President Benigno S. Aquino III. Malacañang Photo Bureau
NEW YORK—President Aquino was heckled on Tuesday afternoon during his visit to Columbia University, where he delivered a policy speech at the World Leaders’ Forum.
He had just begun taking questions when a man and a woman took turns shouting at him.
“I look up to your mother. I am a Filipino woman and I saw her as a hero—a modern-day hero for me—and what do you do? You want a Charter change to extend your presidency?” the woman said. “I looked up to her as a hero and now I see the realities of what your family has done. I have been to Hacienda Luisita. I have seen 9-year-olds who lost…” Her voice went off mic.
The forum host asked the woman to stop, but she shouted, “This is the only opportunity I have to talk to the person.” She screamed, “Shame on you!” as she was led out of the Low Library where the forum was held.
Inquirer photographer Edwin Bacasmas said he saw the woman join protesters holding banners of the militant group Gabriela and Bayan.
At a press briefing with Filipino reporters, Aquino expressed concern at the incident.
“I’ve had quite a long experience with [hecklers]. I hope… how should I say this? I hope her mind would be open to the possibility that perhaps those who are influencing her do not really have the best intentions by inciting her to do these things,” he said.
On Monday, a man also tried to engage President Aquino in a debate at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Aquino said that in situations like this, he tried to draw a lesson he learned from his father, the late Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. “He said, in all discussions, there is a thesis. Those who are against it has an antithesis. If you have a dialogue, you might have a synthesis. And I believe that if you are not ready to listen to the other, it means you believe that you are perfect,” the President said.
The President said he was ready to listen to all, if only to reach a synthesis for the good of the majority. Unfortunately, he said, hecklers would accuse him of not answering their questions.
“I really would not be able to answer because they do not stop talking and they do not ask a question. Whatever I say in situations like that, they would say something else. To me, I will just continue working. At night, I face the mirror before I go to sleep and tell myself I did all that I could. I would feel content and the next day, work hard again,” Aquino said.
In his speech on Tuesday, the President recalled how the Philippines struggled under martial law and his parents’ fight for freedom and democracy.
People do incredible things
As in his earlier remarks in his four-nation trip to Europe last week and later in Boston before he flew to New York on Monday night, Aquino detailed his administration’s efforts to bring the country back to its feet after the “lost decade” under former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who he said abused democracy the same way Marcos did.
“My entire life, I have witnessed my people do incredible things: They resisted the dictatorship, drove a peaceful revolution that captured the imagination of the world, stood firmly and often against tyranny and corruption whenever they reared their ugly heads, and worked tirelessly to put our country back on the map,” he said.
“For so long, we have endured the tyranny of self-serving administrations and the indifference of the world, but now, finally, my country, once an often-overlooked archipelago in the Pacific, is poised to remain in the global spotlight, as proof of what a mobilized citizenry and a government of integrity are capable of,” the President said.
Originally posted at 11:18 pm | Wednesday, September 24, 2014
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