Facebook Instagram Linkedin Twitter Youtube
Home Blog Page 9425

5-minutes from Cubao to Makati? Possible, says HPG

PRESIDENT RODRIGO R. Duterte’s pronouncement that he wants to reduce the travel time from Cubao to Makati, a distance of about 10 kilometers, is possible, according to the head of the Philippine National Police-Highway Patrol Group (PNP-HPG). “We will strictly enforce traffic laws. ‘Yun lang naman… If masusunod ‘yun (That’s all… if that will be followed), I think we will be able to comply with the President,” PNP-HPG director Brig. Gen. Roberto Fajardo said at a press briefing Monday. He added that the implementation of other policies such as the closure of bus terminals along EDSA and an exclusive motorcycle lane would also help in addressing the traffic congestion along one of the capital’s main thoroughfares. Mr. Fajardo said they are working with other government agencies like the Department of Transportation and the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority in finding solutions to meet the five-minute goal. — Vince Angelo C. Ferreras

Davao Oriental gov’t sets up task force vs investment scams

THE DAVAO Oriental government has created a body that will run after illegal investment schemes preying on the province’s residents. Gov. Nelson L. Dayanghirang, in a statement, said the Provincial Task Force on Investment Schemes will conduct investigations and possibly file charges against those behind the scams. “I have learned just recently that many are already engaged in these investment schemes in the province. This has to stop,” said Mr. Dayanghirang, adding that the people must realize that eventually these schemes will be hard to sustain. He also urged local government units in the province to look into these schemes and come up with measures to prevent their spread. “As elected officials, we are duty-bound to protect our people. We should not fear that our political career will be affected because it might not be a popular decision,” he said. President Rodrigo R. Duterte recently ordered the closure of these investment schemes, which offer high returns and mostly operate without the proper licenses. — Carmelito Q. Francisco

DFA authentication services now available at Davao City office

THE DEPARTMENT of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has opened its first authentication center in Mindanao at the Davao City office. The authentication center corresponds with the implementation of the Apostille Convention in the Philippines signed by President Rodrigo R. Duterte that aims to reduce the authentication process cycle by half. Previously, government-issued and various other documents could only be authenticated at the DFA office in Manila. “Imagine the situation for these people for their documents to be authenticated, they will have to go to Manila and the effort, the money… so we should bring this government service to the people,” Eric P. Valenzuela, acting director of the authentication division of the Office of Consular Affairs, said in an interview during last Friday’s opening ceremony. The Apostille Convention removes the requirement for authenticated documents to undergo another authentication by the embassy or consulate of the country of destination that is also a state party to the convention. The authentication, or apostillization, of any Philippine-issued document will be accepted in 113 Apostille Convention member countries such as the United States, Japan and Australia. Mr. Valenzuela said they receive a yearly average of about 800,000 documents nationwide and close to 700,000 documents abroad. He added that the number of documents to be authenticated is expected to increase with the roll out of the authentication services outside Luzon. Mr. Valenzuela also said they will eventually set up an “expedite processing” facility in DFA-Davao, which will process documents for only one working day instead of the regular four working days. This means documents will be processed and released on the same day provided there is a proof of urgency. — Maya M. Padillo

Nation at a Glance — (06/25/19)

News stories from across the nation. Visit www.bworldonline.com (section: The Nation) to read more national and regional news from the Philippines.

Nation at a Glance — (06/25/19)

An ever-evolving Manila

Today, June 24, marks the 448th founding anniversary of the City of Manila. Early this month, Malacañang declared this day a special non-working holiday in the capital, giving residents and others a chance to celebrate and reflect on the city’s long and colorful history.

Almost four centuries and a half ago, a Spanish explorer by the name of Miguel López de Legazpi, the first governor-general of the Philippines, and his troops came to Manila after founding a Spanish settlement in Cebu. Legazpi was ordered by Luis de Velasco, the second viceroy of New Spain, to claim the country after it was discovered by Ferdinand Magellan roughly half a century earlier. Legazpi found a Muslim community in Manila and had it destroyed and replaced it with Intramuros, a walled city.

“Manila became the capital of the new colony. Outside the city walls stood some scattered villages, each ruled by a local chieftain and each centered on a marketplace. As Spanish colonial rule became established, churches were built near the marketplaces, where the concentration of population was greatest. Manila spread beyond its walls, expanding north, east, and south, linking together the market–church complexes as it did so,” Encyclopedia Britannica says.

More than three centuries later, a war between Spain and the United States took place, and the Philippines fell into the hands of the latter. According to Britannica, the period during which the city was under the rule of the United States (US) was “one of general social and economic improvement.”

“US policy encouraged gradual Filipino political autonomy, and to help achieve this goal, public schools were established in Manila and throughout the archipelago. The University of the Philippines, founded in 1908, became the apex of the educational system. The city developed into a major trading and tourist center,” it explains.

Things changed for the worse when the Second World War broke out. Manila was declared an open city by General Douglas McArthur so as to stop it from getting destroyed by the Japanese forces that had started invading the country in the early. Britannica notes that the city suffered only “little damage” during the Japanese invasion. (Japanese occupation lasted a few years, from 1942 to 1945). “[B]ut [it] was leveled to the ground during the fight for its recapture by US forces in 1945,” it says.

In 1946, Manila, as Britannica describes it, was “in shambles” when it became the country’s capital. However, it managed to get back on its feet with help from the United States. Despite this, in 1948, Quezon City was declared the new capital. It held that title for almost three decades. But in 1976, following a presidential decree, Manila was once again officially recognized as the country’s capital.

Now, Manila is a sprawling metropolis. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, it had a population of 1.78 million in 2015. It was the second most populous city in the National Capital Region after Quezon City, which had 2.94 million people.

It is also a major economic center, home to a multitude of commercial establishments. It is the headquarters of a number of big businesses, including major publishing companies.

Intramuros and Binondo are two of the city’s most historically and economically important districts. The former is the location of some of the most historic structures in the country, such as Fort Bonifacio, San Agustin Church and Manila Cathedral. Tourism is a major industry in the district. In addition, Intramuros is where several well-known colleges and universities are found, like Mapúa University, Colegio de San Juan de Letran, and Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila. The latter district is the oldest Chinatown in the world, where businesses by largely Filipino-Chinese entrepreneurs abound. Among its famous attractions are San Lorenzo Church and Escolta Street.

Port of Manila, located in the northwestern portion of the city, is the largest seaport not only in Luzon but in the entire Philippines. In the 2018 ranking of the world’s largest container ports compiled by Lloyd’s List, a British journal, it placed 30th, having a throughput of 4,782,240 teu (20-foot equivalent unit) in 2017, up 5.7% from 2016. Lloyd’s List said of the port, “An aggressive infrastructure push helped growth at the most important international gateway in the country.”

According to the Cities and Municipalities Competitive Index 2018, the City of Manila was the second most competitive local government unit (LGU) in the country after Quezon City. The competitiveness of an LGU was evaluated in terms of four “development pillars,” namely economic dynamism, government efficiency, infrastructure and resilience.

Security risks top of mind in ASEAN

HEADS of state of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting in Bangkok, Thailand on Sunday led off the ASEAN Leaders’ Vision Statement on Partnership for Sustainability with pledges to “strengthen defense cooperation to tackle traditional and non-traditional security challenges”; “enhance strategic dialogue and promote practical cooperation on regional defense and security issues”; “reaffirm the importance of maintaining and promoting peace, security, safety and freedom of navigation in and overflight above the South China Sea”; promote guidelines to avert “unplanned encounters at sea”; to “combat terrorism in all its forms” and to “enhance cybersecurity cooperation” besides a host of more general resolutions in the economic, social and cultural spheres.

But while security issues accounted for more than a fourth of the 39 points in the leaders’ statement, there was no mention of China’s increasingly aggressive stance in disputed waters in the region nor of the plight of Myanmar’s Rohingya population.

The Chairman’s Statement of the 34th ASEAN Summit issued separately afterwards generally kept to that outline, though with more detailed background. It also said ASEAN leaders “discussed the matters relating to the South China Sea and took note of some concerns on the land reclamations and activities in the area, which have eroded trust and confidence, increased tensions and may undermine peace, security and stability in the region.”

ASEAN leaders on Saturday adopted a joint declaration against marine plastic pollution and pledged to conclude this year talks on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership scheme pushed by China.

In his own statement at the summit’s plenary session, President Rodrigo R. Duterte voiced concern about the ongoing “trade war between the United States and China” that has been “creating uncertainty”, has been “taking a toll on global growth” and “could hinder the ongoing processes of economic integration” in Southeast Asia.

“The US and China must… resolve their differences before the situation spirals out of control and we in ASEAN must strengthen our support for a rules-based and open multilateral trading system.”

At the same time, he noted that “[t]errorism, violent extremism and transnational crimes continue to threaten our security” while “[i]llegal drugs… corrode the very fabric of our societies.”

But while Mr. Duterte had said in Davao City last Friday that he would “talk lengthily” about China’s claim to much of the South China Sea — in the wake of an incident involving suspected Chinese militia posing as fishermen who rammed and sank a Philippine fishing boat — he left this maritime row and this incident out of his speech in Bangkok.

Malacañan Palace — in a press release issued late Sunday afternoon by Salvador S. Panelo, chief presidential legal counsel and presidential spokesperson — insisted that Mr. Duterte “expressed concern and disappointment over the delay in the negotiations for a Code of Conduct (CoC) in the South China Sea.”

“The Chief Executive explained that the longer the delay for an early conclusion of the CoC, the higher the probability of maritime incidents happening and the greater the chance for miscalculations that may spiral out of control.”

Sought for comment on the absence of any reference in Mr. Duterte’s speech to China’s actions in the disputed waters, Maria Ela L. Atienza, chairperson of the University of the Philippines-Diliman Political Science department, replied by e-mail on Sunday, saying: “Unfortunately, by not even mentioning the West Philippine/South China Sea dispute in his intervention, President Duterte is missing the opportunity to use the ASEAN Summit as a forum to discuss the territorial dispute.”

“ASEAN, together with dialogue partners including China, may be in a good position to discuss the issue given that several ASEAN countries also have overlapping claims in the disputed territories,” Ms. Atienza noted.

“In fact, ASEAN has agreed to pursue and explore the creation of a Code of Conduct on the South China Sea with dialogue partners which can involve joint exploration and more peaceful settlement of disputes.”

She further said that “failure to mention the dispute may also mean that the President is still downplaying the issue publicly or does not want to use the recent incident where 22 Filipino fishermen were thrown at sea when their fishing vessel figured in a ramming by a Chinese vessel as a starting point to discuss the urgency of discussing the disputes, ASEAN’s relations with China, and the security of fisherfolks and communities not only in the Philippines but in other ASEAN countries that are vulnerable due to the lack of a Code of Conduct in the disputed territories.” — with Arjay L. Balinbin and Reuters

China no match for Japan in infra race

SINGAPORE — Japan is still winning the Southeast Asia infrastructure race against China, with pending projects worth almost one and a half times its rival, according to the latest data from Fitch Solutions.

Japanese-backed projects in the region’s six biggest economies — Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam — are valued at $367 billion, the figures show. China’s tally is $255 billion.

The figures underline both the rampant need for infrastructure development in Southeast Asia, as well as Japan’s dominance over China, despite President Xi Jinping’s push to spend on railways and ports via his signature Belt and Road Initiative. The Asian Development Bank has estimated that Southeast Asia’s economies will need $210 billion a year in infrastructure investment from 2016 to 2030, just to keep up the momentum in economic growth.

The latest Fitch figures, provided in an e-mailed response to Bloomberg, count only pending projects — those at the stages of planning, feasibility study, tender and currently under construction. Fitch data in February 2018 put Japan’s investment at $230 billion and China’s at $155 billion.

Vietnam is by far the biggest focus for Japan’s infrastructure involvement, with pending projects worth $209 billion — more than half of Japan’s total. That includes a $58.7-billion high-speed railway between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

For China, Indonesia is the primary customer, making up $93 billion, or 36%, of its overall. The prized project there is the Kayan River hydropower plant, worth some $17.8 billion.

Across all of Southeast Asia and by number of projects, Japan also carries the day, though by a smaller margin: 240 infrastructure ventures have Japanese backing, versus 210 for China in all 10 Southeast Asian economies. — Bloomberg

New trade patterns unfold as ‘rule-maker’ China rises

By Marifi S. Jara
Mindanao Bureau Chief

HONG KONG’S Maritime Museum gives a glimpse of China’s trading prowess in the centuries when seafaring was the order of the day, and how its rules back then controlled foreign merchants.

One of the eye-catching pieces in the collection is the Alexander Hume scroll painting, a panoramic illustration of foreign factories — Danish, French, Swedish, English and Dutch — lined up along the Pearl River with their respective flags hoisted.

A wall panel in the same section of the museum explaining China’s “Tribute or embassy” policy narrates how the English attempted more than once to “place trade and political relation with China on a western footing… without success…”

But the Opium Wars in the mid-1800s “eventually led to a system of interstate relations and international commerce,” the chronicle concludes.

A similar narrative loudly resonates today following China’s formal reentry in the global market with its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 and the ongoing US-China trade war.

“Up until 2005, China was very quiet in the WTO negotiations… Later, China participated more actively… China has emerged from being a rule-taker to a rule-maker,” Henry Gao, associate professor of law at the Singapore Management University, said during the National Press Foundation’s International Trade Training held in Hong Kong on June 17-20.

Mr. Gao said the Chinese government has been engaging in proposals on e-commerce, investment facilitation and trade remedies, among others.

The rise of China as an economic power and its feud with longstanding giant US have sent jitters across the globe given today’s interlinked supply and value chains.

Global merchandise trade in 2018 was valued at $19.48 trillion while commercial service trade was $5.80 trillion, according to a WTO report released April 2.

Investors are anxious, not just about the US-China dispute per se, but also due to uncertainty over the trade war’s outcome.

“Of course people are worried, it is really starting to hit business and affect business in many ways, but in different ways depending on what sector you’re working in,” said Tara Joseph, president of the American Chamber in Hong Kong.

Businesses are “trying to figure out” what to do at this point, she said, “but there’s an issue there because they don’t know where the trade war is going, it’s very hard for them to make strategic decisions.”

‘NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES’
Stephen Olson, research fellow at the Hinrich Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes sustainable global trade, said there is a silver lining to the shaky global economic outlook.

“Trade negotiations always have near-death experiences,” Mr. Olson said, “New patterns of trade emerge during impasse.”

One of the patterns that has been emerging is the bigger role for Southeast Asian countries in the global economy.

“We’ve started to see more people doing business in Southeast Asia… the movement of the supply chain away from China because of the US-China trade friction and also, to be frank, because of the rising cost of running factories in China has also had an impact on Southeast Asia… Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia — all those places have become more important,” said Ms. Joseph.

“It would be really interesting to see if in the long term, southeast Asia or ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) can really get its act together and become a formidable force in trade discussions,” she added.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a grand proposal to expand land and sea connectivity that would involve more than 100 nations, also has far-reaching “geopolitical shifts, implications” on global trade and investments, said Julien Chaisse, a law professor at the City University of Hong Kong.

In the reshaping of global trade patterns, bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) as well as bilateral investment treaties become more critical in ensuring fair trade. The RCEP involves the 10 ASEAN member-nations, Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

Michaela Browning, Australian consul general for Hong Kong and Macau and previously a trade negotiator in the WTO, emphasized the importance of continuously pushing for “open and rules-based and enforceable trading systems” through agreements.

She said, “(It) is particularly important to medium and small economies, to vulnerable and developing economies.”

In the meantime, as the American and Chinese trade panels prepare for the anticipated Trump-Xi meeting at the G20 Summit in Osaka this week, the global trade and investment community watches and waits with bated breath.

Singapore-based Steven Okun of strategic advisory firm McLarty Associates said, “There is a deal to be had, but whether we can get there, we’ll have to see.”

DoubleDragon readies assets for REIT offer

DOUBLEDRAGON Properties Corp. is anchoring its next stage of growth on the hospitality and industrial sectors, after it completes its target of having 1.2 million square meters (sq.m.) in gross floor area involving mall, office, hotel and industrial space by next year.

“We still have a lot of growth beyond 2020 which we see coming from the hospitality and industrial sectors,” DoubleDragon Chief Investment Officer Marianna H. Yulo told reporters on the sidelines of the 3rd Asia Pacific REIT Investment Summit in Parañaque City last week.

Ms. Yulo said this in line with the company’s preparations for a real estate investment trust (REIT) offering, noting that the capital they raise from the activity can be used to finance their expansion moving forward. “We’ll redeploy them (the funds) in the Philippines to further expand because I don’t think we’ve revealed yet our plans beyond 2020.”

The listed property developer is waiting for the release of final REIT guidelines, with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) expected to lower the minimum public ownership requirement to 33% from 40-67% currently.

Ms. Yulo said the company is looking to place its more mature assets into a REIT, such as malls, office properties or a combination of both.

“We’re about 93% leased out on average for all our retail and we’re actually 100% leased out for all our office buildings as well…” Ms. Yulo explained.

“We don’t really intend to sell majority of our assets. We just want to show the investing public what the real value of the assets are in terms of the cash flows that we receive.”

SEC Commissioner Ephyro Luis B. Amatong had said investors should see the first REIT offer within the year, even as he had noted that an MPO requirement of up to 67% may still be in force.

Ayala Land, Inc. has already announced its intention to conduct a REIT offer under existing rules within the year, while other firms such as Megaworld Corp. and Robinsons Land Corp. said they will wait for the SEC to lower the MPO requirement.

DoubleDragon is scheduled to finish the year with 800,000 sq.m. of leasable space, on track to meet its goal of having 1.2 million sq.m. by 2020. This will come from a combination of 100 CityMalls, 5,000 hotel rooms carrying brands Hotel101 and JinJiang Inn, eight industrial projects under Central Hub, and office projects mostly in Pasay City.

It grew net income attributable to the parent by 46% to P767.30 million last quarter, as gross revenues increased by 33% to P2.44 billion in that period. — Arra B. Francia

How strong is the link between rice prices and inflation?

How strong is the link between rice prices and inflation?

Extractives data: How can transparency stimulate domestic resource mobilization?

LET us be clear about an implicit assumption about the work of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI): Its objective goes beyond transparency of revenues, contracts, and ownership. Neither is the objective limited to generating domestic resources, done in a transparent way. The EITI’s distinct contribution is to promote revenue, contract, and ownership transparency, which in turn is a necessary condition to finance and build development, anchored on fairness, equity, and sustainability.

From this viewpoint, transparency and financing are intermediate goals, albeit absolutely critical goals. In this light, “transparency to stimulate domestic resource mobilization” and the resources generated from the extractive industries are variables that affect people’s well-being, economic growth, and all-round development.

Nevertheless, the reverse causality can also happen. Growth and development lead to greater transparency and better tax effort.

But setting aside endogeneity, we see that transparency and better domestic resource mobilization are correlated with growth and development. Transparency and domestic resource mobilization are likewise associated with better institutions. Economics and political science literature has established that good, strong institutions predict well-being, development, and prosperity.

Thus, in this discussion, we emphasize not only how transparency in the extractive industries enables better tax effort. What is equally important is to stress transparency AND tax effort as part of shaping good institutions and likewise being an outcome of good institutions.

Incidentally, John Nye in his book, War, Wine and Taxes (2007), asserts that Britain’s or the United Kingdom’s wealth and prosperity, set in motion as far back as the very late 17th century, can be principally attributed to taxes (particularly commodity taxes on wine), which financed the building of a good civil service and bureaucracy. This shows how taxes can shape institutions. But how taxes will be wisely spent is part of the equation. And here, transparency matters.

Let me give a couple of examples of how these variables — transparency, tax effort, institutions, and growth or development interact.

On the policy level, EITI is a seal of good housekeeping and hence attracts tax-compliant companies that value reputation. Said another way, companies that want to avoid reputational risk or, worse, shame, will have the incentive to be tax-compliant, join EITI, and observe rules on transparency.

This also makes the tax administration work of revenue-collecting agencies simpler and more efficient. They can shift attention to other firms in ferreting out tax evasion.

Still in relation to policy, the EITI enables a policy dialogue that can lead to the appropriate tax design or the crafting of optimal tax rates. In this regard, the policy and institutional quality of the different stakeholders is improved.

And how about those who guard the guardians, the communities and civil society organizations? They bring to the table developmental concerns beyond economics and finance. Communities and indigenous peoples highlight the political, the social, and ecological issues. Thus, the EITI, springing from the platform of revenue transparency, becomes an all-around development affair.

For the communities and indigenous peoples, EITI participation is empowering in many ways. One area that is perhaps underemphasized is how the EITI process becomes an alternative learning system for those in the marginalized communities who have no formal education. They learn the rules: local, national, and global. They learn to appreciate numbers and signs. They learn practical skills in negotiating, in scrutinizing contracts, and in understanding value chains and the formal economy, among other things.

All this is good for transparency, for revenue generation, and for building institutions.

A final point: The contribution of the extractive industries to total revenue, output, and employment might be low at the aggregate level. But in certain local areas, and these are usually the poor isolated areas plagued with armed conflict, the extractive industries play a major developmental role, for better or for worse. They can either alleviate or worsen poverty, abet or reduce conflict.

In addition, even though the contribution of the extractive industries to the economy is relatively low, the good practices that EITI brings on tax compliance, transparency and accountability, cooperation, and inclusiveness can spill over to the broader economy.

Thus, the whole is greater than the sum of EITI’s parts, especially with regard to improving the quality of our institutions.

 

Filomeno S. Sta. Ana III coordinates the Action for Economic Reforms.

www.aer.ph

Vox populi

I am pleased to share with readers the political section of a primarily macroeconomic and financial quarterly report my colleague, Christine Tang, and I wrote last month for GlobalSource Partners (globalsourcepartners.com). GlobalSource Partners is a New York-based network of international analysts whose client subscribers are mostly international banks and asset managers.

And so the people have spoken — the final electoral tally showed rousing support for candidates allied with President Rodrigo Durterte at both local and national levels.

Hope and fear accompany the results, which many have taken as a referendum on the highly popular President and his policies. Amidst fears that the President’s stronger hold on power would embolden him to ride roughshod over opposition to his policies, there are hopes that the reform window opened up by a more cooperative Senate would strengthen the administration’s resolve not only to speed up implementation of its programs, especially upgrading infrastructure, but also push for longstanding proposals aimed at increasing the economy’s competitiveness and attractiveness to foreign investments. (See table above.)

The fears on the political front are that the President, in line with his rhetoric, would doggedly carry out his extreme measures for achieving law and order to the end, and, true to his campaign promise, revive his proposal to shift to a federal form of government. In the event, the latter endeavor — involving a complex and lengthy process of amending the Constitution — would most certainly dominate the legislative agenda, leaving Congress little time and energy for other priority reforms. In this regard, worriers fret that the incoming Senate has only four members in the minority bloc (one of whom is in jail) and two “independents”; seven votes are needed to block a proposal for charter change.

On the economic front, there are fears of more populist measures slipping through, as well as mid-stream rules changes for long-term infrastructure contracts. An example of the former that has made the news lately is the proposal, nearing approval in Congress, requiring security of tenure for seasonal hires that businesses argue would raise the cost of labor. An example of the latter is the ongoing Department of Justice review of existing PPP (Public-Private Partnership) contracts initiated by the President, starting with the MWSS (Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System) water concession agreements with two of the country’s largest conglomerates.

Countering these fears is the hope that Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez, the head of the economic team who appears to have the President’s complete trust, would prevail upon him to follow economically sound policies, including abandoning proposals for federalism which Secretary Dominguez publicly criticized as a fiscal nightmare. In light of the accolades heaped at the administration’s economic reforms following S&P’s decision to upgrade the sovereign credit rating, the more optimistic hope is that the President would instead use his abundant political capital to forcefully back his economic team’s reform program, starting with the remaining packages of the tax reform program. Considering that the reform window is a narrow one, one to one-and-a-half years, having the President himself champion the reforms would ensure speedier passage and less opportunity costs for the economy from the uncertainties associated with rules changes.

Should hope trump fear or the other way around? While it is quite impossible to read this President’s mind, it seems to us that it is not unreasonable to let hope have the edge over fear. After all, politically speaking, whatever the President’s plans are for ensuring effective succession planning in 2022, he would surely have his two decades-long Davao experience in mind and grasp the necessity of having a healthily growing economy to keep strong public support and dissuade challenges. We expect him to spell out his legislative agenda at his State of the Nation Address in late July.

Moreover at this time, political pundits reading the tea leaves from the outcome of the senatorial race have noticed how: 1. Senator Grace Poe, who led the race the first time she ran, has slipped to the second place; 2. the top spot has been taken by Senator Cynthia Villar, the wife of country’s richest man, Manuel Villar, a former House Speaker and Senate President who ran and lost to Benigno Aquino III in the presidential elections of 2010; 3. how unlike her husband, the lady senator does not seem to harbor ambitions for higher office; and, 4. in her speech during the proclamation of winners for the Senate, Senator Villar thanked not only the President but also his strong-willed daughter and mayor of Davao City, Sara Durterte, who was instrumental in forming a coalition of well-funded national and local parties under the banner of her own party, Hugpong ng Pagbabago, which endorsed nine of the 12 winning senatorial candidates, including Senator Villar herself.

Their conclusion? Rather than Senator Villar, the tea leaves seem to point to Mayor Duterte as the lady to watch. And that scenario should not trouble the President.

As a post script, allow me to add two things that happened since we came out with this report last month.

1. A cabinet official confided that he thinks the odds for Federalism taking off are next to nil;

2. It is likely too early to say who will be the “Presidentiables’ in 2022, much less who will prevail. I am reminded that “necropolitics” defined presidential election outcomes on more than one occasion in the past. Another lesson from election history, unlike elsewhere, here it is not the early bird who catches the worm. It is the second mouse who gets the cheese.

Finally, as a wise or wisened man said: “The Presidency is a matter of destiny.”

 

Romeo L. Bernardo was finance undersecretary during the Cory Aquino and Fidel Ramos administrations.

romeo.lopez.bernardo@gmail.com

1...9,4249,4259,426...12,830Page 9,425 of 12,830
© 2024 BusinessWorld Publishing.
All rights reserved.
Read our privacy guidelines
Facebook Instagram Linkedin Twitter Youtube