Monday, June 5, 2023
manilastandard.net
ADVERTISEMENT
  • About
  • News
    • Top Stories
    • National
    • World News
    • Pinoy Abroad
    • Features
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Columns
    • Soundbytes
  • LGUs
    • NCR
    • Luzon
    • Visayas
    • Mindanao
  • Business
    • Corporate
    • Economy & Trade
    • Stocks
    • Money
    • Agri & Mining
    • Power & Tech
    • IT & Telecom
  • Sports
    • Basketball
    • Volleyball
    • Fightsports
    • Active
    • Sports Plus
    • One Championship
    • Columns
  • Entertainment
    • TV & Movies
    • Celebrity Profiles
    • Music & Concerts
    • Digital Media
    • Columns
  • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Culture & Media
    • Fashion
    • Health and Home
    • Leisure
    • Shopping
    • Columns
  • Others
    • Pets
    • Pop.Life
      • Newsmakers
      • Hangouts
      • A-Pop
      • Post Its
      • Performances
      • Malls & Bazaars
      • Hobbies & Collections
    • Technology
      • Gadgets
      • Computers
      • Business
      • Tech Plus
    • MS ON THE ROAD
      • Sedan
      • SUV
      • Truck
      • Bike
      • Accessories
      • Motoring Plus
      • Commuter’s Corner
    • Home & Design
      • Residential
      • Commercial
      • Construction
      • Interior
    • Spotlight
    • Gallery
      • Photos
      • Videos
    • Events
      • Seminars
      • Exhibits
      • Community
    • Biyahero
      • Travel Features
      • Travel Reels
      • Travel Logs
  • Advertise with Us
No Result
View All Result
  • About
  • News
    • Top Stories
    • National
    • World News
    • Pinoy Abroad
    • Features
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Columns
    • Soundbytes
  • LGUs
    • NCR
    • Luzon
    • Visayas
    • Mindanao
  • Business
    • Corporate
    • Economy & Trade
    • Stocks
    • Money
    • Agri & Mining
    • Power & Tech
    • IT & Telecom
  • Sports
    • Basketball
    • Volleyball
    • Fightsports
    • Active
    • Sports Plus
    • One Championship
    • Columns
  • Entertainment
    • TV & Movies
    • Celebrity Profiles
    • Music & Concerts
    • Digital Media
    • Columns
  • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Culture & Media
    • Fashion
    • Health and Home
    • Leisure
    • Shopping
    • Columns
  • Others
    • Pets
    • Pop.Life
      • Newsmakers
      • Hangouts
      • A-Pop
      • Post Its
      • Performances
      • Malls & Bazaars
      • Hobbies & Collections
    • Technology
      • Gadgets
      • Computers
      • Business
      • Tech Plus
    • MS ON THE ROAD
      • Sedan
      • SUV
      • Truck
      • Bike
      • Accessories
      • Motoring Plus
      • Commuter’s Corner
    • Home & Design
      • Residential
      • Commercial
      • Construction
      • Interior
    • Spotlight
    • Gallery
      • Photos
      • Videos
    • Events
      • Seminars
      • Exhibits
      • Community
    • Biyahero
      • Travel Features
      • Travel Reels
      • Travel Logs
  • Advertise with Us
No Result
View All Result
manilastandard.net
No Result
View All Result
Home Opinion Columns So I See by Lito Banayo

A stone for the edifice

Lito BanayobyLito Banayo
June 30, 2021, 12:00 am
in So I See by Lito Banayo
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Email

"To snipe at perceived failures of a former president simply because these are borne by biases and prejudice are not only in poor taste, but poor judgment."

 

A very good and morally upright president by most standards, Diosdado Pangan Macapagal, the “poor boy from Lubao” in the plains of Pampanga, gave a very memorable description of what a president should achieve.

In all modesty, he described his four-year stint as leader of the benighted land (then and still), as “laying a stone for the edifice.” In fine, the task of nation building is a long and arduous one. Leaders come and go, whether by election in a democracy, or by the natural recourse of history and life itself.

Unless a leader had become so rapaciously corrupt, as in the case of some notorious ones in Africa and Latin America, each one leaves office and allows history to judge it. Often, history is kind to those who left a stone or some in the task of nation-building.

One such leader was Elpidio Rivera Quirino, the son of a jail warden in Vigan, Ilocos Sur towards the end of the Spanish colonial regime, who, having been educated to become a lawyer, entered politics and became one of the mercurial Manuel Luis Quezon’s trusted “bright” men.

An accident of fate brought him to the presidency after the popular Manuel Acuna Roxas died of a heart attack while delivering a speech at Clark Air Base, then America’s largest military base in the Philippines.

It was a difficult time to become president. The country was still rising from the ashes of the Pacific War. Manila was the second most devastated city in the world after Warsaw in Poland. Ironically, the devastation was wrought by American liberation forces who had to carpet bomb the “pearl of the Orient” to flush out snipers and hold-outs of the Japanese Imperial Army.

Reconstruction and rehabilitation was not easy, and American aid was rather niggardly toward its former colony compared to what it poured into the Japan it defeated and the Europe for which it had a Marshall Plan.

Furthermore, the Hukbalahap, a socialist rebellion borne out of the poverty of the landless in Central Luzon and exacerbated by the earlier exclusion of their leaders from the parliamentary process was knocking at the environs of Metro Manila from the foothills of the Sierra Madre which they controlled.

Corruption was rampant, as traditional politicians tried to recoup what losses they suffered during the war, from immigration rackets to smuggling, to all kinds of corruption. And while the newly-installed president was as honest as could be, he was surrounded by party-mates in the Liberal Party who were far from spotless.

Still and all, Quirino did his best, from putting his foot down on the incursions of the American ambassadors into our sovereign prerogatives, to reducing the number of military bases, to hastening the tedious work of reconstruction. He started the Maria Cristina hydro-electric project in Iligan, Ambuklao in the Montanosa, irrigation projects in the Cagayan Valley and Central Luzon, even a cement plant in Cebu, among others. He laid the foundations for our financial system and central banking. He built housing projects for the poor and lower middle classes in what was then cogon grassland which is now Quezon City.

But poor health and the dislike of the then still very powerful American influence in the country decimated Quirino’s approval and trust from the electorate. Eventually, his re-election in 1953 was challenged by his own nino bonito, Ramon del Fierro Magsaysay of Zambales, whom he plucked from Congress to become his Secretary of National Defense.

The young Magsaysay, at 46 the youngest to run for the presidency at the time, trounced his padrino Quirino at the polls. Dejected, the defeated president who was widowed when his wife was killed by the Japanese during the Liberation of Manila, retired to a modest farmhouse in Novaliches, and in less than a year after his defeat, passed away.

But the stones for the edifice that he placed upon the building of our nation last up to this time, and while the passions of the election of 1953 were unkind to the man, history eventually has been kind. Many, this writer included, believe that Elpidio Quirino was one of our best presidents.

And so did all our presidents leave a stone or many to the edifice, as President Diosdado Macapagal, who de-controlled the peso and the economy, despite incipient unpopularity. He also expanded the reach of agrarian reform, which succeeding presidents, Ferdinand Edralin Marcos and Corazon Cojuangco Aquino expanded further, even if controversies abound more on its implementation than the wisdom of land distribution.

PFVR further opened up the economy, loosening the grip of oligarchies in telecommunications and the financial sector, among many other reforms. Even the short-lived Erap Estrada managed to increase agricultural growth during his term. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who reigned for nine long years instituted what were unpopular reforms during her stint that turned out to become strong foundations for economic growth.

And so did Benigno Simeon Aquino III, scion, like GMA, to a previous president, continue the task of nation-building by adding several stones to the edifice. By a mix of right financial and fiscal policies, the economy grew by unprecedented levels, and our country achieved investment grade sovereign ratings which preceded a long and subsisting low-interest regime. That fiscal space allowed our present economic managers to spur the Build, Build, Build infrastructure program of the current leadership.

For certain, Rodrigo Roa Duterte, apart from his controversial but popularly accepted war on drugs and the prevailing improved peace and order situation in the country, along with his concrete infrastructure legacies, shall be credited for many stones in our nation’s edifice.

It is easy for us to criticize presidents from the armchairs and the laptops we write upon.

A free press and the freedom of expression, after all, are the hallmarks of democracy, without which, authoritarianism prevails. The checks and balances enhanced by public criticism are essential to fostering good governance from our rulers by pointing out shortcomings and when substantiated, failures in moral and legal standards.

But we should give credit where credit is due. To snipe at perceived failures of a former president simply because these are borne by biases and prejudice are not only in poor taste, but poor judgment.

Let history judge, and let generations after, measure the stone, or stones, each president leaves in the edifice of nation-building.

Tags: Diosdado Pangan MacapagalElpidio Rivera QuirinoLito BanayoManuel Acuna Roxas
ADVERTISEMENT
Lito Banayo

Lito Banayo

Related Posts

Too many lawyers?

byLito Banayo
June 5, 2023, 12:10 am
0
8
A crisis president

Or is this the case when too many lawyers crowd their profession, and the justice system has become for sale?...

Read more

Ang sibuyas, bow!

byLito Banayo
June 1, 2023, 12:05 am
0
8
A crisis president

" Yet, our economic managers assure us that the 2022-2023 chapter on the saga of the sibuyas will not happen...

Read more

AI

byLito Banayo
May 29, 2023, 12:10 am
0
8
A crisis president

Another welcome news is the President’s call upon Congress to pass the National Land Use bill into law Everyone is...

Read more

After the weeping

byLito Banayo
May 25, 2023, 12:10 am
0
8
A crisis president

"After the weeping over heritage treasures lost, we should move forward with a renewed sense of history, a love of...

Read more

Short shrift

byLito Banayo
May 22, 2023, 12:05 am
0
8
A crisis president

The Cold War-Part Two, has begun, this time with most of Europe, the US, Canada and Australia on one side,...

Read more

Who’s minding the store?

byLito Banayo
May 18, 2023, 12:15 am
0
8
A crisis president

"And the privates who have mastered the intricacies of the market are buying high because they sense some ‘good news’...

Read more

Print Edition

View More

Recent Posts

  • Hong Kong police detain more than 20 on Tiananmen anniversary
  • A BROWN COMPANY, INC.: Notice of Annual Stockholders’ Meeting
  • For people and planet
  • #BeatPlasticPollution
  • Gov’t seeks to lessen dependency on ‘ayuda’
  • Asia-Pacific may sink into‘ whirlpool’ of conflict–China
  • Admin revises MUP proposal, now offers 3 pension options
  • ‘Too many cars, too few mass transit systems’ worsen PH traffic

Advertisement

Latest News

Asia-Pacific may sink into‘ whirlpool’ of conflict–China

byAFP
June 5, 2023, 1:10 am
0
8
Asia-Pacific may sink into‘ whirlpool’ of conflict–China

China Defense Minister Li Shangfu Chinese Defense minister Li Shangfu on Sunday warned against establishing NATO-like military alliances in the...

Read more

Admin revises MUP proposal, now offers 3 pension options

byJulito G. Rada
June 5, 2023, 1:10 am
0
8
Southwoods nails Seniors’ Fil golf crown

The administration’s economic team adjusted current proposals for the military and uniformed personnel (MUP) pension reform, which will now offer...

Read more

‘Too many cars, too few mass transit systems’ worsen PH traffic

byManila Standard
June 5, 2023, 1:05 am
0
8
MMDA: Modified number coding to start after May 9 polls

An American political science expert said traffic gridlock in the Philippines is caused by underinvestment in mass transit systems and...

Read more

PAGASA: 2 LPAs may enhance ‘habagat’

byRio N. Araja
June 5, 2023, 1:00 am
0
8
LPA to bring rains on storm-hit sites

The state weather bureau is monitoring two low pressure areas which may enhance the southwest monsoon or habagat. In its...

Read more

PH gets 1st batch of bivalent COVID vax from Lithuania

byMacon Ramos-Araneta
June 5, 2023, 12:55 am
0
8
PH gets 1st batch of bivalent COVID vax from Lithuania

1ST BATCH. Close to 400,000 doses of bivalent COVID-19 vaccines donated by Lithuania arrive in the country Saturday evening. DOH...

Read more

Advertisement

ADVERTISEMENT
Facebook Twitter Instagram Youtube

ABOUT US

Manila Standard

Manila Standard website (manilastandard.net), launched in August 2002, extends the newspaper’s reach beyond its traditional readers and makes its brand of Philippine news and opinion available to a much wider and geographically diverse readership here and overseas.

Digital Edition

In tone and content, the online edition mirrors the editorial thrust of the newspaper. While hewing to the traditional precepts of fairness and objectivity, MS believes the news of the day need not be staid, overly long or dry. Stories are succinct, readable and written in a lively style that has become a hallmark of the newspaper.

Download – Today’s Paper

Search

No Result
View All Result

6th Floor Universal Re Bldg., 106 Paseo De Roxas cor. Perea Street, Legaspi Village, 1226 Makati City Philippines

Trunklines: 832-5554, 832-5556, 832-5558

© 2021 Manila Standard - Designed and Developed by Neitiviti Studios.

No Result
View All Result
  • About
  • News
    • Top Stories
    • National
    • World News
    • Pinoy Abroad
    • Features
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Columns
    • Soundbytes
  • LGUs
    • NCR
    • Luzon
    • Visayas
    • Mindanao
  • Business
    • Corporate
    • Economy & Trade
    • Stocks
    • Money
    • Agri & Mining
    • Power & Tech
    • IT & Telecom
  • Sports
    • Basketball
    • Volleyball
    • Fightsports
    • Active
    • Sports Plus
    • One Championship
    • Columns
  • Entertainment
    • TV & Movies
    • Celebrity Profiles
    • Music & Concerts
    • Digital Media
    • Columns
  • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Culture & Media
    • Fashion
    • Health and Home
    • Leisure
    • Shopping
    • Columns
  • Pop.Life
    • Newsmakers
    • Hangouts
    • A-Pop
    • Post Its
    • Performances
    • Malls & Bazaars
    • Hobbies & Collections
  • Technology
    • Gadgets
    • Computers
    • Business
    • Tech Plus
  • MS ON THE ROAD
    • Sedan
    • SUV
    • Truck
    • Bike
    • Accessories
    • Motoring Plus
    • Commuter’s Corner
  • Home & Design
    • Residential
    • Commercial
    • Construction
    • Interior
  • Spotlight
  • Gallery
    • Photos
    • Videos
  • Events
    • Seminars
    • Exhibits
    • Community
  • Biyahero
    • Travel Features
    • Travel Reels
    • Travel Logs
  • Pets
  • Advertise with Us

© 2021 Manila Standard - Designed and Developed by Neitiviti Studios.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Install Manila Standard Web App

Install App