Are we ready for authority?

The appointment of Ping Lacson as rehabilitation czar is being praised and criticized often for the same reason: he is an authoritarian with a questionable human rights record. In the same breath however, there are also calls for the appointment of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte to be on top of post-Yolanda rehabilitation and like Ping, to run for president thereafter.

In the light of all these, I want to paraphrase the thought expressed by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour about the post-Yolanda response defining the presidency of P-Noy. While that could well happen too, it also seems to me that typhoon Yolanda is defining the qualifications people are looking for in the next president.

You might say that sheer ineptness specially in the early hours after the typhoon passed over the country has heightened the frustration over the persistent inability of the Aquino administration to show some competence. People are tired of being told that, the fumbles aside, at least P-Noy is honest.

Indeed, P-Noy need not have to point out that he is not a thief. Many take that for granted even as the public realizes that P-Noy has failed to infect those around him and the rest of government with the honesty bug. Indeed, even some members of his Cabinet closest to him at the Palace are thought to be as dirty as politicians and bureaucrats have ever been.

While people were willing to let Tita Cory go free with the singular accomplishment of bringing democracy back, P-Noy will not be as lucky to get away with just being clean. Indeed, even Tita Cory needed Ping de Jesus to rush all those flyovers in the closing years of her watch to leave behind some concrete legacy. P-Noy may have little to show, if any, in that regard.

It is, however, one thing to have a DOTC do nothing for over three years and the government’s crisis apparatus under Mar Roxas do nothing for three days in the face of the post-Yolanda destruction. In an emergency, officials may be allowed a few hours to be stunned by the enormity of the challenge but are expected to pick up the pieces quickly and get the show on the road.

I suspect that P-Noy has taken this public frustration into account with his appointment of Ping Lacson as rehabilitation czar. P-Noy couldn’t have made a worse appointment from the perspective of Mar. The job could have been a perfect platform for Mar or someone identified with Mar, but P-Noy couldn’t risk it.

Ping is known to be the antithesis of Mar in the matter of decisiveness. Ping has also absorbed a lot of political savvy in the course of his years in the Senate, a skill Mar has proven to be rather clumsy with. Ping is expected to act swiftly and in a way that the public can see quick results happening.

In other words, if Ping plays it right and he gets lucky with the resources he needs to show progress in rehab efforts, P-Noy would have created a presidential challenger to Mar’s ambitions.

The fact that Ping is also basking in his anti-pork barrel stance by having refused to touch his allocations through the years, the honesty factor is also working in his favor… an honest authoritarian… a Filipino Lee Kuan Yew?

I had an interesting conversation with Nonong Cruz, a former Defense secretary who was instrumental in stopping then President GMA from signing a martial law proclamation. I asked him what he thought of a three way contest between Ping, Jojo Binay and Mar Roxas. Nonong, who is rather close to Mar, understandably chose Mar.

While conceding that Mar had not been as effective as he would have wanted him to be, Nonong said something that got me thinking. Nonong said he would rather have a harmless and ineffective president than someone with a questionable record on human rights or a traditional politician who can’t seem to shake off allegations of corruption. The position is too powerful to risk it, Nonong emphasized.

That’s worrisome. Are we going to be asked again to select the lesser evil the way we were asked to vote for P-Noy because at least he is honest? Can’t this nation of 100 million people produce a leader who is honest, effective and one who respects human rights? So far the answer is in the negative, it seems.

 More worrisome still is what I detect to be an increasing readiness of our people to go for an honest authoritarian who can get things done in this rather unruly country of ours. We have been hearing calls for Mayor Duterte to run for the presidency in 2016. The mayor had to publicly quell such calls saying he has no interest in a national position and Davao is more than enough for him.

I take all that to mean that our people are getting very tired of monkey business as usual and are increasingly ready to submit to some authority so long as results are produced. Indeed, that’s the very reason why man invented government.

The social contract which establishes government is, according to Thomas Hobbes, a means to institute order in society where one can enjoy the fruits of one’s labor without the “continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” That social contract is being violated by the lack of leadership. And Hobbes didn’t even live to see rush hour traffic on EDSA and C-5!

There are those who say it is too early to think of 2016. Indeed, Ping Lacson has not even started to prove himself. He may end up a dud and all the high expectations are dangerous in that sense. It could well be that P-Noy appointed Ping precisely to get him out of the race because he knows the work is too big to show progress between now and 2016.

I take the position that we all ought to think of 2016 now because we need all the time to encourage better alternatives to the more obvious contenders. Our population has breached the 100 million mark and the number of our poor is growing as fast as the gap between our one per cent and the rest of the 99.

A dangerous tipping point is approaching and that is why it is essential the right person emerges as P-Noy’s successor. The list today is led by Jojo Binay, possibly Ping Lacson and Mar Roxas. I have heard the names of Grace Poe and Vilma Santos being thrown in, so is Bongbong Marcos.

I don’t think I can be faulted if I said this country deserves better. We may not have until 2016… so excuse me if I am frantically nagging this administration to move faster… show results… we may not have tomorrow to deliver on the promises and dreams.

Pope Francis

I received this e-mail from Emma Roxas, president  of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists (Phil. Chapter), in reaction to last Monday’s column on Pope Francis. Apparently, the predecessors of Pope Francis said something just as strong on the need for the Church to actively work for the poor.

After reading your column, I cannot but send you an email to congratulate you for a great piece of writing. You have competently expounded on the social teaching of the Church, per the teaching of Pope Francis.

I now offer you a magisterium of the soon to be canonized John Paul II, taken from his encyclical “Sollicitudo Rei Socialis” (p. 58) also on the social teaching of the Church.  He says that the Church may have to divest itself in favor of the needy.

His words are: “Thus, part of the teaching and most ancient practice of the Church is her conviction that she is obliged by her vocation – she herself, her ministers, and each of her members – to relieve the misery of the suffering, both far and near not only out of her “abundance” but also out of her “necessities”.  Faced by cases of need, one cannot ignore them in favor of superfluous church ornaments and costly furnishings for divine worship; on the contrary it could be obligatory to sell these goods in order to provide food, drink and clothing and shelter for those who lack these things.”

Even Pope Paul VI stands in the line of this teaching, taking his inspiration from the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes.

Mr. Chanco, you are God-sent for taking issue with the so-called nominal Catholics who violate the social teachings of the Church in their practice of contractualization. Please continue being God’s voice in the wilderness. More power to you.

True or false

From Lal Chatlani.

Listening to the wife is like reading the terms and conditions of a website. You understand nothing still you say, “I agree.”

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco.