(Originally part of Post Election Debriefing)
Our 5th president under the 5th Philippine Republic, the Philippines’ 15th President Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Cojuangco Aquino III, has done a better job overall. Under his watch, it supported the Philippines’ transition to becoming better. It wasn’t a smooth one; nonetheless, transitions aren’t easy most of the time, especially putting it on a scale of national level.
To name a few, his administration has:
- Brought investments in the Philippines creating jobs (e.g. through boosting tourism: “It’s more fun in the Philippines”, creating better manufacturing sector, sustained the value of peso conducive for investments, increased government spending, etc. . .) Thus, helping Filipinos to have more options working here, instead of going abroad. It fits with the global crisis’ panorama where institutions abroad are not hiring or at least hiring fewer workers outside their country.
- He placed more presence of Philippines on global stage. It started with CNN documentary featuring our nation, and including its problems. Although most of us did not spare good feed backs on that initially, we just learned to accept while realizing that it really needs to be addressed as we go along. There was a statement from a newspaper (under opinion section) saying something like this: “If we don’t mind crapping in our backyards, don’t be surprised if our neighbors could smell it.” If it has to be addressed, then it has to be addressed no matter how hard the truth is. If our public leaders feel that our problems are just ok while only few of us are strong enough to deliver our concerns (because we’re just too busy struggling everyday and fed up with the same rhetoric flow of poor system), maybe working a bit with foreign media would help. That should draw our public leaders’ attention, because it’s putting them into shame. See, more global presence plus “it’s more fun in the Philippines” program equals foreigners would be interested not just to have a vacation, maybe to invest as well. After seeing our poverty rate, these guys might be more inspired to invest. After all, the saying that goes “necessity is the mother of invention” is true most of the time.
- Started going after some corrupt public officials. Although there have been some issues that going after corrupt public officials has been selective, it’s hard to come up with the cause of this matter. First of all, FOI (Freedom of information) bill wasn’t even close to its approval yet. And second, based on the Pork barrel scam, it showed that corruption in the public office has its complex web of scheme (it’s not surprising because it involves a huge amount of money and “powerful” individuals). Maybe for now we can view it as selective because time can only allow things to be selective. Meaning, the administration can only do so much in a given time, not to mention that (whether he’s involved or not) majority of the public officials could be involved as well. If that is correct, hunting them all at once would mean shutting down the Philippine government which will lead to absolute chaos stemming from the rise of crime-related activities; NPA (new people’s army) exercising their agendas; a lot of freedom fighters will rise attempting to claim or govern some territories; consistent rallies; businesses shutting down, which will skyrocket unemployment rate; poverty reigns, which will lead to more crime-related activities; you name it – a lot of bad activities are going to happen. And if the issue turns to be big enough within international radar, global organizations such as United Nations might intervene, and the list goes on. Worse case scenario, Philippines will be annexed with other nation. We don’t need to be managed by another country in order to improve, that’s why it’s our responsibility to learn as well. Going back, example approaches that might be involved going after corrupt public officials are strategy, research, connecting the dots, reading between the lines, micro-and-macro, who’s who, cross-referencing, etc… are all affected by time. And it doesn’t stop from there; only few who can be trusted (because we don’t know yet who’s who); we don’t have ample participants who are competent enough to solve the systemic problem; these corrupt public officials are smart and know how to use influence.
- Implemented PPP (Public-Private Partnership) program which again, created demand for jobs and investments while saving some public funds through working with private corporations. Here’s an example of a simple diagram for that.
This diagram (above) is not only applicable to PPP program, it also applies to Aquino’s administration tourism program: “It’s more fun in the Philippines” and boosting manufacturing sector, to name a few.
Like anyone else, he’s not perfect. And a good performance would always be (let’s just say…) more than enough challenge if he is surrounded with incompetent public officials knowing that he only has a 6-year term.
Some individuals don’t care throwing nasty statements about him. After all, that’s how most of us understand democracy anyway. And for some, that’s what they learned from our big brother America. The way most of us see it, our statements are less of a factor because we’re just people who happens to have a voice, and when our president does something we tend to highlight all the negatives while almost forgetting the good ones. Can we just think sometimes how he wished to say sorry for all the mistakes (or imperfections) he might have made? – It just so happened that most of us are not mature enough dealing with mistakes.
So, do these individuals want to change our leader right away whenever we see some failures? Sure, why not propose a 2 to 3 – year term for a presidential position. Since we tend to hinder ourselves moving forward from mistakes anyway, having 2 to 3 – year term won’t provide us enough time to dwell on it. We will be forced to move on. – Good luck on that. . .
Problems on dealing with mistakes, and / or learning from failures is more of a personal problem, don’t let that transform into a national phenomenon. Whoever it is we want to replace him, we sure don’t know if that person would be better enough putting himself on that very same situation like our President Aquino was in. Justice is different from revenge.
It’s frustrating to witness how some individuals misjudged and threw nasty statements to him. As far as we want to convince ourselves how valid those statements are (attempting to reach unity through looking at similarities while looking at it from different angles), we just can’t ignore the huge disparity among us. Given the fact that internet nowadays is more accessible than 6 years ago, it appears that majority of the statements were generated from biased social media posts (memes done through photo shops, self-expressive blogs, video-edited spinning) and maybe from whatever topics arose during their drinking session.
If people misjudged him because he endorsed our DILG (Department of Interior Local Government) secretary Mar Roxas, then another way of thinking it, is we should understand that he is just saying to us what he thinks about who’s best for our country. We can’t blame him, he has worked long enough with DILG Sec. Mar Roxas to know him well. Whether President Aquino is right or wrong, we don’t know that yet. Plus, endorsing a fellow member of a party is not something unusual, illegal, or a surprise. It happens in other countries too. Don’t forget, this is politics we’re talking about. Truth is, political careers also involve interdependence as well. So God knows maybe President Aquino is just returning some favor to him. Again, he thinks DILG Sec. Mar Roxas is fit for the job anyway. Bottom line is, it is still going to be our decision. OUR DECISION. . .
Our current President still has few more days left in his office; and with his authority, critical things can happen in hours. Meaning, he still has few opportunities left to do the right thing. If he’s concerned about our incoming President Rodrigo Duterte’s leadership, that would be more of our problem (although technically he’s included, but remember 1 person : 1 vote – this is just one of the things he can’t and shouldn’t control). If he’s bothered about things that might put him in trouble; well, everyone of us has the responsibility to answer to the law, that’s given. He’s smart enough to know that beforehand. What happened, did happen. At the end of the day, given our current environment nowadays, the whole would be always greater than its sum. He did what he could, and whatever it is he regrets he hasn’t done or could have done better, he doesn’t have to worry about it because if he have done those, then maybe it could have turn out to be a different him. Like our incoming President Rodrigo Duterte said, stop investing much on things that you can’t control.
Life will be always a learning process, even if he’s sitting as the President of a nation.
Moving on, he knows he still has some promising years to look after. These are some good life events and a better one to invest in. His soon-to-be wife could be waiting somewhere, and maybe another Aquino will be born someday. Hope he would be able to maximize a good life with them. He has done enough politics, let the incoming President Mayor Rodrigo Duterte carry the rest as he fulfill his life mission.
Responsible voting is our right to exercise our point of view towards our nation and hopefully, everyone would feel that as an obligation for a better Philippines. Above all, whether we voted for the candidate or not (assuming we haven’t messed up with our vote), we will work with whoever wins the public office because they don’t just matter us, we matter to ourselves as well.
J. Letre
Credits
Photos:
1st image: Current President Benigno Simeon Aquino III – via untvweb.com
2nd image: Sample Diagram relating to Aquino’s implementation of PPP Program – Authored and created by J. Letre via Canva