Several problems Aquino created – largely because of his hubris - TopicsExpress

Several problems Aquino created – largely because of his hubris – since he took power in 2010 will be coming home to roost this year. One, the World Bank’s International Center for Investment Disputes (ICSID) will most likely rule this year on the case filed by the 150-year-old Belgian dredging firm Baagerwerken Decloedt En Zoon against the Philippines for unilaterally cancelling the Laguna Lake Rehabilitation Project. Aquino cancelled the project just a few months after he assumed power, claiming that the project was riddled with corruption by his predecessor’s officials. Second, the Supreme Court won’t dilly-dally any longer. It would rule with finality that Aquino’s Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) Fund was illegal, and that administrative and criminal cases should be filed against those responsible for it. Aquino of course is immune from such suits while in power. Budget Secretary Florencio Abad – the brains behind Aquino – isn’t, and they would spend this year fending off such suits. Third, Aquino’s and his naïve negotiators’ promising the moon to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the form of committing to the establishment of a Bangsamoro sub- state to the insurgents will unravel this year, as Congress can no longer pretend that it has to study it first before approving it. The bill, as even its champion Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, recently admitted, is just wracked with provisions violating the Constitution. Fourth, power projects contracted this year, and those being constructed, won’t be finished by the first quarter of the year, and the biggest companies are expecting severe power black outs by this summer. With his mother dubbed the Queen of Darkness in the wake of severe brownouts in 1987, Aquino will be called the Prince of Darkness, sapping his regime’s legitimacy and therefore his camp’s capability to have their candidate win in 2016. Fifth, while this government has been proud to have stood up against China by filing a case against it at the United Nations Permanent Court of Administration for it to declare illegal the super-power’s claims in the South China/West Philippine Sea, the costs of such stance will be enormous. The court is likely to rule on the issue this year, and most experts are expecting that it will likely declare that the issue is beyond its jurisdiction, which would hew to the legal definition of “arbitration” as one in which contending parties voluntarily enter into and promise to abide by the arbitrator’s decision. The Philippines is also arguing on the basis of the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea – which however China signed with the qualification that it cannot be applicable to questions of sovereignty. Sixth, despite their silence in the past months, I don’t think jailed senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla have just been praying to God to be released. If the pork-barrel scam charges are true, they’d have hundreds of millions of pesos stashed somewhere that they would be mobilizing to make whistle-blowers suddenly reverse their testimonies, and for the Sandiganbayan to order them freed. manilatimes.net/2015-crucial-countrys-future/153026/ January 4, 2015