Aquino Platform: a Step Back?

Well, the Noynoy Campaign site is now defunct. They only left a thank you page and a promise to transition to the official site of the President. One of the casualties of this move is his revised platform. What's funny is the 404 page claims that corruption caused the platform to vanish. I wonder if the web admins realize what they're implying.

I hope that platform returns soon otherwise we only have this old platform to look towards. Actually, calling the old document a platform stretches the definition. There are no action plans. Without concrete measures all we have is a wish list. The expected outcomes are suspect given the vague statement of the nation's problems. It makes you wonder if the candidate really thought through the situation. Like I said before, this won't cut it.

The move also leaves a bad impression: that Noynoy thinks winning is the end goal. Once that's been achieved, there's no need for a platform because solving the country's problems is not on the agenda. Sounds bad right?

Transitions are always a confusing time. Lets hope things clear up; the sooner the better.

Noynoy's Platform

 I am placing this here for posterity.

 Noynoy’s Platform

A National Leadership in Need of Transformational Change

• Its legitimacy is under question;
• It persecutes those who expose the truth about its illegitimacy and corruption;
• It stays in power by corrupting individuals and institutions;
• It confuses the people with half-truths and outright lies;
• It rewards, rather than punishes, wrongdoing;
• It offers no lasting solutions for the many problems of the country;
• It weakens the democratic institutions that hold our leaders accountable.
• It hinders our local governments from delivering basic services;
• It has no vision of governance beyond political survival and self- enrichment.

A People Crying out for Change

• Corruption robs our children of their protection, nutrition and education.
• Corruption destroys our families and communities.
• Corruption steals from our farmers and workers.
• Corruption deters businessmen from investing in our economy.
• This has eroded our spirit as individuals, as communities, as a people.
• We have lost trust in the democratic institutions we so courageously re-established after the dictatorship.
• Our proven capacity for collective outrage and righteous resistance has been weakened.
• We have ceased to depend on the patriotism and civic engagement that used to animate many of our efforts.
• We have become divided and alienated, focusing only on ourselves and on our individual pursuits.
• Our moral faculties as a people have been paralyzed.
• We have retreated into a dark world of self-absorption and cynicism. Our collective despair has reached its lowest point.

Then finally, the gift of Light
Cory Aquino passed on to the next life. From our sadness, we awakened to a shaft of light cutting through the darkness. She left the
Filipinos a legacy of selfless love for country and people. Filipinos’ connection with each other was rekindled.
In death, she enabled us to hope again for decent government. The millions who connected with Cory at her funeral represented something more than euphoria, sentiment or transient emotions. They represented the reverent memory of a good leader in the past and the firm hope of having a similarly good leader in the future.
A People’s Campaign of Renewed Hope…

• Anchored on Ninoy’s and Cory’s legacy of change through the ways of democracy
• Embraces the qualities of integrity, humility and trust-worthiness in public leadership
• Recognizes the absence of these qualities in government as a major cause of widespread poverty, misery and despair.

The Vision for the Philippines:
A country with…

1. A re-awakened sense of right and wrong, through the living examples of our highest leaders;
2. An organized and widely-shared rapid expansion of our economy through a government dedicated to honing and mobilizing our people’s skills and energies as well as the responsible harnessing of our natural resources;
3. A collective belief that doing the right thing does not only make sense morally, but translates into economic value as well;
4. Public institutions rebuilt on the strong solidarity of our society and its communities.

Our Mission:
We will start to make these changes first in ourselves—by doing the right things, by giving value to excellence and integrity and rejecting mediocrity and dishonesty, and by giving priority to others over ourselves.
We will make these changes across many aspects of our national life.
A Commitment to Transformational Leadership:

• 1. From a President who tolerates corruption to a President who is the nation’s first and most determined fighter of corruption.
• 2. From a government that merely conjures economic growth statistics that our people know to be unreal to a government that prioritizes jobs that empower the people and provide them with opportunities to rise above poverty.
• 3. From relegating education to just one of many concerns to making education the central strategy for investing in our people, reducing poverty and building national competitiveness.
• 4. From treating health as just another area for political patronage to recognizing the advancement and protection of public health, which includes responsible parenthood, as key measures of good governance.
• 5. From justice that money and connections can buy to a truly impartial system of institutions that deliver equal justice to rich or poor.

Economy

• 6. From government policies influenced by well-connected private interests to a leadership that executes all the laws of the land with impartiality and decisiveness.
• 7. From treating the rural economy as just a source of problems, to recognizing farms and rural enterprises as vital to achieving food security and more equitable economic growth, worthy of re-investment for sustained productivity.
• 8. From government anti-poverty programs that instill a dole-out mentality to well-considered programs that build capacity and create opportunity among the poor and the marginalized in the country.
• 9. From a government that dampens private initiative and enterprise to a government that creates conditions conducive to the growth and competitiveness of private businesses, big, medium and small.
• 10. From a government that treats its people as an export commodity and a means to earn foreign exchange, disregarding the social cost to Filipino families to a government that creates jobs at home, so that working abroad will be a choice rather than a necessity; and when its citizens do choose to become OFWs, their welfare and protection will still be the government’s priority.

Government Service

• 11. From Presidential appointees chosen mainly out of political accommodation to discerning selection based on integrity, competence and performance in serving the public good.
• 12. From demoralized but dedicated civil servants, military and police personnel destined for failure and frustration due to inadequate operational support to professional, motivated and energized bureaucracies with adequate means to perform their public service missions.

Gender Equality

• 13. From a lack of concern for gender disparities and shortfalls, to the promotion of equal gender opportunity in all spheres of public policies and programs.

Peace & Order

• 14. From a disjointed, short-sighted Mindanao policy that merely reacts to events and incidents to one that seeks a broadly supported just peace and will redress decades of neglect of the Moro and other peoples of Mindanao.

Environment

• 15. From allowing environmental blight to spoil our cities, where both the rich and the poor bear with congestion and urban decay to planning alternative, inclusive urban developments where people of varying income levels are integrated in productive, healthy and safe communities.
• 16. From a government obsessed with exploiting the country for immediate gains to the detriment of its environment to a government that will encourage sustainable use of resources to benefit the present and future generations.

This platform is a commitment to change that Filipinos can depend on. With trust in their leaders, everyone can work and build a greater future together.

Benigno Aquino III

Noynoy has a platform. In fact he had it up before December 2009. Sadly for him, it won't silence the critics. Just like Richard Gordon's platform, this one is long on vision and short on solution. I'm tempted to cut and paste bits of the previous Dick Gordon post. The observations are about the same.

There is a difference though. Noynoy attempts to get at the root of the problems instead of just recognizing inadequacies. Look at health care:

Noynoy: From treating health as just another area for political patronage to recognizing the advancement and protection of public health, which includes responsible parenthood, as key measures of good governance.


Dick: we must provide adequate access to HEALTH CARE for all our people, especially the needy


Check that one out. Senator Aquino thinks politics is a reason for the poor state of health care. Senator Gordon is merely telling us health care is poor. I'm surprised. No actually I'm a bit shocked. It seems Senator Aquino is making some effort to actually create solutions. By identifying the cause he now has a target. I did not expect it from him. And if he didn't write his platform, at least he got someone who is trying to think.
 
Still, an A for effort will hardly cut it given our immense problems.And stopping without offering concrete plans hardly merits an A.
 
And what of capability and character? Honestly, I can't pin anything on him except for the old Kamaganak, Inc. accusations that emerged during his mother's administration and the Hacienda Luisita situation. While the accusations sound grave, I've always wondered why it's taking everyone so long to resolve it. If the critics have any solid evidence against the clan then let them present it in the proper forum. Its been decades already and these two issues conveniently crop up during elections. Once those are over, the issues conveniently vanish without resolution. It's my impression that many of these critics actually profit from their periodic silence. How convenient....

As it is I'm getting weary of all this anonymous mudslinging via text or internet. Like the boy who cried wolf, these agents will likely find the public disbelieving their claims, true or not. Who will suffer then? I bet it's not the text brigades.

Usually you start getting black propaganda when you earn the ire of rivals. That occurs when you do something they don't like. If you don't do anything, they won't react. In this case, Sen. Aquino attracts attacks because of sheer popularity. You can check the bills filed during his tenure. He's not exactly a paragon of hard work. Nothing there to earn the enemy's ire.
 
So this is what the LP selling: an upstanding guy with a spotty plan and indeterminate ability. It's apparent why no one stands out among the aspirants. They are all lacking in one way or another.

Media Revelations: Noynoy and Manny

Those political ads have been on facebook for a while now. There is however, one set that intrigues me. Its the one using the Hacienda Luisita situation as a way of smearing Noynoy. No, I'm not going to bother contesting the info. I just found it interesting they mostly hit Noynoy when in fact Cory was in a better position to fix the problem. And she didn't. I remember Cory's critics spotlighting the situation as a sample of her impotence:

Land Reform is Cory's flagship program, Luisita is the flagship project of Land Reform.

Well, something along those lines. The original statement had more flair.

Those Facebook ads are a stoke of genius. Not only does it hit Noynoy, it also takes a swipe at Gibo. Both are Cojuangcos and implicated in the mess by relation. Who could be behind it? I guess it really could be anyone although another candidate seems more likely.

More recently there's been this expose about Manny Villar. A local journalist is accusing Manny of fabricating the circumstances surrounding a brother's death. I think many people already know the senator wasn't as poor as he portrays himself. I also think they find the whole poverty myth a non-issue. However, putting a spin on your dead brother's story leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

It should be noted though that the writer, Mr. Esposo, is a Noynoy supporter. He's openly admitted this in previous columns. So maybe he's putting a spin on those two public documents to make Villar look bad. There could be all sorts of explanations for the documents. For example, relatives could have given the family the rather sizeable property. Friends could have sponsored the brother's medical expenses. But even these possiblities raise questions. If my conjectures were true then why didn't Villar just say so and give credit where credit is due? Nope, it doesn't seem like Mr. E is just doing a baseless demo job.

If anything, I'd like to remember these two articles as characteristic of this election: 1) So far no one is emerging as a clear choice and 2) its also easier to dig up info thanks to technology.