INQUIRER.net Eleksyon 2007

Institute works on long-term re-education of voters

Inquirer

Edson C. Tandoc Jr.

MANILA, Philippines--A group working on improvements in the way people vote and make their political choices, is focusing on the voters, rather than on candidates, setting its eyes not on the coming elections, but what happens 23 years after.

"While everybody else is focusing on the May elections, we are focusing on what happens after," Institute for Solidarity in Asia founding chair and president Jesus Estanislao said.

The sad reality is that the quality of most of our voters "is poor," Estanislao has said. "They (voters) are easily smitten by personalities. They have no interest on issues," he added.

The game plan to correct this however will not be completed in time for the coming polls, but will be a continuing work in the next two decades.

His group, an umbrella organization of various sectoral groups, local government units and businessmen, is pushing for what it calls the Philippine National Road Map 2030.

Its dream is simply put this way: Make the Filipino proud of the Philippines.

"Our near obsession with politics and with everything political often blinds us from seeing the bigger social dimension of which politics is only a part, albeit an important part," Estanislao also said in a book titled Philippines 2030: Journey to Nationhood, which was distributed during the group's meeting in a five-star hotel in Pasay City last week.

He listed at least six perspectives or steps to focus on to reach the vision of having a country we can be proud of.

He said change should begin with values, followed by the transmission of values through institutions. The next step is equipping key institutions with higher levels of capability, or improving institutional capacity. To continue this, there should be a matched infrastructure development and a focus on the economy, which could finally lead to efforts to make all these improvement available to every Filipino.

"Pinoys are not used to thinking long-term so progress tends to change from one government to another. We should force ourselves to think long-term," said Evelyn Singson, the former president of the Management Association of the Philippines, during the forum last week.

The road map is a long-term plan the group hopes to popularize. To do this, the organization also helped establish road maps for sectors in society and model local government units.

There are already road maps for the academe, the military, the media, the youth sector and the business sector.

ISA Executive Director Chrstian Zaens listed the following local government units as model cities, following their compliance with the Public Governance System the ISA is promoting: Marikina, Iloilo, Naga, San Fernando (Pampanga, San Fernando (La Union), Tagbilaran, Calbayog and Sorsogon.

"The road maps contain the strategic programs of the city," Estanislao said, adding that ISA also formed "centers of leadership" in each sector or city, composed of citizens, to monitor the implementation of the road maps.

Naga Mayor Jesse Robredo said these road maps provided a framework that would help sustain programs even amid changes among elected officials.

Seeking his third and last term this election, he acknowledged that more still needed to be done.

He said he was expecting some candidates to again resort to vote-buying.

Marikina Mayor Marides Fernando, who is also seeking her third and last term, said they had integrated in the city’s high school classes a "life skills program."

It includes lessons on "choosing a leader."

"We need to educate our residents how to choose the right leaders. It is a skill Filipinos must try to learn. We cannot forever blame the President," Fernando, wife of Metropolitan Manila Development Authority chair Bayani Fernando, a close ally of President Macapagal-Arroyo, also said.

"We must relegate politics to the politicians," she added.

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