PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has realized, after the loss of thousands of lives, that the war against the illegal drug trade can’t be won in six months. His economic managers have yet to admit that they miscalculated the effect of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law on prices of commodities. Next up: the Social Security System (SSS) funds.
When you are an outsider looking in, you fail to appreciate the work of insiders and bloat your ability to deal with what the insiders are tackling. Former president Noynoy Aquino, for example, refused to hike the pension of retirees fearing that doing so would drain SSS money. His successor thought he knew better.
Pension hikes were among the campaign promises of then opposition presidential bet Duterte, apparently done to make the voters believe he would be a better president than Noynoy and a better candidate than the administration bet Mar Roxas.
Swagger blanketed the Duterte campaign apparently borne by the feeling they were better managers than the then incumbents.
I won’t put much of the blame on the president yet, except for his passing the swagger to his appointees in the SSS. When critics reminded the president of his campaign promise, his appointees in the SSS, perhaps to save face, insisted a pension hike of P1,000 per month and another P1,000 next year can be implemented.
Recently, SSS president Emmanuel Dooc warned that SSS funds would be in a precarious situation once the plan to raise by P1,000 the pension would be implemented next year. That is, if the contributions of SSS members who are still working won’t be increased. The proposed hike in contributions would be from 1.5 percent to 3 percent.
It looks like the contributions will eventually end up being hiked. Which would again negate the small hike in wages caused by the additional tax exemptions earlier mandated by the TRAIN law.
As they say, reality bites. The campaign promises by the Duterte camp are being splintered by reality staring at it in the face. And because those promises were made, these will continue to hound Malacañang. Even now, the president’s promise to ride a jetski carrying the Philippine flag in the West Philippine Sea has already been reduced to a joke.
The president will soon deliver another State of the Nation Address and he will have to confront the splintering of his campaign promises. He can be honest by admitting he failed or he can skirt the issue by focusing on other issues. I think the impending passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law can be a diversionary issue.
But that would only be momentary. Because after the Sona reality will again bite the Filipino people. Incidentally, they may look the other way when it comes to non-economic promises, but they couldn’t do that to the economic ones, which are gut wrenching. The last we heard, for example, the peso-dollar exchange rate has reached 12-year lows.
I say this can be a learning experience for future candidates, especially those running for president. A little humility would go a long way if you end up winning and later fail to make good your campaign promises.