Today’s State of the Nation Address by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte will be a departure from similar events past. There will be an absence of pomp.
No more hundred-thousand-peso long gowns and a parade of “beauties” being asked inanities by otherwise intelligent media persons about their fashion designer. No more fifty-thousand-peso barongs made of the finest silk cocoon or whatever fabric the fashionistas label these. No more jockeying for who among the senators and congressmen would fetch the president from the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office room at the south wing and escort him to the cavernous plenary hall.
So very simple. So very refreshing. So very Duterte.
In one of the light moments during the pre-campaign, I recall a discussion about protocol, where I wondered why government officials, from the highest to the lowest, are so in love with pomp and circumstance (even if no one recognizes Elgar, the British composer), and why even barangay kagawads prefix their names with “honorable” and emblazon these in the walls of their barangay halls. Shouldn’t there be a book on protocol, I wondered? The present executive secretary, Bingbong Medialdea, remarked, “Oo nga, ano? Ang yayabang kasi natin, lahat na lang honorable.”
On Wednesday evening, we were seated together at the birthday dinner of a common friend from Cebu, along with Cabinet secretaries Vit Aguirre and Art Tugade and Pagcor president Fred Lim. Secretary Medialdea showed me from his cellphone a memorandum order just issued by the Palace, which forbade from hereon, addressing the President as “His Excellency,” and other government officials as “Honorable.” Wow! Change has indeed come.
I remember when I was the general manager of the Philippine Tourism Authority. As head of a GOCC, the proper title for the office-holder was a simple “Mr.” But everyone who wrote me would address with an “honorable” prefix.
In one of our meetings, a career official said that is why she preferred to be Usec instead of PTA GM. At least she is addressed “Honorable,” she claimed. A week or so later, President Joseph Estrada appointed me to a concurrent position, which was Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs with rank of Cabinet. The female official and I shared an elevator ride shortly after, and then she said, so primly, “O, ‘honorable’ na rin pala ang address sa inyo, sir!” What the f–k, I thought.
Being “honorable” was also expensive. When we were sworn in June 30, 1998 at the ceremonial hall of Malacañang, each of us were allotted a circular table for eight or 10, so our families could witness our being sworn to office. A sumptuous lunch was served. But we had to be properly attired. This meant formal dresses for the ladies. And us husbands/fathers had to pay. In stark contrast, the inauguration of Rodrigo Duterte was theater-sitting in the same hall, but with no frills.
These days, you can enter Malacañang without being in a barong or business suit. A friend of mine was asked recently to meet the ES in his office. He came in a long-sleeved barong to face the executive secretary, who was just wearing a checkered polo shirt. As he left the office and sashayed into the still-unfurnished ground floor lobby, he saw the President himself in the upper floor, wearing a simple corduroy shirt, sleeves rolled, over denim trousers. Recounting what he thought was rather surreal (having been in government before as well) my friend exclaimed, “wala nang negosyo si Paul Cabral and Liz Uy sa gobyerno ni Digong!”
We have a President who wants to identify with the ordinary folks in every way possible, from speech to demeanor to apparel. “I am just a government employee,” he keeps reminding us, “because the Filipino people are our employers.”
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While Singapore is not exactly in my list of favorite cities in the world, I always admire the sleek efficiency and the antiseptic cleanliness of this city state which is just about the size of Quezon City and Marikina put together.
Apart from an efficient mass transport system which allows citizens to live in neighboring Johore Bahru, Malaysia and commute daily to and from Singapore, they have a vehicle ownership system that puts a limit to the number of cars residents could own. There is a “certificate of entitlement” or COE which one has to have (and it costs thousands of Singapore dollars to have one) before one could own a car. It is like a “torrens title” that you could sell or transfer as you please. This makes owning a car more expensive.
Parking is a problem, and since chauffeurs are a premium, even the well-heeled have to take a taxi or ride public conveyances to eat in a restaurant in central Singapore. Almost every building has ample parking spaces, but the cost of parking is quite prohibitive, charged to one’s RFID-installed billing system. More so the fines for illegal parking.
In Metro Manila, thanks to low-cost motor vehicle financing, almost every family scrimps to have a car, no thanks to a decrepit public transportation system. And where do they park? Why, in front of their houses or apartments on narrow streets, taking up a good part of the road such that if a fire should occur, fire trucks could not pass.
While Art Tugade moves heaven and earth to install the much-needed trains and other public transport systems, maybe it is time to consider Singapore’s certificates of entitlement, and ban parking in narrow streets, giving business to owners of vacant lots who just might invest even in multi-level steel parking contraptions.
I live in a Manila neighborhood once genteel, but having eschewed moving to the suburbs or living in a high-rise, I now sometimes regret the decision. Our once-nice community has become the locus of several high-rise condominiums populated by students of three “exclusive” because expensive schools, as well as their transient visiting families. And our streets have become huge parking lots for these students who come to school in cars their doting parents bought for them.
Even narrow streets have been “occupied” by barangay tanods who make a living out of being parking attendants, while city hall makes a hefty sum out of parking tickets. If I had an empty lot, I could make a tidy fortune out of a two or three-level parking enterprise, provided street parking is disallowed.
Ugh. So many cars with streets so narrow that the metropolis has burst over several times its carrying capacity. Add to this that god-damned number-coding scheme that has only increased the number of motor vehicles in our cities.
It’s a tough job for the hardy Art Tugade and whoever will be named Metro Manila Development Authority chairperson as well as the mayors who have to pander to their voters. This is a chicken-and-egg riddle between providing cost-efficient public transport systems and prescribing difficult disciplinary measures.