There has been a lot of publicity about the first 100 days of the Duterte administration, with people on both sides giving their passing or failing mark to his achievements or lack of it. However, an objective look at how things are done in the private sector may offer a different insight. As in any new company or established one with a new management, the president or the CEO is evaluated on his or her performance, but certainly not after 100 days.
For any company or financial institution to implement changes, there is a process involved. First, to set up the policy and guidelines, next is to put the right people in place and, finally, to implement the plan. All these things take time and to expect anything to happen immediately is not realistic. I would also like to point out that, in many cases of changes in corporate management, the policy direction does not always change and, sometimes, there is no reorganization.
If President Duterte were a CEO in a very large private company, how would he be rated? First is let us take a look at his policy direction.
He is aware that many things in this government and society needs to be fixed and he went ahead and established his 10-point agenda.
Typically, when we are sick and the medicine we are taking does not cure us, we ask for a second opinion and change our medication. At this point, we certainly have to give the President a passing grade for being sensible enough to change a plan that was not working.
How about the reorganization where people heading the different departments and business units are changed? I have gone through this many times and it is common business practice for the CEO to end up choosing his own people who are typically those that he knows, a coworker and always someone he is comfortable with. Looks like the President chose his people the same way, and as an added bonus, it seems these people have had previous work experience in their jobs. Sounds like he deserves another passing grade.
In terms of execution, no pun intended, we can certainly see the results in terms of the battle against drugs.
However, there are other things that have been popular with the common people, like increasing the benefits of the men in uniform and lengthening the expiry date of drivers licenses and those with mixed reviews, like the closure of the operations of several mining companies. As they say, you can’t please everyone, so at this point I think the President still deserves a passing grade.
The results? Certainly, very visible are the casualties of the war on drugs. We have also seen the weakening of the peso and the decline in the stock market. It would be very difficult to directly attribute those solely to the current administration, there could be other factors involved, such as international market conditions and the global political situation. As to the seeming changes in alliances, the jury is still out on that and it may take a while to see what actually is the result. Depending on who you talk to, some people praise the results while others are not so happy.
However, based on the latest survey, it would seem that the popularity rating of the President is quite high. So who are we to go against the will of the people? Another passing mark for me.
One hundred days? That is like a quarterly financial report that analysts will read with interest, but to get a real verdict you need to see at least the annual report, like any investor we are rooting for our company and the CEO.
In this case, I am rooting for our country and the President.
Comments may be sent to georgechuaph@yahoo.com