Gloria's Gone

The Arroyo presidency is over at last, and if only for that, the Filipino people should be relieved and hopeful on the promised changes of the newly elected Aquino presidency. But one of the legacies that President Arroyo leaves behind is an economy in shambles, which she fails to conceal for the last time in her burnished accomplishment reports and farewell speech. The Philippine economy is at an advanced stage of its long-standing crisis, and it requires comprehensive, radical solutions.

This will be the most severe test to the leadership of President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III and to the simplicity of his approach to poverty. “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap” was his campaign slogan, which rode on anti-Arroyo sentiments and may have launched the unaccomplished senator son of 'democracy icons' to the presidency. But as a tool of analysis on the roots of poverty and as framework therefore to achieve real changes in the lives of the Filipinos, it is painfully inadequate.

The guiding principle of the new Aquino administration is ‘good governance’, in contrast with its predecessor that has long erased public accountability and service from its language. But overly focusing on ‘good governance’ has the tendency to shift the blame for the country’s economic problems to corruption alone and away from the globalization policies that have deepened the Philippine crisis and benefited only a narrow elite. It eventually allows the Aquino administration to continue and even intensify the implementation of these undemocratic policies. It would also be self-defeating at the minimum if, after all, President Aquino fails to prosecute high officials accused of large-scale corruption, including Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The people’s euphoria at this point is understandable. The country is reeling from a decade of worsening crisis and poverty and getting over a regime that brazenly represented foreign and elite interests as well its own preservation agenda. The euphoria, however, is not based on the idea that democracy is working, since the country has a long way to go in that regard. It is simply coming from the smooth transition of power that has happened, even if only from one elite faction to another. The challenge therefore for the new presidency is to sustain this euphoria through concrete actions on more profound issues of the people.

List down all problems, President Aquino proposed even before his inauguration as the 15^th President. The country’s problems are far more fundamental than how they were trivialized during the elections. One of the defining marks of a genuine leader for change is to recognize this fundamentality and commit to resolve it, and President Aquino is most expected to do this.