Glad to see Manila Standard columnist Lito Banayo share my opinion in his piece “The disruptor”. Anyone who wants to challenge the administration will have to be as disruptive as the incumbent. Banayo happily points out the winning formula at play again in these times of impending election campaign writing “[President Rodrigo] Duterte is once again the ‘disruptor,’ a role he played successfully in 2015 leading to his victory in 2016.”
But who will the disruptor choose? The daughter disdains the PDP as a flag, and would rather cobble a coalition with GMA and her Lakas, plus virtually hollowed-out parties as the late Miriam Santiago’s People’s Reform Party.
The loyal assistant meanwhile is likewise being egged upon to run for president, even if he seems truly reluctant, and may accept a secondary role, as vice-president.
It looks like a replay of 2015. Substitution shall be the weapon of choice in the forthcoming jousts.
I’m sounding like a broken record by constantly repeating that the old campaign norms don’t apply anymore since the landscape was altered by the promdi from Davao City. He continues to be disruptive with his threat to run for VP and his continuing advise to his daughter not to run for President. None of the challengers have presented a disruptive platform to the public. There is Vice President Leni Robredo with her motherhood statements. Former Senator Antonio Trillanes with his corruption exposés. Senator Manny “Pac-Man” Pacquiao with his Ma-ney machine.
The Ping Lacson – Tito Sotto campaign floated the idea of running the country like a corporation in the same manner Singapore does. If they will pursue this then it would be best to spin-off the regions into separate business units. The tandem is silent on federalism and Constitutional amendments but moving forward in the pandemic environment requires disruption to counter the disruption caused by the pandemic. Think Schumpeter and his economic theory of creative destruction. You need to destroy first in order to create. Duterte may have had this in mind when he ran for President. He destroyed the political template. He destroyed the Office of the President in terms of how things get done. He is not a statesman but acts more of a Mayor but gets the job done.
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Six years is too short for a good President. For the sake of argument, let’s just say that Duterte is a good President because the late former President Noynoy Aquino set the bar very low. Still you can’t discount the fact that it is not everyday you see a President threatening oligarchs on national television. It was usually the other way around in the past. Bottomline, it won’t be a business-as-usual campaign. The conductor is leading the orchestra and he continues with his disruption. Duterte is the black swan of Philippine politics. Much to the chagrin of the establishment.
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Lacson – Sotto seems to be the best situation currently.
Duterte has been rough when it comes to an economic sense.
There are many things he has done to not help the economy…
A few recent from Covid…..
1.) Not allowing hundreds/thousands of nurses to go get great wages in Germany which they will send back to their families.
The idea for blocking…. is the country needs nurses, but those type of quality nurses are probably not presently working for 500 pesos per day, whatever the going rate it…
2.) Not allowing tourists/foreigners into the country to spend money. Make them quarantine for 3 weeks if you want…. it doesn’t matter, many will do it. There are thousands of tourists/foreigners trying to get in the country but the government is not letting that money come in….
3.) Paying thousands of pesos to private (and public, but with public that money is hopefully not going to some private oligarch owners) hospitals for each “covid patient” they get. There is very likely corruption going on with this…
One idea I have heard about and makes a lot of sense with the current changes in Hong Kong…. Turning Samar (least weathly province with destructive Typhoons multiple times a year) into like a kinda-Hong Kong where international entities can build Typhoon-proof buildings and essentially the Philippines leaves the handling of the laws to corporations/etc.
The Philippines gets millions/billions/trillions in taxes each year.
Will this happen?
Probably not, like 99.9% it wont happen…. but it would be great to see, and the country would benefit tremendously.
A disruptive candidate is what the country needs.
Duterte was great in many ways, but economics is not his strength (as he has admitted)
I should say Samar might not be the least wealthy province, but it is relatively poor in comparison to most areas.
Also, one crazy fact about Calbayog City in Samar, the past 2 mayors have both been assassinated.
About the number 1, imposing temporary travel bans on nurses which prevents them from going abroad just because the country needs them and they should help the country is unconstitutional, even the DFA sec. said it. Besides, why would they help here if their salaries are low if they can work in other countries with much higher salaries? Not to mention instead of raising their salaries, the so-called nationalists just guilt trip or gaslight them into enduring having stressful jobs with ridiculously low salaries here for the sake of the country. The president even said that it would be an honor to die for your country.
You’re right about Philippines getting millions of taxes each year but the system and the services we get in return for the taxes we pay are still lousy and inefficient. Cost of living in Ph is very high because of the extremely high taxes here.
https://www.getrealphilippines.com/2021/07/philippines-running-out-of-qualified-leaders-because-current-system-encourages-stupid-politicians/
This article is good and I think the qualified leaders in the Philippines are few, if not none. One prominent sign of that is they still implement ineffective methods to solve problems which often create bigger problems. Their solution to traffic is number coding scheme which is not effective at all, it’s just too burdensome.