The Need: Political Will To Match Presidential Rhetoric With Action

The President is finally getting his stride as his young administration marks the 100th day since it took oe reins of power from the widely unpopular and nearly opaque rule of the women who has slid down as opposition member of Congress representing her Central Luzon province.

Bouncing back from the botched Rizal Park hostage crisis mishandled by his lieutenants as “a local crisis incident, Benigno Simeon Cojuangco III this week asserted presidency authority to stop the demolition of squatter shanties in a
Quezon City district that saw hard hat-wearing ‘hoodlums’ (they acted like ones) from the National Housing Authority engage in a stone-throwing battle with irate “informal settlers”.

The anarchy, which saw part of EDSA blocked for hours, broke out as NHA attempted to meet its contractual commitment to hand over the property to the realty development firm Ayala Land.

Quezon City police were nowhere to found to prevent the chaos!!!
Ayala Land, whose top honcho is lead supporter of the President, intends to develop the 43-hectare triangle shaped proper in Barangay Pag-asa (hope) into a multi-use central business district that promises to bring in much needed money that will go to our revenue hungry national coffers.

While there is no question about the legality of the project, what angers the stubborn squatters is the undeniable fact that Quezon City politicos, including newbie mayor Herbert ‘Bistek’ Bautista, supposedly promised that they “won’t be evicted” even as they were illegally occupying public land.

The squatters are wrongly claiming property right to the North Triangle property with “professional squatting syndicates reportedly involved in installing urban poor settler who’ve even put up businesses in the area.

In halting the demolition activity, President Aquino has now asked NHA (which is under the Office of the President) to revisit and improve its ongoing relocation plan which already includes a new homesite in Montalban, Rizal where the core houses are nearing completion along with medical, educational, and livelihood laid out.

This week, Mr. Aquino also debuted on the world stage via the United Nations General Assembly and the US-Asean Leaders’ Meeting.

His call for “global people power” to help attain Millennium Development Goals was rich with statesmanlike rhetoric al promises that his administration will, through anti-corruption reforms and banner Private-Public Partnership that will mobilize developmental investments that will create new, properly-paying jobs and solidly bring down poverty.

While both well meaning observers and the political opposition loyal to Gloria Macapagal Arroyo are giving Aquino bad reviews, the dominant mood among Filipinos remains one of hope that their Bachelor President will deliver on his “Matuwid na Daan” pledge.

We certainly hope that President realizes his success, our success as a people, will hinge in the next five years to choosing the right people, chopping off the heads of the incompetent and unresponsive bureaucrats, stopping his aides perceived or actual turf wars and character differences, and fine-tuning his good governance messaging.

Filipinos await Mr. Aquino’s exercise of political will to match his words with resolute action.