"Exciting times are up ahead for the Philippines this year."
"Exciting times are up ahead for the Philippines this year."
Gone with the old, in with the new. We bid adieu to 2019, and welcome a new decade. The last two weeks were replete with well wishes and resolutions.
2019 was an election year, and as everyone expected, the administration allies topped the senatorial race. This overwhelming electoral victory cemented President Rodrigo Duterte’s hold on the current affaires d’état, bringing several election first-timers to the upper house. After the midterm elections, President Duterte was instrumental in brokering an uneasy truce among contenders to the speakership in the House of Representatives, avoiding an unnecessary break in his ranks. With the so-called 15-21 formula, former Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano would serve for 15 months, after which Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Velasco would continue with the remaining 21 more months of the Duterte administration. The third contender, Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, was elected Majority Leader, serving for the full three terms of the Eighteenth Congress. A solomonic decision, so it seems.
Six months after the elections, President Duterte continues to enjoy the overwhelming confidence of the people, if the surveys were to be believed. Surprisingly, even the people’s trust in Congress seemed to have a significant boost, making the legislature one of the trusted institutions in the country.
If the last elections were to serve as a vote of confidence on the Duterte administration, there is no doubt that the President has passed with flying colors. Despite the controversies and criticism, support for Duterte remains unwavering, indicating perhaps the unusual political optimism that pervades the country’s population.
Unusual because in most previous administrations, support for a president tends to wane on the last three months of the term of office. Such is not the case for the current occupant of Malacañang. If he continues to keep the people’s confidence, it would not be surprising for Duterte to have a hand in selecting his successor—something that was denied to all of his post-EDSA predecessors.
Whom will he choose is a matter that we have yet to be determined. Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte has been mentioned several times as a possible contender in the next presidential elections. Manny Pacquiao is said to be gearing up for a presidential fight, as well as the opposition’s number one, Vice President Leni Robredo. Other familiar names of course crop up from time to time. But then again, this is no longer politics as usual. It seems that the president from the South has effectively redefined Philippine politics, and we may have to wait and see if such change in political behavior and temperament among voters and candidates alike, will continue on to the next elections.
It may be a little more than two more years to the next election, but there is no doubt that 2020 will jumpstart the pre-election intramurals, as candidates and reelections position themselves for a win.
But there are significant small wins that are worth considering. Tingog Party-list, a regional political party based in Eastern Visayas, successfully landed a seat in the House of Representatives with Rep. Yedda Marie K. Romualdez as its representative. Now, its voice can now be heard in the halls of Congress. In its first six months in office, it successfully championed several pieces of landmark legislation, including the Alternative Learning System Bill, the Disaster Resilience Bill and the recently signed Malasakit Center Act. Several other priority bills remain in the pipeline, among them the long-overdue establishment of a DOH-run tertiary hospital in Samar island, the increase in the age for determining statutory rape, the creation of the Leyte Industrial Ecological Zone and the Magna Carta of Commuters.
My prayer is that 2020 will be a much better year for the Philippines. I hope there will be less politicking and more performance. With the impending passage of the third tranche of the tax reform package, the administration is confident that this will lead to an upgrade in the country’s credit rating—which will, in turn, attract more investors and create more jobs for Filipinos.
Exciting times are up ahead for the Philippines this 2020. The season for elections is over, and the time has come for us to roll up our sleeves and work for our country’s growth. I hope that with the strong trust that he continues to enjoy the President would spend his political capital to fulfill whatever is left of campaign promises in the last two years of his term. In the same way, I would like to see a political opposition that will remain unrelenting in its resolve to fiscalize and criticize whatever needs change and correcting. Because, even as the times and seasons change, or the political colors shift—the Philippines will always be our home and Filipinos we will always and ever be.
For richer, or poorer—the choice will always be ours.
Happy New Year!