Jun Ledesma
Watching my country from across the Pacific Ocean is like watching a fish drowning in water. So vast are the potentials yet so wanting. Inept politicians had made life so miserable. Yesterday Nekkei Asia News reported that the Philippines saw 100% drops from 2022. That means no new investments or construction projects at all since the Marcos administration took over.
The Executive and the Legislative departments had been enmeshed on how to perpetuate themselves in power. If Vice Pres. Inday Sara Duterte was a wimp she could have been devoured by the diabolic political forces in Congress but she courageously faced the phalanx of critical cabal in and out of the government bureaucracy by first resigning from Lakas – CMD. They were out to demonize her. For the first time, we saw how the CPP/NPA/NDF legal fronts connived with the House Leadership and their Makabayan ally in the Senate. I am saddened that no one from both houses dared to rebut the character assassination of VP Sara.
Well, she survived the flurry of black propaganda unscathed and remained to be the most Trusted with the highest Approval rating to boot among the top government officials. The same is true with the Department of Education where she is the incumbent Secretary. All these argue against her critics including one who looks like a First Lady and other administration lapdogs and paid hacks who want her out of the cabinet.
I didn’t know that Liza Marcos harbored a deep rancor against the Vice President. She went into an emotional outburst and went on to tag the second highest authority of the country as “a bad shot” to her. A well-mannered and equable VP Sara is unperturbed saying there are more priorities to attend to that presently beset the country.
Well, I give PBBM a “B” for having a wife who comes to his defense and also for standing by the VP as Education Secretary.
Just to make it clear for some woozy-minded characters who think Sara owes them political favors. I personally knew who frequented Davao City for a political pilgrimage at the time when then City Mayor Inday Sara Duterte was lording it over in all presidential surveys. The most avid of them were Sara’s BFF Imee who tugged along Bongbong. It was baffling and frustrating later to learn that Sara gave way to BBM. But then who are we to question the independence of mind of Inday? She has her own agenda and reason for being. It is the height of insensitivity to claim the VP owes anybody a debt of political gratitude. Senator Imee and President Bongbong knew that too well.
VP Sara is right. The country’s leadership must focus on urgent matters that need to be addressed. Domestic and kitchen issues have no place in governance.Two years had elapsed in this administration and so far the main agenda is the insidious attempt to alter the constitution to perpetuate themselves in power, and, to go to war with China over Ayungin shoal in the West PhilippinesSea which is a subject of multilateral claims of several other countries.
The boasts that foreign investors are rushing over to the Philippines with their capital is nothing but that. The irony of it all, American businessmen were flying not to Manila but to Beijing and were queueing to rub elbows and hobnob with Pres. Xi Jinping for investment and trade opportunities.
It is indeed an extreme paradox that while China and Hong Kong are our biggest trade and investment partners and the prime source of our infrastructure funds PBBM and his war freak advisers are doing everything to sever the ties.
At the height of this stupidity some xenophobic nincompoops in the House of Representatives raised an alarm that over 4,000 Chinese students are enrolled in Cagayan universities. It turned out the Bureau of Immigration only approved 1516 student visas but only a little over 400 had actually enrolled as the rest availed of distant learning. The racial discrimination and profiling of Chinese students as security risks as displayed by Assistant Director General Jonatan Malaya of the National Security Council only exacerbates the deepening cleavage between China and the Philippines.
Malaya forgot that there are more than 12,000 OFWs in mainland China and over 140,000 OFWs in Hong Kong. These do not include undocumented Filipinos working all over China and university scholars in varied fields of studies.
And talking of ingratitude, many thick-skinned bureaucrats have quickly forgotten that China supplied us with millions of doses of vaccines against Covid-19 and personal protective equipments for our doctors and nurses and front-liners who at the first wave of the pandemic were dying for the lack of these essentials. The US and UK had embargoed what they produced to quell their death toll. But insensitive politicians were quick to denounce the Duterte government claiming the cost was overpriced but retreated into sepulchral silence when later it was proven that in fact the PPEs bought by the Duterte administration was 50% less than what the Aquino government had purchased.
China gifted the country with two bridges across the Pasig. Several other major infrastructures were funded by China. Closer to home, in Davao City, two major bridges, namely Davao-Samal and the Bucana bridge in the coastal boulevard of Davao City are under contract with China Road and Bridge Corporation and funded with a loan agreement from and China Aid Grant respectively. All these happened during the Duterte regime.
Sadly, Marcos radically shifted Duterte’s foreign policy with belligerence towards China and cuddled close to US President Joe Biden in a deal that ended up where we are today.
Early last week, President Marcos announced the relaxation of importation and proposed the lifting of tariffs on prime commodities.
Why is this happening? The answer is in our misplaced priorities as VP Sara Duterte had hinted. Instead of nurturing peace, some eggheads in the government want war. We forgot to develop our potentialities for growth. Farmers are forgotten because it is so convenient to import besides some cronies are making a killing in the process. Government itself competes with the local producers by opening the floodgates for importations.
In the final canto agriculture which is the backbone of the Philippine industry is dying if not dead. The political promise to bring the price of rice down to ₱20 per kilo was after all mythical. This administration has absolutely no plan and strategy how to improve farmers productivity. Marcos Jr. simply refuse to adapt the template of Marcos Sr. which gave farmers their bonanza. PBBM left Agriculture and entrusted it to another who is in limbo on what and how to enhance productivity.
And so here we are. Getting ready for war we can never win, plotting a charter change which can lead to an internal conflict. The price of rice is now breaching ₱60/kilo. Other voices shouting “nabudol tayo” is now reaching a high decibel which Malacanang can not hear. “Na bad shot tayo”. (Jun Ledesma)