It’s time to stop politicking and focus on business!

Last Friday afternoon was very interesting because the two prestigious business clubs – the Cebu Business Club and the Makati Business Club – met at the Casino Español to sign a memorandum of agreement to foster closer ties. Gordon “Dondi” Joseph, president of the Cebu Business Club, signed this agreement with Alberto A. Lim, executive director of the Makati Business Club. But the main event was the speech of the guest of honor, the eminent Dr. Jesus “Jess” P. Estanislao, chairman of the Institute of Corporate Directors, which was well applauded by the people at the jam-packed conference room of the Casino Español.

Dr. Estanislao, who is the guru of good corporate governance, challenged his fellow Cebuanos to veer away from our national malaise of having too much politics. Just look at the front-page news of all our national dailies where 15 days after the elections… we are still hooked on politics. In fact, people here are saying that the elections last May were actually the start of the 2010 presidential campaign period! I quite agree that it is time to rid ourselves of our political hangover and focus once more on the economy.

Dr. Estanislao pointed out to his audience a clear example of where we should be going and he pointed to the direction of China. Thirty years ago, China was considered a Third World country… today China is no longer the sleeping dragon that we used to call it. The dragon has awakened and in just a short 20 years… China has produced some 300 million millionaires! That’s the population of most ASEAN nations, minus Indonesia!

How did China achieve this goal? By setting its focus on business, on global integration of their economy, regardless of the problems it had on the domestic front. Sure, China still has to solve the problems of the marginalized sector, but then thanks to a robust economy, they can now afford to take care of the marginalized groups. In the Philippines, thanks to the noisy leftists, who want to solve the problems of the marginalized sector first in a nation that hardly has excess money to help out the poor.

Hence Dr. Estanislao correctly pointed out to get business and investments first into our country, and then we can take care of our poor marginalized folk because by then we would have the funds to help them out. But first things first, let’s get rid of our too much politicking which doesn’t help our economy a bit and think of a globally competitive Philippines!

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Will House Speaker Jose de Venecia (JDV) get his fifth term as Speaker of the House? Well, it certainly seems that JDV is hell-bent on getting this top post regardless of what people have to say about it. As I wrote in previous articles, this is one of the major flaws of the Cory Constitution… that we have set term limits for the Office of the President, yet there is none for the Speaker. So when people in the south complain about Imperial Manila, you have a good idea why this is happening!

The least we can expect from the national government is a rotation of the House speakership in order to give other lawmakers a chance. But then what can we expect from a fellow like Smoking Joe who only has three interests in his life… “Me, Myself and I!” The Speaker seems to be well-entrenched in the hands of the politicians from Pangasinan, which is why today, JDV is facing this challenge from Cebu… thanks to Rep. Louie Villafuerte who, in the highest form of statesmanship, did not take the cudgels for his own personal political ambitions, but instead asked Cebu second district Congressman-elect Pablo Garcia to take the flag of Kampi and pose the challenge to Lakas.

If you want to know how unpopular JDV has become, it wasn’t long ago that he tried to ram into our throats his plan to change the Constitution via a constituent assembly (con-ass) and virtually ruined all our efforts to change the Charter via the right and proper way… through a constitutional convention (con-con). JDV wanted to remove the hated Senate, which is why the senators clung to survival and dear life and held their fort!

Without the Senate, JDV would have emerged as the undisputed legal dictator of the land… being the prime minister forever and ever and ever! Shades of the Marcos Dictatorship! This is why JDV’s con-ass was unpopular and unacceptable to all Filipinos. If that happened, he would have turned the Philippines into another India, which for many decades have what was called the dictatorship of a political party… the I Party. This to me merely brings back memories of the unlamented Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL), once a political monolith, but crumbled into dust when faced with a peaceful revolt on EDSA.

Today, we can except a political brawl in the fight for the House speakership and yes, expect JDV to cling to this position like that ugly tuko on the wall of your old ancestral home! If by any political accident, Representative-elect Pablo Garcia becomes the next Speaker of the House, then there is only one thing I would ask Pabling, who is a constitutionalist, to do – call for a constitutional convention and give it a one-year timeframe to change whatever is wrong with our present Constitution. How about term limits for the Speaker? How about returning the presidency to a four-year term with one four-year re-election? There’s a lot more!

We ought to set term limits for elected officials that would stop political dynasties and embody that in the Constitution, knowing fully well that Congress would never enact an anti-dynasty law. Then it is time to recognize the reality that the Senate must and should be voted by region or better, by state because the cost of the campaign will surely be cheaper with no need for those expensive national TV advertisements.

Under a Garcia speakership, we can expect a more proportionate geographical representation in the leadership of the nation’s political institutions. Pabling correctly pointed out that the Executive Department is headed by a President who hails from Luzon, so too with the Senate and other independent political institutions like the Supreme Court. Pabling bewailed, “The Visayans are not properly represented in these political institutions.” If Garcia gets the post, we can expect something new from the House. But if JDV still gets to be the next Speaker, we can expect more of the old trapo politics which we ought to get rid of.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow, “Straight from the Sky,” shown every Monday, 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.