"What’s in store for these world leaders this year?"
"What’s in store for these world leaders this year?"
AS the Year of the Dog in the Chinese cycle ends, calamities still kept dogging the country even during its hoarse and dying barks.
Typhoon Usman hit Bicol and Mindoro during the last days of the Gregorian calendar, leaving almost 150 dead in its terrible wake, brought about by massive flooding and landslides.
Of course, in Northern Luzon, principally Cagayan province along with Benguet in the Cordilleras, disaster struck earlier, in the middle of September with Ompong, internationally known as Mangkhut. The toll in lives was heaviest in Benguet, where the “usual” landslides buried many. Harvestable crops were inundated in the Cagayan Valley, impoverishing farmers who up to now do not comprehend what quantitative restrictions mean.
The economy was hit by inflation much, much higher than the Bangko Sentral and the economic managers predicted at the beginning of the year, brought about by a spike in world oil prices, which was externally driven, and the rise of rice prices, which was due to internal incompetence.
President Rodrigo Duterte’s approval ratings dipped as rice and other commodity prices rose, but mercifully, if not miraculously, by just a few points. His predecessors had been far unlucky, be it FVR or GMA, when similar price crises dogged their administrations. And as the Year of the Dog began to exit, Duterte’s approval ratings inched upward to an amazing 74 percent.
This particular Dog, apparently, loves the Rooster who leads the country.
Bur another Dog, this time Donald Trump, saw his political fortunes rise as the economy recovered early in 2018. Because of his reckless statements and often irascible conduct, however, his fortunes descended as the Dog began to wind up.
The results of the mid-term elections came as silent rebuke of the Donald, with the House of Representatives going back to the Democrats, even as he held a slim majority in the Senate.
In the last quarter of the year, Dog Donald’s personal and political life was wracked with scandal, his Defense secretary, the highly respected Jim Mattis, calling it quits, unable to make sense of his POTUS’ irascible foreign and security policies and knee-jerk pronouncements.
As Christmas approached, the US Congress failed to pass the federal budget, and while the government has not ground to total standstill, the effects on both economy and livelihood of hundreds of thousands of government employees have taken punitive toll.
Rooster Rodrigo’s budget is also held hostage, not by the war on drugs as Donald’s was held up by his stubborn desire to build a great wall of Texas, but by quarrels over pork – not slivers, but slabs.
(In a pre-Christmas lunch with a congressional expert where the subject of conversation was legislators’ pork, he chided me for my longobsolete calculation of the pork barrel, which was in the hundred million estimate. “Lito, you’re so 1990s”, he exclaimed, “it’s now a billion each congressman, hidden more cleverly than before!”)
When will Donald get his budget done? Will he budge on his dream of a great wall of Texas? When will Duterte (and Diokno) get the GAA passed? As the Dog exits, enter the Pig.
Elsewhere, Emmanuel Macron the Snake saw his political fortune collapse amid anger from the yellow vests (that color Mocha and RJ Nieto detest) while a year back he was the darling of France and Europe. So did Angela Merkel. And Theresa May, whose Brexit till now is neither here nor there.
Closer to home, Xi Jinping is locked eyeball-to-eyeball with Trump on trade policies, but will Trump still be around as the Pig enters?
Xi will definitely be around come Pig or whatever, with the plenum having elevated him to the status of a Mao. And as the Dog exited, his first message for the Gregorian year has been directed at Taiwan, whose political leadership’s yearning has been one of independence, “unthinkable” to Xi and the PROC.
Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen and the DPP suffered political defeat in the mid-term elections of November 24, with rival KMT recovering after just two years. Defiant still, how will Taiwan’s political leadership confront Xi Jinping’s doggedness in 2019?
Taiwan’s economy has been amazingly resilient despite soured cross-strait relations. Even tourism, which suffered greatly with tour groups from the mainland taking a nose-dive in 2017, is now on recovery mode after Taiwan announced visa-free travel for a 14-day period for countries to its south, the Philippines included.
The Philippine economy, on the other hand, is still Asia’s marvel, despite inflation woes in 2018 which have been squelched only through massive importation of staples and the downswing of world oil prices, but clearly demonstrated has been the laggard performance of the agriculture sector.
How will our economy fare in 2019?
Politics even in an election year, will be quite un-exciting, given that there seem to be more “sure” senatorial winners than newcomers entering that political club. The local races are more exciting, although in many parts of the countryside, elections have become no-contests, because of “buying-out” and cutting deals.
Worse, violence as electoral short-cut. Mercifully, Rodel Batocabe’s hit-men are singing, and the motive has been deemed political. Congratulations to the PNP for quick action.
On a personal note though, I wish businessman Dominic L. Sytin’s murderer will soon be flushed out. As I write, it has been 40 days since, and solution to this heinous murder seems quite unclear.
During the holidays too, a dear friend departed this world, after a long and full life, Rizal Congressman Guilberto “Bibit” Duavit. My sincere though belated condolences to Manang Vilma, one of my bosses in the Kapwa Ko, Mahal Ko Foundation, and the children.
Likewise to the Pimentel-Ty family of Surigao del Sur, with the Christmas Day demise of Governor Vicente Jr. Profound condolences to Congressman Johnny and the entire family. As a political technician, I have worked with the Pimentel and Serra-Ty families closely in the past, and my latest conversation with Governor Vicente was in my sister’s coffee shop at the Robinson Mall in Butuan, during the early days of 2015, when he and I discussed his early support for then-Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte of Davao City, who with his help soon became president of the country.