino Biazon, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) Director General Joel Villanueva and Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara as well as former Akbayan party-list Rep. Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel.
One may well ask: Why were they there with Noynoy and Kris Aquino in that truck?
Biazon claimed he was there to extend help to his former constituents in Muntinlupa.
Angara’s defense was that if he could help his countrymen, why not? “There is nothing wrong in helping,” he said.
Of course there is nothing wrong in helping the flood-stricken victims. But just what kind of help was really extended in accompanying Noynoy and riding in a presidential truck and visiting  the evacuation center?
Was it not to get the victims to see them and get the voters to know them, and perhaps remember them in 2013 when the polls open?
Then there was Hontiveros-Baraquel also in the early campaign picture, along with the famous epal senatorial wannabe, who even uses Tesda ads on TV for voter recognition, just as the Akbayan Baraquel does, in forgettable ads that have something to do with mothers or something.
Their ads are obviously early campaign ads, and being seen with Noynoy, who is also doing his all to get them elected in 2013, to them is a plus factor.
They may just be wrong.
Other people, mostly unknown, help out without the media play and for no other reason than to really help and provide a bit of comfort to the poor flood victims, while asking for nothing in return.
What kind of help did these four senatorial bets provide the flood victims in Muntinlupa? Distributing relief goods that did not come out of their pockets and offices, as these relief goods must have come from the DSWD.
Heck, the goods probably did not even come from Noynoy’s presidential social fund or his huge pork barrel. That ride in flooded waters certainly was yet another Palace gimmick in which Noynoy has been engaging in  more and more.
Biazon wasn’t there for his former Muntinlupa constituents. He was there for early national exposure. But since he is with the Customs bureau, he probably could have just used up giving some goods confiscated by Customs as a form of assistance to the flood victims. Did he?
As for the Tesda epal, with all those trainees he is supposed to have in his office, couldn’t he have at the very least gotten  some confiscated rice and have his trainees make hot arroz caldo for these poor, shivering and hungry evacuees?
As for the Akbayan Baraquel, who portrays herself as a bleeding heart activist and is at the forefront of all those pro-Noynoy demonstrations, it would certainly have gone with her bleeding heart image she nurtures for public consumption if she and her group went about collecting relief goods and, without her idol Noynoy, and made the rounds with her activist group.
It shouldn’t be too difficult a task. After all, Akbayan does have some incumbent party-list congressmen who have a huge, huge, pork barrel, so much so that they certainly could have pitched in to assist the victims.
But as the idea was to just be seen by the voters, they were just there for an early campaign blitz.
That’s what trapos do.