Pressing problems

Election season does not bring out the best in our candidates for public office. Well in a sense, I suppose it does since most are running with the promise to be your own personal Santa Claus and ATM machine rolled into one with all they are going to give you from the public treasury.

However, there are some serious longer-term problems that we need to address as a nation and I have yet to hear much about prospective solutions to those problems from the national candidates.

I distinguish national candidates from local ones in that most of those running for the Senate have little connection with the people except at election time. There are some outstanding exceptions of course. But most Senate office-seekers seem to have only a little idea of what the man and woman on the street needs to be concerned about.

Local candidates, such as for Congress, are much more in touch since they are the ones whose office may be called by angry constituents when public policy fails and things go wrong.

Nevertheless, the Senate is a crucial part of the budget process and must eventually address the grassroots issues.

I have attended several of the candidate’s forums and I encourage you to do the same. And I suggest that you ask several important policy questions to help you make your decision for which candidate to vote for.

Of course, we do not expect our politicians to be experts on all topics. But as every business owner has an opinion on these issues, then our policymakers ought to have an opinion also.

One particular policy that must be addressed and not merely discussed is the government’s (and that is not just the executive branch) position on the most favorable “price” for the peso.

As much as the BSP talks about free market forces determining the peso-dollar rate, revenue collection and spending will greatly influence the free market forces.

While most candidates prefer to leave even slight intervention to the “experts” at the BSP, they must understand the ramifications to the exchange rate on the spending and taxation that they approve or defeat in Congress. Their collective actions have a great influence on our currency and they ought to be knowledgeable enough to at least question what the results of their bills might be.

A less theoretical problem is electricity. Both government and nongovernment academic types have been saying for literally years now that the nation would face a power crisis as early as 2008. We are now nine months away from ’08, and like the family preparing for the birth from the expectant mother, nine months is not a long time to prepare.

The administration has been assuring the public for years that the power situation is well within their control. In truth, the ultimate responsibility, both through public funding and franchises for the power companies, lies in the hands of the legislature. What does your local candidate plan to do in the next session of Congress to insure, not simply hope is done, that there is an adequate supply of energy?

Every single business in the country depends on having a stable and adequate source of electricity. Further, there is little that the average business can do to make up for any inaction or failure by the government in supplying power. As the economy grows, this problem is a sleeping monster that will eventually waken.

In addition to power, a water crisis is a potential. Fortunately, this is a problem that is somewhat easier to solve at least on paper. Unfortunately, building dams takes longer than buying a couple of imported power barges like in the early 1990s.

There is little excuse that the Philippines and Metro Manila in particular should suffer from a lack of potable water. However, this problem requires large infrastructure spending to solve. Has your candidate considered thoughtfully what should be the action of the legislature regarding this matter?

This is a critical election, perhaps the most critical since 1992. The economic gains and the growth we are beginning to experience can have the legs cut from under it very quickly.

E-mail comments to mangun@email.com.

THE departure from office of National Treasurer Omar Cruz, though couched as having been made “for family reasons” (they said he wants to join his family abroad) marks yet another dent on the fiscal armor that the administration has so carefully burnished.

Election season does not bring out the best in our candidates for public office. Well in a sense, I suppose it does since most are running with the promise to be your own personal Santa Claus and ATM machine rolled into one with all they are going to give you from the public treasury.

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