In just a year from today, the six-year term of President Beningo “P-Noy” Aquino III shall have ended. The most palpable signal was his last State of the Nation Address (SONA) last Monday before both houses of the Philippine Congress. This happened while a section of Cebu City was under water due to a sudden downpour.
Nothing could be more contrasting than these two images: a president reporting to the nation what he has accomplished over the past five years and a section of the country’s second largest metropolis being flooded anew. The message is that there is still much to be done. Not that I blame P-Noy for the floods of course but he could have poured money to help address this problem in Cebu without the kind of resistance his public works people are up against in downtown Manila due to formidable resistance coming from, in his own words, a big university.
Consider the scorecard of this administration in Cebu: no large-scale infrastructure will be inaugurated here during the term of President Aquino. The closest to one would be the Mactan-Cebu International Airport Terminal 2. Alas, it will be inaugurated only in 2018, two years after P-Noy’s term has ended and a year after the largest gathering of Catholic theologians and lay leaders from all over the world.
A second one would be the simultaneous repair, rehabilitation and widening of streets and highways in both Cebu and Mandaue cities–all in a period of only one year, even right in the middle of a series of meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).
What gives? Why did it take so long to get one large-scale project going?
According to the political grapevine in Manila, P-Noy spent his first three years running after crooks of the previous administration and forgot that governance is not just about putting out fires but also moving forward, blazing trails and opening new opportunities for the further development and growth of the country. Thus, one notices that for Cebu alone in the first three years of his administration nothing much was being done. The previously mentioned infrastructure project in fact began only late last year.
The worst judgment thus far comes from someone who was privy to the rehabilitation work following the massive devastation wrought by Super Typhoon Yolanda, former Sen. Panfilo Lacson. This former head of the post-Yolanda rehabilitation program of the government did not stay long in the post and did not mince words in his judgment of the dismal performance of P-Noy in this regard.
There are, nevertheless, bright spots in this administration. The most welcome development is the strong political will to reform the moribund educational system and put it finally at par with the rest of the world. Planned and debated since the presidency of his mother, the late Corazon Aquino, P-Noy finally took notice of the discrepancy between our ten-year Basic Education Program as against the 12-,13- or even 14-year basic education programs of our ASEAN neighbors. Despite resistance from politicians from within his political fold trying to get “pogi” points, Aquino stuck to his position. Not that he had any choice, one might say, given ASEAN integration just around the corner. Still, P-Noy could have passed this on to the next president as his predecessors did, avoiding a political backlash.
At the end of his term, there is one lesson to be learned by anyone who wants to be president. The next president must address the infrastructure needs of the country and its burgeoning cities immediately. He or she should not dilly-dally and think that six years is a long time anyway. Before you know it, your last SONA has been delivered and you have no concrete legacy, literally, to leave behind.