Daang Matuwid

It worked the first time. It was a time when we were just so exasperated with a decade of Daang Baluktot. Here is the son of glorious parents, we know he is clean, no hidden agenda. Daang Matuwid captured the essence of our dreams. We brushed aside competence and experience and voted for hope.

Daang Matuwid today is a totally different kettle of fish. It had been tried and tested and found wanting. We determined in the course of P-Noy’s watch that the Daan could twist and turn if his close friends are involved. It wasn’t so straight and narrow after all.

Now we know better. That is why it is wrong for Mar Roxas to pin his presidential campaign on Daang Matuwid. It has outlived its usefulness. Besides, Mar should prove he can stand on his own.

Daang Matuwid is P-Noy’s and it isn’t all that great. Daang Matuwid is not a governance philosophy or an inspiring vision of what we could be. It is a propaganda slogan that has failed to deliver.

They are laughing at Daang Matuwid at the Bureau of Customs as they pocket their latest tara. Surely P-Noy knows that even at the Palace, some rather high officials are not exactly as clean as the Daang Matuwid claims this administration is.

But it sold well abroad and gained us positive reviews from credit risk analysts and political policy makers. Like us, they too are just so eager to embrace an administration whose head is not likely to plunder the national treasury. Positive results like infra development are another thing.

Every time I criticize Mar as being indecisive, his loyal supporters tell me that’s because he isn’t the President. But he was Secretary of DOTC and DILG, I respond. No, they tell me, it is not the same. He had to play second fiddle to P-Noy.

Mar is now telling us by running for President, it will be different. Maybe, he could again be the DTI Secretary and Senator I admired. He could be the action guy who spearheaded, against strong opposition, the cheap medicines law. He worked to bring BPO into the country and be the job creator it is today.

Yes, that’s the Mar I respected and supported. The Mar I see today is a shadow of that Mar. His image today is a pathetic politician unsure of himself. It is as if he is running for President because his mother and Korina told him to. No fire in his belly. Take the tax reform issue… he merely parroted the position of P-Noy which P-Noy parroted from Sec. Cesar Purisima who only wants to please the credit rating agencies.

Someone involved in Mar’s campaign told me they cannot let go of Daang Matuwid because the numbers show it helped Mar Roxas bump up his ratings after he was endorsed by P-Noy. I am just too urban middle class, this someone said, in dismissing Daang Matuwid as spent force. And because we in the middle class don’t have the numbers, we can be ignored.

Ah, ganun! So, that’s why Mar brushed tax reform aside. I suppose he is ready to lose middle class votes.

Simply put, Daang Matuwid is identified with CCT and P-Noy. This is why Mar had been talking about continuity. The CCT beneficiaries will vote for him because they are afraid their hand-out is at risk if someone else gets elected.

  I believe in the lofty objectives of CCT. But they have made a worthy program a regular pork barrel. It seems the CCT is now a tool to keep the Liberal Party in control forever. That’s no different from how Jojo Binay cemented his control of Makati. That was also how Binay was trying to do it nationwide with Makati’s sister city program.

This year, they will spend P62.3 billion for CCT to cover 4.3 million families. At four million families times five will give 20 million people but not all will be old enough to vote. Let us say five million are qualified voters… that’s as good as an INC endorsement.

But Daang Matuwid and continuity is also about the MRT and the traffic madness, the world’s worst airport and Mamasapano and the inept Yolanda response. It is also about the inability of P-Noy to empathize with the heartaches of people at critical junctions of their watch.

People are looking for a leader with malasakit or “puso”, a weak point of P-Noy. That’s why Grace Poe resonated strongly. Mar has the opportunity to project himself as a different kind of leader from P-Noy, as one who has that “puso” which he displayed during the Mamasapano wake after P-Noy couldn’t muster it.

The really big problem of Daang Matuwid is that it promises a lot, maybe too much. It also requires constant nurturing to make it true… make it deliver on the promise. Otherwise, it disappoints.

There was this bank many years ago whose slogan is “subok na matibay, subok na matatag.” Fantastic promise and for the longest time it was true.

Then the old man who founded the bank retired and eventually died and they could no longer sustain the promise that made the bank great. That’s the thing with big promises… unless nurtured, it brings about big disappointments.

That’s why Mar should stand on his own. They have to give disappointed supporters like myself good reasons to believe a President Mar will be different from the Secretary Mar of the last five years.

But Mar cannot get away from talking about our congested airports, rotten mass transit and iffy peace and order situation. Will Mar appoint Jun Abaya to his Cabinet? Will he keep Tolentino in his ticket?

Learn from Gibo. Mar must declare his independence. Even if he is grateful for P-Noy’s endorsement, he must convince us he is his own man.

At the very least, by cutting off from Daang Matuwid, Mar will show he has the guts to mark his own territory. Otherwise, sayang naman. As Greg Garcia puts it, mabuti pa ang Christmas… may balls.

How will I vote?

How will I vote? Let me count my choices.

Apparently, I am not the only one agonizing to choose one of the above. A friend sent me this e-mail of his current attempt to choose someone to support.

I’m in a real quandary about whom to vote for president in the next elections. Increasingly, my inclination is to vote NOTA - None of The Above.

There’s Mar Roxas.  An NPA (Non-Performing Asset) who has given us the worst traffic in the world, airport congestion, Yolanda disaster mismanagement, hacendero insensitivity to the plight of the tax-burdened public, arrogant behavior in a golf club, at iba pa.

I thought Grace Poe would be it, but have increasing grave doubts about her. She seems to be acting like a puppet of her svengali, Chiz Escudero. Aside from the fact that Chiz is whispered about to be an alcoholic, which led to the initial rift with Heart’s parents, he just seems to be a wily politician beholden to narrow vested interests (just look at the sponsors of his wedding).

I have done a little research and Chiz had wanted to legislate national minimum wages, which would be a regressive move given that we are already on a regional wage-setting. So, he’s likely to push for populist but bad economic solutions in a Poe presidency.

And it looks like Grace Poe has added the leftist Makabayan bloc to her political coalition. She and Chiz are endorsing Neri Colminares in their Senate slate. With Chiz and the Makabayan bloc on her political coalition, are we going to see no Charter Change, higher minimum wages, protectionism, extension of land reform as her economic agenda?

Jojo Binay seems to have a more progressive agenda with his support for Charter Change and pro-business program, but he’s carrying a large baggage from corruption to dynastic politics, which would make it hard for him to govern. His inability to get a suitable running mate for vice-president and a credible senatorial slate may be indicative that he’s considered political pariah and even if he wins, may be unable to govern.

Then there’s Mayor Duterte, whom neo-fascist admirers claim is what the country needs. But his ideas are dangerous, such as abolishing Congress and forming a coalition with the Left. Jose Ma Sison has endorsed him, so shouldn’t that endorsement make people pause?

Besides, federalism in the Philippines is impractical because of family dynasties, regionalism, and weak central state. Not clear to me what’s his economic program.

He sprinkles his speeches with coarse curse words, but doesn’t enlighten us on how he can solve the country’s problems. A hard fist isn’t a solution. 

So, is Mar Roxas the safe bet? If this is what the next election boils down to? Uugghh!

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