An agenda for the next President

Leadership has often been described as the capacity to translate vision into reality. Instead of visionary leaders, the world is seeing the emergence of a different type of leader – the demagogue. This is a person, especially an orator or political leader, who gains power and popularity by arousing emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people.

The worldwide rise of terrorism has given demagogues a chance to exploit populist fears. In the United States Trump has called for a total ban of Muslim travel exploiting the religious prejudices of the Christian majority. In the Philippines, Marcos used the same prejudices to derail the Bangsamoro Basic Law.

Trump has also blamed Mexican immigrants for increased crimes in the USA. His solution is to build a wall and expel the 11 million immigrants from the country. There are no specifics nor are there any long term plan to address the root causes of social ills that cause the majority of crimes. In the Philippines, some presidential candidates believe that a national vision should include solutions to the EDSA traffic and that rule of law is an obstacle to getting rid of criminals. If the Philippines is to continue on the path to being a tiger economy, the next President must look beyond demagoguery and stop allowing radio commentators to set the next presidential agenda.

The world is becoming increasingly complex and the nature of the challenges the next President will face will become more difficult. Last year, the Outlook on the Global Agenda, part of the World Economic Forum, listed the top 10 global challenges. Some of these challenges should be on the top of the next president’s agenda. From my viewpoint, here are the most relevant to the Philippines:

Deepening income inequality. Pope Francis said that income inequality is the root of social ill and that violence will never end for as long as income inequality is not addressed. The evidence can be shocking – the richest 80 billionaires have more wealth than 50 percent of the world’s population or the bottom 3.5 billion. The top one percent have more wealth than the remaining 99 percent of the world’s population. The situation is exacerbated by massive tax evasion and money laundering of the very rich.

There have been many solutions advanced including closing tax havens; breaking up financial services giants “too big to fail”; and making living wage as the minimum wage. Unfortunately, Pope Francis has often said that the rich have stopped caring and feeling the pains of the poor.

Persistent jobless growth. All over the world, including the Philippines, there is a phenomenon in which economies have strong economic growth but the level of employment remains the same or even decrease in some cases. There are two principal causes. Rapid technological progress, especially robotics and automation, have eliminated a huge number of manufacturing jobs. The rise of China as the manufacturing hub of the world is the other cause.

There are two proposed solutions to this phenomenon. The first is to use labor in improving a country’s infrastructure. That is the reason that government spending serves to fuel economic growth in the Philippines. Another, more long term approach is to change education so that schools, colleges and universities focus on teaching students tasks that machines cannot do.

Rising geostrategic competition. Geopolitics has replaced the Cold War as the source of tensions between nations and competing ideologies. There are two principal areas where geopolitical tensions have led to violence on a massive scale. The first area is worsening tension between the West and Russia which led to armed conflicts in Crimea and Ukraine. The second area is the Middle East where internal conflicts have resulted in global terrorism and failed states – Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia.

The most relevant issue to the Philippines is the territorial imperialism of China which has built artificial islands with airbases in the South China Sea. China’s rise as a superpower has led to tensions with China’s neighboring countries like Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia. The next President must accept that China will never willingly give up its territorial claims. This country must look for allies that will result in, at least, a balance of power in our part of the world.

Increasing occurrence of severe weather conditions. Extreme weather conditions are the result of climate change in the world today. The weather extremes, like typhoons, droughts and floods have become more frequent, powerful and erratic. However, discussions on climate change usually focus more about reducing carbon emissions and carbon management like moving away from coal and fossil fuels.

Severe weather events have caused immense devastation in the Philippines. The Outlook on Global Agenda says: “Presently, we’re only putting band aids on the problem: the disaster happens, and we express sorrow. We raise funds and send aid. We try to relieve whatever pain we can with the best intentions. Yet we still wait for the next crisis. Running from disaster to disaster just will not work.”

There is a need to invest on coping with the immediate consequences of extreme weather conditions and not just limiting climate change. This includes more investments on infrastructure and technologies that can predict weather changes with much longer time horizons.

The Outlook on the Global Agenda presented more than these four challenges. Hopefully, these challenges will serve as a starting point for the agenda of the next President.

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The Aquino Legacy: An Enduring Narrative by Elfren Sicangco Cruz and Neni Sta. Romana Cruz is a collection of essays and stories on Ninoy, Cory and the Aquino family who have played such a pivotal and dramatic role in shaping Philippine history. As mentioned in President Aquino’s foreword, the book “serves as a reliable source of information for Filipinos belonging to the millennial generation who may not be aware of how dire conditions were at the time and how we have, since then, moved forward as a people. “The Aquino Legacy,” published by Imprint Publishing, is now available at Fully Booked stores.

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