View of President Aquino from the street: Not bad but not good
MANILA, Philippines—If the palace is wondering why President Benigno Aquino III is getting flak, not plaudits, take it from Bobby Evangelista, a cigarette vendor in Manila’s business district: “[He] may not be doing anything wrong, but he has also not done anything good. I haven’t seen any change at all. We remain poor and he has a new car.”
The car in question is a second-hand Porsche that the President purchased, drawing criticism from nearly half of the respondents in an opinion poll even though he used his own money to buy it.
And then there are his promises.
“Mr. Aquino wanted to do a lot of things, but he has not done anything to carry out these things,” said Earl Parreño, analyst of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reforms.
“Now is the time for action, and yet the people has not seen anything concrete from his government. There’s a growing public perception that nothing has changed from the past administration to his,” Parreño said.
Mr. Aquino, who has only six years to govern, took office at the end of June in 2010.
Dropping ratings
But it wasn’t until February that a committee to plan the government’s agenda and prioritize bills over its term met, and the eventual list did not include the bills that Mr. Aquino had championed, including those on reproductive health and freedom of information.
The President has been dogged in his campaign to investigate his predecessor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and has made some headway with the resignation of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, which will allow him to appoint his own graft investigator.
But he seems to have backtracked or lost focus on other issues, and his public opinion ratings on areas such as managing the economy, fighting crime and reducing poverty have all fallen, suggesting a broader discontent with his administration.
Apart from the budget, no major legislation has passed. Each week since July 2010, tax evaders have been named at a weekly press conference, but so far only seven of 45 complaints have made it to court—and no trials have begun.
Last November, Mr. Aquino told a conference of potential investors that his administration would put in place mechanisms to protect their contracts in infrastructure projects, which the government planned to put out from tender from early 2011.
Six months later, no contracts have been awarded, and there has been no legislation to improve protection against regulatory risk. Thus, foreign investors remain wary.
Change is expected with the entry of Mar Roxas, Mr. Aquino’s unsuccessful running mate in the May 2010 elections, as his chief of staff.
Roxas, a former senator and an experienced operator who served in the Estrada and Arroyo Cabinets, may provide Mr. Aquino the political smarts he needs to achieve his goals.
Like American idol
A reluctant President who won by a landslide, Mr. Aquino has never really gotten out of campaign mode, fixated on pursuing the preceding administration and talking of major reforms without yet delivering a substantive agenda.
He apparently has trouble making decisions.
For example, the question of whether the deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos should be buried at Libingan ng mga Bayani is one that Mr. Aquino feels he cannot make for the nation that elected him to lead it.
So instead, people can text their opinion on where Marcos should be buried, like voting for an “American Idol” contestant, to help decide the government’s position.
The danger of this indecision is that it may become yet another lost opportunity for the Philippines, as investors’ initial optimism on Mr. Aquino fades and his main political strength of high personal support weakens.
The government is looking to raise billions of dollars to upgrade infrastructure nationwide, and says it will make the country more attractive to foreign investors. But details are yet to be fully explained.
“Mr. Aquino never really seems willing to expend any political capital on what he believes in or claims to stand for,” said Scott Harrison, managing director of risk consultancy Pacific Strategies & Assessments.
“Whether this is apathy or just another manifestation of his laziness, aversion to work and the rough-and-tumble of politics remains to be seen,” Harrison said, although he did credit Mr. Aquino for instituting some ethics in governance.
Trailing neighbors
The stakes are high.
According to data from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), foreign direct investment in the Philippines last year trailed well behind neighbors Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
Weak employment and productivity growth means the country relies on exporting workers overseas, whose remitted income accounts for about 10 percent of gross domestic product.
It also means poverty levels are rising—an anomaly in booming Asia.
The Philippines ranks below most Southeast Asian countries, its main competitors for investment funds, on measures such as competitiveness, ease of doing business and corruption
Key policy challenge
“Against this backdrop, one key policy challenge is for the government to sustain the higher level of investor confidence built up last year by pushing ahead with policy and governance reforms,” the ADB said in a report last month.
“Another is to raise state revenue so as to fund the social development and infrastructure programs required to reduce poverty and underpin a stronger private sector,” it said. Reuters
