MANILA
During a press interview, President Benigno Aquino III was asked about his typical day in office. He replied that it’s typical to have several issues on his plate on any given day.
The president of a nation, any nation, is on the job 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I’m sure there are days when the chief executive wishes there were more hours on the clock in order to give time to all issues of the day that burdens him or her. Such is the lot of the leader of a nation.
A president cannot choose what he’s going to do when he wakes up in the morning. Unlike some people, maybe most people, a president has to confront all issues that are pressed upon him or her. He or she must make decisions depending on the urgency of a problem that land on his desk. He may be able to put off a decision on certain matters but, sooner or later, he will have to make decisions.
We ordinary people may one day wake up feeling lazy or laid back and decide, what the heck, I’ll goof off today and take it easy. A president doesn’t have that luxury; he can’t give in to his laziness and play hooky.
But, with several issues demanding his attention and decision, a leader must prioritize what issues to tackle when. He has to do that; otherwise his work will be chaotic. He has to learn to manage his time and be able to wisely list the issues or problems of the day according to priority or importance. And, importantly, he has to be able to delegate the work to his subordinates.
That’s what Mr. Aquino meant when he said that disparate (and desperate) issues land on his desk practically every day. And he hasn’t got a choice on what issues fall onto his lap. He has no choice about what problems crop up or what to deal with on any given day. He just has to deal with them according to their individual urgency. As powerful as a president may be, he is powerless to dictate the issues that will land on his desk.
Domestic issues compete with international concerns for the president’s attention. Purely executive matters compete with political issues. In a nation like the Philippines, with its more than 90 million people, the country’s leader must deal with all of these people’s concerns.
While not every one of these 90 million people voted for him and many of them still don’t like him (even though his popularity rating is high), Mr. Aquino is the president of all of them. And he has no choice but to be aware of every one’s collective problems and welfare and be able to find solutions to those problems.
Mr. Aquino has to concern himself with the economy, and in a poor country like the Philippines, that’s nerve-wracking work. Fortunately, the country’s economy has been picking up, thanks to renewed investor confidence because of the president’s reforms toward good governance practices.
The Philippines’ population has been growing steadily, even though it has slowed down a bit over recent years. But still, because of widespread poverty, a population of over 90 million creates tremendous strain on the economy.
A legislative bill that aims at slowing the growth rate of unwanted pregnancies recently passed into law, but stiff opposition to it (mainly from the Catholic Church) makes its implementation problematic for the government.
Crime, spawned largely by many people’s poverty, has been a major problem. The police seem too inept to tame the crime rate, especially since, in many cases; members of the police force are often involved in the crimes.
Education, too, has been a problem, again associated with the size of the population. Too many school-aged young Filipinos put a heavy strain on government resources, resulting in a sorely inadequate budget for what a good school system requires.
Too many children are out of school, which in turn result in many problems, including young people who are unqualified for good jobs and, down the road, crime committed by jobless youth.
Social services suffer, too, because of a lack of money to pay for such services. Maternal and children’s health, elderly people’s health concerns, and even basic preventative health needs don’t get the attention they cry for because of a lack of resources.
The end result is a citizenry that is in generally poor health, under-educated and prone or prey to crime because of very low standards of living, education and government services.
The gap between rich and poor people is a yawning chasm, has been for decades. The political and economic elite(s) have maintained a vise-like grip on the country and there is no hope in the near future that the poor will soon be able to share more equitably in the nation’s wealth. (The “s” in the word “elite” above in is parentheses because in the Philippines, the political and economic elites are often one and the same. About 40 wealthy families literally control practically all of the country’s activities, political, economic and what-have-you.)
Corruption in government, and even in the private sector, pervades the nation. Once in government, politicians bleed the nation’s treasury dry. This is one country where politicians run for office to be able to steal the people’s money.
It’s a wonder there hasn’t been a cathartic revolution by the masses to kill all the rich people. Too much of the people’s money go into the pockets of politicians who are often inept and unqualified for public office and are in power only because they literally wield naked power over the people in their bailiwicks.
Nature hasn’t been kind to the Philippines, either. Every year, many people die from natural calamities. Agriculture suffers greatly, and infrastructure is damaged and needs repairs that drain the government’s resources for its continued upkeep.
As I wrote in an earlier column, disasters seem to favor the Philippines too much in that they come and visit the country too frequently. What have the Filipinos done to deserve such punishment and fate?
No wonder some 6,000 Filipinos leave the country every day to work abroad in often demeaning jobs that they tolerate only because they have no other choice. And yet, every day they leave for pastures that aren’t that much greener if only there were more jobs locally. But who can blame them when they leave? Still, they’re accused of abandoning their own country and leaving their fellow countrymen in their misery. Can we blame them for leaving? I, as a former Filipino abroad, certainly don’t.
For lack of space, I’ve not mentioned the international issues that President Aquino has to grapple with as chief executive. A nagging territorial dispute with China has been a headache for the president.
And currently, a tricky issue with the sudden move of the sultan of Sulu in southern Philippines to reclaim Sabah in Malaysia which is supposedly owned by the sultanate.
And then there are the midterm elections here on May 13 in which Mr. Aquino has fielded his own candidates in the hope that he will have more allies in place to support his reform program.
Because he wants dearly for his team to win, Mr. Aquino has been going into the hustling to rally the voters behind his candidates. We shall know in mid-May if the president’s endorsement has put his candidates in office or not, which in turn will have consequences on the chances of his presidential candidate in 2016.
A typical day in the office of the president? It’s often a mish-mash of issues, a smorgasbord of priorities, and a plateful of headaches.
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