Next big leaps

Friday, 28 May 2010 00:00

Written by Neric Acosta

Campaign 2010 was, for those of us who were in the thick of the process, alternately exhausting and awe-inspiring. Yet while invariably grueling, there was, for the most part, a long-running thread of exhilaration in what was a clear zeitgeist of a people seeking a fresh, hopeful start. Today the country stands on the threshold of a new day, highlighting much of what elections and democracy signify: the tasks of restoring, renewing, reforming.

Democratic elections, after all, means more than a popular vote, a citizenry’s primary civic duty to choose their leaders. It sets the ground anew for a national make-over, as it were: correcting abuses, exacting accountability, redressing grievance, redrawing policy agendas, galvanizing yet again public support, nurturing collective hope and national purpose.

A herculean order no doubt. Apparent President-elect Noynoy Aquino assumes the colossal mantle of a leadership at a crossroads in the country’s history. Expectations are running high, perhaps unrealistic in large part, for Noynoy to fix the nation’s broken systems and eradicate social ills as if all he had to deploy were the magical powers of a presidential wand.

The Internet makes this amorphous re-establishing of a ‘social contract’ more immediate – and at times whimsical, irreverent and outrageous. Social networking sites and the blogosphere are agog with sundry advice and earnest suggestions for the new president from every Tomas, Pedro and Juan who wants to weigh in on a national discourse. This is, by account of the wonders of e-democracy, something to celebrate.

But if history lessons are anything to go by, in these rising expectations are embedded the seeds of disenchantment and frustration. More than the imperative to effectively manage reform agendas and administering affairs of state is the pressing need to manage expectations and competing interests as a new page is turned in governing this country.

We know how fleeting or fickle public opinion could be. In a multimedia-driven age of instant feedback and reaction, leaders can just as quickly ride the crest of popularity and public approval as they can just as rapidly suffer the pitfalls of public derision – or hostility – that arise from dashed hopes.

My own unsolicited take on this landscape of what is a highly volatile political environment is for the new president to put a premium on seriously engaging as many sectors as he can in, say, the first 100 days. There is nothing novel in this, of course, but a honest-to-goodness workable framework of multi-stakeholder cooperation in critical fronts – labor and the economy, education, health, anti-corruption, agriculture, the environment, Mindanao -- is needed more than ever.

Coupled with this is the need for Noynoy to choose his official team well, representing the electorate’s demand for diversity, competence, integrity and fresh-faced, forward-looking energy in government. Jockeying for positions and the reality of horse-trading and compromises are stock-in-trade in politics, but the zeitgeist of a reawakened ‘people-power’ calls for nothing less than bolder initiatives and out-of-box approaches to managing the tensions of what is unavoidably a field of intense contestation of ideas and interests.

For all the daunting challenges we face, the days ahead hold much promise. The new president’s vast mandate offers a sharp trajectory of change and renewal for the damaged institutions of government, as in the spirit of people who on May 10 reclaimed their democracy, even in the face of recalcitrant trapo forces and the widespread use of ‘gold and (some) guns.'

In the course of the campaign I saw Noynoy’s amazing evolution into the role of candidate-leader – from initial reluctance to the full embrace of moral duty to the country and its future. If only for that, our country should be off to a solid start – and well-positioned with a new President Aquino at the helm to take the next big leaps forward.

Neric Acosta, three-term Bukidnon congressman and professor of public policy, was Liberal Party senatorial candidate in the 2010 elections.

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites