Rebalancing

Miriam Defensor Santiago came very close (some might say “dangerously close”) to the presidency in 1992, losing by a fraction of a percentage point to eventual winner Fidel Ramos.

That was our closest presidential contest ever. Santiago never conceded defeat and proceeded to haunt (and taunt) our politics since then. Now she is running again for the same post she says she won over two decades ago.

The more significant thing about the 1992 elections, however, is that two candidates (Ramos and Santiago) broke what could have emerged as a two-party system. Much of the political class congregated around the two well-organized political formations of the Ramon Mitra-led Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP) and the Eduardo Cojuangco-led Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC).

Both Ramos and Santiago led ragtag, hastily assembled presidential campaigns. A more stringent or more partisan Comelec during that time might have disqualified the two maverick candidates and set the stage for a more conventional battle between the LDP and the NPC.

Both Ramos and Santiago entered the game as novice politicians – in fact, as “anti-politician politicians.” In their unique ways, each captured the imagination of many voters and took the wind out of the conventional political formations.

Reeling from the sort of flimsy leadership provided by Cory Aquino, voters saw in both Ramos and Santiago the possibility of tough and effective statesmen. A tough and effective leadership was understood as the antidote to the slide to chaos. The Cory presidency was characterized by indecisiveness, endless coup conspiracies, myopic planning and an economy threatened with extinction by power shortages.

It is notable that Santiago throws her hat into the presidential ring hoping to succeed another Aquino.

If Miriam has suddenly become a viable political proposition, blame that on the disappointments accumulated through the last five years. She represents mental toughness, the anti-thesis to the flaccid exercise of presidential power and vacuous discourse of Aquino the Son.

Her entry into the race, notwithstanding health issues, will force a rebalancing of the political equations. This particular presidential contest has so far become a string of unintended consequences.

When the LP and its operatives bore down hard on erstwhile survey frontrunner Jejomar Binay, trying to taint him in the eyes of the voters or maybe even disqualify him outright, the effort created a vacuum. Those who did not want a continuation of the incompetent LP Mafia in power looked to other possibilities and created an early bandwagon for Grace Poe.

Poe has, thus far, turned out to be a less than assertive political personality. Voters looked to the reluctant Duterte for the sort of willful leadership so absent during the Aquino years. As Duterte quibbled, another vacuum was produced for a constituency in search of decisiveness.

Into that steps Miriam Defensor Santiago: a blast from the past and, maybe, a whiff of the future.

Housing

High-end condominium units might be the segment where profit margins are widest. But they contribute little to closing our yawning housing gap now estimated at 5.5 million units.

The expensive high-end units are mainly sold to foreign buyers taking advantage of our Condominium Law as assets whose value could increase. Or else are purchased by foreign buyers either as safe havens for extra cash or as means to launder questionable wealth. 

Speculative pricing of the high-end condo units is what creates the danger of a property bubble similar to what happened in Thailand in the late nineties, producing the Asian financial crisis of 1998. Investments in these fancy units do little in bringing the benefits of a low-interest rate regime to the middle-classes in need of affordable housing.

Today, however, enough financial mechanisms are in place to make provision of socialized housing a sound business proposition. There are now numerous companies in the business of providing accessible housing units to address social needs.

As the players in the provision of accessible and socialized housing units build their financial capabilities, they are able to move from small projects to the construction of entire townships that will reshape our communities in the way malls reshaped our retail sector.

Among the more successful property development companies helping address the real housing backlog is the Property Company of Friends Inc. (Profriends). This company has been in the business of affordable middle-income housing since 1999, with most of its projects in Cavite.

Profriends has completed 17 housing projects. It now has nine more on-going residential projects. It has accumulated a land bank of about 1,700 hectares located mainly in Cavite.

The company’s ability to quickly build and deliver housing projects was boosted by the recent buy-in of GT Capital, part of the Metrobank group. GT Capital acquired 22.68% of Profriends worth P7.24 billion and could choose to increase its direct ownership to 51% over the next three years.

It appears the investment giant was impressed by the housing developer’s “product expertise and strategic land bank.” The fusion of financial muscle with engineering expertise could only help address the housing backlog that keeps many wage earners homeless.

The success of Profriends seems to have generated envy in the community of property developers. The property developer has been the target of an obviously orchestrated smear campaign in social media. The company recently announced it would go after anonymous attackers with hammer and tongs, using the online libel provisions of the new Cybercrime Law.

That minor nuisance aside, it seems the company is ready to ride the crest of our booming property development sector, taking advantage of the low-interest rate environment to help cut the housing backlog. It is a good case study for others in this socially beneficial industry.