Surprises and no surprises

As the BBM administration enters its second year, we come face to face with several surprises. Well, also a number of no surprises.

First: For someone who started his first months in office mumbling and stumbling over words and facts when being interviewed, a certain polish has been noted of late that gave the country’s 17th President some sheen of political savviness.

Definitely, it is still far from how his father, his namesake, Ferdinand Marcos, who had forced an extension of his presidential term for more than two decades from 1965 to 1986, had carried himself. Marcos Sr. was someone who had a commanding presence when speaking, publicly and privately.

His only son is more laid-back, and his charm apparently comes from his mother, Imelda, who has been known for her solicitous and lavish ways of entertaining guests. Not surprisingly, big opulent parties are back where the President and his wife, Liza, are.

But like Imelda, Bongbong is like a sponge. He has been observed to have the capability to listen and absorb briefings with relative ease. This has helped him overcome his initial handicap when dealing with press conferences, and even his hesitation about speaking to the media.

And like during the time of Imelda, the Philippine press who cover him reportedly are getting a relatively easier time accessing him compared to the time of the previous president Rodrigo Duterte. Of course, the cordon sanitaire is still thick, but there are no expletives and other controversial script deviations.

‘Nipping the bud’

Second observation: an early start to in-fighting. The recent brouhaha over the downgrading of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from Senior Deputy House Speaker to a “junior” deputy speakership role had taken most by surprise.

Even more surprising was the statement of House Speaker Martin Romualdez a few days after a speculated coup in the Lower House aimed at replacing him: “occasional moves to destabilize the House should be nipped in the bud,” Romualdez, the President’s cousin, is currently considered one of the more influential persons in the President’s circle.

The reported power struggle in the legislature, however, goes deeper, and which possibly already weighs in on the 2028 Presidential elections. With no apparent strong successor from the Marcos side yet, early preparations are in order, and one of this is to “nip in the bud” any challenger.

Arroyo has been known to favor Sara Duterte over BBM, and Sara’s huge popularity is already being considered a big threat. By relegating Arroyo to the fringes, which means she no longer has the personality to join official events, a good amount of resources and network is believed to have been removed.

Arroyo and Duterte will have to navigate the next five years outside the circle of power, although it is still too early to declare them as has-beens. Five years can always go either way for the two political parties that have emerged. Will Romualdez really have “nipped the bud”?

Haste and waste

The third surprise: the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF). The concept of having a sovereign wealth fund, which the MIF is patterned after, had been discussed decades ago mainly at the staff level when the country was dreaming of being Asia’s new tiger economy.

Previous presidents had differing views about it, but no one really cared as much as the current one. Or if rumors are true, the eager-beaver people behind President Marcos, which includes the head of his economic team, Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno.

The arguments regarding the timeliness of the MIF have been raised multiple times by respected economists, but especially suspect is the haste by which our congressmen and senators have allowed the proposed bill to go through the legislature.

Of course, there are now multiple speculations on why there is really a need for the MIF given that the government does not really have the spare cash to put into the fund, and neither does the current global financial conditions look generous enough to commit to huge investments during these still uncertain times.

One of the biggest sources of investment in the proposed MIF is rumored to be laundered money, no other than those piling away in Swiss banks. Such assumptions may be preposterous, but they do account for a plausible reason. Taken from a different perspective, hence, haste will not make way for waste if we follow this theory.

Liability

Here next is a no-surprise. From the time BBM declared his intention to head the Department of Agriculture (DA), it was time to kiss goodbye the thought of any immediate and real changes that would revolutionize our agriculture sector. After one year, the President continues to pay lip service to such phrases as food security and agricultural modernization.

In fact, his “presence” in DA has become a liability, with almost the whole organization still apprehensive about initiating both ministerial work and out-of-the box ideas to address the threat of future food supply breakdowns or radical improvements in our agriculture system.

The earlier fiascos about sugar and onion importations have become implicit warnings for DA officials to proceed with extraordinary caution on any dealings, no matter if they had been in the past regarded as standard operating procedures and purely ministerial.

The worse that has happened is the apparent slow response to the imminent threat of worsening food supply problems for the country in view of our growing dependence on importations. Even now, with news about droughts in Thailand, Vietnam, and even India, the global rice scenario calls for more resolute action. And with worsening world climate conditions, things could get direr.

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