Q: What do you want to see accomplished during the first 100 days of President Benigno Aquino III?
RIVERO: I would like President Aquino to identify the concrete steps to be undertaken in the implementation of his Education Agenda because basic education on the primary and secondary levels requires immediate attention and radical change.
Aquino has said that he will bring back science and math clubs on the elementary level, encourage science and math fairs as venues for competition, improve the science and math curricula beginning on the Grade I level, and rebuild the science and math infrastructure in schools. Among these, the biggest challenge lies in revising the science and math curricula. He will have to look into the system and purge it of pedagogical approaches that do not meet the objectives of the subject matter, modernizing the educational system itself in the process. The so-called textbooks produced more as income-generating projects than instruments for facilitating the learning process must also be pulled out of circulation.
Changes in lifestyle and in the economy have over the last thirty years made homes less adequate as preschools for children. The natural inquisitive nature of young minds is thus poorly developed, at times even stifled before children get into Grade I. An appropriate preschool program must therefore be made available to all children.
These preparatory programs should be subsidized by the government for children from low-income families. Those who can afford it, however, should pay so as not to strain the budget for education, which must also provide for teacher-training—upgrading and re-tooling—as well as incentive packages. The education budget must also provide teachers with a competitive salary range. The students can only be as good as their teachers. Capability-enhancing programs for teachers serving the primary and secondary schools must be made available to all teachers through a well-designed human resource enrichment program.
SOBRITCHEA: The first 100 days of the new government under the leadership of President Noynoy Aquino must lay the groundwork for the development of a clear framework of governance and action on how to immediately and forcefully resolve the many festering problems of the country. These include among others, the serious gap in access to resources and benefits between the rich and the poor as well as the serious threats to life and resources caused by disasters and armed conflicts. The selection of people who will constitute the new cabinet and the leadership posts of various government agencies should be completed during this period. They should immediately start the process of policy and program assessments that should become the basis for the formulation of a clear development agenda for the coming six years. Beyond the rhetoric of popular democracy is the serious challenge of negotiating the various perspectives that now inform the manner of resolving structural roots of poverty and political instability. The present government must make its position clear right from the start on issues related to population and development, trade liberalization, public access to information, and the restructuring of government through a constitutional amendment. This is a delicate balancing act since just like their political opponents, these new leaders have come into power through the massive support of the economic elite and other interest groups. Finally, more than 10 million Filipinos now live and work abroad and the local economy has increasingly become dependent on foreign remittances. The first 100 days of the new government must undertake a serious look into the social costs of this phenomenon especially its many negative impacts on the family and local communities.
TEODOSIO: The perpetual contest for wealth and power has resulted in the persistence of poverty, a widening gap between the haves and have-nots, and an economy that is generally unaccountable to its participants. The first 100 days of the new regime should embrace a broad vision of third sector development as a guiding principle and new model of economic growth. In general, “third sector” refers to society’s activities which are non-profit and non-governmental, and which work for a social or community objective. This sector consists of volunteers, cooperatives, and other such social enterprises.
The ownership and control of land, tools, and other conditions for a person’s livelihood have been traded in for wage, and there is hardly any concern for the workplace, community empowerment, and the environment. As a result, the culture of the labor process is antidemocratic and unable to equip people with democratic sentiments and capacities. An economic ideology that demands cutthroat competition and short-term gain has essentially destroyed jobs, and at the same time, led to unsustainable consumption lifestyles. The new government should allow for programs that do not only focus on accumulation but also on continuing and deepening the capacities of those, especially in the rural areas, to address the relationship between the economy and democratic culture. A socio-economic system produces and reproduces social relations and ideas. There is overwhelming evidence that participation reduces alienation and raises productivity. When a community pushes for its own issues and demands, it subjects itself to possibilities for transformation, a democracy of everyday life.
The cooperative movement in this country has shown that the democratic control of investment and production is not only desirable in its own right, but is also an increasingly necessary condition for a society to allow for a third sector to prosper and support more sustainable development in terms of markets, impact, and distributive justice. Cooperatives have taken the lead in ensuring ownership and control of resources through bottom-up initiatives. They are difficult to organize and manage, but although a number have failed, many more have succeeded. With trust and mutuality as moral resource and social capital, they are schools of empowerment that have created the right conditions for people to trust each other and do their best for the organization. For Robert Putnam, social capital is a key component in building and maintaining democracy. Former armed rebel commanders in Mindanao, together with those from the Visayas and Luzon, have formed an agriculture cooperative, the Cooperative of Coconut and Expanded Workers, and have mobilized to pursue the productive potential of their areas for food security, cash crops, and clean energy. In the Cordillera, there is the Balweg Liberation Army Cooperative. The leaders of EDSA 3 have also begun to organize a Metro Manila wide-cooperative for their urban poor network, the People’s Movement Against Poverty Cooperative.
It is crucial not to underestimate the restless struggle, contestation, and conflict of various interests in this country. The third sector is a significant context and in the long run, the presence of trust, cooperation, and cohesion can only enhance the Aquino regime’s ability to exercise legitimate power.
MONSOD: I would like to see credible demonstrations of commitment to transparency, honesty and professionalism in government. While it will be difficult if not impossible to eradicate corruption in six years (much less in three months), I believe it is possible to change incentives such that within six years the progress toward a professional and incorruptible government becomes difficult to reverse.
What specific actions within the first 100 days can be done along these lines?
1. Disclose the Office of the President’s selection parameters and search mechanisms for senior government positions, at least from Assistant Secretary and up and including presidential appointees to government corporations or government representatives to private corporations.
2. Disclose the qualifications, functions and accountabilities of presidential appointees, especially those known as Presidential Consultants or Advisers. In recent years, the Office of the President has been one of the most opaque in government with the number of Presidential consultants/advisers reaching an all time high (as the 2008/2009 Philippine Human Development Report details). The problem is that such consultants/advisers have enjoyed the title and authority of a Cabinet Secretary but without accompanying accountabilities since the extent of the latter, if any, are never made known. Further, only members of the official Cabinet should be allowed to use the designation “Secretary”.
3. Require Cabinet members, undersecretaries, consultants/advisers and other high level appointees, as a condition for their assumption into (or continuing in) office, to sign a waiver of their protection under the bank secrecy laws, that will allow the Ombudsman access to their financial records when there is probable cause for it.
4. Issue an Executive Order instructing agencies to respond to requests for information in a manner consistent with provisions in the proposed Freedom of Information Act, even while waiting for actual legislation. Failure to comply with the EO should trigger administrative or civil service sanctions.
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