Potentially good leaders

It looks like most Filipinos are patient enough to just wait for the 2016 presidential elections and allow Benigno Aquino III to end his term of office in June 2016. I can gauge this from the tremendous reactions to my previous column (“Better Alternative” PhilSTAR, Feb. 6, 2015). I suggested there that we just focus our attention in ensuring that we don’t commit the same monumental blunder we made in 2010 when we chose Aquino III as our President. This is the better alternative we should take instead of pressuring P-Noy to step do

With so little time and with a bleak political landscape where the current leading contender for the presidency according to poll surveys is also another political “trapo” whose questionable track record of enriching himself in office has been exposed, I suggested that the first step we should take is to look for a worthy challenger that will thwart his bid. I said that we can use as guides some tragic happenings in our country during P-Noy’s term particularly: the DAP, PDAF-pork barrel controversy, Super Typhoon Yolanda and the Mamasapano massacre. These outrageous occurrences can be our guides as they relate to three challenges of governance and national development that beg to be addressed today which are corruption, disaster response and peace and order.

Based on these guides and looking at the political horizon, the person looming large in my telescope as of now is Panfilo Lacson because during his stint in the government he has been untainted by issues of corruption and has shun the pork barrel, he appears to be a “take charge,” action-oriented and decisive leader in the face of calamities and disasters, which are “normal” in the country, and he looks well trained and capable enough in strictly enforcing discipline and the rule of law.

Of course there may also be other persons or individuals who possess these qualities needed at this time to face the many challenges and problems confronting our government that have surfaced especially during this regime. Let us waste no time in searching for them and naming them so that we will know right away if they are interested in facing these challenges in governance and in the progressive growth of our country.

Unfortunately only some old trapos have so far openly declared their ambition to be president of this country. To be sure, so many other names that can put on full throttle a well coordinated and disciplined government bureaucracy have come up. But no one so far, not even Lacson himself, has openly declared their interest for the position. It is about time for them to come out openly so the people can be afforded a wider choice.

Maybe it may interest Lacson to know that when I came up with his name, there are mixed reactions but a great number of them are on the positive side. One reaction worth citing is this one elucidating further on his proven capacity to meet the following challenges:

On the campaign against corruption as symbolized by PDAF, he said that: “In all his two terms as senator (2001-2013), Lacson not only did not avail of the P200M/year allocation for each senator from the national government but repeatedly exposed and denounced its links to corruption. And when he was Chief of PNP (1998-2000), he significantly curbed corruption w/in the police organization, sternly clamping down on kotong and jueteng involving its members. The level of the PNP’s morale and discipline was at its highest and Lacson saw to it that waistlines were at their lowest.”

On government responsiveness to disasters, our reader said that: “Lacson’s personification of discipline and no-nonsense leadership can inspire and persuade the entire government bureaucracy into becoming a more competent and responsive machinery to deal with natural and man-made disasters (very much unlike the performance of the national government in the immediate aftermath of Super Typhoon Yolanda). Then when he relinquished his position as Yolanda rehabilitation czar last Feb. 10, he had quietly and with a meager budget, overseen for a year the post-Yolanda rehabilitation efforts of government for some 175 cities and towns ravaged by the typhoon. He leaves the thankless post with a “Comprehensive Rehabilitation and Recovery Plan” covering some 18,000 projects and programs in those areas. On a longer-term basis, he has provided the national government a blueprint for institutionalizing the mechanisms for the relief, recovery and rehabilitation of localities devastated by disasters through the strengthening of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) and its absorption of the functions of his erstwhile Office of the Presidential Assistant on Rehabilitation and Recovery (OPARR).

And on the campaign against criminality and lawlessness (symbolized by the Mamasapano massacre), our reader has this to say: “No one will argue that criminality in the streets and our neighborhoods as well as the difficulty or failure to enforce the law in rebel-controlled areas are of primordial concern of the ordinary citizenry as well as our government. And no one can be more familiar with the anatomy of law enforcement or more passionate about its relevance to the peace and progress of our country than Ping Lacson.” To bolster this observation, our reader quoted Lacson’s statements in the aftermath of the Mamasapano massacre as “words coming from a former PNP Commander and a Senator or a worthy Commander-in Chief” particularly the following: “The outpouring of support and sympathy towards the PNP was unprecedented. To call the 44 SAF troopers ‘fallen’ would be a misnomer, if not unjust.  They may have fallen but they lifted up the PNP to a new high. The PNP may not realize it but this is their one chance of a lifetime to sustain the renewed goodwill of the Filipino people. How?  Whenever our policemen are tempted to commit ‘kotong’ and other misdemeanors, they must remind themselves of the 44 heroes from the SAF and not squander the gains of their fellow officers’ supreme sacrifice.”

Hopefully others will come out with names of potentially good leaders for our country.

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