In an ideal world I guess I too would want Butch Abad as Speaker of the House. Unfortunately, the lower house is far from ideal. It is so to speak, a snake pit, with due apologies to the snakes. The job of Speaker requires getting one’s hands dirty in the process of winning legislative support for the President’s program of government. I can’t imagine Butch Abad going down to that level. I don’t know if Butch Abad has the stomach for that sort of thing.
Joe de V, on the other hand, is a natural for the job. I don’t think we should have any illusions about the nature of Philippine politics. Edsa 1, 2 and 3 notwithstanding, the Speakership is a job that plainly demands patience and wily politicking. It is the politics of compromise, the politics of addition. It is the politics of getting things done by whatever means.
And because we also do not have the luxury of time before the next uprising of the poor, we need someone who is able to rally the legislature quickly behind GMA. Sadly for the civil society types, that is a job tailor-made for Joe de V.
Actually, if you think about it, Joe de V isn’t all that bad a choice for House Speaker. He knows he has a serious image problem and he seems earnest in trying to turn it around. He claims he has no more ambitions for higher office. As such, he says he can devote his time to leaving behind a legacy of service that is diametrically at odds with his current image.
You know, he just might be telling the truth. While you are never too sure with politicians, still you should probably take them seriously when they start talking about leaving a legacy because he is on the way out.
Forget for the moment his cockamamie idea about a seven for seven program or a GDP growth rate of seven percent for seven years. Heck, we will be lucky not to go negative this year, seven percent pa kaya! But he may have something there when he says we have to rely on internal economic growth to get ourselves out of our current economic misery and fight poverty at the same time.
Actually, we don’t have a choice but to think micro and countryside entrepreneurship. We have borrowed to the hilt. The investors won’t touch us for years. And our export markets are in economic troubles too. But if we concentrated on projects that put buying power in the hands of consumers in the countryside, maybe we can turn the economy around.
Joe talks of a million trees being planted. And harnessing domestic private capital to build marketplaces in towns and cities around the country. Joe talks of making entrepreneurs out of our people. Maybe, just maybe, he might have something there. Not the tried and tested approaches of the past but now that past avenues are closed, what have we to lose by trying new ones?
Besides, Joe’s the only one with a readable plan of how to go from here to economic nirvana. His legislative agenda sounds good. While one may doubt the feasibility of his 747 plan, it is something in black and white to hold this politician to when accounting time comes.
Joe’s enthusiasm tends to boil over… sometimes too enthusiastic to be credible. I watched him as he tried to convince a group of editors why he makes sense. If he didn’t have the reputation of Joe de V, you may even say this man has vision or is an unrealistic dreamer. But he is Joe de V, the most down to earth politician I know. I decided to suspend my disbelief, closed my eyes and just listened. Maybe the pain of defeat has changed the man.
I open my eyes and see the same Joe de V. The man who can help GMA turn Congress around to support her programs. And because GMA is not Eddie Ramos, maybe Joe de V wouldn’t dare try an Amari on her. Maybe, just maybe, Joe de V will be a political positive for Malacañang this time around. He no longer has to raise funds for another try for the Presidency. Maybe, he can now be trusted not to have a side bet on his own political interests.
But one thing is sure: Joe de V is ready to get his hands dirty for the greater glory of Gloria and hopefully, the Filipino nation. If he can save us so much time by rallying a large majority behind Gloria quickly, he would have done a public service. The alternative is go the civil society route and its usual acrimonious debates that take forever.
You might want to include this in a series featuring "ODD LTO License Renewal requirements." In order to renew one’s Driver’s License, one has to surrender not only his plastic license but also one’s "Official Receipt". This receipt is given to a driver to serve as proof of payment as well as to initially serve as a temporary license pending processing of the plastic card license. After which, it is no longer valid as a license and serves no official purpose thereafter.
Now this same OR becomes critical and important again because you cannot renew your license without presenting this "useless OR". I wonder why my plastic license cannot suffice. The problem with this requirement is that it is quite easy to lose this OR. It becomes a hassle when this happens because they will ask you to get an affidavit to document the loss of a "useless" piece of paper that does not give any additional information apart from what is already contained in your plastic card anyway.
Can you forward my short treatise to Gen. Abenina, just for his info and hopefully the removal of this odd requirement. Besides which, I’m sure the General will agree that this just adds to the "paper pile" of the LTO. Now if the pile is a revenue generating scheme or a means to recycle paper, then that is a different story altogether.
Fat chance those bureaucrats at the LTO will consider changing their rule on that useless OR. Last week, they are still requiring my 16-year-old daughter to produce a tax account number before they can give her a student driver’s permit. What will it take to make this bureaucracy rational and responsive? If Gen. Abenina can’t do it, it is probably hopeless.
A patient goes to see a surgeon about having a brain transplant. The surgeon says: "I’ll give you a choice: you can either have the brain of a 25-year-old mathematics scholar or a 60-year-old bureaucrat who just retired from the Philippine civil service (the LTO, perhaps?). Which do you want?"
The patient answers: "Easy – give me the bureaucrat’s."
The surgeon, dumbfounded, says: "Why would you pick the brain of a 60-year-old bureaucrat over a 25-year-old mathematics scholar?"
The patient replies: "I want one that’s never been used."
(Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is bchanco@bayantel.com.ph)