Aide Memoire:
The Vision:
The country's Economic Recovery
SITUATIONER
Most of our leaders are voted into power by the most unproductive
members of society such as the squatters, gun-runners, smugglers, gamblers, drug
pushers, etc. Hence, the road to power as practiced today is already compromised
from the very start and foolhardy therefore to expect any genuine leadership to
ever emerge to initiate needed reforms.
Changing leaders, or government formats or even the Constitution
therefore will not provide us the solution.
CHANGING OURSELVES WILL. And that itself is a mouthful. When and
where to begin is itself a maze?
A COMMON AGENDA is called for to provide the Filipino electorate
an "intelligent choice" to will for. The impoverished will be given all the
opportunity to rise above their present mendicancy. The middle class can grow in
numbers. The rich can always take care of themselves.
Only then can that important CRITICAL MASS ever
emerge to enable positive reforms and meaningful changes to really take place.
The EDSA revolution is a good example. Euphoric
but short lived. That was unplanned and its children are still devouring each
other up to this very day.
What we need really is a PLANNED but FRIENDLY revolution!
The University of the Philippines (UP) is the
only institution that can provide that COMMON AGENDA. UP is mandated by its own
charter to create its "own government" within its metes and bounds in its
pursuit to attain academic excellence. The renewed UP can "slide" into the
situation without fanfare unnoticed.
UP can therefore install the CORRECT VALUES,
PRIORITIES and DIRECTION in master planning its 494 hectares Diliman campus at
first into a real University Town. The rest of its idle land grants can be
transformed into productive endeavors.
UP in the process can earn its ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE, a
prerequisite to academic excellence. A free mind emanates from a full stomach.
This University Town (UPTOWN - The Diliman
Campus) becomes the ALTERNATIVE ENVIRONMENT where the "correct things are
allowed to happen". It is the new and planned EDSA where the correct things can
be done.... right.
Businessmen can do business in a very businesslike manner. Time
is respected and so with Rights. Rules are fixed and enforcement is dispatched
with equal candor. Basic services are complete and affordable. The flow of
goods, services and people is unimpeded and free flowing. The merger of the
industry, business and the academe becomes the "practicum" for all the UP
students.
This UNIVERSITY TOWN depicts that elusive "hard bottom" to arrest
the ongoing economic decline of the country. An economic rebound or recovery
comes only after "bottoming out". The REALITY of defining that "hard bottom"
negates in one fell swoop the PERCEPTION of being on the verge of recovery
together with our neighbors as peddled by our professional soothsayers.
It is indeed possible to initiate the resolution
of the country's big problem with its deeply seated thwarted values, lack of
priority and even direction. Thinking big of a solution but starting small in a
494-hectare university campus would be most appropriate if not logical.
A COMMON AGENDA could take shape and that CRITICAL MASS would
emerge. And the 175,000 Alumni strong could catalyze that CRITICAL MASS.
Only then can a genuine economic recovery take shape.
EASIER SAID THAN DONE! The inertia is simply not there. UP must
be jolted from its present lethargic state. NEMENZO is no different from JAVIER
or ABUEVA or ANGARA or SORIANO.
The pattern of their thoughts and governing style is so
predictable that in due time, they are all consumed in the petty gestures of a
rent seeking society that we already are. Survival as their pre-occupation would
seem to be the main and only issue. Creativity is simply unthinkable!
They could only see the trees and not the forest.
They are all sound and fury and that means NOTHING. They are all firemen looking
for blazes to quench and unknowingly become status quo advocates by themselves.
They all look at UP as a mere member of the rent seeking crowd
and not above it. They are as cowed as the now timid private sector....just
waiting to be told.
UP needs help and too proud to ask. The new UP
administration will predictably act like its predecessor. Everything will be
kept "nice and dandy" with no untoward incident to rock the boat, so to speak or
"not during his watch".
And that should not be hard to accomplish with
the "close relationship with Erap" as one would boast. That was simply a
giveaway. UP would just have to watch the "events go by" with no significant
changes to ever take place.
QUO VADIS PHILIPPINES
The UPAA may very well be the only entity that can help UP
straighten things out without being brandished a "credit grabber" or a "power
broker". But UPAA needs genuine jolting itself. It has to cleanse itself of its
present political dynasty syndrome.
A renewed UPAA would seem to be the only entry for any positive
intervention to take place and be listened to in earnest by the UP
Administration.
UPAA's propensity and willingness to lend a hand could never be
questioned. Its goal to uphold UP's right to pursue Academic Excellence is
equally theirs to work on. It is only a question of making all the alumni aware
of it.
UPAA could raise the fund (US$250K) to enable the seven (7) named
Colleges of UP to re-master plan its 494 Diliman Campus into that ideal
University Town. UP in the process could perhaps reassess its own position with
regards to the nation and the people.
UPSILON SIGMA PHI could spearhead that movement and earn the full
credit of the emerging "bottoming out" process of a long overdue economic
recovery.
It is a genuine involvement that could inspire
the whole nation that the country's problems are solvable after all. It is a
very subtle way to express will and determination. Respect gets to be earned
very naturally....leadership as well.
The University Town – by the late Leonardo Orendain ‘55
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