Positive developments

Nearly two years after getting my provisional five-year driver’s license, I finally got the plastic ID card yesterday.

The woman typing the data into the computer refused to correct some minor inaccuracies in the address, saying she had to follow what was in the receipt, mistakes and all. Why do we update and renew personal information on official documents if the inaccuracies are retained anyway?

Still, it took less than 10 minutes for me to have my biometrics taken and the ID card to be released, so I’m happy enough. At least the ID cards are finally out.

I also got my 10-year passport yesterday, from a Department of Foreign Affairs satellite office in a shopping mall, just over a week after I applied.

What I still haven’t got is my voter’s ID card. I had my voter’s biometrics taken for the ID card way back when Benjamin Abalos was still under investigation in connection with the broadband network deal with China’s ZTE. But I guess even the government has given up on the cards. During the barangay elections last May, no voter’s ID was demanded. I simply looked for my precinct number on the ancient, yellowing slip of paper that has served as my voter’s ID “card.” The teachers looked up my name on the barangay list. I affixed my thumbprint after my name.

Maybe one day soon I might even get the license plates for my car, now nearly two years old. The Land Transportation Office, according to recent reports, has started releasing the first batch of license plates. I still have to check if my car is covered.

There’s no urgency for me as my temporary “plates” bearing the car’s conduction sticker marks, made by a signage specialist for less than P500, look so much like the real thing and are pretty sturdy. The current license plate design has to be the easiest ever in this country to fake. The criminals must be rejoicing; even with CCTV footage, license plates are useless for tracing getaway vehicles.

The failure to release these basic items, already fully paid for by applicants, became symbols of inefficiency and paralysis during the previous administration.

Into that simmering public discontent, presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte waded in, presenting himself as a decisive action man who could cut red tape and get things done – apart from his principal campaign promise, of course, of killing all troublemakers.

Duterte has the previous administration to thank for helping propel him to power. Now, into his third year, some of the goods are finally starting to be delivered.

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All these positive developments are now being overshadowed by the frenzied effort to rewrite the Constitution and shift to federalism as quickly and easily as Maria Lourdes Sereno was kicked out as chief justice through a mere quo warranto petition.

The carrot for lawmakers resisting the move is the possibility of a term extension through the scrapping of the midterm elections next year.

Malacañang said yesterday Duterte was against the postponement of the elections or no-el, but what could they do if there’s a popular clamor for it through a people’s initiative, as proposed by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez?

Yesterday, Alvarez said it had to be a people’s initiative by the end of this September or bust.

This is starting to look like that ill-planned, rushed and poorly executed people’s initiative for Charter change during the presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, which her chief legal counsel-turned-defense chief Nonong Cruz described as a “legally harebrained idea.” He quit the Cabinet afterwards.

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You can’t push the nation in a stampede to rewrite the Constitution and shift to a form of government that is alien to the majority of Filipinos.

The unabashed effort of the President’s allies to extend their terms through Cha-cha is fully distracting the country from several of the positive changes under Duterte.

In his first two years in power, Duterte avoided several of the shortcomings or mistakes of his predecessor.

The previous team was seen as an elitist bunch whose lack of empathy with the hoi polloi kept bubbling up unbidden to the surface. There was the dazed incoherence of the initial response to Super Typhoon Yolanda, and the insensitivity to suffering (“you’re still alive, aren’t you?”). This was again on display during the Mamasapano debacle, when the public got the impression that their government considered cops and soldiers as little more than cannon fodder.

The .001 percent and their defenders also found it impossible to comprehend the supreme inconvenience they had inflicted on millions of ordinary folks by shutting down the entire Roxas Boulevard and Intramuros so the VIPs could party during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ summit in Manila. What was the short-term pain, they sniffed, compared with the gains they imagined could be made in rolling out the red carpet for the APEC delegates (and Pinoy VIPs)?

These were on top of the endless breakdowns of that symbol of incompetence and corruption under daang matuwid: the Metro Rail Transit 3.

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The MRT 3 is still a major disaster waiting to happen, with almost daily breakdowns. But at least it looks like those who milked the MRT 3 dry for their personal benefit may be headed to prison.

Under Duterte, the country hosted the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit and meetings in Manila last year without having to shut down any major thoroughfare. Instead Duterte took a more practical approach, which is to declare a holiday around the main venues during the summit.

Candidate Duterte presented himself as one of the common folk who would take on the old rich, the entrenched oligarchs and monopolists. His public cussing and bawdy, politically incorrect jokes burnished this image and his mass appeal. He knows this, which is why he refuses to wash his mouth with soap… except after he took on God.

He has also taken on the role of mourner-in-chief with what people see as genuine empathy, whether the deceased is a cop, soldier or disaster victim.

Now these positive developments are being eclipsed by suspicions that he wants to hang on to power in perpetuity, with his repeated denials contradicted by the actions of his congressional allies.