(original image above from my previous essay, “Polls, Pulse, False: Presidency Is Not Popularity, It’s Leadership[1]” ComDev).
No Sir, no
Ma’am! Not a single one of the front-running 5 presidential candidates (above)
has an imposing, impossible idea about how to bring these islands from the 20th
to the 22nd century – not Bongbong Marcos, not Isko Moreno, not Leni
Robredo, not Manny Pacquiao, not Ping Lacson.
We should all be voting for someone to become
our President who has exhibited Leadership with a Vision, Mission, and
Strategy!
In late 2006, I came to know my distinguished
non-presidential candidate Ilocano, now-Secretary of Agriculture William Dollente Dar, when already he
had been Director General of the India-based International
Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) for 7 years.
From among 15 international agricultural research centers under the aegis of the
CGIAR:
Within
those busy years, Mr Dar’s Vision of “Science with a human face” brought up
ICRISAT from dead last to #1.
Now then, back to our presidential candidates – who of them
has a Vision for our old beloved Philippines? None that I have read! They
should all learn from this non-candidate about Visioning, Missioning,
Strategizing.
No excuses! Even before President Rodrigo Roa Duterte appointed him Secretary of Agriculture,
Mr Dar had already brought out in his Manila
Times column his “New Thinking About Agriculture.” The profile on the
website of the Department of Agriculture (DA) says of him:
… William Dollente Dar
is a man fated to do great things. History does repeat itself for this man from
Sta Maria, Ilocos Sur, as he was called again to serve government as the
Secretary of Agriculture on 05 August 2019, under the administration of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. He first
served the Department of Agriculture (DA) from July 1998 to May 1999 under
President Joseph Ejercito Estrada.
Upon his assumption to
office, Dar introduced the “New Thinking for Agriculture” which is anchored on
the vision: “A food-secure Philippines with prosperous farmers and fisherfolk.”
The vision has over-arching twin goals of increasing productivity and making
farmers and fishers prosperous or his term’s battlecry, “Masaganang Ani at
Mataas na Kita”.
That Vision can be summarized in Mr Dar’s own words: “Masaganang
Ani at Mataas na Kita.” My translation: “Bountiful Harvest & Bounteous
Income.” Input to Output, Outcome to
Income.
Well, Mr Dar is another Ilocano
original. In the history of heads of state of the Philippines, another
Ilocano and only Ferdinand Edralin Marcos
came up with a Vision: “This nation shall be great again!” Vision is paramount.
Proverbs 29:18: “Without Vision,
the People Perish.”
We
need a visionary of a President to bring us from Want to Wealth. Now then, who among the presidential candidates has that Vision; do you see? We need a wo/man
with a Vision – where is s/he?!@517
[1]https://communicationfordevelopmentphcomdev.blogspot.com/2021/10/polls-pulse-false-presidency-is-not.html
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