Category: aquino admin

SONAkakaiyak

i was hoping it would be different.  i was hoping that the informed public’s displeasure over DAP had shaken him up enough to eschew the bragging (about small change) and the sniping, the snarking, at critics (left right and center).

i was also hoping to be suprised, praying that the continuing and increasing poverty, joblessness, high prices, environmental decay atbp. all of four years into his watch would have shaken him up enough to see that any talk of transformation is just that, just talk, and so finally he would level up, find the mind and the heart, the nerve, the guts, the balls, to walk the talk, even run with it, take the leap, and we would all rally behind him, the middleclass and the majority poor, towards a new equitable socio-economic order.  ika nga ni alex magno, who for once wasn’t comparing the president with his former boss GMA:

Aquino had immense political capital at the onset. He could have deployed this capital to break new ground, alter our policy architecture to wean it away from oligarchic capture. 

that would have been awesome.  i mean, you know, talk about inclusive growth and transformation…

alas, the 5th sona was no different from the first four: self-congratulatory, proud of small pockets of achievement, and other small changes lined up, at least one for every sector it would seem, but apparently unmindful of the big picture and of long-festering issues and crises in all sectors, almost as though not acknowledging these would make them go away, like magic.

but, ok, pasalamat na lang that he didn’t rant anew at the supreme court, and that disimulado ang pag-push niya pa rin sa DAP.  also it was a relief that unlike sonny coloma and some yellowyalists, the president did not claim credit for the arrests of enrile, estradajr and revillajr, maybe because the question still is, why oppositionists only…

i was waiting for him to iterate the FOI promise, but he didn’t.  lacierda says it’s because the prez had already promised its passage (before the end of his term) in that daylight dialogue with the world bank, sabay:

Besides, the government is already giving the public access to data through Open Data initiative, Lacierda added. 

tila pangakong napako nang tunay.  maybe congress could would only promise the supplementary budget he’s requesting, and passage of the 2015 budget of course? maybe FOI in 2016 pa pala, just before he steps down?  or maybe never, in case it’s his annointed who wins in 2016?  that open data ek is surely nothing like FOI or they’d be calling it FOI, kahit pa watered-down na, ‘no?

as for that emotional all-choked-up the filipino-is-worth-dyinglivingfighting-for moment, it was an obvious tug at heartstrings, premised as it was on a notion of supreme sacrifice.

To my Bosses: You gave me an opportunity to lead our efforts to transform society. If I had said “no” when you asked me to take on this challenge, then I could just as well have said that I would help prolong your suffering. I cannot do that in good conscience. If I had turned my back on the opportunity, then I might as well have turned my back on my father and mother, and all the sacrifices they made for all of us; that will not happen. On our journey along the straight path, you have always chosen what is right and just; you have been true to your promise, and I have been true to all of you. [Applause] 

back in 2010 when conrado de quiros, alex magno, and bongbong marcos (among other strange bedfellows) were urging, nay, challenging, him to run for president, i blogged: not yet, noynoy.  i thought it would be wise to run as mar roxas’s vice-president muna, learn the ropes, while reading the writings his father left behind, products of much thought, products of a brilliant nationalist mind.

given your parents, the history, the genes, the values, you, more than any other filipino, can do it, can be it. but not without serious preparation for the role, which would mean learning not just from your mother’s successes but also from her mistakes — e.g., (in) land reform, foreign debts, atbp. — and, most importantly, by being truly your father’s son not just in terms of his sacrifice but also of his political ideology.

when your father came home in ‘83 he had a program of action that he drafted while in exile in boston. surely that program of action is worth looking into — other than the dismantling of military rule, things haven’t changed much, except gotten worse, since the 80s — and hopefully, you will be up to the revolutionary challenges it poses.

forget de quiros and other hopeless romantics who urge you to run in 2010. to do so, and to fail at non-violent revolution because you are not ready, would be the end of you. in effect, you’d be neutralized, which would be a shame.

SONAkakaiyak.

An opportunity to ‘level up’

By Emmanuel S. de Dios

FUTURE HISTORIANS will ponder the curious chain of events that provoked profound political changes in the Philippines under Aquino III. The puzzle for them is to understand how formal rules came to be taken seriously and suddenly made to “stick.” From public outrage over the uncovered Napoles mafia, to the Supreme Court’s proscription of congressional pork barrel, down to its latest decision against the President’s power to reallocate funds — the rules of political behavior and engagement are being fundamentally changed.

On the surface, the effect is as if one was simply “restoring” order in the relations among the branches of government as intended under the Constitution. After all, Congress is supposed to have the “power over the purse,” and the President’s job is simply to implement legislative priorities. Hence, legislators should not select projects to implement ex post, and the President should not independently appropriate and allocate monies without explicit congressional approval. All neat and bundled, right?

Except, of course, the Philippine government has never functioned that way. Legislative pork has always existed under different names in all post-Marcos administrations and instituted in its current form under Cory Aquino’s budget ministry (a well-intended innovation by my colleague Ben Diokno). What’s more, until this year, this practice was twice rubber-stamped by the Supreme Court. On the other hand, all presidents, even under the present Constitution, have always effectively picked and chosen budgetary priorities. Especially when a fiscal crisis required deficits to be controlled, the President always decided which budget items should continue to be funded and which were to be abandoned, effectively performing the function of the legislature. Or then again through a re-enactment of the budget (which can be contrived by not passing a new one), the President disposed over all the funds artificially “saved” from already completed projects and was free to define new priorities. The Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) was nothing new, from this viewpoint.

All in all, therefore, Philippine democracy has functioned up to now with an “imperial presidency.”

Which brings us to the point: if the Supreme Court is right about what the spirit and letter of the law say, why has practice deviated from it?

It is rooted in the fact that there are no long-lived organizations (read: political parties) capable of formulating national agendas and defining national priorities. In practice, only the President, controlling the large bureaucracy, can do that. It is then natural for the strategic function to devolve on him.

In the meantime, with their re-election based on local-level patronage, the focus of legislators’ attention is primarily parochial. Their function is reduced to that of fiscal brokers seeking to ensure their share of the national pie. This makes them uninterested in their responsibility for their theoretical “power over the purse” (except for the odd occasion it can be used to extort concessions from the executive). In current practice, for example, Congress hardly even knows how much “the purse” contains: laws are enacted without the funding needed to implement them; budgets are passed without legislative regard for expected tax revenues, or the debt burden, or the resulting size of the budget deficit — all those things are passed on to the executive. (Let him worry about it; I just need my convention center.) This, of course, is a flawed, imperfect order; yet it is order nonetheless — serviceable in the case of a good president, though a free ticket to abuse by a bad one.

Which brings us to the current pass. If, as expected, the Court reaffirms its decision on the DAP, then — together with the abolition of “pork” as we knew it — how shall Congress and the Executive henceforth relate to each other? On the one hand, the institutional dissonance will seem to have been resolved: government is then constrained to function more closely to what the Constitution envisions. On the other hand, one must ask whether political actors (not ideally, but as they exist) can fulfill the tasks assigned them by such formal rules.

Is Congress, for example, prepared to fully internalize all the cost and effort involved in the minutiae of budget preparation? Will it be nimble enough to adjust spending plans quickly, say within a year, in case of revenue shortfalls and delays in the implementation of spending? Or can the Executive and the bureaucracy improve their effectiveness enough to work according to the sluggish clock that Congress is inevitably bound to follow?

Now that lawmakers’ “pork” is gone and real political parties are nowhere on the horizon, what are the means to induce Congress to deliver budgets in a timely way? Shall we return (oh no!) to prolonged spells of reenacted budgets? If fiscal uncertainty is the result, what would be the effect on long-term growth and the people’s welfare?

Citoyens et citoyennes! We are in the midst of a revolution whose outcome is yet unknown — instigated ironically by a conservative and literalist Supreme Court. In a world of institutional dissonance, an insistence on strict formal rules can be disruptive. Indeed, seasoned union organizers know how a “work-to-rule” strategy can totally subvert production.

In a good scenario, all will turn out for the best. There may be a growth hiccup or two in the near term, but ultimately members of Congress will up their game and find common ground with some presidential vision and each puts his shoulder to the wheel. The exigencies of the situation may yet provide the needed spark for the formation of genuine program-based political parties.

The media and the growing middle class may yet become more focused on the quotidian business of politics and representation, progressing beyond their currently sporadic, scandal-driven interest. In short, the insistence on rules may yet provide a bridge to the country becoming a mature representative democracy. Who knows? The political class may yet “level up.”

As for the bad scenario… well, let’s not think about that right now. Let PNoy and Butch Abad worry about it.

the DAP affair

so.  at the end of a week that felt like we were watching a reality pulitikanovela, history unfolding baga, with enrile estrada revilla in comfy “jails” and no doubt going through major major physical and psychological stresses as they are forced to adjust to drastic changes in lifestyle, to put it kindly…

also the end of a week when not a squeak was heard from the prez and his budget sec in the palace, only from spokesmen lacierda and coloma who continued to defend DAP, twas all in good faith, and hinted of appealing the supreme court decision…  this while calls for abad’s resignation and the president’s impeachment issued from “noisy minorities” left right and center, and pnoy’s yellow army was is on overdrive, looking for someone else to blame, such as the supreme court, never mind that it was a unanimous decision, or gma pa rin, she started it, lol.

so, at the end of the week, it was not too surprising to wake up to a live tv feed from the palace, a budget presentation, no less, that the prez kicked off with a brisk announcement of abad’s attempted resignation and why he rejected it.

To accept his resignation is to assign to him a wrong and I cannot accept the notion that doing right by our people is wrong. 

my problem with this, really, is that it is simplistic and disingenuous, as though the issue were not more complex.  even more irritating, the president is asking us to take his word for it — they did no wrong, DAP benefitted the country — this, while they get their act, i mean, the documentary evidence, together, i suppose.

pero ika nga ni propesor randy david:

The administration gains nothing from merely claiming that the PDAF and DAP had good intentions. As things stand, nothing less than a full accounting of these funds can persuade the public that these were not plundered. Of course, there is a risk in detailing how the DAP funds were allocated. It is almost certain that doing so will reveal how much of the vaunted “daang matuwid” has been paved in patronage. But I think that is still a small price to pay in exchange for achieving the Constitution. 

and true to the crisis-ridden telenovela format, the weekend brings a palace alert: the prez will be addressing the nation tomorrow monday at 6 pm. abangan!  hmm, suddenly it can’t wait till the SONA, that’s interesting.  crunch time?  should be either of two things: he will convince us that DAP was concocted in good faith, with documents galore to prove that it contributed significantly to economic growth, or he will say i-am-sorry and promise to rein in the “creative” urge to improvise and hasten processes without due diligence.

ika nga ni dean tony la vina:

the Aquino administration might have been blinded by their conviction that they were doing the right thing for the economy and the people, and because of that belief, disregarded the legal technicalities. Even now, one discerns this flawed thinking in the stubborn defense of DAP even after the Supreme Court decision, an attitude that could bode bad for other serious decisions with complex legal issues (the Bangsamoro Basic Law comes to mind) in the remaining years of this administration.

I respectfully urge a little humility to acknowledge mistakes when they happen, as it always does in governance, so corrections could be made. In fact, with the right legal staff work, DAP, which is conceptually an innovation that might have potential to solve the perennial problem of under spending by the departments, could have been crafted in a constitutional way and the same policy objectives could have been achieved without being tainted with illegality. But that, unfortunately, is water under the bridge. 

*

of speeches, dissent, arrests (mercury retrograde)

it’s been one of those times when so much is going on on the family front, there’s always something else more important to think about or attend to than blogging, even on independence day, when i had always managed to post something everytime june 12 came around, to celebrate it kahit paano.  or maybe it’s just that planet mercury is in retrograde motion, as above so below, i’m just not thinking straight, rather, paatras, compelled to go back over old ground, rethinking things, mostly unresolved issues.

i do know that the president celebrated independence day in robredo country where i suppose the widow leni keeps the yellow flame alive, except that he was hounded and heckled by leftists anyway, “Patalsikin ang Pork Barrel King! Walang pagbabago sa Pilipinas!” and the noisiest one was arrested and charged for disorderly conduct.

napaka-mercury retrograde kind of event, basta bawal ang dissent.  i can almost hear the president justifying the arrest along the line of:  “medyo bastos, di po ba?  in the middle of my speech!  sana nakinig muna sila, baka naman nasagot ko pala ang ipinaparatang nila sa akin…” in that self-righteous tone.   but but but what if the noisy minority had simply been ushered out, so the president could finish his speech in peace?   bakit kailangan pang arestuhin at kasuhan?  bakit masyadong violent ang reaction?  nakaka-tense na ba?  so so so uncool. 

before that, i found the time, out of idle curiosity, to listen to the privilege speeches of bong revilla and jinggoy estrada.  swan songs baga?  not really.  i switched off when revilla was introducing his music video, but that lengthy thank you list — lahat magaling, walang masamang tinapay — and the special thanks to the millions of supporters that voted him into office, tells me he will run again, even from jail, a la ninoy no less, and oh okay trillanes.  estrada, in contrast, was quite dignified and seemed quite confident that he would be proven innocent.  tells me we’re in for some serious legal calisthenics.

wag tayo maniwala na handang-handa na silang makulong, as in, i’m all packed and ready to go, bring it on, so we can defend our innocent selves and clear our names.  in fact, since the three cases were raffled off sa sandiganbayan last friday, delaying tactics have come into play, and i bet st jude, patron saint of hopeless cases, if not the virgin, mother, lady of this and that are being stormed with novenas left and right, let not arrest warrants be issued.  ma-delay lang ng mga abogado nila ng isang taon, they could all just run again in 2016, yes, even enrile maybe, kahit for congressman lang uli, and if they win, then for sure they will claim vindication, exoneration, by their constituencies, and what a mess that will be for our institutions.

so, is there absolutely no chance that the three senators will be arrested soon?  at first i thought absolutely no chance.  but on second thought, significant things do happen during mercury retro (na parang moving-on naman ang mode) though it usually means that things won’t go smoothly, for either government or the accused.

so, yes, there’s actually a chance that the three senators could be arrested sooner than later, and that’s mostly because, come to think of it, it won’t be the first time for either enrile or estrada to be arrested, which means it is more likely to happen again than not.  si bong revilla, who knows, baka naaresto na rin siya in some pelikula, haha.

but of course it would all hinge on the president’s preferred strategy.   who knows, he might be up to putting the pressure on the sandiganbayan justices to take the word of the ombudsman na lang on probable cause, the sooner for the arrests and trials to proceed, the better to distract us from butch abad and those allegedly missing DBM records.  because , really, cavite rep elpidio barzaga jr’s defense of abad just really raises more questions.

Barzaga said Abad was not even the budget secretary from 2007 to 2009, the coverage of the CoA’s special audit report. … Barzaga said Abad was not even the budget secretary from 2007 to 2009, the coverage of the CoA’s special audit report. the DBM has already said before that it cannot locate the documents pertaining to PDAF transactions during the previous administration.

He stressed it was possible that the documents have been intentionally destroyed to avoid leaving any evidence of irregularities in the disbursements of congressional allocations.
The veteran solon stressed that Abad should not bear the brunt of the law because he was not personally involved in any anomalous transaction.

“In some cases, the public is aware that once there has been a change of power in the government, for anomalous transactions, documents are being destroyed to evade criminal prosecution,” Barzaga said.

straight from the horse’s mouth, ika nga.  and while mercury’s retro yet.  hmm, everyone’s suspect, of course, admin and opposition, who were in congress and who used their PDAFs 2007 to 2009.

by the way, heard through the grapevine that mar roxas is absolutely clean vis a vis PDAF, which means what?  never used his PDAF?  used his PDAF but never accepted kickbacks?   interesting if true.