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by Ms. Krizette Laureta Chu

The President has recently been talking too much about death--his own. While it is greatly saddening, it is inevitable, and it also should reframe the way our government is being run. Duterte will not live forever. He cannot personally keep "protecting" us from evil forever, or changing our messed-up policies one by one. His statement should make it more urgent for safeguards to be put in place ASAP--laws that will live on long after Duterte is gone--to make sure we do not have a repeat of the Aquino, Arroyo, Estrada, Ramos, Marcos presidencies. Dear President Duterte, your greatest service for the Filipino is yet to come--the passing of laws that would protect us from drugs, corruption, abuses of the oligarchy, the interests of big businesses at the expense of the majority, and with hope the resumption of peace talks with insurgents and rebels.


Your Presidency should not be a "breather", a pause in our history when we Filipinos experienced what good governance is all about. Your Presidency should pave the way for a better Philippines, so that your administration would not only be a mere respite from the hardships that have defined the Filipino experience since Marcos came into power.

Let's start the transition to federalism now. Let's empower our regions to start becoming independent and productive. Let's give the Filipinos in the countryside hope and legs to stand on.

Please, push and support federalism. Until Mindanao is given its rightful importance, the problem of terrorism and rebellion will only escalate, including the abject poverty this wildly rich region has experienced. Please fortify laws that will keep drugs away from our children.


How many more drug cartels, corrupt policemen and judges will be allowed to run unchecked before we come up with a system that actually works? Those dead drug lords will be replaced by other drug lords the minute you die. What system can we utilize to disable them and end their impunity? And yes, that includes the impunity of our own police and military.

Please clean up the ranks of government and steer it away from patronage politics and the palakasan system. Please keep monopolies in check by allowing fair trade to flourish, and that means allowing foreign owned companies to compete with well-entrenched established ones that have all but hostaged the common Filipino with high rates and crappy service simply because there was no choice.


We need a complete upheaval of our constitution. We need your cabinet secretaries to fix their departments, for Judy Taguiwalo to put standard operating procedures in place in case a tragedy of Yolanda's magnitude ever happens again; for Gina Lopez to prepare an ironclad set of rules with which businesses and mining companies must adhere to before they are allowed to open; for Pinol and Mariano to immortalize laws that protect the simple Filipino farmer; for Villar and Tugade to break ground on major projects which will benefit the next five or six generations; for Ubial to protect her department from corrupt big pharma companies as well as to roll out an immortal family planning program that will never be defunded.

If you die without putting a system in place, the dream of a great Philippines will die with you because you leave us with thieves and scalawags and greedy and lazy bastards. With your supermajority in Congress in place, we know you can make things happen. Don't let us peak with your Presidency, President Duterte. Let yours be the match that lights the way to a better Philippines. Please push for these changes and for federalism now.


source: filipinewsph

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