Promises, victory, and then the hard part (Sabong News)

After all the promises, denunciations, allegations, fake and genuine news, rumors, threats, protests, whoever is today’s victor will not have an easy six years ahead. The Makati Business Club issued a statement last week on where we are and what lies ahead. So many companies closed shop. Workers lost their jobs. Business owners suffered losses, depleted their capital. Workers exhausted their savings, sank deeper into debt. Many have died. Signs of recovery began to appear but Russia invaded Ukraine and another crisis began. Oil price jumped, causing a domino effect on freight and on the cost of transport, electricity, food, and so on. For related reasons and with similar effects, interest rates are up and the peso is depreciating. All the sanctions imposed by the US and Europe and the reaction of Russia, as well as developments in China, India, and the Middle East have worsened matters. With the Philippines dependent on oil and food imports, a hot seat awaits Malacañang’s next occupant. In the immediate term, the Makati Business Club has promised to protect or increase production and address supply bottlenecks to cushion rising inflation. For the longer run, its aim is to create a strong, skilled, upwardly mobile workforce. Through policy formulation, it seeks to help in job creation, improve worker skills and productivity, better working conditions, expanded health care and social security, and unemployment insurance.  To cope with Covid-19 hardships, government has been distributing cash—ayuda—to the poor and aged, health measures even as tax and customs revenues have fallen, and spending money on health care and pandemic control. The banking system has also been encouraged to ease lending and collection policies with the easing of normally tough regulations.   The new administration is therefore inheriting a weak economy, high public debt, a depreciating peso, and prospects for more of the same. There won’t be any magic. Food prices won’t drop tomorrow. Not all the jobless will be employed next Monday. Not much can be done about the price of gasoline and transport and freight cost other than the tough decision to favor jeepney drivers as against private vehicle owners, and to raise minimum wage if things get worse. The new President also needs to get his or her team together and get organized, learn the ropes, work out a strategy with Congress, formulate a plan of action with a timetable.   Like any leader, our new President needs to motivate, plan, organize, and control if his or her campaign promises are to be fulfilled. The elimination of graft and corruption, reduction of prime commodity prices, jobs for all, help for the poor, attraction of foreign investment, improved education, etc. were promised by just about all of them.   Government really has two key tools, fiscal and monetary policies. The former has to do with revenue, expenditure, and debt while the latter has to do with money supply and, under our system, foreign exchange. A socio-economic plan is supposed to guide the use of these tools, weapons if you prefer. The only ways to reduce the price of rice and for that matter anything else is to increase production or reduce demand. The former is easier. We have no winters and can grow food year-round. Most Filipinos continue to depend on agriculture and production can be improved with better seed, scientific cultivation methods, relaxation of certain agrarian reform regulations, tariff review, and for the longer term, crop insurance and irrigation, land-use planning to slow if not prevent the conversion of fertile crop land to subdivisions. Reforestation would provide employment, particularly to the really marginalized cultural communities and in the medium term reduce landslides and flooding and produce water for irrigation, power, and waterworks. Commercial forestry with native trees (not foreign mahogany) yield valuable wood like narra, molave, and tindalo or fruits and nuts like mangoes, cashew, and pili.   Mangrove reforestation projects, like those in Samar and Davao, have not only provided employment but have also improved fishery and tourism and have protected communities from typhoons and wave erosion. Every President, Quezon included, have been denouncing graft and corruption but it seems success has been limited. Example at the top would send a signal, as would locking up a couple of high-profile violators of any existing law on procurement, sale of government property like public markets, graft, SALN, deadlines on decision making, and what have you. The reduction of red tape (for which there is already a law) would not only reduce graft and corruption but also make life easier for everyone. Bureaucratic bottlenecks and delays are easily avoided with grease money. Reducing the number of documentary requirements, clearances, initials, and signatures will not only reduce opportunities and need for payoffs, but also make life easier for business, importers, and the general public, including OFWs on whom the economy depends. Metro Manila and Cebu City traffic cost billions not only in gasoline but even more in lost working hours, delays in production, unnecessary vehicle imports, pollution, public works—all those overpasses, underpasses, and skyways. Forget about the aggravation and expense incurred by millions of commuters. Efficient public transportation systems in our two largest cities and revival of the Luzon train system would be worthy and doable goals. Friends who live in rough neighborhoods tell me how peace and order has improved and how drug pushers and users have all but vanished in the past six years. They are not overly concerned over EJKs, saying that for the most part those K-ed had it coming. Not the EJKs of course, but the war against drugs is advisedly continued but with speedier crime-and punishment administration. Metro Manila is a giant assembly of informal settler communities that lack proper sanitation, fire protection, water and electricity, access to transportation and schools, and so on. We’ve had housing projects on and off since the 1930s, the most recent being those tenements along the railroad tracks in San Andres Bukid that are not only ugly and barely livable but also block railroad improvement. How about following the example of Singapore that used the resources of their social security organization to build high-rise housing? They were for rent, not for sale, and as funds became available, were demolished to build higher and better units. With hope, our new leader will be unlike Mrs. Aquino who famously declared she disliked unsolicited advice. Anyway, hope springs eternal. Comments are cordially invited, addressed to