For countless Filipinos, Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino’s election as the next president of the Philippines was never in doubt and is like the resurrection of the Philippines’ lost soul, a triumph of People Power all over again. But, as they await a formal proclamation, one question is bound to be uppermost in their minds: Will he be able to live up to the reputation of his mother, Corazon Aquino, the heroine of People Power that ousted the hated dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, and the ideals of his equally respected father, Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino?
The question is relevant since the outgoing president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, has failed miserably to live up to the trust and hope that Filipinos had reposed in her, first as Cory Aquino’s handpicked candidate for president, and, second, as the granddaughter of one of the Philippines’ most respected past presidents, Diosdado Macapagal. The nation’s goodwill had marked her inauguration; the nation’s hatred marks her exit.
Corruption, cronyism, and highhandedness that had tarnished, and finally doomed the Marcos regime returned to haunt the Arroyo presidency, too. What made people angrier was that she failed even to learn from the equally atrocious record of Joseph Estrada, the playboy actor who succeeded Cory and was ousted by a repeat of People Power. For almost ten years that Arroyo was in power, covering part of Estrada’s term and the full six years of her own, her administration was mired in widespread allegations of graft and electoral fraud, and one could discern in it traces of Marcos, too.
It’s true “Noynoy” is a reluctant leader. Leadership was forced on him after Cory died of cancer in August 2009. People saw his candidacy as the continuation of a fight for the soul of the Filipino nation. And, having accepted the moral mandate and taken the fight to its conclusion, he now has to be extra mindful of the sanctity of his task — delivering the Filipino nation from the combined evil of Joseph Estrada and Gloria Arroyo.
His immediate goal should be to choose his team in a manner that would be perceived as honest, transparent and sincere. Above all, it must not smack of nepotism. Half his battle will be won if he can pick people who have a known reputation for honesty, integrity and professionalism; who are young and enterprising; and who could be counted on to give the nation a New Deal.
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After languishing in the doldrums for almost a decade, the Philippines needs a new start and, above all, a revival of its spirit. The admiration and goodwill of the world that Cory’s non-violent revolution had won the country are now all but dissipated, and honesty in public life are all but gone. It will be Noynoy’s task now to restore the world’s faith in his country and the respectability that had marked his mother’s administration.
There was a time when the Philippines used to be the focus of Asia’s attention. The founding of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila in 1965 brought the country into international limelight. It became the Mecca of the region’s aspiring business managers when the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) came into being three years later, in partnership with Harvard Business School and the Ford Foundation, setting a new trend of case-based management education that Asia hadn’t experienced before.
Through much of the seventies, Manila was Asia’s undisputed conference capital. Investment banking’s first footsteps in Asia were taken through Sixto Roxas’ Bancom Corporation. It was Roxas’ Bancom boys who could be seen at one time at the helm of many foreign banks in Hong Kong and Singapore. Filipinos were Asia’s first writers of novels in English and, next to the Japanese, its first supermarket shoppers. At Makati, Manila’s financial heart, the Ayalas gave Asia its first lessons in town planning.
Sadly, over the years, under attack from unholy and unscrupulous politicians, the Philippines has moved away from the Asian limelight and into a margin where one hardly notices it anymore. From being the fourth largest Asian economy at one time, it has now declined to one of its poorest. ADB still has its headquarters in Manila and AIM still draws students from around the region, but on the regional scale of importance, the Philippines is now very near the bottom. Even the six years of Cory’s presidency now seem like an aberration of its recent history.
Can “Noynoy” prove to his people that his mother’s legacy was not an aberration but the inspiration for a new beginning? Can he bring back the admiration that Filipinos once enjoyed among its neighbours and in the world? Can he rescue the country from the stigma of being one of the most corrupt of nations? Can he give back to his people the self-respect that was once, deservedly, theirs?