“You are my Boss!” was what PNoy told us when he assumed the presidency and delivered his inaugural speech at the Quirino Grandstand on June 30, 2010.
And to make sure that we misunderstood him, he expressed this message in his now famous and often-quoted Tagalog words “Kayo ang Boss ko!”
It must have been well-understood also by Vice President Jejomar Binay, Former Presidents Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada, and Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and House Speaker Prospero Nograles who all attended his inauguration but not by his predecessor, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who wasn’t there.
Noticeably, the President of East Timor—Jose Ramos-Horta —was the only head of state that attended and was, either by design or by default, the principal guest.
But President Ramos must have been uneasy while seated nearby. After all, he had barred the East Timor president from entering the Philippines and speaking to 500 participants of the “Manila Peoples Forum” that was to be held a month before the forthcoming Apec conference of 1996.
President Ramos-Horta had already been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize by then but he was still an exiled resistance leader, fighting Indonesian rule over his country. Thus, our President Ramos considered him a security risk who could create trouble in that Apec conference—for Indonesia, of course.
Avoiding criticizing President Ramos while describing himself as one “who has only the greatest respect and admiration for the Philippines,” President Ramos-Horta had asked humbly:
“Who am I to be able to disrupt a summit of mighty states like Indonesia, the Philippines, Korea, China, and the United States? I am a bit like Mickey Mouse, and they are accusing me, a Mickey Mouse, of trying to disrupt a party of elephants.”
The inauguration was also spiced up with the drama of the incumbent Supreme Court chief justice—Renato Corona—not administering the oath of office of the incoming president. PNoy did not even acknowledge his presence, a demeanor that should have warned the chief justice of worse things to come to him from PNoy—impeachment on Dec. 12, 2011 and removal as chief justice on May 29, 2012.
Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales—who would be appointed Ombudsman a year after—administered instead the oath.
It was undoubtedly an inauguration so uniquely unlike previous ones.
PNoy’s inaugural address consisted of only 51 short paragraphs and 2,042 words—inclusive of the courteous salutation and the mandatory ending —but he must have valued it as the masterplan of his six-year presidency.
In it he promised that “no one shall be left behind,” which he expressed very emphatically in our easily understood Tagalog expression of “walang maiiwan.”
We first paid little attention to this rhetorical and seemingly innocent expression but soon saw it again as the serious central theme in the Philippine Development Plan 2011-2016 that the National Economic and Development Authority wrote.
It’s title of “In pursuit of inclusive growth” was obviously derived from “walang maiiwan,” which Neda immediately realized had to be explained at the very start:
“Inclusive growth means, first of all, growth that is rapid enough to matter, given the country’s large population, geographical differences, and social complexity. It is sustained growth that creates jobs, draws the majority into the economic and social mainstream, and continuously reduces mass poverty.”
Neda then assured us that:
“With good governance and anticorruption as the overarching theme of each and every intervention, the Plan translates into specific goals, objectives, strategies, programs and projects all the things that we want to accomplish in the medium term.”
Frankly, we never comprehended what inclusive growth meant and could only blame Neda for using the economists’ lingo to explain it.
But we were pressed again into understanding it when we hosted the Apec Leaders’ Meeting last week that had the theme “Building inclusive economies, Building a better world.”
Accordingly, the 21 member economies of Apec committed to promote and advance inclusive growth in the region as they had defined, described, and analyzed in three levels—domestic or national, regional, and macro.
At the domestic or national level, it is “based on creating employment opportunities and jobs, involving and integrating the majority of the population in the economic and social mainstream and alleviating poverty through good governance and domestic reform.”
But we like most the sound of its description at the macro level—“centered on bridging the gap between developing and developed Apec economies for the purpose of maximizing the benefits of a freer and more open trade and investment regime for each and every member economy.”
Poor me and my senior citizen friends—we still couldn’t make much sense of these explanations although they seem as mere rewordings of Neda’s Plan.
But even if we understand vaguely the meaning of inclusive growth, we are now embracing its pursuit as something better than building a caring and sharing society, establishing a strong republic, or pursuing the straight path.
The good thing is we are the boss. And according to PNoy, we are not being left behind—we’re included—in our growth.
