A choice between corrupt and incompetent?

Over the weekend, I met a lot of friends who are all in a quandary as to whom we should be voting for in the 2016 Presidential elections. My only reply to them is… as of now; it is “None of the above!” Yes, we are still waiting for that white knight on top of a dark horse who could suddenly emerge on the Presidential scene that a great majority of our people would look as the best alternative Presidential candidate. God please send us this person!

It is just unfortunate for our nation that the present crop of presidentiables just have too much baggage to make a passing grade. In choosing the next President of the Philippines I dare say that we must move away from voting for the lesser evil and pick the leader who is a real reformist and who has a doable vision to change this country for the better in the next six years. We owe it to all the Filipino people.

Incidentally, last Wednesday, Aug. 5, I attended the SunLife Financial’s Investors Forum with its chief business development officer Michael G. Manuel giving his audience at the jampacked Marriott Hotel the true state of the Philippine economy. He spoke for nearly an hour in all facets of the economic growth of the Philippines since the 1986 EDSA Revolt and he sort of validated what I’ve always been harping about… that if the Philippine economy today is strong and robust, it was due to the belt-tightening measures that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forced upon the Filipino people from the time of Pres. Cory Aquino to P-Noy Aquino.

Mike told us that for most of the 29 years since the EDSA Revolt, the Philippines experienced a vicious boom/bust cycle in our economy, which got us the nickname, “The sick man of Asia.” In 1997, we got hit hard by the Asian financial crisis courtesy of George Soros, but somehow, the Philippine Central Bank was able to prop up our banking system then during the time of Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the boom/bust cycle ended.

Then something happened in the Year 2003, when Pres. Arroyo (I’m sorry, but this was not through the effort of then DTI Sec. Mar Roxas) created the Information Communications Technology (ICT) as special Cabinet office under the Office of the President. In Cebu, it happened in the Year 2003 at the AsiaTown IT.Park located at the old Lahug Airport runway. Today, it is the hub of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry that directly employs a hundred thousand employees with nearly double the number working in allied or services industries.

According to the Tholons Survey of the top 100 BPO countries, the top ten are as follows, 1. Bangalore, India, 2. Manila (NCR), Philippines, 3. Mumbai, India, 4. New Delhi, India, 5. Chennai, India, 6. Hyderabad, India, 7. Pune, India, 8. Cebu City, Philippines, 9. Krakow, Poland and 10. Shanghai, China. I have personally met with Mr. Avinash Tholons when he visited Cebu and we are proud of our economic growth in the BPO industry.

Add the success of the BPO sector to the success of the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs); which gives the Philippines the financial stability that we enjoy today. If at all, the only contribution of P-Noy is at least he did not dismantle the BPO industry and supported its growth. But he can never and should never claim that the economic growth of the nation was largely due to the Aquino regime.

In his PowerPoint presentation, Mike Manuel had one slide that showed the popularity ratings of our Presidents since Pres. Cory Aquino to P-Noy with a big question, “Does the Driver Matter?” All the Presidents’ ratings showed a downward slide at the end of their terms, but if you superimpose this slide to the economic growth of the Philippines it showedthat the Philippine economy grew regardless of who is the President.

So we go back to our question at the start of this column… whom should we be voting for in the 2016 presidential elections? First of all, kudos to my good friend, Lito David of Kapatiran Party for his guts in filing that case about the residency or citizenship of Sen. Grace Poe before the Supreme Court so that once and for all the Filipino people would know whether or not she should join the presidential race.

In the meantime, we are left with only two major candidates, Vice Pres. Jejomar Binay, who has been perceived as corrupt and DILG Sec. Manuel “Mar” Roxas who has been perceive as “Teka-teka” incompetent. So I dropped this question to a few friends, who would you chose for President, one who is perceived to be corrupt or one who is perceived as incompetent?

The reply was they chose the corrupt person. I asked why? They said the corrupt would look for projects so he could steal part of the funds, while the incompetent cannot move forward because he is too scared to work on projects thanks to his incompetence. Cebu City is the best example…that for the past four years under P-Noy, we had zero infrastructure projects.

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