There has been much media coverage of the second State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Benigno Aquino of the Philippines. Some might say too much, but I won't: a SONA is a newsworthy event, and many of us would be the worse off without such coverage.
For instance, with such coverage, we can see how long the speech is, that there is really no realistic hope of summarizing it in reasonable time. One needs to spend an entire day, and considering that the speech was not precisely titillating, that would be a day badly spent.
But let me just contribute my two-cents' worth on this news event. Nobody can fail to observe that every word that comes out of Noynoy's mouth is a bad word about his predecessor as President. But I wager that most of his hearers do not sufficiently apprehend how much this distinguishes him from President Arroyo. Having been abused and oppressed by political leaders for most of the last century, Filipinos no longer hope that a new President can bring about change, and cynically maintain that this President is the same as the last one, and the one before that. The sentiment is understandable, but it is also wrong.
For Noynoy Aquino is not the same as Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is not the same as Joseph Estrada, and Joseph Estrada is not the same as Fidel Ramos, who was probably almost the same as Cory Aquino, but who was most certainly not the same as Ferdinand Marcos. Each of these presidents brought a different style to his or her administration, with the possible exception of Ramos. These styles distinguished each presidency, a truth that continues into the second Aquino Administration.
Since it is only one year into office, people say it is too early to tell, but I hazard a crystal ball. Whereas Mrs. Arroyo used fiscal discipline and acute political acumen to achieve economic growth, Aquino relies on personal reputation to generate a welcome environment for private investment. Through a long and windy address, that is a theme that comes up again and again: I am a better person than my predecessor, and I run a cleaner operation, and for that, people here and abroad will trust the country with their investments.
It is a thought-provoking gamble, and I bet Noynoy was not the one who thought of it first. No thought to markets, tax policies and spending programs can outweigh the personal preferences and personal character of the man at the top in the policies of this government. To a large extent, that is true of every Administration, but this one is unique in making it so personal -- you cannot trust other presidents the same way as you can trust me, and that is enough. Trust me, your invetment will be in good hands. Trust me, schoolchildren will be better educated because the education budget will actually be spent in educating them, not lining the pockets of bureaucrats and elected officials. Trust me, agricultural output will rise because I will make sure that irrigation will be improved. Trust me, highways and ports and airports will be built, warships will be ordered and delivered, because I am an honest man who will work to make sure that the budgets will be spent the way they should be. Trust me, government will work better because I will make sure the procurement process is cleaned up and there will be no corruption. Trust me.
Will that be enough to lift the country out of poverty? To many people, a relentless focus on material wealth defeats the purpose of wealth generation, which is supposed to engender happiness in individuals. It is crass and narrow-minded. And it is not beyond the deductive capacities of the man on the street to realize that the son of a hero and of a democracy icon will not care to be judged in terms of wealth generation, but in terms of his place in history, of how far that place is from that of his father and mother.
Which is probably why the second Aquino Administration will be dangerous for the Philippine economy. There is now a justified feeling that the substance of economic questions take second place to the affirmation of the President's personal character. For how can Noynoy aspire to the greatness of his parents, when, confronted with a question of economic benefit versus personal satisfaction, he will always choose economic benefit? Will his parents' legacy be served by that choice?
It will not, and the fact that Filipinos' interests might -- just might -- be, constitutes the resounding rebuke to Noynoy's adherence to the "straight and righteous path". Trust him, but can you trust his sense of history?
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
Statistics on Government employment
The conflict between the political Left and the political Right, played out over the various media, mainly revolves around the size of the government. Specifically, the Left argues that in an era of high unemployment and slow economic growth, the government should spend more and take on more activities in order to lift aggregate demand and increase economic growth. The Right argues that, far from being energized, now is the time for the government to step back and let the private sector do its job of increasing investment, and thereby, employment.
This post has nothing to do with resolving this conflict.
Instead, it has something to do with the nagging conflict inside TheEconomizer's guts. One of the Left's main evidence for saying that Barack Obama should spend more government money and do more to electrify the economy is that government employment -- authors continually state "at all levels of government," meaning state, local and federal -- has fallen year-on-year starting in March 2011. This is not the record -- no, nobody can claim that it is -- of a man who is determined to expand the state apparatus to ensnare individual lives.
But TheEconomizer could not sleep. Really? Aren't they supposed to count only Federal employment, as it is the one most directly influenced by the Left's Deliverer? So TheEconomizer has spent considerable time and talent culling data from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics and has come up with the table at the end of this post. (I mistakenly pasted it before finishing the post, and I can't undo it any more. So forgive the inconvenient reference to the Table.)
It turns out that the change has only recently happened. Year-on-year March 2011 up to June 2011, but none of the other months show a decline. ALL of the months in 2009 (Obama assumed office in January 2009), 2010 and January and February 2011 all posted increases in Federal employment.
At a stroke, TheEconomizer's gut feel is vindicated. There is nothing to the allegations of lower government employment in the time of Obama.
But this is not all there is, yet. What should be done is to compare the change and level of Federal-government employment with those of total private-sector employment in the relevant periods, in order to see if a more robust relationship can be observed. Also, there is something to the view that state and local government employment should be looked at also, because these entities receive considerable Federal aid, and in any case respond to policy directions at the Federal level.
Alas, TheEconomizer has run out of time. Such delimitations will have to wait a few more days or weeks, but as of the moment, the main point of this blog post should be reiterated: Federal-government employment has increased, not decreased, in 26 out of 30 months of the Obama presidency. THAT is the record of this statist, ideological President.
This post has nothing to do with resolving this conflict.
Instead, it has something to do with the nagging conflict inside TheEconomizer's guts. One of the Left's main evidence for saying that Barack Obama should spend more government money and do more to electrify the economy is that government employment -- authors continually state "at all levels of government," meaning state, local and federal -- has fallen year-on-year starting in March 2011. This is not the record -- no, nobody can claim that it is -- of a man who is determined to expand the state apparatus to ensnare individual lives.
But TheEconomizer could not sleep. Really? Aren't they supposed to count only Federal employment, as it is the one most directly influenced by the Left's Deliverer? So TheEconomizer has spent considerable time and talent culling data from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics and has come up with the table at the end of this post. (I mistakenly pasted it before finishing the post, and I can't undo it any more. So forgive the inconvenient reference to the Table.)
It turns out that the change has only recently happened. Year-on-year March 2011 up to June 2011, but none of the other months show a decline. ALL of the months in 2009 (Obama assumed office in January 2009), 2010 and January and February 2011 all posted increases in Federal employment.
At a stroke, TheEconomizer's gut feel is vindicated. There is nothing to the allegations of lower government employment in the time of Obama.
But this is not all there is, yet. What should be done is to compare the change and level of Federal-government employment with those of total private-sector employment in the relevant periods, in order to see if a more robust relationship can be observed. Also, there is something to the view that state and local government employment should be looked at also, because these entities receive considerable Federal aid, and in any case respond to policy directions at the Federal level.
Alas, TheEconomizer has run out of time. Such delimitations will have to wait a few more days or weeks, but as of the moment, the main point of this blog post should be reiterated: Federal-government employment has increased, not decreased, in 26 out of 30 months of the Obama presidency. THAT is the record of this statist, ideological President.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
British phone-hacking scandal: a lesson in crisis management
Dear readers,
Today I will indulge myself and write about what I have been watching and observing the past days ... and months and years. I am talking about David Cameron and politics as crisis management.
As you know, the past two weeks in Britain have been dominated by news of illegal phone-hacking activities allegedly being perpetrated by journalists and executives at the tabloid News of the World (NoTW). This concerns the Prime Minister because the former editor of the newspaper, Andy Coulson, was employed by David Cameron starting in 2007 when he was still Leader of the Opposition, until January this year when Mr. Coulson resigned from his post as Director of Communications at No. 10 Downing Street.
Specifically in this post, I would like to talk about the Prime Minister's performance at the Dispatch Box, versus that of the current Leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband, during the debate on the public's confidence in the media and the Metropolitan Police, on 20 July 2011.
At the outset, I would like to tell you that my all-time political and public-affairs and statecraft hero(ine) is Margaret Thatcher. No one, it seems, can equal the combination of charm and forcefulness with which she led Government and dominated politics, not only in her own country but also the entire world, and in the process, changed the political imagination itself.
None can equal that achievement, but it seems that David Cameron is three-quarters of the way. His performance in the Commons is not as masterly as Thatcher's in her last major speech after she resigned as Prime Minister on 22 November 1990, but I suppose no one can really expect to equal that. Rather, he performed in such a way that brought out his strength and emphasized his basic honesty and decency, which was reassuring to a public that was getting exhausted and cynical about the whole scandal. In contrast, Ed Miliband could not shake off the impression that he was engaging in political point-scoring, something that Mr. Cameron ingeniously pointed out during his opening statement.
What matters in politics is the impression of competence and leadership, not so much the actuality of those. What transpired at the Despatch Box was that Ed Miliband, by being unable to convey that same impression, left the field open for Mr. Cameron to take. But it is not just by default that Mr. Cameron projects the image of being the only plausible Prime Minister for a few more years. I have already mentioned transparency and decency, but his basic intelligence also shines through in a quantity that manages to overwhelm the meagre supply in the Miliband brain. Only someone who can think on his feet is able to say, "I can assure the house that I have not met Mrs. Brooks in a slumber party, and I have not seen her in her pyjamas."
Which broke the mood, and for good. This is a scandal that teaches many lessons to everyone, but for this political observer, it teaches above all, that in a crisis, it helps to be transparent, decent and intelligent, and to show convincingly that you are all three.
Today I will indulge myself and write about what I have been watching and observing the past days ... and months and years. I am talking about David Cameron and politics as crisis management.
As you know, the past two weeks in Britain have been dominated by news of illegal phone-hacking activities allegedly being perpetrated by journalists and executives at the tabloid News of the World (NoTW). This concerns the Prime Minister because the former editor of the newspaper, Andy Coulson, was employed by David Cameron starting in 2007 when he was still Leader of the Opposition, until January this year when Mr. Coulson resigned from his post as Director of Communications at No. 10 Downing Street.
Specifically in this post, I would like to talk about the Prime Minister's performance at the Dispatch Box, versus that of the current Leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband, during the debate on the public's confidence in the media and the Metropolitan Police, on 20 July 2011.
At the outset, I would like to tell you that my all-time political and public-affairs and statecraft hero(ine) is Margaret Thatcher. No one, it seems, can equal the combination of charm and forcefulness with which she led Government and dominated politics, not only in her own country but also the entire world, and in the process, changed the political imagination itself.
None can equal that achievement, but it seems that David Cameron is three-quarters of the way. His performance in the Commons is not as masterly as Thatcher's in her last major speech after she resigned as Prime Minister on 22 November 1990, but I suppose no one can really expect to equal that. Rather, he performed in such a way that brought out his strength and emphasized his basic honesty and decency, which was reassuring to a public that was getting exhausted and cynical about the whole scandal. In contrast, Ed Miliband could not shake off the impression that he was engaging in political point-scoring, something that Mr. Cameron ingeniously pointed out during his opening statement.
What matters in politics is the impression of competence and leadership, not so much the actuality of those. What transpired at the Despatch Box was that Ed Miliband, by being unable to convey that same impression, left the field open for Mr. Cameron to take. But it is not just by default that Mr. Cameron projects the image of being the only plausible Prime Minister for a few more years. I have already mentioned transparency and decency, but his basic intelligence also shines through in a quantity that manages to overwhelm the meagre supply in the Miliband brain. Only someone who can think on his feet is able to say, "I can assure the house that I have not met Mrs. Brooks in a slumber party, and I have not seen her in her pyjamas."
Which broke the mood, and for good. This is a scandal that teaches many lessons to everyone, but for this political observer, it teaches above all, that in a crisis, it helps to be transparent, decent and intelligent, and to show convincingly that you are all three.
Monday, July 18, 2011
NAMFREL and The Legend of FPJ's Contrabida
Greetings, Dear Readers!
I have been missing in action for almost a year, but today I start making up for lost time.
News reports have flooded in that the venerable election watchdog NAMFREL is supporting the conduct of an inquiry into allegations of cheating during the 2004 Philippine presidential elections. Granted this has nothing to do with TheEconomizer's avowed interests of economics or finance, it nonetheless resides in a lingering intuition in TheEconomizer's heart.
And so here it is.
If all of this engenders in you a sense of deja vu, it is because "calls" like this have been heard before, notably during the height of the Hello Garci scandal in 2005. But what really grates is the ventriloquism of NAMFREL and the Legend of FPJ.
Back in 2004, the Secretary General of NAMFREL, Guillermo ("Bill") Luz, proclaimed in front of TV cameras that COMELEC tally sheets showing that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was leading her opponent, Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ), in the presdiential race, were not materially different from the results of the NAMFREL Quick Count and other NAMFREL tallies. At the least, the differences were not material enough to affect the outcome, which was a win by GMA. Indeed, in the Terminal Report of NAMFREL released on the 5th of June, 2004, GMA was leading by almost 700,000 votes (the final COMELEC tally showed that GMA had won by 1.1 million votes).
Fast forward two years later, after the Hello Garci scandal had changed everybody's perception of GMA from a technocrat to a trapo, the very same Guillermo Luz told ABS-CBN news that he could no longer vouch for the legitimacy of the 2004 election results because certain other information and data might not have been disclosed by the COMELEC to NAMFREL and the general public. In effect, Mr. Luz was attempting to distance NAMFREL from the election results and the GMA presidency. And, it seems, from NAMFREL's own Quick Count.
This is not the place to discuss the merits or demerits of flip-flopping, or indeed, the merits or demerits of NAMFREL being stripped of its electoral-watchdog status by the COMELEC during the 2010 national elections in favor of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV). However, this is the place to question the attempt by NAMFREL to gain credibility by surrendering it.
In 2004, NAMFREL declared that GMA had won, based on its own count. If two years later it could not support that proclamation, because of data it MIGHT not have, then that is NAMFREL's problem. Indeed, the only thing that can be said to describe this behavior is that it follows the Legend of FPJ's contrabida.
One hopes the plot is still familiar. This powerful local warlord, at whose command the local populace shakes in terror, tortures some poor farmer, who turns out to be the father of the woman who tugs at FPJ's heart. After much gunfire and more rapid-fire punching, the warlord is reduced to begging FPJ for his life, saying he did not really touch the woman's father, it was his predecessor wot won it.
Which brings us back to NAMFREL. Bill Luz now runs the Ayala Foundation as Executive Director, to which TheEconomizer can attest personally, having seen him in the lobby of the BPI Bldg, at whose 10th Floor that Foundation holds office. In July 2011, the current secretary general of NAMFREL declares in a grammatically and verbally venturesome manner NAMFREL's support for an inquiry. Perhaps then he can blame his predecessor for blessing GMA's win back in 2004.
I have been missing in action for almost a year, but today I start making up for lost time.
News reports have flooded in that the venerable election watchdog NAMFREL is supporting the conduct of an inquiry into allegations of cheating during the 2004 Philippine presidential elections. Granted this has nothing to do with TheEconomizer's avowed interests of economics or finance, it nonetheless resides in a lingering intuition in TheEconomizer's heart.
And so here it is.
If all of this engenders in you a sense of deja vu, it is because "calls" like this have been heard before, notably during the height of the Hello Garci scandal in 2005. But what really grates is the ventriloquism of NAMFREL and the Legend of FPJ.
Back in 2004, the Secretary General of NAMFREL, Guillermo ("Bill") Luz, proclaimed in front of TV cameras that COMELEC tally sheets showing that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was leading her opponent, Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ), in the presdiential race, were not materially different from the results of the NAMFREL Quick Count and other NAMFREL tallies. At the least, the differences were not material enough to affect the outcome, which was a win by GMA. Indeed, in the Terminal Report of NAMFREL released on the 5th of June, 2004, GMA was leading by almost 700,000 votes (the final COMELEC tally showed that GMA had won by 1.1 million votes).
Fast forward two years later, after the Hello Garci scandal had changed everybody's perception of GMA from a technocrat to a trapo, the very same Guillermo Luz told ABS-CBN news that he could no longer vouch for the legitimacy of the 2004 election results because certain other information and data might not have been disclosed by the COMELEC to NAMFREL and the general public. In effect, Mr. Luz was attempting to distance NAMFREL from the election results and the GMA presidency. And, it seems, from NAMFREL's own Quick Count.
This is not the place to discuss the merits or demerits of flip-flopping, or indeed, the merits or demerits of NAMFREL being stripped of its electoral-watchdog status by the COMELEC during the 2010 national elections in favor of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV). However, this is the place to question the attempt by NAMFREL to gain credibility by surrendering it.
In 2004, NAMFREL declared that GMA had won, based on its own count. If two years later it could not support that proclamation, because of data it MIGHT not have, then that is NAMFREL's problem. Indeed, the only thing that can be said to describe this behavior is that it follows the Legend of FPJ's contrabida.
One hopes the plot is still familiar. This powerful local warlord, at whose command the local populace shakes in terror, tortures some poor farmer, who turns out to be the father of the woman who tugs at FPJ's heart. After much gunfire and more rapid-fire punching, the warlord is reduced to begging FPJ for his life, saying he did not really touch the woman's father, it was his predecessor wot won it.
Which brings us back to NAMFREL. Bill Luz now runs the Ayala Foundation as Executive Director, to which TheEconomizer can attest personally, having seen him in the lobby of the BPI Bldg, at whose 10th Floor that Foundation holds office. In July 2011, the current secretary general of NAMFREL declares in a grammatically and verbally venturesome manner NAMFREL's support for an inquiry. Perhaps then he can blame his predecessor for blessing GMA's win back in 2004.
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