PEACE-MAKER
Jose de Venecia Jr.Former Speaker of the House
Following Malacanang’s renewed calls for unity and cooperation in the midst of continuing battle against the coronavirus, perhaps President Duterte may consider establishing some sort of a “Government of National Unity” by enlisting into his administration “the best and the brightest” in our political parties, civil society, business, academe, and other sectors of our society.
We believe that doing so will draw out the venom in our country’s political atmosphere, which has sapped our capacity to overcome grave and urgent national problems, foremost of which is the raging COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to rise.
As of this writing, more than 178,000 Filipinos have contacted the virus, almost 2,800 of whom have died.
On the economy, it has been reported that our country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contracted by 16.5 percent during the second quarter this year, which is the Philippines’ worst economic performance in more than 40 years.
The industry and services sectors also fell by 22.9 and 15.8 percent, respectively.
In addition, some 7.3 million jobs were lost.
Building of new political coalitions and sharing of executive power, just as power is already shared by majority and minority parties in the House of Representatives and Senate, will enable the Duterte administration, and our nation to focus, undistracted by partisan concerns, on carrying out the policies and programs, including those outlined in the proposed “Bayanihan 2.”
On a larger and long-term scale, it will help reform politics and governance, make the economy a more efficient creator of social wealth, and improve the quality of life for all our people.
Incessant partisan political bickering will condemn us to being a backwater in what is likely to become the world’s most vigorous economic region. We must move now, if we are to regain the initiative in Southeast Asia that we held all too briefly in the postwar period.
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My wife Gina and me had earlier planned to fly to the US this October for our yearly visit to our children and grandchildren who are based there, and, at the same time, to observe up close the American presidential elections, which is becoming more exciting by the day.
The coronavirus, however, forced us to forego our plan.
Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic has altered people’s lives worldwide, our ways and means of doing things, including the conduct of elections and electoral campaigns, like the US Democratic Party’s national convention where the 77-year-old former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris of California, the first black and South Asian American woman to run in a major political party’s ticket, have been formally nominated as the party’s candidates for president and vice president, respectively.
Unlike the usual pomp and pageantry that characterized the political conventions of both the Democratic and Republican parties that we have witnessed over the years, the Democratic Party’s convention was conducted almost totally virtually.
The Coronavirus has also become a major issue in the US presidential contest, with the Democratic Party criticizing President Donald Trump on how he has been addressing the pandemic.
The US has been the epicenter of the virus, with almost 5.6 million cases and more than 170,000 deaths, as of this writing.