Defining issue

In 2010, corruption scandals hounding the Arroyo administration combined with the death of Corazon Aquino catapulted her only son to the presidency.

Today the second President Aquino should wonder what is behind the strong showing of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte in the surveys.

As the main campaign pitch of P-Noy’s anointed makes clear, the 2016 vote is a referendum on six years of tuwid na daan. Recent surveys indicate that the referendum isn’t going P-Noy’s way. There are people who see it as saradong daan (road closed, and not just for the APEC exclusive fest), with only the rich and well-connected enjoying the fruits of economic growth.

While Metro Manila is not the Philippines, it is the country’s most vote-rich region. And Pulse Asia’s Nov. 11-12 poll showed Duterte leaping past Sen. Grace Poe, from 27 percent in September to 34 percent. Poe got 26 percent and Vice President Jejomar Binay 22 percent, with P-Noy’s BFF Mar Roxas a far 11 percent and Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, another latecomer in the race, nipping at his heels with seven percent.

The rankings for vice president were also a rebuff to daang sarado. Sen. Chiz Escudero, no BFF of Roxas, led the pack with 32 percent followed by Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. with 24 and Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano with 20. Will Duterte boost Cayetano’s stock? Roxas’ running mate Leni Robredo was a far fourth with 10 percent followed by Sen. Gregorio Honasan, who doesn’t seem interested in the race, with eight percent and Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV with four.

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As the results showed, corruption was the defining issue in the 2010 race. This time, if we go by the surveys, it’s management. People are looking for a firm hand at the nation’s helm – in implementing infrastructure and development projects; in dealing with terrorists, criminals and murderers of police commandos; in cutting red tape and bureaucratic corruption; in delivering basic services including untangling the traffic mess.

Ordinary people who have dealt with government agencies including the Bureau of Customs laugh at the tuwid na daan spiel. P-Noy may be personally clean, but it’s a different story in many agencies.

Unfortunately for saradong daan, management is seen to be its weak spot. It bungled the response to Super Typhoon Yolanda. Its flagship public-private partnership program has failed to take off. It appeared to be a wimp in the Mamasapano slaughter.

And a firm hand – “control, not violence” was how Cayetano described his candidate’s style – is the trademark of Duterte. The ratings also indicate that Binay continues to enjoy the solid support, unswayed by allegations of corruption against him, of those who believe he is the most capable executive among the candidates.

Candidates in this country do not espouse policies based on party lines. So all or most of the presidential bets are promising what saradong daan is promising: continuity of economic policies that work, continuity of the conditional cash transfer that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo started. Poe has said the administration has no monopoly of tuwid na daan. Santiago presents herself as both a reformist and a strong, efficient manager.

The non-administration candidates can also promise more: openness to economic Charter change and other measures to attract job-generating foreign direct investment, income tax cuts, and better people to end the national embarrassment that is the NAIA. Also a new team to run the Metro Rail Transit without sweetheart deals awarded to the ruling party, build modern railway systems and ports, and release vehicle plates and driver’s licenses on time.

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Though human rights advocates are raising a howl, Duterte’s track record in dealing with troublemakers (plus the promise of more of the same from the only son of the late dictator) must be reassuring to Pinoys, if the surveys are accurate.

The Ilocos Region, the Marcos bailiwick, is one of the safest in the country and one of the most tourism-friendly. So is Duterte’s turf.

Public safety is high among the concerns of Pinoys, and dealing with it is not among the strong suits of daang sarado. Impunity is high and now even judges have become prime targets of assassinations.

The administration’s attitude toward the tanim-bala or bullet planting scandal and even traffic jams in Metro Manila betray an insensitivity that belies P-Noy’s avowed concern for his “bosses.”

He must have been voicing what officials told him in saying that tanim-bala incidents were just three in 34 million. Even if you record only three murders in 34 million, people will still worry that it could happen to them, especially if no one is made to account for the crime.

You also don’t deal with traffic by shutting down large swaths of Metro Manila, forcing vehicles to vanish and people to stay home. That’s not efficiency but laziness in managing traffic in a mega-city.

That lockdown of the entire Roxas Boulevard, parallel streets and the reclaimed area plus the periodic closures of Roxas Boulevard and the Skyway for APEC shut down businesses for several days. Even business establishments in Divisoria complained that their clients couldn’t reach the nation’s busiest commercial district especially when Intramuros and surrounding areas were also locked down for a ladies’ lunch. Preliminary estimates of the total business losses have been placed at a conservative P10 billion, apart from the staggering $2 billion reported by the airlines.

Roxas had nothing to do with the APEC preparations. But those days of hell for ordinary Pinoys will be added to the frustrations toward the administration that are now being reflected in the surveys.

If weak governance becomes the defining issue in May 2016, daang sarado is in trouble.

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FEEDBACK: Former President Fidel Ramos wrote to give credit to President Cory Aquino, under whose watch Republic Act 6977, the Magna Carta for Small and Medium Enterprises, was enacted in 1991.

It was amended in 1997 under FVR by RA 8289, the Magna Carta for Small Enterprises, which sought “to strengthen the promotion and development of and assistance to small and medium scale enterprises.”

The FVR-era law defined a “micro” enterprise as one with assets of up to P1.5 million; above that, up to P15 million, was “small” while higher, up to P60 million, was “medium.”