THE MOUNTAINEER

My wish list
Edison L. Baddal

With the newly elected officials warming their seats at this point, the people are likewise anxiously observing every actuation and pronouncement they make. By all means, this is their right as they are the real power holders and elective officials have just borrowed that power via ballots.

Past experience shows, however, that people manifest more leniency and forbearance with those voted during their first 100 days in office. They are prudent enough to perceive that for the first three months the latter are busy putting things into proper perspective for the rigors of their tenure. People likewise tend to be more forgiving when officials stumble or get rattled, especially for the political greenhorns, during their first three months in office.

Amidst the flurry of expectations on how the newly assumed officials will make good their campaign platforms, it is not unjust to make a list of wishes. These are purely personal wishes, though, and may not embody the spectrum of broad or parochial wishes of the rest of the voters.

National level
On the national level, the new Senators should admit that they owe their exalted position more to the people than to themselves and should therefore enact laws that will redound to the general welfare of the greatest number of people and not for their vested interests or those of an exclusive sector or group.

A pronouncement by a neophyte senator in which he vowed to use his position to bring down the incumbent president is out of sync with what he was voted for and absolutely contrary to what the people expect. In no way, will such bellicose stance rectify nor justify the perceived wrong he committed that merited his incarceration.

As his reason for initiating revolt some years back was due to extreme disgust at the devious acts of the military top brass, his efforts now should shift gear to contributing to the dissipation of social ills that perennially wracks society. This should be given the fact that his election may have virtually given credence to what he fought for at the expense of a glorious military career in the offing.

Senators harboring presidential ambitions with sights trained on the uncertain 2010 presidential elections should cast their ambition aside for the time being in favor of the more peremptory tasks at hand.

Their efforts, native skills and mettle for the enormous tasks for the nonce renders unnecessary and out of place such political posturing. More than ever, the need to come up with the laws that will spur the economy and lick the perennial budget deficit in the near future should be prioritized.

Opposition senators should follow the lead of some of their partymates and independent counterparts who avowed before their assumption that they will not be obstructionists to every worthwhile efforts presently initiated as well as future initiatives by the current dispensation that are oriented for the development of the nation.

At times like this, party affiliation and ego-boosting antics are uncalled for. More than ever, self-serving potshots against the executive and the members of her political family will not do the nation any good much less for the development of the country. In fact, it would be more magnanimous for the opposition to shed their plangent oppositionist diatribes which they played to the hilt during the campaign.

Such sardonic, pejorative, degrading remarks that flew thick and fast during the campaign against the government should be left on the campaign trail for the sake of the nation and people at large whose interests they so eloquently vowed to serve. If anything, their poll victories did not mean that people elected them for their oppositionist stance but that they believed they could work best for the interest of the people than the rest of the candidates with their huge resources notwithstanding.

Senators should lend a hand to the President as she spares no effort to come to terms with all rebels in order to achieve an honorable, genuine and lasting peace in the country.The president perorated on this in many of her SONAs. It cannot be denied that peace is the anchor of economic development.

The upshot of peace is no less than the willingness of foreign investors to invest in the country which will generate employment in the process. The influx of investors with oodles of cash to plunk down on worthwhile economic projects will go a long way in alleviating poverty.

The absence of peace is the main dampener for foreign investors. In the same vein, the peace and political stability of China contributed not insignificantly to its enviable economic status now. Ditto with Malaysia, Thailand and most recently, Indonesia. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyuno, current Indonesian leader, is sparing no effort in uplifting his country’s economic status after its catastrophic devastation several years back hand in hand with instituting political reforms to maintain political stability.

The Senators’ Priority Development Funds should undergo the usual accounting and auditing rules just like regular agency appropriations to prevent or regulate strongly the incidences of corruption and therefore boosts the anti-corruption program of the government. Ditto with the PDFs of district representatives or Congressmen.

Regional level
Public officials should be more earnest in licking poverty by initiating infra projects on equal footing with social development projects for the upliftment of the lives of the needy through employment generation.

It is common knowledge that, except for Baguio City and Ifugao, the other provinces of Cordillera, i.e. Abra, Benguet, Mt. Province, Kalinga and Apayao are members of the Club 20, the noxious monicker given to the 20 poorest provinces in the country. As of now, Ifugao is the only province that graduated from the Club 20 amongst the six provinces of the CAR.

Political vendetta killings and tribal violence should be controlled or stopped altogether for the region as a whole to enjoy prosperity on equal footing with the more developed regions of the country.

Investors always consider the dividend of peace and order when locating offshore investments. Therefore, any threat to the dividend of peace should be forestalled.

Provincial level
A balanced appropriation for social services and infra projects should be attained for a more palpable and noteworthy development to take place that will seep to every settled nook and

In this, the example of Ifugao should be followed wherein infra projects and social cranny of the province.programs are usually given equal attention. This strategy enabled the province to move out of the demeaning enclave of the 20 poorest provinces in the country in 2006. This is aside from reduced incidence of corruption.

With the twin strategies employed by the former, there is then a concomitant need to neutralize the incidence of corruption in the province.

Development-focused programs like the localization of the Millenium Developments Goals and the OCOV/OTOP PPAs should be given great premium as it will surely boost the development and growth of the province.

Local officials should bustle and fight doggedly to have the 18 degree slope of terrain of the province be exempted from being considered as public land. They should also work to have more areas of the province declared as alienable and disposable by Congress.

In this way, residents or farmers therein could acquire titles to their lots. Consequently, employees with titled lots will enjoy housing loan benefits from Pag-ibig, SSS and GSIS in which at present only the lowlanders and residents of Baguio and other parts of the Cordilleras with flat terrain are enjoying.

All of these are wishful thinking as the success or failure of all endeavors is hinged on the so-called human factor. But our democratic way of life and regime allows free thinking to blossom. Hence, it is a freebie or a given for everyone and am no less spared from engaging in it. And that includes having a wish list or resolutions for the current political term of the newly elected officials.