THE nearly six-month-old Duterte administration insists there is a covert attempt by opposition forces to destabilize it and oust it from office, using the recent Marcos burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani and alleged human-rights violations in the ongoing war on drugs as a convenient platform to do so. The Liberal Party (LP) has denied it is behind any destabilization conspiracy. Nevertheless, Duterte supporters are circling the wagons to protect the administration from what they describe as “sinister plots”.
Any destabilization plot at this point may be doomed to fail for a number of cogent reasons.
First of all, the war on drugs, a key platform of President Duterte, is supported by more than 80 million Filipinos, according to a recent opinion survey. That can only mean that Filipinos recognize the serious danger posed by the drug menace to society, especially since the lists of those said to be involved in the illegal-drugs trade as coddlers of drug traffickers include public officials from the national down to the barangay level, as well as judges and police officials, raising the specter of the possible emergence of a narco-state controlled by big-time drug lords. The donation by a Chinese businessman of a P1-billion mega rehabilitation center in Nueva Ecija for the treatment of 10,000 drug dependents also shows foreign support for Duterte’s antidrug campaign, this time focusing on the health or rehabilitation aspect that’s an equally important component as law enforcement.
Second, Filipinos are now beginning to realize that the Duterte administration meant business when it promised early on that change is coming. As indeed it has in the form of, among others, the resumption of peace talks with the communist movement, as well as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Moro National Liberation Front; the issuance of an Executive Order on Freedom of Information; the creation of a Presidential Task Force on Media Security; efforts to put an end to contractualization in the labor sector; the increase in the monthly pension of retired members of the Social Security System; and a similar increase in the benefits of Philhealth members.
Third, Duterte’s independent foreign-policy stance is reaping immense dividends. During his three-day state visit to China in October, Duterte managed to secure more than $23 billion in soft loans and grants from the Chinese government, as well as investments by Chinese state firms and private companies in various projects in the Philippines. Japan, the country’s largest foreign investor, is also willing to expand trade with us. Russia has promised to conclude some $2 billion worth of agricultural deals, allow more overseas Filipino workers access to their labor market and is willing to help us in modernizing our military.
While Philippine-American ties were strained by US President Barack Obama’s critical view of Duterte’s war on drugs, the advent of the Donald Trump presidency signals a reboot in our longstanding bilateral relations. Duterte and Trump were reported to have had a lengthy telephone conversation last week, and appeared to have started a friendship that bodes well for bilateral ties in the years ahead. In sharp contrast with Duterte’s somewhat antagonistic attitude toward the previous American envoy, he is reported to have extended a very warm welcome in Malacañang for new US Ambassador Sung Kim last December 6.
Fourth, protest actions against the Duterte administration as a result of its approval of the burial of the late former President Ferdinand E. Marcos appear to be tapering off because of lack of broad public support for their cause. The so-called Yellow Army, consisting of die-hard supporters of the Aquino administration, could manage to mobilize only a handful rather than their hoped-for hundreds of thousands. Does this mean that we can safely write off the LP from the political landscape even past 2022?
Related to this, I don’t think the resignation/dismissal (or was it dismissal/resignation?) of Vice Presi-dent Maria Leonor G. Robredo as Housing secretary is likely to have any adverse political fallout for Duterte. In a way, she practically begged to be dismissed as she launched broadside after broadside against Duterte on many issues. Unlike the Left-nominated Cabinet secretaries who also had contrary opinions, but wisely kept these to themselves out of respect for the appointing authority, Robredo chose to openly defy Duterte, even as she repeatedly says she wants it to succeed.
5 years on, road builders still seeking compensation
“Build, build, build” is the Duterte administration’s mantra as it recently unveiled an ambitious infrastructure- development program with a mind-boggling P8-trillion budget over a six-year period to build or upgrade roads, bridges, airports and mass transport.
The private sector has been more than willing to take part in the government’s infrastructure build-up. For instance, Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) has submitted an unsolicited proposal to build an elevated toll road on the Circumferential Road 5 and the Connector Road linking the North Luzon Expressway (Nlex) with the South Luzon Expressway. MPIC subsidiaries are also spending P2 billion to upgrade the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway over the next three years and are expecting completion of the P10.5 billion Nlex Harbor Link running from Valenzuela City all the way to Circumferential Road 3 by the first half of 2017.
The MPIC has seen it fit to fully support the Duterte administration’s infra projects, despite pending arbitration cases it had filed against the government before the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law in Geneva, Switzerland, and another in New York to compensate it for roughly P5 billion in foregone revenues as a result of the previous administration’s inaction on its long-due petitions for toll increases for the 84-kilometer Nlex and the 14-kilometer Manila-Cavite expressway (Cavitex). For MPIC, P5 billion in foregone revenues isn’t peanuts. The delay in the resolution of the pending toll fee adjustments of the Nlex and Cavitex operators—which, in fact, are provided for in their operation and maintenance contracts with the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB)—puts at risk the viability and sustainability of MPIC’s ongoing projects.
The TRB has yet to act on the new toll rate petitions of MNTC and Cavitex Infrastructure Corp., even if these were filed successively since 2011.
Last May, MNTC President and Chief Executive Rodrigo Franco said he was open to an out-of-court settlement on the arbitration case involving the firm’s compensation claim. It is now up to the government to take up Franco’s offer of an out-of-court settlement.
The continuing inaction by the TRB, it seems to us, runs counter to the Duterte administration’s determined efforts to accelerate spending on infrastructure in order to attract foreign investors, achieve sustained economic growth and create more jobs for Filipinos.
E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com.