Mrs. Gloria Arroyo's Unfulfilled Vision

Here is an excerpt of my paper entitled, " The Philippine Situationer: 2001-2010". If you want a copy, email me at mangubat.patricio@gmail.com.

In her State of the Nation address in 2001, shortly after the tumultuous EDSA Dos coup d’état, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo laid down her vision for the country. In her speech, Mrs. Arroyo recognized that her role as president is to adequately solve the five (5) basic needs of the Filipino. Let me quote from her 2001 speech:

Napakalinaw, napaka simple ang hiling ng mga anak ng Payatas: Trabaho, Edukasyon, sariling tahanan. Idagdag na rin: Pagkain sa bawat mesa. Ito ang mithiin ng masa. And this, in common sense and plain talk, is the core of my vision. A vision for the future must be rooted in the past. A revolution gave birth to the first Republic in Asia.

Years later, Mrs. Arroyo gave flesh to her vision by announcing the birth of a Strong Republic in 2002, which she describes as a government fighting the evils of underdevelopment. Yet, after three more years, in 2005, Mrs. Arroyo later admitted that change cannot happen under what she termed as a “political-ly degenerated” system. She said, and I quote:

“...political system has degenerated; people want a government that works.... the system needs fundamental change—the sooner, the better time to take the power from the center to the countrysides.”

What led Mrs. Arroyo to conclude that it is the system that hinders growth rather than promote it?

Quality of life has greatly decreased in the Philippines over the past ten years. The risk of living in the Philippines has increased due to rampant violence and the inability of the present administration to effectively implement the laws. At the start, the administration envisioned a “Strong Republic”, predicated on effecting a firm hold or rein in the functions of governance.

This report assesses the Philippines in terms of three (3) variables: global competitiveness, governance and security.

Investors see the Philippines as a “low cost, but higher risk” country. It means it is cheaper to do business in the Philippines compared with other Asian countries but the risk is definitely higher than others. Meta Group Incorporated defined that risk as political. The Philippines, says MetaGroup, is second largest IT outsourcing hub, but political instability is affecting competitiveness. Since 2003, the global competitiveness of the Philippines has seen good and better days due to rampant graft and corruption, worsening peace and order situation and political instability.

The World Economic Forum’s “The Global Competitiveness Report, 2008-2009” ranked the Philippines in 74th place, lower than its neighbour Indonesia (58th) and Vietnam (73rd). Compared to Malaysia (24th place) and Singapore (8th), our country lags behind in terms of competitiveness.

Global competitiveness is affected by poor governance. In the World Bank’s Governance Index, the Philippines performed poorly in governance, registering a negative 0.59% since 1998 to 2008, well below Indonesia’s (-0.14%). There is a high incidence of political violence (negative 1.41%, down to about negative 1.25% since 1998) compared with other countries in the region.

Governance has been largely affected by perceptions of rampant graft and corruption and crony practices. A survey of 1,400 business leaders carried out by Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd, a Hong Kong based company, found that the Philippines was considered the most corrupt of the 13 Asian economies, followed by Thailand, China, and Indonesia. The Philippines was separately ranked number 131 out of 179 countries by corruption watchdog Transparency International in its 2007 report, placing it on a par with Libya and Burundi.

Global Integrity Report (2008) has this to say about the Philippines:

Despite some impressive world-class anti-corruption safeguards, such as formal "cooling-off" employment periods for senior officials leaving government, the Philippines remains challenged by the lack of a formal access to information regime and an election system that breeds cronyism and corruption in the political process. Improvements in the transparency surrounding government procurement remain promising, and civil society groups continue to play an important role in the debate around governance reforms. Restrictions on financial donations to candidates and parties from those with business before the government are an interesting and rare regulation internationally.

In terms of peace and order, the Global Peace Index places the Philippines in 114th place with a score of 2.357 , suggesting a higher incidence of political and non-political violence outbreaks in the Philippines compared with its neighbours in Asia.

According to the World Economic Forum Executive Opinion survey, the top five issues which the Philippines needs to address are the following: corruption, inefficient bureaucracy, inadequate infrastructure, crime and theft and policy instability. Furthermore, the Philippines needs to address irregular payments in public contracts, prevalence of illegal political donations and the rising business costs of terrorism.