The mother of revolution and crime is poverty.
- Aristotle

The year is 2036 and the World Bank has just released a report declaring the Philippines, a developed country. The report says that the Philippines now ranks alongside its wealthy neighbors, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. The report also gives a lot of credit to the turnaround leadership of the two-term President of the Philippines.

Here’s an exclusive interview with the President of the Republic of the Philippines:

Q. Mr President, what inspired you to lead the Philippines out of poverty?

A. I have always seen poverty as the biggest challenge in our country. In November 2007, there was an incident which really shook the core of my being. Mariannet Amper, a 12-year old girl in Davao committed suicide because she couldn’t take her miserable plight anymore. It was a big blow to the anti-poverty campaign of the government. People were outraged. How could this innocent child lose hope and give up on life? When I read about Mariannet, I made a promise to myself that I will exhaust all possible resources to eradicate poverty in the Philippines and I will not rest until I succeed.

Q. But there were reports of foul play, rape or murder, that could’ve led to her death?

A. One word. Disinformation.

Q. Looking back, what did you do to succeed in eradicating poverty in the Philippines?

A. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the kind of leader we needed was a turn-around leader. The Philippines was going on a downward spiral in many areas - financial, economic, social, moral and intellectual. And we needed someone who could turn things around. We needed someone to lead the country to progress, success, wealth, and prosperity.

Q. What was your priority program when you became president?

A. When I entered politics as a senator, I had one mantra - Public service is a public trust. I authored laws that required all employees of the government, from top to bottom, to be more transparent and accountable in their wealth and finances.

When I was vice-president, I had a very simple objective - make sure that all government offices and employees are customer-service oriented. Public interest should always be our one and only priority.

When I became president, I put systems in place to ensure that these two programs were properly implemented. I wanted the national and local governments and all the public servants to earn and gain the respect and trust of their constituents. Why? Because in every successful turnaround, the leaders must first have their people’s trust.

Q. What were the effects of having the people’s trust?

A. As soon as the people felt that the all the government officials and employees were trustworthy, the people started to think that it’s good to work with the government. Individuals, interest groups, small-medium businesses, large corporations and non-governmental organizations started to collaborate and to cooperate with government offices.

Q. In the beginning, you were criticized for using business strategies in the government?

A. The field of public management in the Philippines has a lot to learn from the business sector especially in the areas of organizational development, financial transparency, and human resources management. Since Day 1 of my political career, I have worked with consultants from the business world and they have helped me choose benchmarks from the corporate world in promoting good governance. A lot of companies have mission-vision statements. We applied this strategy in the government and it was very effective in pointing everyone in the right direction. Every successful voyage has to have a destination. We needed to clarify who we are and where we wanted to go. And now, I am proud to say that we have achieved our mission-vision. We have eradicated poverty in the Philippines and Filipinos now enjoy a good quality of life.

Q. If you could choose one stategy that effectively helped the Philippines overpower poverty, what would they be?

We hired Harvard professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter as one of the presidential advisers. With her help, we were able to bring back the people’s confidence in nation-building by implementing a two-fold approach:

1) Serbisyo Publiko, Masaganang Sweldo - we wanted to get to the core of corruption and lack of motivation in public service. Our dialogues with government employees led to one conclusion: We had to restructure the compensation packages of public officials so that we would be more competitive with the corporate packages. And so now, government officials are paid well for serving their country and they don’t have to resort to bribery, kickbacks and under-the-table deals. Initially, the wage increase was a huge burden on the government’s budget, but as soon as employees were enjoying their salary and benefits, corruption was lessened and government operations became streamlined and efficient.

2) Corruption Does Not Pay - we all know that there are many public officials who have amassed ill-gotten wealth. So we carefully selected people with integrity to be part of the Anti-Corruption Presidential Office. This agency had the power to look into the finances of all public officials and their relatives. We offered a limited-time amnesty program and many corrupt officials turned themselves in on the premise that their identities would be kept secret so long as they returned 50% of their ill-gotten wealth to the government. Those who didn’t take advantage of the amnesty were investigated and prosecuted immediately without mercy and pardon!

Government employees began to work honestly, out of fear of prosecution initially. Soon, there was a change in their outlook. Rather than asking, “What gain can I get from this?” they started asking, “What can the public gain from this?” This positive attitude also fostered greater collaboration among government offices, NGO’s, corporations, small-medium businesses, and interest groups. More projects were executed successfully. More and more government projects were implemented with maximum results. And most, if not all, of these projects were in-line with the shared mission of overpowering poverty in the country.

And by God’s grace, we are now a developed country.

Q. You mention God in many of your speeches, and you often quote the Bible. You are
obviously a religious person but how come you are not in good terms with the Church?

A. As a public servant, I live by one rule - The public interest must come first! On the other hand, church officials live by a different rule - Religious beliefs must come first! Sometimes, these two rules go together, but most of the time they don’t. When they don’t agree, public servants must be willing to make a stand and say, “We respect your religious beliefs, but it is in the public’s best interest for us to disagree with you. We have to do what we have to do to promote the common good.”

There was a time when politicians were afraid to go against the wishes of the church. They were afraid to lose the Jesus vote. Fortunately, our citizens began to understand the meaning of the separation of church and state. And even though candidates didn’t have the backing of church officials, they were still voted into power by the thinking masses.

Q. Some people are saying that the Church is planning to excommunicate you?

A. Religion, or what I prefer to call spirituality, is a personal matter for me. Not every one in the Philippines is Catholic so it is not fair for the government to impose Catholic beliefs on every Filipino.

If you ask me, it’s not so wise for the church to excommunicate the President. It might have a negative effect on the number of their practitioners.

Q. Were you upset at the Church officials who did not support you when you called for a Consitutional amendment that would allow you to serve for more than one term?

A. Of course! But I knew I had the support of the greater majority. The people saw my commitment to serve the nation and they were beginning to feel the effects of the progress we were making in my first term. In my campaign for another term, I made people understand that true and lasting change takes time. It has taken us centuries to get to where we are, how can we expect a major turnaround in six years? My favorite analogy is this - If someone’s overweight and they want to lose weight, can they do it in six days?

I am grateful for those who supported and campaigned for the constitutional amendment. I hope that I have shown myself worthy of their trust.

Q. Are you going to run for a third-term?

A. I believe that I am the best man to continue the reforms that the Philippine government has implemented. I believe I am still the best man for the job. And I hope that the Filipino people will continue to place their trust in me for I have only one dream - To lead our beloved Motherland to greatness so that every Filipino can go anywhere in the world with their head up high when they say, I’m Filipino.

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