President Benigno S. Aquino III. Malacañang Photo Bureau
MANILA, Philippines – As the debate on whether President Benigno Aquino III should seek a second term or not heats up, here’s an American executive who says that he should – if only to sustain the economic gains achieved during his term.
“If the Constitution is not changed, and Aquino does not run, win, and serve a second term, the country risks losing its hard won gains and could easily fall back into some bad habits,” David Wagner, CEO of Country Risk Solutions, said in an article published in the US-based news website Huffington Post Tuesday.
Wagner cited the economic gains achieved during Aquino’s term to support his call for a second term for the president.
“Consider this — in 2009, the year before Aquino assumed office, the country’s GDP growth rate was just above 1%. Since he assumed power in 2010, the country’s average GDP growth rate has been 6.3%. In 2009, the Philippines’ Gross National Income was $627 billion; in 2013, it was $770 billion. And since 2009 the country’s total foreign exchange reserves have doubled, to more than $80 billion,” Wagner said.
Wagner said that Aquino was able to implement reforms in the government in order to achieve the country’s economic achievements.
“This is due, in large part, to Aquino’s refusal to continue the regrettable tradition of corruption, nepotism and abuse of power, and choose instead to turn the country around by stabilizing the political process, reforming the internal revenue service and customs bureau, and making good governance the hallmark of his administration, rather than an historical aberration,” Wagner added.
The CEO also said that the “Filipinos owe it to themselves to consider amending the Constitution.”
He also claimed that “most Filipinos are probably able to say their lives are better today than they were four years ago.”
Aquino said last week that his willingness to amend the Constitution was in order to clip the powers of the Supreme Court and not to seek a second term.
“It seems judicial [over]reach has to be reviewed and we have to put limits to it,” Aquino said.
Wagner’s statements contradicted those by the New York Times which, in an editorial last week, criticized Aquino for considering reelection and for wanting to clip the powers of the Supreme Court that had ruled as unconstitutional one of his economic programs.
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