End of OJT

Businessmen gave him a pasang-awa score of 75, and a constantly carping cleric said his only achievement in his first year was banning wang-wang.

For the majority of Pinoys, or a hefty 68 percent, the wang-wang ban, still holding, seems to be achievement enough, and a year is “too early to tell” if the administration of Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III is headed for success.

This is according to a Social Weather Stations survey taken earlier this month. Palace officials said the survey results indicated public understanding of the tough challenges faced by P-Noy.

After his election victory, candidate Noynoy tried to temper high public expectations that usually accompany a landslide win by constantly saying that voters didn’t pick him for his competence, and that he expected major roadblocks along his daang matuwid or straight path.

He didn’t mince words in pointing to the Office of the Ombudsman as one of the biggest roadblocks. The resignation of Merceditas Gutierrez as ombudsman was one of the big surprises in P-Noy’s first year.

With Gutierrez out of the way, and P-Noy getting to pick the next ombudsman, he has one less excuse for slow progress in going after the corrupt and fulfilling his main campaign promise.

That promise was in fact also part of the campaign platforms of other presidential candidates in 2010, notably Nick Perlas and Eddie Villanueva. But voters thought the son of Ninoy and Cory Aquino could fulfill the promise best.

Investors and foreign aid donors also liked the promise; if fulfilled, it would reduce the cost and risks of doing business in the Philippines. The belief that P-Noy can deliver on his promise of good governance is one of the factors behind improved business optimism in this country during the first year of his presidency.

The challenge for P-Noy is sustaining and even increasing that optimism.

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Like dipping performance ratings, that pasang-awa score from the Management Association of the Philippines should serve as another warning sign.

Impatience with a new administration usually begins setting in after the first year. Most election debts would have been paid and the president is expected to have a team that is picked on merit rather than connections (or, as critics like to call it under P-Noy, based on “KKK”).

Most of us typically measure the success (or failure) of an administration by how much it has changed our lives. Are we better off today than a year ago? Is government service better or worse?

In my case, for example, I’ve been waiting for half a year for PhilHealth to reimburse about P5,000 that I paid to Asian Hospital. My private HMO covered the bulk of the bill immediately. Was it like this in the previous administration? Does it take six years to verify PhilHealth claims?

I’ve been waiting even longer for the 2011 registration stickers for my car. With the current mess at the Land Transportation Office involving a KKK, I will probably have to wait for a new president to take over in 2016 before the 2011 stickers are issued.

In the case of investors, while businessmen remain optimistic about Philippine economic prospects, a number of them continue to wait for certain reforms, or at least indications that the groundwork is being laid for reforms that they have been pushing for in this country.

We don’t know how long this wait-and-see attitude, adopted when a new administration comes in, will last before major investors decide to give their job-generating businesses to China, or Vietnam, or Indonesia.

P-Noy’s declaration that there’s no room in his administration for dirty deals, and that such tainted deals forged in the previous administration would be scrapped, is fine for delivering on his main campaign promise. But many investors are spooked, especially because those were government deals and investors thought they were doing business with the Filipino officials who set the rules.

In teaching investors a lesson, P-Noy should not give them a reason to complain too loudly about unfair or arbitrary Philippine business policies. The unpredictability of the investment environment is one of the biggest complaints of those who try to do business here. The government should pay any fines that are imposed for scrapping even an onerous deal. The government should also make clear which rules or laws were violated, and it should file the necessary administrative and criminal complaints against Filipinos, whether in government or the private sector, who made the deal possible. Punishment should be heaviest for Filipinos who tarnish the country’s investment climate.

The P-Noy administration is also perceived to be slow in acting on certain investor concerns that have been raised even before the 2010 elections. Yesterday the World Trade Organization, no less, resolved one of them, declaring the country’s liquor tax on imports as an unfair trade practice. Businessmen particularly from the European Union had been pressing the Philippine government to address that problem.

A “pocket open skies” has been implemented in the airline industry, but foreign carriers are still waiting for the government to lift the carrier tax and resolve a labor problem at the NAIA that has adversely affected airline operations.

Then there are the long-running complaints over high power costs and the inadequacy of the country’s infrastructure, including airport facilities. In the next five years, P-Noy will have to start changing this sorry state of affairs. He must also build modern railways and ports to handle cargo and mass transportation, expand road networks, and generally improve the delivery of basic services particularly health and education.

He has to make a dent in fighting poverty, and lay the foundations for achieving his long-term goal of bringing home the majority of the country’s migrant workers. All this, while delivering on his campaign promise of good governance.

One of the presidential candidates last year said the country’s next chief executive should measure his performance not against those of his predecessors but other heads of government. It’s a good advice for P-Noy to take as he leads a country that is being left behind by its neighbors in a highly competitive global environment.

Noynoy Aquino knew the tough challenges ahead when he assumed office, and he has had a year to feel his way around.

On-the-job training ends after one year, even for someone who was thrust into the presidency by unique circumstances.