Marcos’ post-election takeaway: We need to speed up gov’t services
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Screengrab from a video posted on his Facebook page.
MANILA, Philippines — The people are disappointed with the government service.
That was one of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s realizations from the recently concluded national and local elections.
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Speaking in Episode 1 of the BBM Podcast on Monday, Marcos said he focused too much on working on extensive government projects when he assumed office, which, as a result, took much longer to be felt by the masses.
“Nothing will happen in the Philippines. That’s as far as we’ll go. We won’t – we won’t rise. I said we need to change that. So I looked at the big, difficult projects that will have long-term effects – those are the ones we should work on,” he said in Filipino.
“So, we worked on it. That’s why the projects we made a priority were big ones – tourism, health – all major projects. The problem with big projects, like transportation, for example, is that they really take time,” the President also said.
Marcos also concluded in the aftermath of the midterm polls that voters are tired of politics.
“Filipinos have grown tired of politics. They’re sick and tired of it,” Marcos said when asked what his realizations were after the election period, particularly as the head of administration-backed Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas.
For Marcos, the election taught them to stop politicking and start paying attention to public service instead.
“And that’s true. That’s really what we should be doing. So it’s good that the elections are over — enough with the politics. Enough with the politics. Let’s get to work — let’s do everything that needs to be done,” he said.
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Of the 11-man Alyansa slate, only Erwin Tulfo, Panfilo Lacson, Vicente Sotto III, Pia Cayetano, and Lito Lapid won.
Presidential sister and Senator Imee Marcos secured another term, although she parted ways with the Alyansa midway through the election season.
Performance review of Cabinet officials
In the same podcast, Marcos said he ordered a performance review on all Cabinet officials to assess whether government targets are being met and to identify issues hindering public service delivery.
“The progress is good, but it’s a performance review. This is our target—why didn’t we reach it? Or this one, we achieved it. This one, over-priced again. All of these things—performance review,” he said.
Marcos said the review seeks to answer key questions: “Why is the delivery of services slow? What are the other issues? What will we do to speed things up?”
His remarks were in relation to the graceful exit given to some officials who resigned due to “health reasons,” which may have become a way for other officials not to fear repercussions when committing wrongdoing. / MR
