President Aquino wants to be a reformist president, and he’s doing a good job at reforming society. His “daang matuwid” resonates with the people, and is something they want: a clean, honest government that cares. But they also want a decent life, and that he hasn’t yet provided.
I was going to continue with my column of last week, but I will have to defer it. Several of my friends implored me to write on the elections because they were worried. In a conversation we had as to who they’d vote for for the Senate, they had great difficulty naming 12. Once they [...]
The investment-grade rating given by Fitch (I expect S&P and Moody’s will follow soon) is of great credit to President Aquino’s administration and Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima. I believe a key ingredient here that was missing in the last administration is the trust that the people have in Mr. Aquino. There were many factors taken [...]
I, quite simply, fail to understand the Philippine Catholic Church. It vehemently opposes the Reproductive Health Law. Fine, it has every right to. But what it doesn’t have a right to is to dictate its belief to others. The law will give Filipinos of all faiths, or none, the option to request family planning assistance, or not.
Some of my friends disagreed with my last column. Not on leadership, no argument there, but on creating a Department of ICT (Information Communications Technology). And not, I’m glad to say, for the non sequitur reason that there are already too many departments. There are, but that isn’t, or shouldn’t be, the issue. If there are too many, is a DICT the least necessary? As I argued in my last column, decidedly NO. There are departments of far less use that can go.
I talked about the importance of leadership recently (Inquirer, 2/28/13) and how it determines the path of a country using the two Koreas as a dramatic example. Leadership is particularly important in a hierarchical society like the Philippines. On the larger scale, it can determine where a country goes, but it can also affect what happens in a particular sector, or a specific issue. And it can affect not only that sector or issue but a wider sphere through indirect impact.
I’m going to continue on the campaign trail because now is a good time to push reform, and we sure need reform. Here’s why: Over the past 40 years I’ve watched the Philippines sink from the top (the second best to Japan) to near the bottom in Asia. People talk about it, but no one seems to really care enough to reverse this sad decline. The one factor I know is not the cause is the people, who have more than proved their abilities.
Let me take last week’s column a bit further. We have a President who is changing society, or trying to. Political games he plays (successfully, I might add), but a trapo he is not. His “daang matuwid” has resonated in the public arena, and his honest lifestyle is setting an example for many to follow. Attacking corruption at the top is working, but it now has to be expanded. We all know who the corrupt are, so the President now has to widen his net and take them down, too.
I had a discussion with a government exec last week, where I decried the low level of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Philippines. He disagreed and explained that the apparent low level wasn’t correct as it was the NET number from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. It deducted remittance of dividends, etc. of multinational corporations (MNCs) that were already here. And as the Philippines had many mature MNCs, ones who’d been here a long time, versus, say, Vietnam where they’re still new, they were sending back their profits, no longer needing to reinvest them in growth.
With a scant eight session days to go, Congress has much it can do. Let’s hope it acts, as there’s been too many bills pending for too long.
My interest, of course, is business and the economy because these underpin everything else and, hence, are what I consider the most important for the government, all branches, to focus on to give Filipinos a decent life. Filipinos can only have a decent life if they aren’t poor. They can only be not poor by having an income. Jobs, either in a small personal business or working for someone, are the only way to provide that income. So an 8-day focus on job- and income-creating bills is what Congress should do.
I have lived in this wonderful country for the past 16 years, and during this time I have purchased the Inquirer every single day. But I am at a loss as to why the Inquirer gives space to two columnists who are not polemicists or contrarians, but propagandists. I have tried to understand them as polemicists, but this never works because they are so predictable with their views.
A remarkable year 2012 was. In his time, President Fidel Ramos brought about some dramatic changes in the business environment—changes that to this day we are still benefiting from. He deregulated the key sectors—sectors that are now vibrant and competitive: telecom (there would be few cell phones today if PLDT had retained its monopoly), power (we’d still be having blackouts), oil and banking.
