BY the end of the week, the people seeking election to the Senate will have filed their candidacy certificates.
By then, the campaign to appeal to the basest instincts and desires of the most corrupt and transactional voting groups would have gone into high gear as well.
I am convinced that one of the main reasons why change has come only at glacial pace to this country, if at all, is because its politicians are only too willing to prevent it from happening in exchange for the votes of entrenched special interest groups. I see it happening again with the current Senate, where two reelectionists have concluded that the Duterte administration is “not ready” to implement its jeepney modernization program.
This, at least, was clear from the statements made by Sen. Grace Poe, who terminated her investigation into the program last week with this conclusion: “What’s clear is that the government is not yet prepared to phase out PUVs that are non-compliant to their modernization requirements, because the requirements [themselves]are vague.”
It was not clear from reports when Poe believed the government will ever be ready to remove the polluting, inefficient but iconic jeepneys from our streets. All that was apparent was that Poe, by parroting the lines of jeepney operators opposed to the modernization scheme of the Department of Transportation, was pandering to a traditionally vote-rich sector.
And it’s not as if the program hasn’t been going on for some time. The loan facilities for “eco-friendly” jeeps have long been opened by state banks and the guidelines for operation and maintenance have also been clearly stated and published since early this year.
But Poe, who is supposedly eyeing the top spot in next year’s Senate race in preparation for another run at the presidency in 2022, merely copy-and-pasted the jeepney groups’ usual objections to modernization. I kid you not.
First, according to the senator, government agencies in charge of public utility vehicles, specifically the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB), did not conduct enough “consultations with stakeholders” in the industry. This “lack of consultation” is such an old, common shibboleth of groups affected by reform-minded governments that it has lost all meaning. How much consultation, after all, is enough?
“The government is not ready, and our countrymen would be affected when we lose jeepneys, and many would lose their jobs as well,” Poe said, in addition. This bogeyman of potential job loss has been used so often that it is overdue for disposal in the recycling bin of arguments against all forms of modernization; and yet the vote-hungry Poe — and many others like her — just cynically regurgitate it.
Poe also excoriated the program’s funding component, saying jeepney operators were “lost” on how to avail of the loans for the P1.8-million eco-jeeps. This after the operators told her committee that state banks included a requirement that buyers of e-jeeps must prove that they have parking spaces before they become eligible — a longtime sore point in road usage.
Finally, what’s a populist, vote-getting ploy without using the hoary “us versus them” scare tactic? Poe said she “is also convinced that the government favored big and able corporations in granting new franchises under the modernization plan.”
And the jeepney crowd, as they say, goes wild. As for jeepney modernization, scheduled by the Duterte government to happen over three years, I think Poe just set it back three more decades in aid of her reelection.
See, I will grant that some people must really believe the romanticized fantasy that jeepneys lasted this long because they are such lovable cultural artifacts that we fiercely hang on to because they define us as Filipinos. But Poe’s vote-whoring, to my mind, is a more convincing argument to buttress the theory that the continued existence of the so-called “King of the Road” is because of decades of compromising by politicians courting the jeepney vote.
Which is sad, really, because this country would not have been left behind as much as it has had it not been for politicians like Poe, who have no qualms about trading the safety and health of millions of Filipinos and the protection and sustainability of their environment, just to realize their political dreams.
We keep complaining about the wrong things in our society. But the moment someone comes along who wants to change these same wrongs, our politicians block him because they need the votes.
Makes you wonder what sort of president Poe would have been had she not imploded and lost in 2016. Probably the same kind of special-interest captive we’ve had ever since we adopted American-style democracy more than a century ago.
And it also makes you thank God that Poe didn’t make it to the highest post in the land, if all she was going to do was to be a dummy of oligarchs and other pressure groups throughout her presidency. And the jeepneys, for sure, would remain kings of our streets, their operators secure in the knowledge that their age-old terror tactics would continue to work their magic on whoever was elected to Malacañang.
As for the other reelectionist senator pandering to the jeepney groups, that would be Sen. Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino 4th, who demanded something he called a “just transition” of five years instead of just three as proposed by DoTr and LTFRB. At least, Aquino, the most shameless vote-whore of them all, trumped Poe by giving a firm timeline for the jeepney phaseout.
But, as is usually the case, the less said about Aquino’s monomaniacal vote-soliciting efforts, the better. This is a man who would probably change his name to “Duterte” if that’s what it takes to get reelected.
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