Unsolicited suggestions to the incoming President

Your Excellency, President-elect Senator Noynoy Aquino:

I am one of millions of Filipinos who voted for your as President during the recent election in the hope that you can institute an honest and urgently needed reforms in our government. Considering the multifarious problems that you are expected to confront as a new leader of our country, you certainly need the assistance and cooperation of everybody in order to succeed in this task. In this regard, let may offer you my unsolicited suggestions as follows:

1. Reconciliation – now that the election is over, it’s time to extend your hands of reconciliation to your rivals and their supporters. It’s time to cooperate and help others and look forward to a better future for our country. It’s time to forget and forgive.

2. Cabinet – The members of your Cabinet should not be based on their level of support and loyalty to you during the election because to do so will be tantamount to political patronage – the usual practice of the so-called “Trapo” politicians. Prospective members of your Cabinet should be chosen on the basis of their indisputable integrity, competence and morality regardless of their political affiliation.

Example: the Hyat 10, Gibo Teodoro, Eddie Villanueva, Perlas & Mar Roxas (if he could not make it to the VP). Those who could not be appointed because of the one-year restrictive period, they can be designated for the meantime as presidential advisers on a voluntary basis. Before assuming their positions, all members of the Cabinet must be required to sign on a voluntary basis a waiver to the effect that in case of future investigation affecting them, their bank accounts can be accessed by any authorized investigating body.

All unnecessary positions in the government which were obviously created by the previous administration to accommodate political protégées – like assistant secretaries, deputies, etc. should be totally abolished. All retired military officers presently occupying cabinet and other important positions should be immediately replaced by qualified and civilian appointees. Enough of militarization in government posts. There are so many qualified people who can readily replace these military retirees in government who were appointed primarily to reward them for their loyalty to GMA.

3. Mindanao problem – government panel tasked to negotiate with the MILF/MNLF should be reorganized and must include as new members some respected leaders from the Muslim communities and the concerned cultural minority group as well as constitutionalists. The newly reorganized panel should be transparent in all its dealing with its counterpart and also should not offer any term of agreement which is not in accordance with the constitution and existing laws and regulations.

In this regard, it must be recalled that the government panel under the present administration secretly negotiated with the MILF which lead to the MOA that was eventually ruled by the Supreme Court as illegal, thus, resulting to the failure of the negotiation revival of heavy fighting in Mindanao between the government military forces and the MILF rebels. Qualified Muslims should be appointed as ambassadors to some Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Libya, Somalia, etc.;

Funding for the development of Mindanao should be closely monitored to insure that fund allocated for a particular project is properly spent and not just stolen by people entrusted to implements the projects. So much money have been spent already in Mindanao under the previous governments, yet the Mindanaoans are still disappointed to see that their areas are not well developed as they expected, despite the huge expenditures thereat by the government

4. Independent Investigating Body – An independent body should be formed and specially assigned to look into any corruption in all government offices. This should be composed of people from the private sectors, religious groups, professionals (CPAs and Lawyers), etc. who will volunteer their services and should be under the Office of the President. Such body should also re-investigate and put closure to the ZTE scam, Fertilizer scam, C5 scam and all wrong doings or irregularities under GMA administration.

5. Whistle Blowers – People who report any anomaly in government at the risks of their lives should be given incentive and ample protection instead of being charged in court. This will encourage people to report to the proper authorities any irregularity that they may know in any government office. The case of Jun Lozada and other people who were charged in court after acting as witnesses to different anomalies in the present government should be reviewed for possible assistance to ensure that their respective cases are resolved at the earliest possible time.

The Senate should be authorized to protect potential witnesses of any irregularity and enough funding for such purpose should be provided. This should be separate from the Witness Protection Program by the Department of Justice.

6. Executive Order No. 464 – the executive order restricting cabinet members, senior official and certain military officers from attending to investigating body should be immediately revoked. There should be standing order to all government personnel and officials to attend to any investigation conducted by authorized body. This will promote transparency in government transactions because people with malicious intent to commit anomaly in the future will be afraid to do so as he or she might be compelled later to attend to such investigation.

7. Importation – Instead of importing rice and some agricultural products, we should support our farmers by giving them maximum financial support and providing them with the necessary facilities and equipment to maximize their production. The government should spend for the construction of farm to market roads, irrigation systems including the repairs of those already old and existing and enough warehouses for storage of their production. Importation of rice and other agricultural products is just a source of anomaly by some unscrupulous government officials.

8. Corruption – Since your main platform during your campaign is to eradicate corruption, it is strongly suggested that you give priority to the investigation of all employees and officials who are suspected of doing something illegal that deprive the government of the badly needed revenues – like the Bureau of Customs, Bureau of Internal Revenue, DPWH, Department of Agricultures, DENR, LTO, etc. I can still recall that you promised during your campaign that you will able to imprison some of these people within the two or three weeks after you assume office.

Well, I believe you, and I am confident you can do it. It’s now time to prove to your critics that you are serious in eradicating corruption in your government. This will serve as a strong signal to these corrupt employees and officials that they better mend their ways if they want to continue serving in your government.

9. Fair Election Act – appropriate remedies should be undertaken to avoid the recurrence of various problems which we encountered during the recent election. The number of voters in each PCOS should be limited to 500 or less and the system of giving ballot to each voter should be simplified. This will require the increase in the numbers of PCOS that will be needed for the election. Separate and exclusive lane for senior citizens and voters with physical disability should be set up in every polling place and should be strictly implemented.

While there was an instruction by the COMELEC that said express lane must be set in polling places, this was not carried out during the recent election. COMELEC or PPRCV representatives with laptop computers that can readily provide the specific precinct number of particular registered voters should be made available at every polling place in order to supplement the voters’ lists that will be published in each polling place before the election. Under this reform, the long line of voters during voting can be avoided. Likewise, it’s imperative that the security features in the ballots which were previously eliminated during past election should be restored.

Something must be done to level the playing field of different candidates – those without enough funds vs those with fund; There should be enough time for preparation – filing of certificate of candidacy, evaluating candidates, protests for disqualification & decision, printing of ballots, testing of machines, etc.

10. Oil Deregulation Law (ODL) – Despite the passage and implementation of this law, the oil monopoly by oil companies still exists and people are helpless whenever prices of oil and petroleum products increase. The Department of Energy (DOE) which is supposed to oversee the proper implementation of this law is not doing its job. In fact, the public perception is that the DOE is lawyering for the oil companies instead of protecting the people interest. Under the ODL, the oil companies can increase or decrease their prices whenever they want depending on the international market for such products.

There are supposed to be safeguards to prevent any abuse on the part of the oil companies, but it seems that DOE is not performing its mandated tasks under the law. It is, therefore, suggested that the present head of the DOE should be replaced by honest and competent person who can perform his or job well by balancing the interest of the public and the oil companies instead of lawyering or protecting only the interest of the latter.

Moreover, the Oil Deregulation Law should be amended to restore the previous set up where the government just maintains an Oil Stabilization or Subsidy Fund to take care of the effect of the changes in oil prices. At least under this system, the government has the over-all control of any price increase instead of the oil companies and, before any price increase is carried out by the oil companies, proper processes can be conducted by the DOE.

11. Electricity –Because of high cost of power, foreign companies considered the Philippines as not attractive for foreign investments in comparison with its neighbors. Ordinary citizens who are not earning much are the ones seriously affected by high cost of electricity. It was even reported that body formed to encourage competition among the power suppliers/distributors and reduce the cost of electricity is found to be ineffective due to alleged irregularities. Such irregularities should be investigated and those found guilty should be prosecuted.

Further efforts to increase the number of alternative sources of energy should be undertaken such as Hydro electricity, Wind energy, etc. To promote energy conservation, the following remedial actions should be undertaken: Luxury vehicles at various departments should be sold out and replaced by vehicles which are more economical in terms of gas consumption and maintenance.

All government offices should limit their energy consumption by regulating the use of their air-conditioning units. Companies in the private sectors which are using neon lights for their advertisement should be required to put off their neon light ads at a certain time (say 10:00pm) during night. With these proposed reforms, we can conserve energy and at the same time economize expenses.

12. Private Armies – There should be a political well to really dismantle existing private armies. The executive order legalizing formation of certain group to assist the government in fighting the rebels should be immediately revoked. Political allies should not be tolerated in building their owed private armies as a reward for their supports during the election. Instead of the CAFGU, the government should gradually increase the number of military personnel (PNP and AFP) and provide them with enough and modern military equipment and arsenals. The case of the Ampatuan clans and other politicians with existing private armies should serve as lesson for the new government.

13. Education – Budget for education should be increased to build more classrooms, increase salaries of teachers and provide more modern equipment and facilities to our public schools. Likewise, the subsidy to our public schools should be increased so that tuition fees could be reduced into more affordable level. School curriculum should be changed and geared toward those required by prospective employers.

So many job vacancies are available but these could not be filled up because the educational qualifications of job applicants don’t much those required for the vacancies. More schools to serve the need of Special children should be established. Because of the inadequacy in the number of school for special children (children with mental disability, etc.), parents who have special children but have no sufficient fund are compelled to send their children to private schools for special children which are charging exorbitant fees.

It is imperative that the government should address this problem because the number of children which need special education is increasing every year and the available public schools for these children are only few. It’s also suggested that purchases of books for public schools should be thoroughly studied because there are more books being used in public schools which contain numerous errors which need to be corrected. I also understand that there are anomalies in the transactions involving purchases of books and supplies.

Appropriate remedial actions should be instituted to prevent such anomalies and, if possible, those who are employed with the government who are suspected of being involved in those alleged anomalies should be investigated and prosecuted to serve as warning to those people with malicious intent.

14. Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) – It could not denied that due to the substantial amount of remittances by our OFW, our government survived the global financial crises. But it’s regrettable that the government efforts to help the OFW who encounter problems abroad are not enough. It is strongly recommended that further efforts should be exerted by the government to look into the problem of our countrymen abroad. Also, the government should create more job and business opportunities locally so that our citizens need not work abroad and sacrifice being separated from their families.

The social costs of working abroad should be seriously considered by the government. Frankly, I am not aware of any government in the world which succeeds by relying mainly on their citizens working abroad, yet the present government’s effort to develop its economy domestically to create job opportunities to our people is not enough which is the primary reason why they are constrained to work abroad.

15. Marcos Wealth – So much time and money has been spent already to maintain PCGG which was assigned to recover the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses, yet it seems that the PCGG failed to perform its assigned task. Almost all the legal cases for the recovery of such unexplained wealth against the Marcoses were dismissed by the courts. Obviously, people from the PCGG are either incompetent or in cahoots with the Marcoses which must be the reasons for such failure.

Recently, a certain commissioner of the PCGG has suggested for a compromise with the Marcoses, but such an idea should never be entertained by the new administration. Instead, the PCGG should by totally abolished and replaced by more competent body or commission, or all PCGG officials and personnel should be replaced by people who are not only honest and competent but also they must be seriously concerned in the recovery of ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses.

Preferably, the new members of the PCGG should come from the victims or people they trust to represent their interest. Moreover, present PCGG personnel & officials should be investigated for any anomaly and, if found guilty, they should be prosecuted.

16. Commission of Appointment – Presidential appointees requiring confirmation by the CA who are by-passed twice should not be re-appointment in order to give opportunity to other qualified applicants. It must be recalled that there were several appointees of GMA in most important positions who were by-passed several times but were re-appointed by GMA inspire of the public clamor that the same by-passed appointees were not performing well in his assigned positions and, therefore, did not deserve re-appointments.

17. Appointments for AFP & PNP – The duration of appointment of military officers such as in the AFP and PNP should be for at least continuous period of 3 years to insure the continuity of programs of the appointees. The practice of appointing an official to the AFP and PNP for even short period should be completely stopped. While it is acceptable to appoint official to higher positions on the basis of seniority, still it is important that the length of service of those to be appointed should be enough to enable them to implement their programs on uninterrupted period.

18. Biased investigation – It has been noted that whenever there is a need to investigate erring government personnel or official, the department or agency where such personnel or official belongs always takes part in the investigation. This system of investigation seems to be biased because there is always a tendency on the part of the investigating department or agency to cover up the suspects to protect the reputation of such department or agency.

Example: When a PNP personnel commits irregularity, the PNP or Police Commission is designated as lead agency to conduct the investigation of such erring personnel. How can you expect that the result of such investigation will be transparent or unbiased? To avoid this situation and to be more transparent, a separate investigating body not connected with such department or agency should be designated to conduct the investigation.

19. Voluntarism – I firmly believe that the millions of your volunteers have helped a lot for your victory during the recent election. Like myself, most of these volunteers supported you and the ticket of the Liberal Party for various reasons particularly your platforms to effect honest reforms in government by eradicating corruption in departments and agencies, increasing collection of revenues, etc.

I strongly recommend that you continue tapping the assistance of your volunteers in your government. After all, many of us voluntarily supported and voted for you, spent our personal funds and resources without any expectation for any return from your end except to have a good governance under your administration. There are many ways in which you can utilize your volunteers to help you in your administration, and I am sure that may of us are more than willing to continue helping you in all your undertakings that will redound to the general welfare of the people.

Thank you very much for accepting the challenge to be our leader for a genuine reforms in our government. By extending to you our maximum support during the recent election without any reservation, it only means that we have full trust and confidence in your ability to lead our country for progress. It’s now time to prove to your critics that they are wrong in accusing you that you are not qualified for the Presidency because of your inadequate executive experience and alleged unimpressive legislative performance during your tenure as a Congressman and later as a Senator as well as.

We earnestly hope and pray that you will not disappoint us. Rest assures that your millions of volunteers are always with you in your fight for good governance. As Governor-elect Vilma Santos Recto said, “ kung sabi mo kami ang iyong lakas, ang sabi sagot namin ay ikaw ang aming pag-asa.” “ Hindi ka nag-iisa”. We are always praying for your success. God bless you!

MIKE H. ISMAEL
Ismaelpa2007@yahoo.com
May 16, 2010
Member, People Power Volunteers Center