Wednesday, September 27, 2023
manilastandard.net
ADVERTISEMENT
  • About
  • News
    • Top Stories
    • National
    • World News
    • Pinoy Abroad
    • Features
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Columns
    • Soundbytes
  • LGUs
    • NCR
    • Luzon
    • Visayas
    • Mindanao
  • Business
    • Corporate
    • Economy & Trade
    • Stocks
    • Money
    • Agri & Mining
    • Power & Tech
    • IT & Telecom
  • Sports
    • Basketball
    • Volleyball
    • Fightsports
    • Active
    • Sports Plus
    • One Championship
    • Columns
  • Entertainment
    • TV & Movies
    • Celebrity Profiles
    • Music & Concerts
    • Digital Media
    • Columns
  • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Culture & Media
    • Fashion
    • Health and Home
    • Leisure
    • Shopping
    • Columns
    • Young Life
  • Special Pages
    • Pets
    • Tech
      • Gadgets
      • Computers
      • Business
      • Tech Plus
    • On the Road
      • Sedan
      • SUV
      • Truck
      • Bike
      • Accessories
      • Motoring Plus
      • Commuter’s Corner
    • Home & Design
      • Residential
      • Commercial
      • Construction
      • Interior
    • Spotlight
    • Cravings
    • Environment & Sustainability
    • Agriculture
    • Pop.Life
      • Newsmakers
      • Hangouts
      • A-Pop
      • Post Its
      • Performances
      • Malls & Bazaars
      • Hobbies & Collections
    • Events
      • Seminars
      • Exhibits
      • Community
    • Biyahero
      • Travel Features
      • Travel Reels
      • Travel Logs
    • Gallery
      • Photos
      • Videos
  • Advertise with Us
No Result
View All Result
  • About
  • News
    • Top Stories
    • National
    • World News
    • Pinoy Abroad
    • Features
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Columns
    • Soundbytes
  • LGUs
    • NCR
    • Luzon
    • Visayas
    • Mindanao
  • Business
    • Corporate
    • Economy & Trade
    • Stocks
    • Money
    • Agri & Mining
    • Power & Tech
    • IT & Telecom
  • Sports
    • Basketball
    • Volleyball
    • Fightsports
    • Active
    • Sports Plus
    • One Championship
    • Columns
  • Entertainment
    • TV & Movies
    • Celebrity Profiles
    • Music & Concerts
    • Digital Media
    • Columns
  • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Culture & Media
    • Fashion
    • Health and Home
    • Leisure
    • Shopping
    • Columns
    • Young Life
  • Special Pages
    • Pets
    • Tech
      • Gadgets
      • Computers
      • Business
      • Tech Plus
    • On the Road
      • Sedan
      • SUV
      • Truck
      • Bike
      • Accessories
      • Motoring Plus
      • Commuter’s Corner
    • Home & Design
      • Residential
      • Commercial
      • Construction
      • Interior
    • Spotlight
    • Cravings
    • Environment & Sustainability
    • Agriculture
    • Pop.Life
      • Newsmakers
      • Hangouts
      • A-Pop
      • Post Its
      • Performances
      • Malls & Bazaars
      • Hobbies & Collections
    • Events
      • Seminars
      • Exhibits
      • Community
    • Biyahero
      • Travel Features
      • Travel Reels
      • Travel Logs
    • Gallery
      • Photos
      • Videos
  • Advertise with Us
No Result
View All Result
manilastandard.net
No Result
View All Result
Home Opinion Columns Formation by Gary Olivar

Time for LP to junk the Reds

June 29, 2021, 12:10 am
in Formation by Gary Olivar
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Email

Time for LP to junk the Reds

"Stop the on-and-off flirtation."

 

 

Last Saturday was the inurnment of former President Benigno “PNoy” Aquino III. His former colleague in Congress, now-Senator Imee Marcos, eulogized him as a “kind and gentle soul” whom she will “deeply miss,” setting a commendably Catholic tone of reconciliation. Even our acerbic President declared a 10-day period of national mourning. Any funeral, especially a presidential one, should always be an occasion for setting aside differences and coming together.

* * *

I was a bit puzzled, though, by the Inquirer headline that proclaimed “Mission accomplished!” in PNoy’s honor. I hope they meant that he simply did his part in carrying the baton in what his Finance Secretary Purisima described as the “relay race” of the presidency. To borrow words from his Palace predecessor, he simply contributed his own “stone for the edifice” of nation-building; for example:

A high of 7.8% quarterly GDP growth  on his watch (almost as good as PGMA, whose quarterly numbers exceeded 8%–twice)

Fiscal stability with his sin tax reform (preceded by PGMA’s e-VAT reform in 2005, succeeded by PRRD’s TRAIN and CREATE laws)

Consequently, investment-grade ratings in 2011 (much of which the upgrade reports credited to PGMA’s fiscal reforms, then were reaffirmed years later even in the depths of PRRD’s severe lockdown)

After initial hesitation in 2011-12, infrastructure buildout (continuing PGMA’s infrastructure spree, followed by PRRD’s Build Build Build)

Whatever it was, PNoy’s “mission” started only when he became president. He was a decent soul, true, but also a wholly ordinary man, with no executive experience, whose years in Congress with Imee saw his name on not a single new law. And that mission also evaporated when he stepped down and was rarely heard from again.

* * *

We have the Liberal Party bigwigs to thank for inveigling PNoy into agreeing to a necro-ronation in 2010. He may no longer be with us, but those same bigwigs are still very much around, casting their moist eyes on the Palace.

If the LP wants to avoid the same debacle they suffered with “Otso Otso” in 2019, they would do well, first, to dissociate themselves from the new coalition 1Sambayan, half of whose membership, I recently learned, are NDF groups. It’s past time for the LP to junk its on-and-off flirtation—since Ninoy’s time–with the CPP, the same guys who bombed their miting de avance in Plaza Miranda in August 1971.

The LP may then wish to subsume into a more potent alliance with conventional parties like the NPC and a PDP-Laban faction who seem ready to break with the administration. They have legitimate issues to raise, and besides, as a self-respecting democracy, we ought to have a viable, working opposition.

* * *

Another mission that’s clearly still unaccomplished is the reform of Tita Cory’s 1987 Constitution. But we’re slowly getting there.

Last Friday I attended the latest in a webinar series being run by the DILG—together with partners like Konrad Adenauer, DAP, and CenSEI—to drum up support for empowering Congress to relax the Constitutional restrictions on foreign investment in various sectors.

It’s heartening to report that a poll of participants at the end showed 85 percent support for relaxing restrictions on telecoms. The next step now is to solicit the support of the Senate for a plebiscite, ideally before December when Comelec starts printing the ballots for May 2022.

Interestingly, many participants also had questions about the massive devolution of powers from national to local governments starting next year as a result of the Supreme Court’s Mandanas ruling. A whopping P155 billion of the budget will have to be transferred from national agencies to the LGUs, bringing their share up to some 38 percent of all tax collections.

Notably, another 13 percent would bring up the local governments’ share to over 50 percent, setting the fiscal basis for a federal government. That can easily be attained just by transferring to LGUs the responsibility for our classrooms and teachers nationwide, similar to US school districts. But that’s for the next administration’s agenda.

* * *

So many of our friends continue to fall to the COVID virus as well as plain old-age ailments. I’m dedicating my Bible discussion here to one of them, my fraternity brother Rey G. Roy, who will be sorely missed.

In the second reading for today, the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Timothy brings us these parting words from Paul as he faces death in Rome (2 Tm 4: 6-8): “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.”

How many of us—from PNoy to Rey Roy—would be able to honestly say the same about our faith to St Peter the gatekeeper when we finally face him? It would take a lifetime of work to muster that, and yet it’s never too late for us. God’s grace is always available, only just awaiting our response to Him.

Readers can write me at gbolivar1952@yahoo.com.

Tags: Benigno “PNoy” Aquino IIICOVID-19investment-grade ratings
ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

Rizal at 160

June 22, 2021, 12:15 am
0
43
Rizal at 160

"What would he think of us today?"     Last Saturday, unnoticed by too many people, marked the 160th birth...

Read more

One-two-three

June 15, 2021, 12:15 am
0
10
One-two-three

"What did Quezon know?"   Let me open with a commercial for my company CenSEI’s monthly webinar for June, on...

Read more

Biden to the rescue

June 8, 2021, 12:20 am
0
9
Biden to the rescue

"Still the world’s best salesmen."   Congratulations first of all to our wunderkind friend Dr. Karl Kendrick Chua, who breezed...

Read more

Neighbor, ally

June 1, 2021, 12:10 am
0
9
Neighbor, ally

"The key is not to become a pawn."   I’m happy to welcome the return to (online) print last March...

Read more

Changing the dream

May 25, 2021, 12:15 am
0
13
Changing the dream

"But first take violence off the table."     One of the industries I used to monitor for the country’s...

Read more

Big, hairy, ambitious

May 18, 2021, 12:15 am
0
9
Big, hairy, ambitious

"Thinking far out of the box."     Last week saw a fresh new round of gloomy prognoses from the bears....

Read more

Print Edition

View More

Recent Posts

  • Train extensions – when will they be operational?
  • Deeper into the muck
  • ‘Climate Finance vital to energy transition’
  • Schools, pupils, teachers responded positively to K-10 pilot run – DepEd
  • OTS chief goes on leave, insists he’s not resigning
  • Economic managers mum on Maharlika candidate officials
  • LTO orders owner of Honda car in viral video to produce road-raging driver
  • 21-ft Tall Straw Hat Luffy sets sail to SM North EDSA for Animezing North 2023

Advertisement

Latest News

Economic managers mum on Maharlika candidate officials

byJulito G. Rada
September 26, 2023, 11:15 pm
0
8
External debt still at prudent level

Economic managers on Tuesday remained silent on the shortlist of candidates who will oversee the Maharlika Investment Corp. (MIC) to...

Read more

LTO orders owner of Honda car in viral video to produce road-raging driver

byRio N. Araja
September 26, 2023, 11:10 pm
0
8
‘LTO failed to enforce Motorbike Crime Act’

THE Land Transportation Office has issued a show-cause order (SCO) against the registered owner of a vehicle whose driver figured...

Read more

21-ft Tall Straw Hat Luffy sets sail to SM North EDSA for Animezing North 2023

byManila Standard
September 26, 2023, 11:05 pm
0
8
21-ft Tall Straw Hat Luffy sets sail to SM North EDSA for Animezing North 2023

Catch the Giant Luffy and the rest of the Straw Hat crew here at The Block Atrium, SM North EDSA...

Read more

Warm Welcome

byVer Noveno
September 26, 2023, 10:55 pm
0
8
AirAsia unveils new flights in 130 destinations

Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez joins new officials and employees of the House of Representatives for a commemorative photo on...

Read more

Lawmakers approve consolidated measure on military pension plan

byMaricel Cruz
September 26, 2023, 10:50 pm
0
8
House staff undergo training to improve office performance

The House of Representatives has approved on third and final reading a consolidated bill on the pension plans for military...

Read more

Advertisement

ADVERTISEMENT
Facebook Twitter Instagram Youtube

ABOUT US

Manila Standard

Manila Standard website (manilastandard.net), launched in August 2002, extends the newspaper’s reach beyond its traditional readers and makes its brand of Philippine news and opinion available to a much wider and geographically diverse readership here and overseas.

Digital Edition

In tone and content, the online edition mirrors the editorial thrust of the newspaper. While hewing to the traditional precepts of fairness and objectivity, MS believes the news of the day need not be staid, overly long or dry. Stories are succinct, readable and written in a lively style that has become a hallmark of the newspaper.

Download – Today’s Paper

Search

No Result
View All Result

6th Floor Universal Re Bldg., 106 Paseo De Roxas cor. Perea Street, Legaspi Village, 1226 Makati City Philippines

Trunklines: 832-5554, 832-5556, 832-5558

© 2021 Manila Standard - Designed and Developed by Neitiviti Studios.

No Result
View All Result
  • About
  • News
    • Top Stories
    • National
    • World News
    • Pinoy Abroad
    • Features
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Columns
    • Soundbytes
  • LGUs
    • NCR
    • Luzon
    • Visayas
    • Mindanao
  • Business
    • Corporate
    • Economy & Trade
    • Stocks
    • Money
    • Agri & Mining
    • Power & Tech
    • IT & Telecom
  • Sports
    • Basketball
    • Volleyball
    • Fightsports
    • Active
    • Sports Plus
    • One Championship
    • Columns
  • Entertainment
    • TV & Movies
    • Celebrity Profiles
    • Music & Concerts
    • Digital Media
    • Columns
  • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Culture & Media
    • Fashion
    • Health and Home
    • Leisure
    • Shopping
    • Columns
    • Young Life
  • Pets
  • Tech
    • Gadgets
    • Computers
    • Business
    • Tech Plus
  • ON THE ROAD
    • Sedan
    • SUV
    • Truck
    • Bike
    • Accessories
    • Motoring Plus
    • Commuter’s Corner
  • Home & Design
    • Residential
    • Commercial
    • Construction
    • Interior
  • Spotlight
  • Cravings
  • Environment & Sustainability
  • Agriculture
  • Pop.Life
    • Newsmakers
    • Hangouts
    • A-Pop
    • Post Its
    • Performances
    • Malls & Bazaars
    • Hobbies & Collections
  • Events
    • Seminars
    • Exhibits
    • Community
  • Biyahero
    • Travel Features
    • Travel Reels
    • Travel Logs
  • Gallery
    • Photos
    • Videos
  • Advertise with Us

© 2021 Manila Standard - Designed and Developed by Neitiviti Studios.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Install Manila Standard Web App

Install App