A few months ago, President Duterte, in one of his speeches, asked the nation to give him three years to put the country in order.
He did not elaborate what exactly he was referring to with the phrase. He probably meant all the problems he inherited from the previous administration like drugs, lawlessness, corruption, and the peace process.
Now he has just completed his first year in office and it is customary to assess how much of his promises he has fulfilled. And depending on which side of the aisle one is in, the President either has had a resoundingly successful or an utterly failed first year.
I quite agree with the observation of some people that one year is not really enough to judge the success or failure of a presidency. Still, we are used to evaluating the first 100 days, the first six months and the first year of a president. President Duterte, however, is the first leader to ask the people for three years to solve all the problems of the country. It was a bold move. But this president is made from different stock and is the most unconventional leader that this country has ever had. Can he do it?
After a year in office, in spite of criticism both domestically and internationally, his approval ratings remain high. This is probably all that matters to him. Without passing any judgment on whether the past year has been a success or not, let us see what has happened so far.
In the economic field, the economy grew 6.4 percent in the first quarter and is poised to grow stronger in the second quarter. The peso, however, has tumbled to its lowest rate versus the United States dollar in almost 11 years. The government has lined up an P8.7-trillion five-year infrastructure program that will eventually be equivalent to 7.5 percent of our Gross Domestic Product by 2022. None of the projects as far as I know have started.
We now have a new central bank governor who delivered an inaugural speech widely praised as pro-poor. Although the President is known as a populist, Congress is now passing a tax bill that will put more burden to the poorer segment of society to pay more taxes. When the President was campaigning, he said that peace and order would be solved in three to six months. Now, we know that the anti-drug campaign will go on until the last day of his presidency. We also now have a full-pledge battle in our hands in the City of Marawi which has now been destroyed. And if the government moves like the last administration with regard to the reconstruction of Tacloban City, then the remaining five years of this administration will not be enough. The peace-and-order problem in Mindanao will also not end with the retaking of Marawi City if Isnilon Hapilon, the two Maute brothers together with the dozens of foreign jihadist fighters, are not captured or killed as a result of the fighting.
The Marawi fighting has also exposed our defense inadequacies which need to be addressed even while the fighting in Marawi is going on. Training doctrines will have to be reviewed and more equipment must be procured to give the police and military more fire power like assault guns, armor and more advanced planes.
The boldest move of the President, however, is in foreign affairs when he initiated his pivot to China notwithstanding our conflict in the South China Sea. It is too early to say whether this is good on bad for the country but to be sure, there is a lot of uneasiness not only in some quarters in this country but with our traditional allies like Japan and Australia as well. We can only hope that the President has fully studied the situation and understands the consequences of the steps we are taking in relation to the grand strategy of China with regard to the region.
We have not even included here the peace process of the government with the CPP/NPA, the MILF and MNLF which has a long way to go and corruption which is probably undoable. Despite firing a number of ranking government officials due to corruption issues, the country has even gone down in the world corruption index which tells us a lot. Add the federalization of the government which needs an amendment to the Constitution and our problems increase immensely.
When a President takes over from another administration, he takes over a lot of problems and challenges left by his predecessor. Maybe what the President should just do is try his best within the six-year period of his presidency to make the country better than when he took over from his President Aquino. To attempt to solve all the problems and challenges in a short span of three years is probably too much and I do not think the people really expect that from any President.
President Duterte, because of his down-to-earth behavior, remains popular with his people. Rightly or wrongly, they identify with him. In this President, what the people see is what they get. There is no doubting his good intentions. We may not agree with all his methods but at least he is perceived to be sincere and we all hope that he will succeed specially in restoring order in Mindanao. Failure in Mindanao is unacceptable and is something that the country cannot afford at this time.