“The public discourse shifted from accountability and governance toward political arithmetic, loyalty tests, and tactical positioning”
The crisis at the Senate nowadays — marked by leadership tensions, shifting alliances, and political maneuverings surrounding the impeachment proceedings against Vice President Sara Duterte — has once again exposed a troubling reality in Philippine governance: when institutions become consumed by partisan survival, national priorities suffer.
Instead of projecting stability and statesmanship during a politically sensitive moment, the country witnessed a spectacle that effectively crowded out what should have been one of the most consequential constitutional processes in recent years.
The public discourse shifted from accountability and governance toward political arithmetic, loyalty tests, and tactical positioning.
Moments like these inevitably invite comparisons to past leadership models — and in such moments, many Filipinos quietly remember former President Fidel V. Ramos.
More than two decades after his presidency, Fidel V. Ramos increasingly stands as the gold standard in governance and crisis management.
FVR understood that leadership during political turbulence required not grandstanding, but institutional steadiness. His governance philosophy was anchored on three simple yet powerful principles: UST — Unity, Solidarity, and Teamwork.
To Ramos, governance was never about perpetual political warfare.
It was about aligning institutions toward national objectives. He believed that even political rivals must ultimately work together for the stability of the Republic.
One of his most effective governance mechanisms was the revitalization of the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council or LEDAC.
While many administrations viewed Congress either as an enemy or as a compliant extension of Malacañang, Ramos transformed LEDAC into a genuine platform for coordination, consultation, and consensus-building.
Under FVR, major economic reforms moved with clarity and direction because the Executive and Legislative branches communicated regularly.
Key laws involving privatization, energy reform, telecommunications liberalization, and economic modernization did not emerge from chaos but from disciplined dialogue and strategic collaboration.
Ramos understood a lesson many leaders today appear to forget: governance is a shared responsibility.
That leadership style became most evident during the crippling power crisis of the early 1990s. When Ramos assumed office in 1992, the country was suffering from daily brownouts lasting up to 12 hours. Businesses shut down. Investments stalled. Public frustration deepened.
The nation’s economic future hung in uncertainty. Yet FVR confronted the crisis head-on. He mobilized technocrats, coordinated with Congress, engaged the private sector, and made politically difficult but necessary decisions. He did not govern by paralysis or blame-shifting.
He governed with urgency and clarity. Within a relatively short period, the power crisis eased, investor confidence returned, and the economy regained momentum.
Equally significant was Ramos’ ability to manage political instability without deepening divisions.
Having survived multiple coup attempts during the Aquino administration and later assuming the presidency amid institutional fragility,
FVR understood the dangers of political polarization. Instead of ruling through vengeance, he pursued reconciliation and national healing. Former Senator Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan – once associated with military uprisings against the government — would later acknowledge Ramos’ statesmanship and leadership.
In a Situation Report Special aired by DZRH last Saturday, Honasan pointed at President Ramos as the gold standard of Philippine leadership in a crisis.
According to Honasan, Ramos once spent two hours over dinner talking to his political enemies, one by one, and paid for the meal himself, making even Honasan, then a neophyte senator, feel that his presence and his opinions genuinely mattered.
Honasan also credited FVR for helping professionalize the Armed Forces and for choosing unity over division.
That may be one of Ramos’ greatest legacies: the understanding that leadership is measured not by how many enemies one destroys, but by how many divisions one heals.
Today, amid Senate turmoil, impeachment tensions, and intensifying political fragmentation, the nation is once again reminded of what disciplined leadership once looked like. FVR governed not through noise, but through institutions. He did so not through political spectacle, but through steady crisis management.
More importantly, FVR did it his way not through endless division, but through Unity, Solidarity, and Teamwork.
And perhaps that is why, years after his presidency, Fidel V. Ramos remains the standard against which many Filipinos still measure leadership in times of national uncertainty.
And with the Philippines in the middle of one of its most turbulent weeks in recent memory, perhaps Honasan’s take about the FVR model is not nostalgia but a practical blueprint for what the country’s leaders must do right now.
(The writer, president/chief executive officer of Media Touchstone Ventures, Inc. and president/executive director of the Million Trees Foundation Inc., a non-government outfit advocating tree-planting and environmental protection, is the official biographer of President Fidel V. Ramos.)
