This piece continues and ends the trilogy on PNOY’s No, No, No, Yes, Yes, NOoo… to inveiglements to continue in office as President and to unexamine his much examined presidency. For what and where Noynoy had done good, for his grade of 7 out of 10, you will find them in his past State of the Nation (SONA) speeches he has delivered in Congress. No need to review those products of his speech writers. Put in another positive way there’s only three rotten tomatoes and seven good ones in small basket—that much of which should be attributed more to the achieving Filipinos (OFWs, the professionals, expats and immigrants and the common working men and women) than to PNoy in pushing up the GNP.
The three bad tomatoes for grilling over the coals may be simplified as the social, economic and political dimensions of executive administration. What did PNoy fail to do in the health, education and justice sector; in unemployment and food on the table; and in national and local governments administration?
If PNoy did not know where he was after being sworn to office when he gave the command: Forward March to his straight path ( Tuwid na Daan) to Shangi-La. That’s too bad, but not entirely. One just can not go anywhere if he does not know where is starting from. He can go in circles or just meander. If you are in Manila you cannot just walk to Quiapo if you don’t know you are in San Andres or Sta Ana. You might just find yourself in Leveriza, Pasay City. That’s a jeepney driver’s metaphor.
PNoy and his work horses should know from the very beginning the plenitude of work and places to visit alongside the scarcity of time and resources they have on their hands. It is easy to be politically correct and pompous in setting charming goals. Being in politics should not be an excuse. Realism puts into shame ephemeral political idealism. That’s why in the media the coals of criticism keep on smouldering.
In their days Socrates, Plato and Aristotle did not need always to quantify to support their observations. Reasons sufficed. They could have foreseen in the dialogues the inevitable decline of Greece as a nation state. One can say that PNoy’s performance rating of three tomatoes are in a state of decay with large quantities of maggots hastening dissolution of their physical existence.
PNoy and his people could have asked and written in stone the following: How many school children are out of school now, how many they will be yearly in the next ten years. What will they need now and yearly six years in the future in terms of school building, teachers, desks, toilets, books, etcetera. After almost five years what are the discrepancies as perceived by the people in the cities and very remote municipalities?
On the education of the youth alone, P NOY could have reported: On a scale of ideal 100 units for all variables, we found in the last 20 years past administrations had accumulated a deficit of 80 units and that we have determined based on projected population we can only do 10 units every year. So after six years we will still have a realistic deficit of 20 units. Optimistic planning and due diligence in implementation will still leave to succeeding administration a deficit of 20 units. Which can be quantified and specified into hundreds of school buildings and toilets, thousands of teachers and upgraded school libraries, ten thousands of drop-outs, and hundred thousands of school desks, computers and millions of textbooks.
To substantiate a six-year itinerary for child, youth and professional education with concrete figures there must be credible answers to questions like What remains undone and what remains to be done after six years of painstaking governance in the education sector? If PNOY’s planners did not do this, they will—still clueless—not know where they started.
In the above example, knowing where you are; knowing where you NEED to go 80 kilometers away; you know at the start you will run out of gas when you reached 60 kilometers in 6 time units. These are examples in the education sector; in the health sector it is about the number of hospitals, clinics, doctors, nurses, ambulances, dialysis, MRI, ECG, Ultra Sound machines, paramedics etc;
In the administration of justice, knowing where you are can knock you unconscious. The number of undecided, pending and whatever civil and criminal cases can give you fainting spells:
From the internet: “NSCB Secretary General Jose Ramon Albert said that from 2005 to 2010, lower courts were continuously confronted with heavy volume of caseload, with an annual average of 1,059,484 cases or equivalent to an average of around 4,221 cases per working day.”
Applying an outside the box perspective might provide a feasible solution which sadly HISTORY and the present CULTURE will not allow: release then re-train 80% of the prisoners who are not supposed to be in jail in the first place, study the backlogs and burn all hibernating cases; fire 50%, from which jail 20% of the justices, judges and prosecutors, reduce the number of lawyers and re-train them for more productive work; sounds like Mao Tse Tung’s effective cultural revolution of 1968? Not really when you study the ROLE of law (NOT THE RULE OF LAW) in the happy OKAY top 20 countries in UN Human Development Index as the bases to establish where you are; only then will you know how far you cannot go. Anywhere. The ultimate measure in rendering justice for peace and national progress is the extent to which criminals and law breakers are punished with fines, imprisonment and even death. Without that, wave good bye to peace, order and progress. The exercise of police power is a joke when ever positive judicial power is inutil. Said another way both sides of the police-judicial power equation must be positive for justice to prevail.
In the infrastructure, public works, communications and transportation sectors, to know where you are is to establish how backward is the country in terms of the technology applied in all those sectors; whether roads and bridges’ technical life is might only be only up to the next 10 year flood. Whether tourist politicians were dumb not to notice efficient transport systems in metro cities they visit regularly like the Big Apple, Toronto, LA, London, Paris, Stockholm explains lame public policies in the Philippines metro traffic systems.
Hongkong have long ago realized that rickshaw as mass transport ingenuity and for exercise can shorten the poor man’s life. Manila is yet to realize that the singular pride and world famous colorful jeepney is driven by men who must retire at age forty to avoid an early grave.
In fine and in Metro cities, infrastructure honchos should be techno savvy on the prime requirements of urbanization: moving people without idiotic delays in all hours to earn their livelihood and stimulate economic activities and moving goods, materials and equipment sustain the lifeblood of cities. This is the Canker of Metro Manila.
In this sector too, kilometers of roads and concrete and steel bridges; kilometers of rail structures underground, on the ground and above the ground should establish where we are. Losing the trains and rails to La Union, closing down the leisurely train travel from Iloilo City to Roxas City in Panay island and allowing the deterioration of the slow Bicol express to Albay are red flags—over the years—on the neurons of our transport officials. As we are locked up in the decaying MRT and LRT, we are still in outer space orbiting distant planets when we think of having railroads west to east of Mindanao, north to south of Cebu, coastal perimeter of Panay island, etc.
In the economic sector, it is a different story when you are trying to establish where you are or where is your starting point. If you start where you are and have not moved in 6 years time, you can be well of or richer after having maintain an annual 6% GNP. On paper but not in number of the hungry.
To bureaucrats and politicians: Take the unemployment rate, the highest in Southeast Asia. You can hypothetically start unemployment at 7.3% of the labor force (38.8m) during the first year and claim improvement when unemployment is the same at 7.3% of the labor force (41.6m) after 5 years; However, there will still be 202 thousand (plus) unemployed more than the almost 3 million without jobs during your first year.
Economists should debunk as bunk this celestial metaphor: If the economist St. Peter of the Pearly Gates is asked: During the last four years have there be an increased in the number of souls going to heaven redeemed from purgatory? “Well”, answered St. Peter, “we can only make assumptions, because many factors are involved that we can make assumptions out of assumptions; man does not live by bread alone many happily wallow in their sins. Of the total that leaves earth every year, a few or several are turned back, some who are destined to purgatory actually preferred to go to hell that reminds them of home-sweet-home on earth, some worst ones fated for hell are sent to limbo to join the animals. God is merciful, the holiest of holies that’s why the soul population in heaven is steady and beyond measure. By the way, says St. Peter we don’t reckon years or have time in eternal heaven. It is like unemployment in the Philippines, while a few hundreds are losing their jobs in the few factories and numerous malls, many thousands start selling vegetables, tahu and tahong on sidewalks. Please bear in mind no mistakes ever happen in celestial headquarters. Everything is perfect.”
What about the national-local nexus of political administration? It seems to be the unexamined baby of media. Not much howling and crying from the provinces, cities and towns and barangays except for a few calamity driven complaints from non-administration local officials. Media space seems parsimonious even on mere mention of the word local autonomy. If ever this is a part of the consideration on the PNOY’s continuance in office, local politicians in their bailiwicks and in the Congress certainly will have weighty influence on its outcome.
Is PNoy over the coals yet? Wait a bit more, I just gotten hold of the water hose. Got to hose down the coals already because much of the stinking pus he didn’t cause anyway.
Filipino political negative wisdom seemed to have followed the dictum that four years in office is too short for a good president but two terms of four years are too long for a bad president. Wow ! Turn it on its head: 4-year term is too short for a bad president and an 8-year term is too long for a good president to even wish for. Let’s have six years then and let’s see what happens? More on this subject on my next piece. ****
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