APEC hangover

The party is over. Now comes the hard work that must be faced on the morning after. That will come soon enough in the Philippines with the presidential elections in the offing in May.

APEC’s pluses and minuses will have a longer time to gestate for us to know if all the work, both the serious and merrymaking, were worth the time and expense.

As a Filipino, I was more concerned about the first and at the top of my list of concerns as it must be for the greater number in this country is whether Rodrigo Duterte will run. As the wise often say “all politics is local.”

He was still as mysterious as when he did not file his COC with Comelec in time for the deadline in October despite adding there is still another chance in December if he takes the place of the PDP-Laban candidate come December.

Whatever his strategy is, it is working. The more he refuses to commit himself unequivocably that he will run for the presidential election of 2016, the more Filipino voters pressure him to run. The pressure is heightened by the qualities of the other candidates. Ask anyone or most ones, as far as they are concerned Duterte is the man for them, the leader we have been waiting for. My own reason for hoping that he becomes the next president is that he is the only candidate who has declared openly and firmly that we need constitutional change.

His statement on SET’s decision on Grace Poe is succinct. Referring to the SET decision favoring Senator Grace Poe, the Davao City mayor says, “This is not about politics. This is a constitutional issue, a legal issue. I cannot accept an American president.”

*       *       *

Some people say that the APEC “success” was kind of goodbye party and intended to enhance the image of the departing leader.

If that is what the APEC meant to do for Aquino, I am afraid it falls flat. As far as the electorate is concerned governing is different from partying which is the impression that media gave of the APEC meetings – that it was indeed nothing more than a costume party.

It was not true of the first 1996 APEC under then President Fidel Ramos. The success and the way the APEC was planned was praised because it did not inconvenience the public.

Not so this time under Aquino. The arrangements made life insufferable for ordinary Filipinos. The best visual illustration of this was a picture with one sign showing APEC lane with a lone car and the bumper to bumper traffic of cars on another labeled “TraPEK.” To them, the Aquino government’s planning for APEC was inept and could not bridge its alleged importance and opportunities it offered to Filipinos. It showed more than ever that unless we have a capable leader to implement the APEC program, it is indeed difficult, how to sell it as “something good for Filipinos.“

That would be a pity because as the APEC participants made their official statement there indeed was a lot to be gained by the hosting of APEC 2015 by the Philippines.

In the cold light of day we will have to assess as a nation the benefits and costs of hosting such events. On the minus side there is the inevitable disruption. By most media reports there were some 10,000 delegates to APEC, we simply don’t have that kind of capacity in any other city. Soon we will add more rooms through the Hyatt, a project of George Ty due to open in the Fort and others. But this is still Manila.

One solution might be to move events like this out of Manila. Instead we should  but move some people out of Manila not just for such events as APEC but in general. The way we might revisit the idea of relocating at least some government offices out to Clark, Subic and other cities?

As APEC leaders said in their final communique, “We emphasize the importance of proper planning and adequate infrastructure for sustainable city development.” APEC officials and leaders would have seen first hand in Manila what their absence has done to what was once described as the ‘Pearl of the Orient.’ Maybe it can be again but only if we learn some lessons from those who have managed to make their cities work for people.

On the plus side, the experience of chairing APEC would inevitably have exposed key players within our government and indeed our businesses to how things work in other countries. Having lived so long overseas I often lament the insular attitude we take to things.

I am glad that APEC officials agree with the need for constitutional change to include marginalized sectors. It is not a piece of paper that Aquino’s clone Mar Roxas calls it. The changes have to be implemented.

Our group BayanKo-Katipunan-NACTODAP and now Rodrigo Duterte are advocating constitutional reform. This is an advocacy I have espoused for so long I’ve lived where things can and do work better. We need to change our system but that’s not enough. We need to change minds and attitudes too. By learning from others who have gone through the development process we can avoid their mistakes instead of insisting that we make them for ourselves.

One case in point is the emphasis that the APEC leaders’ declaration placed on disaster resilience. We are just 2 years on from Yolanda with the scars still fresh. Holding a glitzy event so soon after must leave some people wondering about APEC. It seems that far from ignoring the issue, APEC officials spent some time on thinking through what they can do to avoid or at least minimize the impact of such tragedies and put together the APEC Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Framework which they say will ‘minimize the losses we endure and ensure that our communities have the support to overcome adversity and to build back better. ‘

A last word on this – APEC leaders endorsed a Services Cooperation Framework, one of the goals of this is ‘Wider access to more efficient and greater variety of services for APEC and its people’ – we have to put up with some bad services here – whether expensive electricity rates (or no electricity at all) or slow internet service (or none at all). I can only hope that this framework will help officials do something about this.