Breaking the presidential curse in the Philippines
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| President-elect Atty. Rodrigo Duterte. Courtesy: Ryan Lim, Malacanang Photo Bureau |
Latest data showed the Philippines have notched a 6.9%
in GDP, against China's only 6.7% last year. And many foreign investors have
set their eyes on pouring in their investments into the country, even as the
newly-elected President Duterte's announcement
recently that he wouldn't allow factories to be set up in the National Capital
Region, otherwise known as Metro Manila, anymore.
Understandably, the newly-elected leader has expressed
concern that Metro Manila is bursting at the seams. With more than 13 million
residents, illegal squatting in Metro Manila has become a big headache for the
government for many decades now. And perhaps, the only way to decongest the
urban areas is to decentralize the industries. In fact, United Nations data
indicated that the Philippines has more than 70 percent of population living
below the poverty line with many of them living in high risk areas along the river estuaries.
These are the same group of people who were tired of
the politicians' false promises to uplift them from the quagmire of poverty.
Hence, when the best opportunity comes knocking at Duterte's doors, he didn't
lose any time to give it a deep ponder, if only to help alleviate the lives of
the socially impoverished majority.
As Prof. Prospero de Vera, a political analyst from
the University of the Philippines, was quoted by a newswires agency as saying that Duterte's victory was
"phenomenal rise to the presidency which upends traditional wisdom that
only candidates from Luzon or the Visayas can win the presidency." In
short, Duterte's victory was breaking the spell of the "Mindanao
curse", which for many years have only elected presidents from Luzon and
the Visayas.
De Vera pointed out that Duterte's phenomenal victory
was the consequence of many Filipinos' frustrations over the administration's
failure to deliver what majority of the destitute Filipinos had expected. He is
convinced that "something dramatic must happen in Mindanao",
considering that he is the first leader from Mindanao who was elected into the
highest office.
On the contrary, Prof. Edmund Tayao, also a political
analyst, believed that Duterte's victory couldn't be compared to the same base
of supporters when President Benigno Aquino III won the presidency in 2010,
saying that Aquino won by plurality in that election year, too.
Political observers believed that it wasn't an easy
decision for Duterte who was adopted by the PDP-Laban party prior to joining
the presidential contest. In fact, it took a last-ditch attempt for his supporters
to nudge him into considering running for president in a country that is rocked
by rampant graft and corruption, trading of illegal drugs, and other crimes.
While the other presidential timbers have already
started their campaign sorties, strategizing on what's best to attract huge
followers without really shedding so much money to earn their trust comes
election day, incoming President Rodrigo "Duterte Harry" Duterte, 71,
has yet to make up his mind as to whether to catch up with the rest of the pack
or not.
And who would think that an erstwhile prosecutor who
became a tough mayor of Davao City, the largest city in the world in terms of
land area, for 22 years before he
finally decided to battle it out with the bigwigs in politics. Notorious for his
firebrand attitude and belting out of incendiary foul language during the
campaign sorties, Duterte has earned the respect of a wide margin of support
from the masses who were tired of the government's elitist approach to solving
social problems in the country of 103 million people.
As Mr. Perry Diaz, a columnist from Pinas tabloid
based in Los Angeles, Duterte, who has zero tolerance against criminals, is a
combination of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Lee Kuan Yew, Ramon Magsaysay, and
"Dirty Harry", all wrapped into one.
But farfetched from the minds of those who thought
that he'd be vindictive, Duterte immediately thought to clear the path to reconciliation
to the losing parties for the sake of national healing and to foster unity
among the people.
Even prior to his oath-taking rites, President Duterte
has already presented his administration's eight-point economic agenda which
include tax reforms, accelerating infrastructure spending, attracting foreign
investments, agricultural development, creating more jobs, and expanding the
implementation of the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) and maintain the current
macroeconomic policies, the Philippines News Agency (PNA) said.
PNA added that the new administration is set to
introduce changes in tax revenue collection efforts of the Bureau of Internal
Revenue (BIR) and the Bureau of Customs (BoC). Likewise,
infrastructure-spending will be accelerated in order to address major
bottlenecks in the Public Private Partnership (PPP), wherein 5 percent of the GDP will be allocated for this program as a means to
create more jobs. The incoming administration will also attract foreign
investments by addressing restrictive economic provisions in the country's
Constitution.
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