P Noy Presidency: A Few Weeks After

It feels like déjà vu, much like 1986 again with so much democratic space and goodwill to work for changes in our country. In Mindanao, the task at hand is to complete the reconstitution of the government (GRP) peace panel towards the finalization of the long overdue peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). We were consulted on prospective candidates for members of the government peace panel. We said why not get someone from academe again? The prospective person must be able to articulate the issues in the negotiating table, and as well represent and update the national administration. Because the peace panel negotiator is representing the government, it would be ideal that the person is still open to all possible futures. The person must be open to not only the possibility of a future similar to the one outlined in the recent failed Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain ( MOA-AD) but also other futures. Dean Marvic Leonen, as the newly appointed chief government negotiator is all of these and much more. He is a founding member of our Alternative Law Group (ALG) Network and, thus, deeply immersed and involved in Mindanao issues.

According to P.Noy himself, one of the first steps towards the peace negotiation with the MILF is for this administration to craft a policy framework. Perhaps, all the centuries old issues cannot be crafted in a single frame all at once but a policy framework can be the basis of the talking points.

To increase the income of the farmer in the countryside, three heads of big bureaucracies or departments ( Departments of Agriculture, Agrarian Reform and of the Environment & Natural Resources) have constituted themselves into a convergent body for a more coordinated collaboration.

The issues of farmer’s entitlements to land as well as the promotion of farmer’s productivity for food security need to be revisited. Current funded programs for farmers need to be evaluated and audited amidst issues of “leakage” and alleged fertilizer scams.

Cabinet members are attending a media seminar by batch. Persons who have been appointed to the communications department are media persons who are very skilled and good in what we call “messaging.” They are my favorites: Manolo Quezon a pedigreed journalist who writes editorials for a major daily and is a prominent blogger and Ricky Carandang, a savvy television journalist. The two have to blend into an institution with old hands.

Some government departments are now headed by former undersecretaries and so these career officials will retire as cabinet secretaries. Some of them have agreed to be “seat warmers” as some of these cabinet posts are reserved for very qualified and fit candidates who cannot take over some these posts now due to the one year ban on candidates to assume government posts after being defeated in the last elections.

P.Noy succeeded a very controversial leadership mired with issues of legitimacy, a country whose economy is in crisis, a country whose social institutions are weak, and a citizenry with low national morale. So, the new P.Noy administration is a breath of fresh air. Today is P. Noy's first State of the Nation Address (SONA). The SONA is the government’s articulation of its major policies and programs for the year and it is addressed to the lawmakers during today's opening of regular session of Congress. Of course, the SONA is also addressed to the entire nation. P.Noy needs the support of not only both houses of Congress in the gigantic tasks at hand but also of the entire citizenry. More on the SONA next time around.

WangWang

A child asked me why vehicle sirens are called wangwang and I said it is because the blare sound of sirens really sound like the word wangwangwangwang. I have traveled through the early evening rush hour of the streets of Jakarta in the convoy of then Indonesian President Gus Dur and our car had blinkers and sirens and it was really some experience like we were some immortals looking at the rest of the mortal motorists giving way for us to pass. We were on our way to a summer residence of the Indonesian President and what normally was a two hour trip in a rush hour traffic took us only 30 minutes or so. In the case of P-Noy, for sure, he is making a political statement to set an example and to convey a message to private blinkers and sirens owners that their road bullying days are over. But, all this gesture of P-Noy is a security nightmare. And we prefer a president alive than dead. It is a nightmare for many of us who were born earlier to feel the shock upon hearing of the assasination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas one day in November in 1962. Or in recent memory, it is a nightmare for those of us who saw on television how Benazir Bhutto was killed by a suicide bomber amidst very tight security.

We hear that the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) is ensuring that the main roads, particulary from Quezon Avenue to Malacanang, will have a flowing traffic for motorists. To the extent that our government is looking at road traffic is a good thing. When I returned to Davao City after seven years in Manila, a friend of mine commented that I have returned to a slow life and slow pace. My rejoinder was to say that Metro Manila was slower because the road traffic will not guarantee that I will reach my destination with precise timing & predictability. Oftentimes, one overestimates travel time and finds oneself late all the time. Anyway, one of my guiding principles in life now( under the auspices of the Slowfood convivium) is that I am over the folly of a fast life and on to enjoy the pleasures of a slow life. I am convinced that there is some kind of violence in a fast life.

A favorite example that I have adopted for underdevelopment in the asphalt jungle of Metro Manila is that workers have to wake up at the crack of dawn to travel on the road to have a lead time and be in the workplace at 8:00 a.m. As we say in our social conflict theory, only the oppressed can do something about their condition. So, anyone, including P-Noy, who will feel oppressed under the deteriorating traffic condition of Manila will hopefully do something to change the situation.

According to Presidential Decree 96 issued by Ferdinand Marcos in 1973, during the martial law years, only motor vehicles designated for the use of the Philippine National Police, Armed Forces of the Philippines, National Bureau of Investigation, Land Transportation Office, Bureau of Fire Protection, and hospital ambulances can be fitted with sirens, bells, horns or similar gadgets. And the only public official allowed by law to use blinkers and sirens is the President. The story, they say, is that then President Marcos wanted the perk only for himself as he was the only one in power.

Anyway, ultimately, if our streets are not safe for a President, then they are not safe, at all, for anyone. But, then again, if I may digress, no one should be afraid of dying.

Today is about P-Noy & Kris Aquino

Today, June 30, 2010, marks the beginning of the next six years of P-Noy, the most powerful man in the Philippines, politically. As the son of a former president, his ascendancy to the highest post is much like a royal ascribed status. But, he won on a largely symbolic journey to a new road towards our dreams as a nation. What are our dreams as a nation? I tell our successor generation that we cannot study society without looking back at the past. Our past and present are filled with so much injustice and poverty. The past is important so that we do not repeat our mistakes, especially in Mindanao. We cannot study the past without a theory of society and where we wish to journey as a nation. So, today is a rebirth, a renaissance filled with much hope that the next six years will be positively different. It is so heartwarming that many in the policy team of P-Noy comes from our ranks in civil society. Butch Abad, LP campaign manager, who is poised to take the Department of Budget and Management portfolio was my co-director at BATAS, one of the first alternative law groups (ALG) in the Philippines working for the poor and the disadvantaged groups. His wife Dina Abad worked with us in Mindanao twenty years ago on a capacity building projects for NGOs when I was chair of the CIDA Phil Canadian Joint Committee ( PCJC) project in Mindanao. Later, Dina became a member of Congress. Ging Deles, who will be the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process is a founding member of our feminist movement PILIPINA or Pinay. Dinky Soliman, another sister in the PILIPINA women’s movement started her activism as a student at the University of the Philippines. Dinky’s first assignments as a social development manager was in Mindanao and that is why her knowledge of Mindanao issues is excellent. Before Hyatt 10 and just after she finished a degree in Harvard, she headed CODE-NGO, the largest NGO network in the country. Another friend who studied night school at U.P Law because he had to work during the day to earn his tuition and who was being considered to head the Department of Labor & Employment is Joel Cadiz, former Integrated Bar of the Philippines ( IBP ) president. When he was IBP president, he was one of my consultants when I wrote a book on the Shari’a courts. The latest report, though, says another fellow got the DOLE portfolio. So, I grew up working with these kindred spirits who are oozing with so much passion and spunk for our country and so in this sense, I feel so much a part of the center of power towards achieving our goals as a nation. What is the narrative of our poverty? The roots go back to the colonial times and continue to this day because the social structures that reinforce social inequality are still so very well entrenched in our system. The last election was largely funded by the oligarchy. P-Noy comes from that class and that is why he is well advised to betray that class if he is serious about what ails our nation. What of Kris Aquino, the presidential sister who is in pain at about the same time that her brother is ascending to power? Kris went on national television to say that her marriage is over. Is her timing to go public about her private troubles ideal? Firstly, marriage is a social institution and therefore is a social concern. Secondly, the time to work on the relationships between women and men is anytime and all the time. One of the objections to the old ways of working in social movements was when leaders said that we should be working for national liberation first and women’s liberation later. No, we work on both national liberation and women’s liberation all at once. So, it is kind of symbolic and an iconic message to all women that the presidential sister understands very well that yes, annulment is a solution to a marriage that is not working. Annulment as a remedy for troubled marriages is allowed in both the Catholic church and Muslim umma and, as well, in our secular legal system. My wish is for this remedy to be made accessible to all social classes.