The Philippine Online Chronicles

Our generation has a challenge set before it. To say that our Republic today is ill is to state the obvious.  To blame generations before is a mistake.  We can no longer afford a Philippines so deeply divided.  We can no longer allow our nation to be so much in quarrel over the past and with itself. With our norms and our values perverted to such extreme that all sense of propriety, of duty, of honor, of obligation are twisted. We can no longer afford a nation so engrossed with frivolous matters. “The State of the Filipino Nation on the Road to 2010 and beyond” is the story that the tendrils of corruption extend into every facet of society and the threats we face are most real.  The threats are complex and the challenge daunting.  We must embrace our darkest fears. It is the story that says, we must act and we must act seriously.

That’s what we have here today.  That’s where our Republic is.

As we do this, we must put our time within the proper context.

Our time is the story about 2004.   This story is about 2010.   It is about Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.  It is about Gilbert Teodoro and Manny Villar.  This story is about Noynoy Aquino.  The challenge of our generation is more than a question of about Good and Evil.  It is a story about Love and Loss.  It is about Democracy.  This is about Destiny.  This is about Heroes. This is about You.

Manny Villar is fighting for his political career.  Gilbert Teodoro is Glora Macapagal-Arroyo’s parallel track that says, “We choose not to put all our eggs in one basket.”

Noynoy Aquino is riding on the wave of a sea of yellow.

This is the battleground where Noynoy Aquino and Manny Villar are facing off. Yet, I enjoin you travel with me back in time.

It was the year 2004. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was president.  For the first time since Marcos, the Philippines had a sitting president who was running to be elected to the same position.

Mrs. Arroyo’s main rival was Fernando Poe Jr., veteran Movie star.  Like his friend, the deposed President Joseph Estrada, he was the epitome of the Filipino man.  The friend of Mr. Estrada was a “hero.” He campaigned on the same issues as deposed president Estrada.   FPJ was pro-poor.  He was the Filipino Everyman.  He was kind and decent.  And he had never had an elected position.

In our present context, FPJ was a “Walang Alam.” (One who doesn’t know anything.)

As I said, we must put that time in our nation’s history into the proper context.  The election was so close to EDSA 2 that people remembered Mr. Estrada for what he was.  And Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo wasn’t as disliked as she is today.

In February of that year, questions about FPJ’s citizenship were questioned.  That was when his campaign’s momentum began to slowdown.  That’s when things picked up for GMA.

Anecdotal speculation sometimes say that even without the question of election fraud, GMA would have won, just not the million votes that she did.   Compared to 1986, election fraud saw protest.  In 2004, there was hardly any and it cannot simply be discarded that our nation was so deeply divided.

So for the sake of argument, let us assume that Mrs. Arroyo did win.  How did she win?  Mrs. Arroyo ran on the campaign that she was experienced.  Mrs. Arroyo sowed fear that this nation would go to the dogs if FPJ were president.  She created an atmosphere that experience in governance was what was needed to get this nation state off the ground.

Let us put Mrs. Arroyo into the proper context.  She had been in government for years.  She ran and won her senate seat, at the top of the contest. She was Vice President under Joseph Estrada and took over when he was removed from Office as per the Constitution.  She was an economist.  She was experienced.  There is no doubt about her CV.

Fast forward back to our moment in time, the story of 2004 is still the story of 2010.

For starters, I urge you to read the Entrepreneurial Revolution of Manny Villar, which was written by Noemi Lardizabal-Dado.  Also, you should checkout Rochelle Sy Chua’s Manny Villar & his Vision for OFWs.

Recently, I wrote about Gloria Rice, Gloria Everywhere, Manny Villar and Gilbert Teodoro.  I quoted the work by Lito Banayo on the whole C5 Mess.

Want to read about Villar’s side?  Go check out “C5 the Real Score” and “What is the Circumferential Road-5 (C5) Project?”

This is the democratic response.  Ted Failon on television exposed Daang Hari, C5 and Money V.

Two points.  You decide.

And if you missed it: Manny Villar’s Platform. Oh, yeah, he has a platform! He has a party platform and yet time and again says, he doesn’t believe in platforms.  How can you have a party platform that you don’t believe in?  It is like writing a mission and vision statement for a company but they are just empty words no one believes in or actually use.

That’s a problem.

For far too long our President says one thing and does the opposite.  Just remember what the government did with the Great Book Blockade of 2009.

That’s not the biggest problem.  At the end of my commentary, “Manny Villar’s Platform,” I asked, “The doubt in my mind is this: what makes Manny Villar different from Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo?”

I wrote that because it seemed to me that Manny Villar is the expert like GMA was in 2004.  He’s a businessman, and he’s a veteran of Congress.  How different is his expertise from Gloria’s?

We’ve had nine years of so-called, “expertise.”  Boom!  Our nation is simply holding its ground (see: The State of the Filipino Nation on the Road to 2010 and Beyond).

To simply say our nation needs an expert is a mistake.  Clearly, the great demands of our future require extensive, sincere and certain Institutional Reform that fixes corruption.  That’s our pressing issue.  That’s the top problem. It isn’t a euphemism.  It isn’t funny anymore.  It really is a cancer that must be stopped.

Oh, and in case you’ve missed it, Lito Banayo says, Manny Villar is “Her Man.”  In that piece, Banayo says that Villar is Arroyo’s man.  Villar is Arroyo’s choice for president. If you think about it that’s classic Arroyo.  Throw everything, including the kitchen sink and see which works.

Table those thoughts for a moment because we ought to talk about Noynoy Aquino.

The problem with Noynoy Aquino that people have with him being President is this.  First, he seemed too good to be true.  He seem like a messiah descended from heaven to set things right.  Second, people don’t trust his circle.  They remember Cory’s time and say, these are the same people who squandered opportunity after opportunity.  They remember EDSA 2 and how moral superiority often became our downfall.  Third, they strongly believe in that the herd is following and that they are following blindly.

All this stems from cynicism.

For far too long our nation has been promised we will bring our people out of poverty.  And yet at every corner we only see tragedy.  Our people are impatient.

The cynical won’t leap.  They just won’t jump blindly.  They ask for platforms, when they really mean a legislative agenda.  They ask for platforms, when really they want details on how to root out corruption.

People won’t leap because they look for a Manager when they really mean, CEO. They look for an Officer, when they really mean General.  They want a leader.

The CEO’s job is entirely about Leadership.  It is his job, above all else to say, “no”.

Let me explain.

A company bristles with so much idea, so much energy that it doesn’t know what to do with it.  So they tend to gobble everything up.  They tend to do everything.  The CEO’s job is to focus that energy.  His job is to say “no” to the million great ideas, and say yes to the one.  His job is to focus that energy to tell a story.  He must choose that one thing that adds and is in line with the company’s story as much as it is cohesive to the over all series.

A general’s job is strategy and tactics.  Strategy is the overall game plan.  It defines the parameters of what constitutes success.  Tactics is getting to that goal.  Tactics is executing the maneuver.

Is that what the next president of the Philippines ought to do?

The pressing problem of our time is corruption.  It is so endemic that its tendrils are all over the place.  Our people don’t know the meaning of duty, of honor, of obligation.  We are becoming a vicious and mean people.

This is about love and loss.   How do you mend a broken heart?

This is Arroyo’s legacy. She has made Maria Clara, bitter and cynical. This is about betrayal of that sacred public trust.  This is about our people’s inability to believe anymore.   Our people are afraid to hope, to imagine.

Remember 2004?  Well in 2010 as in 2004, the same card is being played.  The Field of Villar, Teodoro and company are all saying Aquino is “walang alam.”  That Aquino doesn’t know anything because his legislative track record isn’t impressive.

Villar and Teodoro are analogs of GMA. The contest of 2010 is very much the battle of her belief in government versus Aquino’s. This is the Brotherhood of Cynicism versus the Army of Hope.

This election is entirely about Arroyo and whether or not we validate that kind of government.

That’s the situation as we head on post Election Day.

This is about Heroes.  This is about You.

For far too long our nation, our people have been demanding much about our leaders and expecting too much.  Our nation faces a budget deficit that we cannot solve in the coming years.  We are faced with the prospect of continued and renewed political infighting post election day.  The challenges of our time cannot simply be we demand more because that will be expecting too much.

That’s not nation building.

The threats are very much real.  Do not expect the Next President to solve our questions of poverty, not in six years.  What we can expect our next president to do is to set an agenda to move this nation forward even as he fights his political battles that will hamper our nation’s growth.

People continue to ask what will the next President do.  What can he do?  Is he an expert?  Is he a walang alam?

Tomorrow isn’t about who is an expert.  Tomorrow is about what we can do.  Tomorrow is the question about what will we do.

For far too long we’ve come to associate Democracy with our ability to vote.  Fine. That’s important.  For far too long we’ve come to see Democracy as having clean elections so we can vote people we like in.  That’s important.

For far too long we’ve come to associate our Leaders as Messiahs sent by heaven to set things right, to solve our questions of poverty.  We have failed to ask the most pertinent question of our time: what will we do?

Ask not what your next president will do, ask what will we do for our country.

Our next president is going to be human.  Whether that president is Aquino or Villar. It is inevitable that the next president will not have universal mandate.  There are many of us who will vote for the losing guy.

Our president will not solve everything.  We each have that duty.

This is too is a challenge of our generation. We must rebuild our democratic institutions. There has been too much blood spilled in Mindanao and elsewhere.  There has been too much hurt, too much pain.  There has been too much love lost.  We must find a way to bind our nation’s wounds.

Photos by Noemi Lardizabal-Dado. Some Rights Reserved.