Last Sunday’s presidential debate gave the viewers a final glimpse of the candidates together, and while some say it didn’t have the fireworks of the second edition, it still showed the perspective of each presidentiable on the country’s major problems.
Among the issues raised was the country’s territorial problem with China, and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte could either be joking or not when he declared that he will go to the nearest disputed area in the West Philippine Sea and plant the Philippine flag at an area reclaimed and converted into an airport by China.
We hear echoes of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s outrageous and outlandish proposal to build a wall at the US-Mexico border to prevent the entry of illegal Mexican immigrants.
Not only did it draw fire from the Latin American community but it also invited attacks from moderates and liberals who saw Trump’s proposal as both racist and politically extremist, if not provocative.
If anything, the mayor’s answer can be described as both flippant and idiotic at best. While we’d like to believe that the mayor was only displaying his irreverent sense of humor — which he admitted can reach gutter level — statements that involve national import should be addressed with a lot more thought and focus.
Though there were a lot of issues raised, it was on the area of traffic management that hit close to home especially here in Metro Cebu where ongoing road projects have disrupted traffic flow so much that business activities have been affected.
While both Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago and Duterte called for an expanded railway system and Senator Grace Poe called for road-widening projects, former Interior secretary Mar Roxas sensibly suggested merging both the Department of Transportation and Communications and the Department of Public Works and Highways into one.
What each of them failed to answer or elaborate on was the greater need for the country’s population to disperse and for the national government to aggressively pursue development in the countryside.
Duterte, the lone Mindanaoan among the five presidentiables, is in the best position to lobby for this as he previously campaigned for a shift of government from the presidential to a federal form.
Former governor Lito Osmeña, who also supported a federal form of government, was an advocate of countryside development as evidenced by his starting the Promdi movement.
Countryside development is one of several key linchpins in solving the country’s problem as it will, for the most part, solve the recurring problems of overpopulation, flooding, demolitions, traffic and monopoly of the country’s resources by Imperial Manila.
But the third presidential debate is now history, and it’s now the voter’s turn to make history by choosing the right person for the job.