ONE positive note to the devastation that typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng brought into the country is the economic growth that would ensue as the public sector sets about its rebuilding efforts.

This means the country will once again escape the recession bogey that analysts predicted starting with the subprime meltdown last year. The country’s resiliency showed once again when the third-quarter numbers showed yet another growth of 1.5 percent after 0.6-percent and 1.5-percent growth, respectively, in the first and second quarters.

On the matter of the public sector, the move of President Arroyo to put in place a task force to oversee rebuilding efforts means an honest-to-goodness thrust to ensure that there is transparency in the rehabilitation of roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

Last week she formed the Special National Public-Private Sector Reconstruction Commission headed by business mogul Manny V. Pangilinan which will study the causes of the massive destruction, draw up a reconstruction plan, and even raise the necessary wherewithal to fund the mammoth effort.

The move shows President Arroyo had both the insight and the foresight needed when she created this commission. By putting in members from the business and religious sectors into the body, she has, in effect, insulated it from potential accusations of graft and corruption. Pangilinan is joined in the commission by Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal. Their presence in the commission is enough guarantee that devious interests will not have their day.

Since this is a public-private sector commission, which will also raise funds for the reconstruction work, President Arroyo may have done away with the need to put a Congressional Oversight Committee to meddle with its work. With no congressman influencing which project must be approved, funded and given priority, the commission can do its job with logic and integrity. This is a good strategy on the part of the President.

We hope that the political aspirants expected to train their guns at each other after this weekend will leave the reconstruction commission alone to do its job. It must be kept out of the political fray. The political fireworks that provide the pundits in the neighborhood stores time to exchange barbs and ideas in the ensuing debate should not endanger the fate and future of the calamity-stricken areas.

The political aspirants must also allow this time to be used to assess the legacy of the Arroyo administration. They need not worry that a generous view of what this administration has done might beef up the chances of whoever is perceived to be the administration candidate. This must be done in an atmosphere of political sobriety and is intended to benefit the people and the next administration, not exactly the President.

Among the legacies that must be examined are in the transportation sector. President Arroyo, through her ex-chief of staff Mike Defensor, succeeded in opening and making operational the controversial Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3. But the job is not finished yet since it is nothing more than a glorified extension of the domestic airport.

She also completed the light-rail transit loop around the main corridors of Metropolitan Manila and a radial Light Rail Transit line that is giving tremendous benefit to Metro Manila commuters.

This legacy is by no means complete as there are other radial LRT lines that need to be put up, and this is a challenge that the next president should take up. For the presidential aspirants, the key is to continue this program for it would redound to the benefit of the people.

Speaking of Defensor, we heard at the Myther’s on Thursday that there is a clamor among Quezon City residents for him to run for mayor of the city and use his talent at energizing the bureaucracy and achieving rare feats to benefit them. We do not know if Defensor has responded positively to the loud clamor. But if he does, those who wish to vie for the seat that will be vacated by Mayor Sonny Belmonte better not take Defensor for granted.

In case the potential contenders are not aware of it, the Quirino Memorial Medical Center in Project 4 stands as evidence of what Defensor can do if he sets his mind to it. That hospital, we recall, was nothing more than a run-down infirmary until Defensor transformed it into a decent public hospital with more beds and better equipment and facilities.

We understand that he also worked for the proclamation of barangays Escopa I, II, III and IV as open to disposition for bona fide residents of the place. That translates into several thousands of poor Filipinos living in Quezon City who got to own their homes.

At the Myther’s last week, Defensor was asked via cell phone by journalist Julie Yap Daza, and later by former vice mayor Charito Planas, and it would seem that he might throw his hat into the political ring. That would alter the political contest in QC.

Defensor could tap on his reservoir of goodwill. The poor hardly forget it when you do something good for them. It will be difficult for Defensor’s potential rivals to demolish the goodwill he built with thousands of QC residents. He may be disliked by NBN-ZTE witness Jun Lozada, but it is not wise to presume that everyone from QC shares Lozada’s view. They know Defensor better.

Dr. Soler’s book

At the Tuesday Club, where he is a very active member, Dr. Ricky Soler tells the most jokes and nobody can outdo him in this regard. For this reason, some members who don’t know him all that well think he is just an easy-going man who has no deep or serious thoughts on his mind.

But to those who know him, like the late Maximo Soliven, who was his good friend and partner, Dr. Soler is a quite serious individual and, indeed, an intellectual.

In an introduction to one of Dr. Soler’s books, Max described “the real Ricardo Soler” as a man who “hides too often behind a façade of gentle cynicism, a true believer, half-ashamed of the fact, reaching for the stars.” Max also referred to him without flinching as a “Renaissance Man.” 

In his latest collection of short stories, Dr. Soler proves the late Max Soliven right. Entitled For Starters, his stories cover an extensive range of our human condition—from the squalor of poverty, the betrayal of our masa, the intricacies and infirmities of human psychology and the pathos of our politics. He trickles these with what some might consider titillating sex until they come to the end of each tale and realize the meaning of what they mistook for something more sexually tingling.

For Starters will be on the shelves of National Book Store, PowerBooks and La Solidaridad Bookstore starting on November 3.

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