PHNO-STANDARD: COLUMN EIGHTY PERCENT FOR THE PRESIDENT

STANDARD: EIGHTY PERCENT FOR
THE PRESIDENT

MANILA, JULY 27, 2012
(STANDARD) By Harry Roque Jr. - That State of the Nation
Address was SO long. Whoever wrote it must be told that messages should be
understood.
You write a speech for more than thirty minutes and you're bound
to send your audience to sleep. In fact, beyond difficulties in staying awake,
one felt literally drained by the time the President concluded his remark. And
yes, I'm sure the President himself was exhausted after reading that opus.
Content-wise, President Aquino truly deserves a high mark of at least 80%.

Even his staunchest critics must acknowledge that this is a President who has
regained the trust of investors in this country.
Gross domestic product has grown by a better-than-expected 6.4 percent for
the first quarter. The peso is one of the strongest currencies in the region and
the stock market is among the best performing in the world.
The conditional cash transfer program. albeit controversial, has almost
certainly made the difference between dying of poverty and subsistence for at
least 4 million of its beneficiaries.
Our schoolchildren will soon have a textbook each, and the daunted classroom
and school chair shortage will be history by next year. What a difference good
governance can do!
While corruption still persists, one cannot deny that the problem is being
addressed when highest official of the land leads by example.
So why, despite these, am I giving the President a grade of only 80 percent?
Why not a 90 or even 100?
To begin with, I have naturally high expectations of President Aquino.
My conviction has always been that anyone can do better than former President
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The truth is that we hit absolute rock bottom under
Arroyo that the only way to go is up. That's the law of physics.
I think a grade of 80 percent applies because there are areas of governance
that the President completely ignored in his address and in his performance.
Foremost of these is in the field of human rights and our failed criminal
justice system.
What Mr. Aquino and his advisers probably do not know is that a working
justice system and the protection and promotion of human rights are also
accepted indicators of good governance and economic development.
Contrary to the claims of many tiger economies, there is no antipathy between
economic development and the promotion of human rights.
In fact, the discharge of state responsibilities anent these rights is viewed
as investment in human capital. This explains why many of the very developed
economies of Northern America, Europe and Latin America are also bastions of
democratic principles and human rights.
Furthermore, Aquino owed it the nation to address these issues in his Sona.

Only last June, the Philippines was the subject of the Universal Peer Review
in the United Nations Human Rights Council.
There, one country after another berated the Philippines for its failure to
punish the perpetrators of extralegal killings, enforced disappearances and
torture. You would think that because of the tenacity of these criticisms, the
President would choose the Sona to give assurance that his administration
acknowledges the problem and that he will address it.
But no, not a word was said about human rights. This has prompted at least
two senior diplomats to remark that apparently, the PNoy administration is
oblivious to their concerns expressed in the UPR.
What's even sadder is that as a victim of human rights violations himself,
the President has every reason to give priority to the promotion and protection
of fundamental rights.
He still rages in anger recalling how his mother and his sisters were
subjected to degrading and humiliating treatment whenever they visited Ninoy in
his detention.
And of course, as a very young man, he himself became a victim of extralegal
killing when his father was martyred in 1983.
What to do?
Well, since I've had first hand experience with the President when we
successfully lobbied that the Philippines become a member of the International
Criminal Court, I have not given up on him.
My experience is that because of the many issues he has to deal with, one has
to be patient and yet clear on why emphasis should be accorded this field.
Already, Max De Mesa of the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates and
Katarungan, an umbrella organization of HR advocates focused on putting an end
to extralegal killings an enforced disappearances, have agreed to plot a master
plan on how Aquino's experience as a victim could be the trigger to his
presidency's potential legacy as a champion of both economic development and
human rights.
This much we should do since I have repeatedly said that we may be the next
victims of impunity.


Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
© Copyright, 2012 by PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE
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rights reserved




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