Senator Grace Poe appears to be pushing through with Senate bill No.1284 known as the Traffic and Congestion Act intended to grant the President emergency powers to solve the traffic problems in the National Capital Region.
In this country, it is becoming necessary to resort to emergency powers in order to solve problems like traffic, drugs or terrorism. Even with rice shortage, the government needs a rice czar to solve the problem. Why, one might ask, can we not tackle such problems using current laws without always declaring an emergency? And why should local problems have to be handled directly by the president of the country?
One important feature of the proposed law is to grant authority to government to fast-track transport and traffic infrastructure projects. But infrastructure projects can still be fast-tracked if only there is no corruption involved.
And what do we want the President to do with traffic congestion? Be like King Canute who ordered the tides to stop to also order congestion to simply disappear? We want a magic formula to solve the problem but there is no such thing. Hard work, however, will do the trick but only by people who know what they are doing. Traffic management is not something that one can just learn on the job. This has been clearly shown in the way traffic and transport were managed in the NCR for the past several years. The problem keeps on getting worse instead of improving and the problem will continue to worsen before it gets any better. It is understandable that the President will appoint people he is comfortable with but I wish that in a highly complicated technical job of traffic and transport management, he could search and interview people who trained and formally studied traffic and transport. President Duterte has been on the job for a year, yet nothing substantial has so far happened in the area of traffic and transport except for spectacular media reports of trillion-peso projects.
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There is something wrong with a country if the government cannot govern effectively without resorting to emergency powers because of incompetent government officials. Either our political leaders are the wrong leaders or the system of government we now have needs to be changed.
President Duterte, who bested all his opponents in last year’s presidential elections, remains popular. This is in spite of the brutal drug war which has resulted in the death of 7,000 to 9,000 people. He has also declared martial law in Mindanao. And now martial law will be extended. He in fact already governs like a Caudillo—one wonders why there is still a need to declare martial law.
We also have a House of Representatives that refuses to obey court orders and a Department of Justice that amends a murder charge to homicide that even allies of the President could not stomach. Even a non-lawyer would know that the killing of Albuera, Leyte mayor Rolando Espinosa was murder.
So, what chance does our country have if our political institution are constantly being eroded by those whose sworn duties are supposed to protect and strengthen these institutions?
As if these were not enough, we also have political leaders threatening to create a constitutional crisis. Yet, support for the government and the President remains very high at 82 percent. So, if this is what the people want, then we should just stop pretending that this country is a bastion of democracy in this part of the world and simply go ahead and allow those who are urging to prolong martial law for another five years to do it. That way, our political leaders will not have to navigate a cumbersome process that characterizes a democratic system of government.
If what the people prefer is a so-called benevolent dictator, then we might have found that in President Duterte. But if we want a truly functioning democracy with checks and balances, then the citizenry has the duty to nurture what we have and not always resort to the easy way of handling problems.
There is a lot of truth to the observation that democracy is often chaotic and cumbersome but as Winston Churchill once remarked, democracy is not the best form of government. Until a better form is invented, it is still the best there is.
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We have always prided ourselves with our democratic traditions. Indeed, within the Asean region, we have the oldest traditions in democratic governance starting in 1907 when we had our first elections, but today, our country is not even considered the freest in the region. Indonesia is adjudged the freest country. We are only considered partly free and with martial law in Mindanao and our brutal anti-drug campaign and allegations of extrajudicial killings, the situation will not see any improvement anytime soon.
Our press is also considered only partly free in spite of our freewheeling media reporting. We should have learned our lessons with our martial law experiences when President Ferdinand Marcos ruled the country for 20 years, 12 of those as a virtual dictator. It is therefore somewhat of a surprise that roughly 57 percent of the population are in favor of martial law. We Filipinos should really think hard to figure out what forum of governance is good and ideal for us. We cannot be in a sort of a twilight zone. Either we are a genuine democracy or we are not. It is really up to us.