“Aquino shrugged,” so said his spokesmen and communications secretary, following the issuance of the Cebu declaration and the Lipa declaration by the assemblies of religious and civic leaders, which called on the 15th president of our republic to step down.

The spokesmen’s allusion to Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is unfortunate and only digs a grave for the president. Rand’s 1957 novel depicts a dystopian United States, in which the country has a “National Legislature” instead of a Congress and a “Head of State” instead of a President. This will give angry citizens plenty of ideas.