Analyst says people now impatient

PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III came to power as a leader who could bring about reforms and make a clean break from the past administration, but people had become impatient after his two years in office, a political analyst said on Tuesday.

“This administration rolled on the image of rupture from the past, a breakaway from the past,”  University of the Philippines professor Clarita Carlos said in an interview over DZMM radio.

“People think the Aquino administration is too slow. It’s been two years now.”

Carlos said people had become impatient as shown by the recent decline in Mr. Aquino’s satisfaction rating to plus 49 in March from plus 58 in December.

The nine-point drop showed a declining satisfaction over Mr. Aquino’s performance, to good from very good, according to the polling body Social Weather Station. It was the first time that Mr. Aquino’s ratings fell since he assumed office.

Mr. Aquino shrugged off the survey results and said governance “should not be survey-driven.”

A palace official attributed the decline to the series of oil price increases and the recent threats of a transport strike.

Carlos said the reforms being pursued by Mr. Aquino were taking too long because of the slow-moving bureaucracy, which could take up to four months just to buy faucets because 25 people needed to check the procurement.

“The faucet can be a metaphor for anything. This is the reason why there is talk of emergency powers for the chief executive in order to cut through this bureaucratic morass,” Carlos said.

“It’s really cutting through the underbrush of democracy. You have to bleed when you deal with the bureaucracy.” –Manila Standard Today