Two and a half years!

That’s right… P-Noy only has two and a half years left in his term. But in practical terms, he has less time than that. He only has this year and the first half of 2015 to get any thing worthwhile done… one and a half years to go.

Election fever will afflict the country starting the second half of next year and through the first half of 2016. Based on past experience, nothing much for the good of the country gets done during an election year.

P-Noy started off his term on a very high note. There was hope that finally the country’s economy has a good chance to become a tiger like its neighbors in Asean. And things started well as P-Noy was seen as the exact opposite of the immediate past president, Gloria Arroyo on that long festering problem of corruption.

P-Noy’s credibility in the good governance arena was enough to gain the confidence of the foreign economic and political analysts. Even if the Daang Matuwid battle cry has not produced palpable results beyond the Presidential pronouncements, folks were ready to take P-Noy at his word.

Indeed, we found ourselves among those considered as a most promising emerging economy in no time. It was as if everyone had always recognized the outstanding economic potential of the Philippines and it was only the sheer corruption of its governing politicians that is holding us back.

We got successive credit rating upgrades. Foreign investors looking for alternatives to the developed world’s equity markets found refuge here. With our strong peso, we became the best performing stock market in the world. Portfolio investors saw the revenue streams from OFWs and BPOs fueling a strong consumer market and the bandwagon for the Philippines zoomed along.

It didn’t seem to matter that the Aquino administration’s flagship PPP program faltered very early in the game. Indeed, it is difficult to explain why we were satisfied to merely attract about $2 billion a year in FDI while Vietnam was attracting as much as $80 billion. FDIs going into manufacturing would have created jobs that would have resulted in a more equitable sharing of the benefits of economic growth.

While we recently managed some encouraging leaps in some areas considered in global competitiveness rankings, we are overall ranked among the mediocre.

But now, it’s crunch time as world economies adjusted to the tapering of America’s quantitative easing policy. From best performing, our stock market became the worst performing in the world. The peso has weakened and inflation is threatening to rise this year, specially with the sharp increase in energy prices.

How will history measure the success or failure of the P-Noy administration?

Former Finance Secretary Bobby de Ocampo pointed out that “the President himself defined it early on in his inaugural address when he said he wished to leave behind a legacy of reforms that would be institutionalized to the point that would make it difficult for subsequent administrations to alter them whimsically, and thus provide a strong foundation of continuity of good governance.”

If that’s how P-Noy wants his watch to be measured, Bobby asked: “can he pull it off in the last three minutes?” Perhaps, P-Noy can eke out what Bobby calls “three-point shots” (that) can beat the buzzer.”

Economists have been telling the President he needs to address the problem of jobless growth via a constitutional amendment, as proposed by Speaker Sonny Belmonte, that adds the phrase “unless otherwise provided by law” to the Constitution’s economic provisions.

The problem is, P-Noy is not comfortable with dramatic change and only dramatic change can create the kind of lasting impact on the economy and society we badly need. Cha-cha on the economic provisions isn’t even that dramatic as needed changes go but P-Noy is simply reluctant to disturb the status quo.

P-Noy says he fears Cha-cha will allow politicians to tinker with the political provisions as well. That is not so bad if it happens. In fact, we should now consider a shift to parliamentary.

No sense insisting on the current presidential system given its continuing failure to do the country any good. The absence of a credible successor in 2016 under the presidential system is one more reason why even a parliamentary shift should be worth the risk. Now is the best time to consider a shift in the system because P-Noy himself is not interested in perpetuating himself in power.

Because of his fear of change, the biggest hindrance to a successful P-Noy administration is P-Noy himself. His stubbornness can be a virtue if it means standing on some basic principles of good governance. We loved P-Noy’s perseverance in seeing the passage of the RHL Law, the Sin Tax Law and the impeachment of former CJ Corona despite strong pressure from politicians, bishops and entrenched vested interests.

But often, his stubbornness means a total blind loyalty to incompetent friends he has appointed to high office.

His insistence on appointing a family friend as ambassador to China despite his lack of qualification made us lose precious time we needed to craft a credible China policy. The China problem should have been handled more professionally by trained diplomats with no allegiance to any world power but only to the country’s national interest.

Veteran journalist Glenda Gloria wrote in Rappler, the web news site, that “ironically, some of the wrong choices have been the two people closest to him: Voltaire Gazmin and Mar Roxas. But the President abhors firing people, that’s why we have seen neither a revamp nor major changes in his Cabinet since he assumed office in 2010.”

The incompetent NAIA GM is another obvious case in point. It had just been reported that someone described to be out of his senses managed to infiltrate the highly secured area of NAIA’s tarmac. The man was apprehended just as he tried to climb up a parked Kuwait Airlines plane using the front landing gear of the aircraft.

What if that man was a suicide terrorist? He could have planted some explosives in that plane and because there were no CCTV cameras there, we wouldn’t have known what happened. I am afraid the US FAA may even use these recent security lapses in NAIA as an excuse to deny us upgrade to Category 1 to the detriment of local flag carriers and our tourism industry.

In the military where the NAIA GM came from, he is obliged to take command responsibility as a matter of honor. But the GM had proven not only incompetent but shameless through the years.

Complaints about inadequate air conditioning and dirty or non functional comfort rooms in all three terminals are reported constantly but he has not taken responsibility. All we get are excuses. P-Noy should not tolerate such incompetence any longer… but I am afraid he will.

Then there is Customs… and the failure to curb smuggling. The worse part is P-Noy’s tendency to go into denial when confronted with real life problems with his people.

A problem with P-Noy is he sees details, not the broad picture. Hence, he has this almost childlike tendency to want to play real life cops and robbers. Rushing to the scene of an ordinary jewelry store heist at a mall is rather unpresidential. What should get his attention however, is what ails the national police to the point of increasing this feeling of citizen insecurity over personal safety.

Assassinations are carried out in a supposedly secured area like NAIA Terminal 3 without even a CCTV system to give us a clue on how that could happen. Kidnappings are rumored to be on the rise, as are carjackings. Taxis, buses and PU vehicles are not safe for the common commuter. Now the police itself are telling us the Mexican drug cartel has started to operate in this country under P-Noy’s watch.

It would be normal at this halfway mark to expect P-Noy to reshuffle his cabinet as well as key positions in government so that more positive results can be expected sooner than later. But again, his stubbornness gets in the picture even when it is obvious some of his choices have been wrong from the start.

As Glenda Gloria asked, “Does he sometimes think he is above criticism, sending the same signal to his men who suspect a plot behind every negative story? Or does he now have his own muted version of reality? The second phase of his term won’t allow him – and them – that luxury.”

Two and a half years, Mr. President… before you know it, it is over and history will judge you, ready or not.

Mactan chicken farm

Funny comment by former Cebu City Mayor Tommy Osmena on the design of the proposed Megawide-GMR Mactan airport: “It’s ugly and looks like a poultry farm…”

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco