President Marcos expresses optimism everywhere about the future, and we certainly want to join him in that. He has effectively covered all grounds early on, familiarizing himself with the core problems of the country that are embodied in his administration’s eight-point socioeconomic agenda. After one year, however, we see little accomplishment taking place. While Mr. Marcos is rallying everyone to go forward, his subalterns are not moving in lockstep with him.
The next five years of his tenure should now be different. It should be spent focusing on strategizing the core issues in his economic agenda. We respectfully suggest to Mr. Marcos that a task force for each concern should now be formed to focus on the core problems:
- food security
- traffic and transport systems
- population control/management
- gross unemployment and slack in business activities
- deficiencies in the Department of Education learning systems
- unabated corruption in government
- bureaucratic inefficiencies, red tape, and ineffective internal control systems as revealed in the 2022 Commission on Audit findings
- resolute foreign relations policies on how to deal with China’s territorial aggression
- Malaysia’s refusal to recognize the French court arbitral award of $14.9 billion to the Sulu sultanate heirs, etc.
The task force for each core problem should be headed by a competent officer, preferably an undersecretary of the department, and a seconded staff of experts working with him/her. They have to work full-time on the strategic plan, conduct research, complete staff work within six months or so, and submit their recommendations to the President, then revert to their assigned duties. A presidential citation for a job well done would be most appropriate.
The department secretaries in turn must now show results … or take a walk.
MARVEL K. TAN, CPA
marvelktan@yahoo.com