"There is no Arroyo administration to blame around anymore.
One year is over.
All the mess inherited from the previous administration are all PNoy’s now...
The problems dark and deep are now all yours, Mr. President. You can no longer wiggle out by invoking past misdeeds, not matter how horrific, even those that need years and years to solve."
By Marlen V. Ronquillo
A leader is only given one year to clean up the mess left behind by the previous leader. After one year, every problem is his Or hers. The problems may be dark and deep. But after one year, there is no question on who now has the task of sorting out the tangled mess.
It is one year and it can’t be more than that. The period for patience has this time frame.
To illustrate, let us look at a familiar point of reference—the United States.
George W. Bush squandered the budget surpluses of Bill Clinton. He cut taxes for the rich, fought two unfunded wars, allowed the finance sector to act recklessly. And laid the groundwork for the evisceration of the middle class.
His body of policies almost plunged the US into another Great Depression. And like collapsed dominoes, the US economic woes spread to other economies. Century-old investment houses and even iconic brands such as AIG (which was interlinked with a Philippine insurance giant) either collapsed or teetered on bankruptcy.
After one year, what took place in the sphere of American public opinion? President Obama was no longer allowed by ordinary Americans to blame Bush for the anemic pace of growth, the 9 to 10 percent unemployment, the growing gap between corporate profits and the marginalized American middle class.
Armies of desperate, angry and hopeless Americans sent the message in the mid-term elections. The party of George W. Bush, whose policies ushered in much of the economic woes, was rewarded with an electoral mandate: taking control of the House, narrowing down the majority of the Democrats in the Senate and sweeping scores of gubernatorial races.
This is not fair. President Obama can do so much. And he cannot stem the bleeding of America, which would take years to patch up. But on him are piled the collective wrath of jobless, dislocated, angry Americans.
President Aquino and his people should take this lesson to heart. There is no Arroyo administration to blame around anymore. One year is over. All the mess inherited from the previous administration are all PNoy’s now.
While there is a section of the population that is discerning enough and patient enough and fully understands the fact that some of the problems inherited are too deep and too grave, most Filipinos don’t.
The problems dark and deep are now all yours, Mr. President. You can no longer wiggle out by invoking past misdeeds, not matter how horrific, even those that need years and years to solve. This is not fair, yes. But that is essentially what governing is. It is always about rough patches. It is, essentially, unfair even to leaders of good intentions.
With every problem in the country dumped at the Palace gates and classified as PNoy’s own, the Aquino administration has to shift tack in dealing with anything and everything that is related to the previous administration. The past is passé and it can no longer frame the debate on why the country remains stuck in a hold/park—not drive or forward—status.
The address to the nation that President Aquino will deliver days from now should duly note the end of the cut-off period for Arroyo-blaming.
Instead of naming the past as the precursor of what is currently wrong
with us, President Aquino’s should start afresh and make only a passing mention on how the past misdeeds had crippled us. He should borrow from Lincoln. “We are stuck in this morass of corruption, engaged in this great battle against evil, but we will endure and we will change for the better.”
Breaking from the past, should be the central theme of his address to the nation. Citing all the misspent funds, the negotiated deals, the corrupted and compromised public bidding then, would only push Filipinos to think the current president does not have a roadmap for growth and change.
And this sense, no matter how warped: he is still invoking past misdeeds to cover up his own governing inadequacies, his cluelessness on how to deal with the problems of the country.
Letting go of the past—and seeking justice for past misdeeds through the courts of law and in a very low-key fashion—would even be liberating for the Aquino administration.
How and why?
The first year spending program of the Aquino administration, its extra-prudence with public money, is all rooted on the profligacy of the previous administration. The Aquino people wanted very much to be the exact opposite of the Arroyo people. So they spent not that much on infra projects but with all the bidding above board.
In a way, the prudence and the integrity have achieved amazing results. The P7 billion saved from above-board bidding of public works project, does not only represent real savings for the treasury which can be rechanneled to other worthy projects. It is a radical but welcome departure from the culture of corrupt and rigged public works bidding.
But this wondrous act of integrity does not have much value to ordinary Filipinos. They prefer the visceral, easy-to-see, easy-to-appreciate profligacy of the Arroyo administration on public infrastructure.
The Aquino administration has failed to realize this hard and bitter truth: the national government’s spending program is not a morality play. There is prudence with public money. So what? There is integrity in the bidding process. So what?
Just as you can’t preach values and sense of country to people with nothing to eat and with no access to opportunity, you too cannot preach honest bidding and substantial public savings to people who prefer projects done here and there more than anything else.
The Aquino people should realize that after being duped and conned by corrupt leaders for generations, the Filipinos’s sense of appreciation of their leaders is either damaged or entirely warped. A leader like Aquino cannot just put in a radically-altered template for honest governing, then expect general approval for this.
The slipping numbers of the president are caught in these verities. The honesty is overlooked. Instead, what the ordinary Filipinos see is this: not much is moving in their areas. Not much pork is delivered.
Nothing is in there for me, my family, my kids, my personal interest.
Truly sad, this warped sense of appreciating leaders. But over the next five years, PNoy has to live with this. And shift his mode of governing into full drive, with nary a look back at the inherited mess.
