A RECENT public opinion survey found that 89 percent of Filipinos are “hopeful” about 2016. Good. Cautious optimism is helpful because a generally upbeat populace tends to engender, via consumer spending for example, desirable economic outcomes.
This is a vital year for the Philippines. The most important decision is, of course, the election of the president. The strongest candidates, at least as far as opinion polls are concerned, represent between them a wide range of philosophies. Unusually, there are four candidates who score well in the polls. Jejomar Binay, Rodrigo Duterte, Grace Poe, and Mar Roxas all have a realistic chance, particularly as the election is still more than four months hence.
Partly because all these candidates are favored by a significant proportion of the electorate, I believe they should all stand. To exclude anyone on the basis of debatable information is not only unfair to the candidate but, more importantly, disenfranchises a significant proportion of the voters.
The Supreme Court (SC) will decide. There are signs from other cases before it that it is an institution which to some extent transcends legal sophistries and wishes to recognize its role as a co-equal branch of government. Therefore it has already shown itself as an institution which wishes to be cohesive with the Legislative and Executive Branches of government. It does not wish to negate decisions which have been made by the democratically elected members of Congress. I am thinking of the petitions which were submitted around a year ago assailing the Constitutionality of Republic Act 10533 which makes changes to our education system. These petitions are well-founded and certainly there are cogent reasons why, for example, six years of secondary schooling should not be “compulsory” when constitutionally it is only elementary education (grade school) which is compulsory. The delay in pronouncing on the Constitutionality or otherwise of RA 10533 would seem to show that the SC is in a quandary on the matter. Of more immediate concern is the challenged presidential candidature of Grace Poe on both birth and residency grounds. I hope very much that the SC will overturn the small-minded “decision” by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and allow Poe to stand. The issues are wide-ranging and each candidate has strengths and weaknesses. President Aquino believes that reducing corruption is still of overwhelming importance. The voters will decide.
In 2010, I wrote that PNoy’s presidency can be judged successful if the Philippines improved from its then lowly 134th position on the Transparency International (TI) league table on its corruption perception index to 100th position or better by 2015. After all to improve by 34 countries in five years is a reasonable achievement. In fact my objective was met by December 2013 when the Philippines was ranked 94th. In December 2014, it improved to 85th, around the same level as China and Thailand.
For reasons I have not been able to ascertain, TI has not so far produced its 2015 league table.
In 2010, PNoy attributed a close correlation between corruption and poverty. We have not been successful in making substantial reductions in the poverty rate so the relationship between the level of poverty and corruption is perhaps not as close as some may think. In the 1980s when Korea was making huge economic strides with consequent poverty reduction there was still a fairly high degree of corruption.
I hope the presidential election will be based on specific issues and not on the purported personality of the candidates.
If the 2016 elections are successful, then the current optimism of the populace may well be justified.
Happy New Year!