"When people are stupid, they vote into office stupid leaders who think voters are, indeed, stupid."
"When people are stupid, they vote into office stupid leaders who think voters are, indeed, stupid."
In my more than 50 years of covering business and politics, I have never met a public servant as brilliant, as dedicated, as passionate for development, and as pro-people as Joey Salceda, the congressman of Albay’s second district.
His name came to mind because of a disturbing, if not revolting, development in the coming months—the Philippines has no replacement for Rodrigo Roa Duterte in May 2022.
Former Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio has decried the possibility of a Duterte-Duterte taking power by noon of June 30, 2022, to succeed Digong Duterte.
A President Sara Duterte and a Vice President Rodrigo Duterte! They will be the first daughter-and- father tandem to take power in the history of the Philippines and perhaps in the history of the world. Only dumb monarchies and ruthless dictatorships can produce such a political abomination. And only the animal kingdom, where species do not have the brains of humans, can tolerate such an aberration.
There are 110 million Filipinos and 24.4 million families. Yet, the country has no successor to what is incredibly the most popular politician on earth and in history, thanks to Pulse Asia’s neatly manufactured November 2020 survey at the peak of the pandemic and which gave a 91-percent job approval and trust ratings for Duterte.
That 91 percent gave Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque confidence to declare that Duterte’s pandemic management as “excellent” despite overwhelming evidence it was a colossal failure—two million cases by the end of this year and 20,000 deaths so far, amid the longest and harshest lockdown in the world.
Allow me then to present a choice for a national leader –Joey Sarte Salceda.
Salceda, 59, has always had a beautiful mind – salutatorian in elementary school, valedictorian in high school seminary, BS management engineering, cum laude, at Ateneo; and MBA, with distinction at the Asian Institute of Management.
Tall, lean, lanky and articulate, Joey was the best analyst for several years in Asia. The job made him rich and gave him personal satisfaction.
Then public service beckoned. He became congressman for nine years, cabinet member for one year, and governor of Albay for nine years.
Joey is one of the best minds of his generation of political leaders and economic thinkers. He is one reason why Filipinos should be optimistic that life will be good, if not better, during the balance of the 21st century. “Joey’s thinking and planning are not just for today’s generation; they are good for ten generations,” says one analyst.
With his genes and gravitas as a whiz kid and a public servant, he should be running for president.
Joey is back in Congress as a senior congressman. Major economic and social reform pieces of legislation bear his imprint.
As vice chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, he produced the nuts and bolts of what is now TRAIN – Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion, a masterpiece program on how the government can prod the rich to pay more tax on their income. Citizens who don’t pay anything must pay taxes.
Taxpayers who pay more taxes than they should will pay less. The government then shall marshal the revenues to help the poor by building more schools, more hospitals and clinics, and more infrastructure. As for those who really are too poor to help themselves, the government will simply give them cash, monthly. While doing that, the government will modernize the economy, cut red tape, cut corruption, and do many other decent things expected of good governments.
Another game-changer is Salceda’s CREATE Law. Sharp reductions in corporate income taxes of both large and small corporations (effective second half of 2020) will enable them to raise trillions of cash and savings over the next ten years, which money in turn will generate economic activity worth P7 trillion and create millions of jobs—just the right measure to rescue the Philippines from its worst economic slump in 500 years.
A companion measure, pending in the legislative mill, is to upgrade the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) into a cabinet department, with bigger funding and a broader mission—equip up to 50 million jobless and or underpaid workers with the technical skills that will make them useful and attractive to employers, without them earning a college degree.
The world is in the middle of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4th IR), after the first three—one, the use of water and steam power; two, the use of power to create mass production, and three, the use of electronics and information technology. The 4th IR builds on the third, the digital revolution, and fuses technologies in the physical, digital, and biological spheres. Jobs needed by the 4th IR are: robotics, cybersecurity, customer specialist, data scientists, sales development, engineers of all types, and programmers. You need skills, not a diploma, for these jobs. TESDA can provide them.
Education has always been a strong Salceda forte. His mother was an elementary school teacher for 43 years. His father was a public high school teacher for 15 years before Papa went into politics — 26 years — as councilor, vice mayor, and mayor of nine years.
As Albay governor, Joey made every household produce a college student or a college graduate, thanks to his scholarships. He made Bicol University one of the leading institutions of higher learning in the country.
As governor, Joey converted Albay into a first-class province, modernized its infrastructure, and made it one of the country’s major tourist destinations, thanks to the Mayor Volcano and Bicol’s unique cuisine. Joey also prepared Albay for climate change; he made the province resilient.
Joey is aghast that in the 2018 PISA exams for 15-year-olds from 77 countries, Filipinos ended 76th or 77th—or last—in reading, math and science. This means Filipinos are stupid.
And when people are stupid, they vote into office stupid leaders who think voters are, indeed, stupid.
And stupid leaders are very easy to corrupt, are incompetent, and most of the time, do not work at all.
Now, will Filipinos elect a Duterte for president and another Duterte for vice president at the same time?
Answer: Only if they are stupid.
