What about FVR for President… again!

Our column last Tuesday triggered a deluge of comments, some of them nasty, even one reader accused me of being “Binayaran.” These readers obviously do not read our columns, word for word. First of all, I clearly pointed out that in the present crop of Presidentiables I have chosen “none-of-the-above,” none of them should be President of this country! What a dilemma for our people! We cannot find a suitable candidate!

Secondly, I was merely citing which is better… voting for an incompetent person or a corrupt one? We in Cebu have lived for nearly five years under the incompetent Aquino regime where we were never given any major infrastructure projects according to a National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) report. This is why we hate Imperial Manila for these bureaucrats prevent cities from moving forward. All infrastructures have been poured into Metro Manila! Yet a lot of the people in Metro Manila stare at incompetence every single day if you take the Metro Rail Transit (MRT).

Worse for Cebu, the Aquino regime leased the Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA) for 25 years to the GMR/Megawide consortium and during the ground breaking ceremonies for the new Terminal 2, no less than Pres. Aquino revealed to the Cebu media that the P14.4 billion will be deposited in the National Treasury to be used for other projects. Wow! What about our second runway? As I said before, this is the legacy of Pres. Aquino for Cebuanos and we will never forget this big insult.

We already tasted 70 years of having a centralized system of governance and just take a good look at what this has done for the Philippines. From second to Japan we’ve dragged ourselves to be the laughing stock of ASEAN. We may brag about our robust economy today, thanks to our overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry, which can only be found in two places, India and the Philippines.

But check out the Wallace Forum statistics on Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) and you’ll be dismayed that the Philippines still ranks at the bottom of ASEAN. So now, did you ever hear of any of our Presidentiables say how they would solve or fix this problem on FDIs? No sir, not one of them!

What our nation needs today is a President who should be a reformer, one with the guts to change our highly centralized system of government into a parliamentary-federal form of government. One who has a good track record, experience, the gung-ho attitude and above all the wisdom to lead this nation into a better future.

After a lot of thought, I finally found that person. So I asked my good friend, Mr. Rick Ramos who writes for Manila Times to meet up with former Pres. Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) and he did. Here’s an excerpt of his meeting with FVR a few days ago.

“I had a meeting with former President Fidel V. Ramos (FVR). He is the best person to champion the parliamentary system and federal form of government. FVR and I talked about the parliamentary system and the federal form of government. He is all for it. He told me that when he ran for President in 1992, he already wanted a parliamentary system. He also wanted to do it in 1997, but Cory Aquino and Jaime Cardinal Sin opposed it. Cory thought FVR wanted to become a Dictator like Marcos. T___a talaga.

His strategy is shift first to the parliamentary system and the federal form to follow. He said that the federal form has to evolve after the parliamentary system. It cannot be legislated and cited what happened in England and then the UK. I told FVR that the BBL issue can be resolved if we have a federal form of government. The Bangsamoro region can be one for the states. FVR said that he recommended the same 10 years in 2005.”

So will FVR accept our challenge to run for President? He must do it as a matter of duty and for a long lasting legacy…shifting our nation from ugly politics to one where politicians are true public servants. FVR’s only negative is his age. But I dare all the Presidentiables to do push-ups with him and let’s see who is stronger physically? Let’s go FVR! For God and country!

                                     *      *      *      

Allow me to greet a great friend from our old days when he had a film company named Mever Films, which is why my father, the late Atty. Jesus Avila renamed the Ideal Theater along Colon St., Cebu City into the Mever Theater. That is how friendship with the irreplaceable Mr. Johnny Litton became with the Avila Family more than 40 years ago. As fate would have it we both ended up writing for The Philippine STAR.

A couple of years ago, I finally caught “Oh! No, it’s Johnny” at the Bellevue Resort Hotel in Panglao, Bohol and had him as my guest for my TV show, Straight from the Sky. It was time to turn the tables on Johnny.

Last night was Johnny’s birthday bash at the Hotel Nikko, with Hollywood as his theme. So both Sir Arthur Lopez and I decided to come dressed as the Men in Black! So Happy Birthday Sir Johnny and May God bless you with more years of jokes and fun!

*      *      *

Email: [email protected] or [email protected]