The Philippine Online Chronicles

As coming off as sincere and willing to take on the task, P-Noy gets a 10 out of 10.

However, when it comes to delivery, he would have to be a 4.

Why so?

It’s been a year since President Aquino was inaugurated into office. Let’s take a look at how he has fared so far.

Obviously, the love affair with the Aquino charisma and drama has worn off with the public, especially since Pres. Aquino has been seeing a continuous drop in his job approval ratings. His ratings have declined steadily because many people feel that he isn’t doing enough to resolve the poverty issue in the country and no solid economic improvements or measures can be seen.

Just like every other politician, he has made promises to the high heavens during his campaign period, especially when dealing with corruption in government. People bought this promise so now it’s time to see how he has delivered on those promises. After all, if we want good governance, we should hold candidates accountable for their promises.

So far, several sectors have given P-Noy passing marks for his anti-corruption measures. Kaya Natin! Movement for Good Governance and Ethical Leadership gave the president as score of 85%. That’s pretty good considering no charges have yet to be filed against his predecessor. While P-Noy’s first SONA delivered a lot of mind blowing anomalies, so far, nothing has been recovered, nothing has been filed and no one has been made accountable, let along punished for misdeeds.

Within his first few weeks in office, he issued executive orders to stop the midnight appointees of his predecessor from sitting in office. Of course, his EO was later overruled by the Supreme Court. However, it really seemed like he was earnest in setting things straight.

It doesn’t bode well for his administration that his own appointees have come under intense media scrutiny for either corruption or competency issues. Notably, there is the still sitting LTO chief Virginia Torres and PCSO Chairperson Margarita Juico, who have come under attack for questionable decisions since taking office. Given that P-Noy is seen as protecting and coddling his appointees in spite of recommendation of the DOJ to do otherwise, P-Noy stands behind his choices.

P-Noy certainly got the Filipino’s attention as being more low key. Who can forget “No to Wang Wang”, which is why people in the metropolis are finally able to drive around in relative silence, without having to deal with hagads, PSG’s and massive security escorts. At least, he was low key up until he started buying his luxury vehicles for his personal use.

On the plus side, he pushed for the start of the reforms in education. Notably, kindergarten classes are being offered to about a million public pre school students this year. Of course, this was rushed and done, even without ample classrooms, teachers or even a working budget. However, much can be said that at least he pushed for something good and worthwhile, and decided to ask questions later.

He also tried for more transparency. He put up the presidential website, hoping to make communicating with the President more accessible. He is tapping people from both the public and private sector to help him deal with various issues in government. Although many are qualified, some are quite questionable.

When it comes to coming off as earnest, P-Noy get high marks. No other president in recent history comes off as sincere when in comes to battling corruption. He still enjoys a fairly high trust rating.

However, when it comes to delivery of economic growth, P-Noy fares poorly.

Seems like Filipinos trust that he wants to do a good job, but don’t necessarily believe that he can deliver. Therefore, while the intention may be good, the execution isn’t always commendable. In this day and age, results matter and we want it fast. Blaming his woes on the past regime isn’t going to work anymore. Now we want solutions.

Unemployment rate is up. Where are the one millions jobs a year promised? Under his economic plan, the Aquino administration is supposed to generate a millions jobs a year.

The problem with the P-Noy administration is that in spite of P-Noy’s earnestness to set things straight and do a good job, he doesn’t seem up to the Herculean task ahead of him. Since he took office, the GDP of the country has steadily declined, unlike the continuous economic growth experienced under the Arroyo administration.

He has cut back spending in government, although as a consequence, it further lowered the GDP, when government spending used to be able to bring the numbers up.

He has put on hold the payment of government contracts for services, such as Stradcom for LTO. While the bidding process may have been questionable, the government and the public has benefited from services rendered, so it seems unfair to hold payment and break a contract.

In terms of keeping his own house in order, P-Noy isn’t doing so great. It’s no secret that there are many factions within his own government, each pursuing his or her own political agenda. Already, P-Noy himself vocalized about three cabinet members that are giving him a headache. Also, his own press team gives different versions of events and news reports, offering contradictory reports from Malacanang.

How can the President be effective when he can’t even get his own house in order?

There is much room for improvement in the presidency of Mr. Aquino. The question then becomes – are the people willing to give him all the time he needs to get the country’s business in order?

Filipinos are notorious for being impatient when it comes to our president. If we don’t like what we see immediately and don’t feel like we are getting instant concrete results, the solution is to have a coup de etat to bring someone else in and bypass the entire democratic process.

It was a coup that brought his own mother to power, only later to be tested by a number of coup attempts. Will the same thing happen to P-Noy if the people get impatient? In the Philippines, it’s very likely to happen, especially if the economy keeps going on its downward spiral.

While solving corruption is a major issue, Filipinos want something that will put food on their table now, enable them to go to work today so they can look forward to something tomorrow.

It may seem harsh to give the president a failing mark, but we are running out of time and this laid back approach isn’t delivering the results that we want. Yes, we want to stamp out corruption, but we also want to be growing and developing as a nation at the same time.

No one said being president is easy. After all, we all have a vested interest in his success. If our president succeeds in curbing corruption and stimulating the economy, then we all win.

Photo by Anton Sheker. Some Rights Reserved.