America’s second president John Adams once said: “We are a government of laws and not of men.”
The passage is in recognition of the need for a country’s government to be kept in check by laws which thwart anyone from pushing vested interests at the expense of life, liberty or property of majority, if not all, of its citizens.
It’s this very basic idea—the rule of law—that was at the core of our democratic principles. It makes possible the ideal of individual freedom.
Roman statesman Cicero also said: “We are all servants of the laws in order that we may be free.”
The rule of law to further the common good: that, to me, is the very essence of our young democracy. It is the legal principle by which our nation should be governed, as opposed to being ruled by arbitrary decisions of individual government officials. It infers that every citizen is subject to the law, including the lawmakers themselves. It is what holds a democracy apart from and superior to an autocracy, dictatorship or oligarchy, where the rulers are held above the law.
Perhaps, it is worth keeping this in mind when we go to our respective polling precincts on May 9 to choose our next leader for the next six years.
In the past few months, we have been witness to the most contentious election campaign ever to hit the country, with supporters of all presidential candidates throwing venomous insults against one another. If pre-election surveys are to be the yardstick, Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte will be the runaway winner, with a commanding 30 percent of the polling pie.
And this is what worries some businessmen whom I have recently talked to. The firebrand mayor has captivated the imagination of the voting public, who has grown impatient with the traffic and other inconveniences they face in their daily grind. Duterte’s a la-Dirty-Harry-make-my-day persona has stirred their emotions, and piqued their interest in this supposedly modern-day Rambo out to put an end to what ails the nation: “I will kill all the criminals.… [And then] hand over the presidency to Bongbong Marcos…,” he proudly proclaims, even as he also hinted at shutting down Congress if he would be impeached because of his actions.
Other than his braggadocio, we have yet to hear from Duterte his economic, foreign and security policies. This is why some businessmen shiver at the thought of blood spilling in the streets once he cracks down on crime, with no guarantee that life will improve under his leadership.
Duterte has successfully projected an image of a Philippines under-siege; saying that only his strong-man tactics can rescue the nation from the pit of criminality.
Voters are now presented with only two choices: continuity versus drastic change.
But is the Philippines really in a crisis?
The main beef of Duterte and other presidential candidates is the government’s apathy to the plight of the people caused by an “ineffective” leadership. They chorus that President Aquino is numb to the inefficiencies of some government agencies to solve crime, monstrous traffic and their failure to overhaul a Jurassic train system. Add to this the Mamasapano incident in which 44 elite Special Action Forces were massacred in their successful operation to kill top terrorist Zulkifli Abdhir (also known as Marwan), and the issue of the “misused” Development Assistance Program.
All these issues strike a chord in the hearts of the members of the middle class who, some political analysts claim, feel the brunt of the “inaction” of a “government which does not care.” While the rich have the Public-Private Partnership Program, and the poor the Conditional Cash-Transfer (CCT) Program, the middle class don’t have anything to alleviate their plight. Some are even calling the Duterte phenomenon the “revolt of the new elite.”
To be fair to the current administration, official data indicate that the Aquino government has been successful in helping 7.7 million individuals cross the poverty threshold; providing health care to 93 million PhilHealth beneficiaries; aiding 4.6 million households under the CCT Program, and achieving the lowest unemployment rate and a 6.2-percent average growth rate, which is the biggest since the 1970s.
Change versus continuity?
WE sometimes misunderstand history as a mere list or timeline of events, but once we start to appreciate history as a complex mix of continuity and change, we would reach a fundamentally different sense of the past.
One of the keys to continuity and change is to seek change where common sense suggests that there has been none, and opt for continuity where a positive change has been realized.
The traffic situation can be fixed. The next government can build on the gains of the Aquino administration. Duterte only has his strongly worded and brash promises as guarantee that his extrajudicial solutions to our country’s various ills will work.
As one of the 10 member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Philippines has too much at stake and more to benefit from the establishment of the Asean Economic Community, which is envisioned to realize the region’s huge potential to be an economic powerhouse in the global market. Our country needs more than just an individual who is street-tough, smart-talking and devil-may-care. We need a leader who has the expertise, experience, diplomacy, wisdom and integrity to work with other local and Asean stakeholders in bringing us to the forefront of growth and development.
Vote wisely!
1 comment
Everyone is going to vote wisely but there are too many canidates… should be down to one on one.. were roxas could surely beat duterte… its sad that he might win with only 30% acceptance…