P-Noy and V-nay finally talked, too late

It is unbelievable but P-Noy and V-nay only managed to talk one-on-one last Wednesday. It was too late. The atmosphere had been soured by all the background noise suggesting all is not well in the relationship between the two.

But V-nay’s supposed refusal to accept any appointment other than DILG Secretary did not come from Jojo but from his rabid supporters. I think, Jojo knows better than to make public ultimatums to P-Noy. But with his supporters getting noisier in their demand with every passing day, it seems Jojo caved in and ratified what should have been just an initial bargaining position.

The supporters of V-nay have declared war on Mar Roxas, accusing him of among other things, of stopping P-Noy from giving V-nay what he wants. That’s not the impression I get from Mar. For one thing, Mar is not your typical political operator. While he is ready to help P-Noy, he is not about to insist that he be given veto powers over anything.

Besides, P-Noy is not the type who would allow anyone to have a stranglehold on him. From what I have seen of him in his public appearances and press conferences, P-Noy is very much his own man, and doesn’t take bullying kindly. In fact, I think he doesn’t have the stomach for all these jockeying for positions typical of our political scene as a new administration takes over.

Thus, it didn’t help V-nay’s cause for his supporters to have kept on issuing those angry words against Mar and against what they see as P-Noy’s inclination to defer to Mar on big decisions. The more they push P-Noy to appoint V-nay to DILG, the more remote is the possibility of that happening. Demonizing Mar at this time as a means of forcing P-Noy to take in V-nay in his place is not going to work.

It is a pity that V-nay decided to reject any Cabinet position that P-noy offered. Jojo initially said he would take any position as a way of showing his support for the new administration. Jojo reneged on his words too early in the game just to satisfy his noisy peanut gallery.

It will also help if V-nay changes his view of P-noy as Tita Cory’s young son who is his “alaga” and think of P-Noy as the new President and his boss. It will no longer do for the seasoned local politician to look down on P-Noy just because he is 15 or more years older and because of the old relationship during EDSA 1. The ball game has changed and P-Noy is truly now the Boss Chief.

P-noy should have talked to V-nay very early on and personally made his offer to V-nay to be his DAR Secretary if that is really what he wants him to do in his administration. The unfortunate posturing became a hardened position because both of them allowed that to happen. Neither P-noy nor V-nay should have allowed the hecklers to publicly negotiate the future role of VP-elect Jojo Binay in the Aquino administration.

First World

Looking out of the picture window of my son’s 8th floor condo unit in Singapore made me remember the delusional claim of Ate Glue. She said she is leaving our country after nine years on the verge of being First World. What a laugh! We are nowhere near being anything like this marvelous view of progress that’s simply undeniable. Ate Glue’s claim is just a fantasy of hers.

Right from my son’s place, the progress of Singapore is there to behold. They are still building more skyscrapers in his neighborhood where there are several high tech medical centers. Singapore is determined to make itself the regional center for medical sciences where they do research and not just so called medical tourism.

The trains of the mass transit system run on time and all public toilets I have seen are clean. You feel safe taking a taxi because the drivers know the punishment for such things as tampering the meter or worse, robbing passengers. The airport… Changi International has to be the best one in the world… Even when they have their down moments like that unusual flooding at Orchard Road despite their First World drainage system, the public official responsible was civilized enough to quickly apologize to the people.

Of course what pains me most is the thought that we should have been able to do a lot of that too if only we had statesmen rather than self serving politicians as leaders. Money isn’t the problem because we have that too somehow.

It might have been Imelda who said that we are a rich country pretending to be poor. And if she did, she is probably right because where else could they have gotten all that money deposited in secret Swiss bank accounts? The distribution of riches may be too lopsided to favor an elite segment of our society, but the country is by no means poor, over all.

Proof of that is the excess liquidity in our financial system. There is so much money in our country looking for safe havens among our rich folks that they are making do with ridiculously low returns available if only for safekeeping their wealth. Last April, Asset, a Hong Kong-based finance magazine edited by former Business Day reporter Danny Yu, held a conference with the theme centered on how to turn liquidity into investment products.

Indeed, the problem is how to harness the riches and the resources we have for infrastructure that would spur more growth by attracting more investments. Even in the case of our OFW remittances, the observation had been made that we must find a way to harness all that for investments rather than just plain consumption.

That is why many Pinoys are looking up to P-Noy for hints on how he will handle the economy. An effective strategy for attracting foreign investors has eluded us. We are now way behind Vietnam in terms of attractiveness to foreign investments. But the recent experience of Indonesia with a President who is credible and who is clearly fighting corruption should give us hope. P-Noy could be our version of Indonesia’s Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

“We need clear directions as to how we are going to promote foreign investments in this country because based on a recent study, the Philippines is at the bottom of the competitive scale in Asia. And to attract foreign investment, we need political stability, ease of doing business and a level playing field,” Asset quoted Jose Teodoro Limcaoco, president of BPI Capital.

Indeed, what would attract foreign investors to come to the Philippines would be the same sort of policies and environment that would encourage Pinoy investors to take their money out of low earning options and actually invest on job creating local businesses.

Well, we will see how P-Noy plays his cards on the economy. He comes in with a serious handicap: he had Ate Glue as his college economics teacher. His one big asset is credibility, something Ate Glue just didn’t have. But he has to show performance almost immediately or that goodwill will surely dissipate pretty fast.

We may take several generations to be a first world country like Singapore. But we have it in us to make it. We just need the right leadership and the right attitude among all of us whose lives are tied to our country’s fortune. Soon we may be on the verge of being First World. We are nowhere near that now.

Change position

This one’s from Marilyn Mana-ay Robles.

Mrs: Mahal subok naman tayo ibang posisyon.

Mr: Wow! Gusto ko yan, Cge mahal… game!

Mrs: Cge. Ikaw maglaba at magplantsa ngayon, ako naman iinom habang nood ng TV.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. This and some past columns can also be viewed at www.boochanco.com