As if the last two weeks of 2022 were not bad enough, with scores dead or missing due to floods and rough seas (including nine from Catandpuanes), the country suffered yet another blow to its reputation with the chaos at its main international airport caused by a power glitch on the very first day of 2023.
For at least 100,000 air commuters and their families affected by the 300 flight delays and cancellations both here and in other countries, the nightmare at the nation’s premier airport calls into question the capability of the administration in keeping the government agencies running.
There seems to be a dearth of qualified and experienced professionals applying for top jobs in the Marcos bureaucracy, with the Department of Agriculture still being run by the president himself and the Department of Education firmly in the hands of the vice president who now has two sources of intelligence funds.
It should make everyone wonder why, if BBM himself is agriculture chief, there is no apparent outcry from his constituents regarding the high price of red onions.
Of particular concern to local water districts which have pending loans or applications for rate increases, the failure of Malacanang to appoint a new boss at the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) has negatively affected the WDs’ operations.
One – the San Andres WD – has been unable to pay a contractor for the completion of a project funded by a loan with LWUA, with the current officer-in-charge having no power to sign the documents covering the final loan release.
Another – the Virac Water District – is still waiting for LWUA’s action on its application for the approval of the septage service fee recently okayed in a public hearing.
In the province, the implementation of infrastructure projects has not proven to be a happy event for everyone concerned.
The failure of the Happy Island’s top leaders to agree on vital issues (read: division of the spoils) means that last year’s competitive bidding of projects at the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the Department of Education (DepEd) would continue.
With one side’s contractors taking deep ‘dives’ to win the bidding and deprive the other side of a main source of ‘deligencia,’ it will be the public who will ultimately lose at the end.
With the contract cost reduced by as much as 30%, the winning contractors are likely to resort to shortcuts and substandard construction to be able to show a reasonable profit.
For Malacanang and the top officials of the province, the second half of 2022 was characterized by a lot of missed opportunities, a failure to see their appointees’ faults beyond political loyalty, and a general lack of reaction from the public who are perhaps still waiting to see how their choice for the presidency would turn out.
Four days into 2023, the Filipino people seems to have accepted the failings of the Marcos-Duterte administration and gave it satisfactory ratings for its performance in the past six months.
They must have taken heart to the message of author James P. Sherman’s famous quote (often misattributed to C.S. Lewis):
“You can’t go back and change the beginning but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
Writers who decide to change their stories, it is said, find it easier to just start where they are, rather than go back to the beginning and write it all over again.
The same holds true in our daily lives.
What happened in the past is already done and can no longer be corrected. What is important is that one learns from the mistakes of the past so that they will not be repeated in the future.
But this is easier said than done.
The actual road to success, the way through which every Filipino passes as he lives day to day, is strewn with the potholes of patronage politics and bureaucratic red tape into which many hopes have foundered.
As everyone grapples with the reality of an inefficient and corrupt government, all well-meaning citizens can hope for is for the Almightly to give us a long memory until the next elections, so we will be able to see past the cash brazenly dangled in front of our eyes.