President GMA Wants to Leave a Legacy

GMA wants to leave a legacy..read about it here - http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view_article.php?article_id=72438

My take on this...

If President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo wants the last three years of her term to be a “legacy phase”, it is not enough for her to focus on the economy in order to overcome the crisis and trauma experienced by the country from 2004 up to the present.

While leaving behind a prosperous economy may be likened to a parent leaving behind a bountiful inheritance to his or her children, it will definitely not erase the reason behind the crises that the president’s administration had to face, which was not due to an economic crisis but because of political and electoral ills. Like a family which was torn apart by betrayal or infidelity, a rich inheritance will not reconcile its members.

The president must realize that three years will not be enough for her to leave a legacy that will be felt by the Filipinos all the way down to the lowest rungs of our poverty-stricken society. Even if she is able to further strengthen the macroeconomic fundamentals of the country, “make long overdue investments in human and physical infrastructure” and spend “billions on bridges” to “attract more foreign investments”, these will not be felt by the masses within three years.

In fact, all those efforts will simply go unnoticed or even go down the drain if the 2010 elections that will mark the end of the president’s term will once again be characterized by fraud, vote manipulation, anomalies, and an antiquated electoral system. The only legacy she will leave behind would be a legacy of controversial elections, with people only remembering the Hello Garci issue of 2004 and the 2007 elections which was riddled with failures of elections, missing election documents and a painfully slow senatorial count.

IF the president would like to leave a lasting legacy which will be appreciated by all Filipinos from all classes from the impoverished masses to the ultra-rich, she should make it a priority, if not the centerpiece of the final stretch of her presidency, to leave behind a modern electoral system that will significantly limit, if not totally eradicate, any and all forms of election fraud.

She should already take a cue from the lessons of recent history and the present. That in spite of strong economic fundamentals and gains in the economy, the electoral and political issues still hounded and continues to hound her administration. Whatever

The problems of government are rooted in how the leaders of government are elected into office. The people will only have confidence in their elected officials if the manner in which they were elected has unquestionable integrity and reliability.

So if President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would like to leave a legacy that will be immediately felt by the Filipinos and have a long-lasting effect on future generations, she should put in the forefront an agenda of electoral and political reform and not just concentrate on the economy.