Reasons for optimism

We Filipinos have plenty of reasons to be optimistic this 2012 considering the momentum gained by President Aquino in fighting corruption and in addressing basic concerns like employment, food security and economic growth.

Eighteen months into P-Noy’s presidency, unemployment is down to 6.3 percent from 7.1 percent, while the labor front is generally very peaceful with 75 percent less strikes in 2011.

Rice sufficiency—meaning, the Philippines not needing to import 10 percent of its rice requirement—is attainable next year, what with the indefatigable Secretary Proceso Alcala heading the agriculture department.

Meanwhile, the peso, a barometer of our economic health, has remained very stable at the exchange rate of P43 to a US dollar.

And if a survey says that 95 percent of Filipinos see 2012 being better than 2011, it may also have to do with P-Noy’s honest-to-goodness campaign against graft and corruption.

“Midnight” Chief Justice Renato Corona, having been impeached by the House of Representatives, is now facing trial at the Senate; and his benefactor, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, is now detained while on trial for electoral sabotage and also while awaiting the progress of the graft charges against her in relation to the NBN-ZTE scandal.

But going after grafters in the past administration is only half the story because the Aquino administration itself has maintained its pledge to foster good and graft-free governance.

Finally, we have a President who is living up to his campaign promises to the Filipino people whom he calls his bosses.

—ALBERTO MARQUEZ,

[email protected].