THE runaway victory of presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte, who ran on the promise of change, is a clear repudiation of the failed policies of the last six years.
It is encouraging that among the first things Duterte did after casting his vote Monday was to call for national unity and healing after a particularly vicious campaign.
“These past few days were quite virulent for all of us. This is part of a day’s work in the elections. I would like to reach my hand [out] to my opponents, let us begin the healing now,” Duterte said.
The candidate’s call for unity contrasted sharply with President Benigno Aquino III’s desperate, last-minute appeal a few days earlier to the other candidates to unite to stop Duterte.
Duterte’s appeal suggested a shared goal; the President’s call simply targeted a common enemy. Candidate Duterte asked everyone to come together; the President sought to divide us yet again.
If the new president must change anything first, he might want to start with the divisiveness that President Aquino engendered in his six years in office. Instead of wearing the pin of the Philippine flag on his lapel, Mr. Aquino insisted on wearing the yellow ribbon that represented his political faction, a subtle but constant reminder that he was President only to those who voted for him, and not to the rest of the country, and that if you were not in his camp, you were just out of luck.
This was the same divisiveness that Mr. Aquino brought to his government, where one needed to be a friend, a political ally or a former classmate to land a plum position. In the Aquino administration, qualifications, performance and merit went out the window, and were replaced by the only thing that mattered to the President—personal and political loyalty.
This divisive approach guaranteed that the President would not benefit from the services of the best and the brightest, because no one political party can claim a monopoly on intelligence, expertise, talent and determination.
The disastrous effects of this approach are apparent to all, by way of city trains that regularly break down, a transportation agency that cannot even issue drivers licenses and car plates in a timely manner, and a government that is incapable of providing quick relief to Filipinos suffering from natural calamities such as storms and drought.
For far too long, we have suffered from divisions that Mr. Aquino encouraged. That is the first thing that must change.
