GARCIA, DAN DREXTER Z.

COLLEGE, LOS BANOS, LAGUN

MAY 17, 2016
TO THE PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENT RODRIGO R. DUTERTE
DAVAO CITY
PHILIPPINES
Dear President Duterte,
First of all, I want to greet you a warm congratulation for gaining the support, trust, and vote of the
majority, thus placing you as the 16 th President of the Republic of the Philippines. You have triumphed
malicious accusations, black propagandas, and mudslinging thrown to you by the previous administration
and some of your detractors.
Moving on, our country is now besieged with various economic problems which must soon be addressed
by your administration. As we all know, our gross domestic product (GDP) is continuously growing by
about 6% annually but this growth is not felt by the ordinary Filipinos. My challenge to you is to integrate
all the Filipino people economically, where all of us significantly partake in the economic activities
present in the country and generously feel the growth the above figure was saying.
Division is one of the evident dilemmas encountered by our country as of now. It was brought by cultural
and belief differences, poor interprovincial relationship, geographic barriers, and distances. As the father
of this nation, you need to find a unifying factor, which will deliver the Filipino people in oneness and
peacefulness. The probable solution to that is building or effectively managing existing institutions. For
cultural differences, you could preserve and promote the culture and tradition of our indigenous people.
Moreover, provincial-identity of the people, like Visayan, Tagalog, Mangyan, Maranaoan and others,
should be erased to their minds for them to work only under a single race, Filipino. Indeed, implementing
effectively and widening of the programs under the Cultural Center of the Philippines could be the
solution for the cultural and provincial-identity differences.
With regards to belief differences, I believe that establishing the Bangsamoro for the Moros could induce
peace in Mindanao but with certain limitations. First, the government should still have the capacity to
intervene in terms of political, social, and economic aspect within the region. Second, there should be no
attacks happened after the establishment of such and third, the new region should promote the welfare and
common good of its people. Furthermore, I suggest that your administration should build or maintain an
institution which promotes regional economic management centers. This could encourage every province
to improve their interprovincial trades and relationship, and to plan their economy. This could make the
provinces work together for the benefit not only of the parties involved but also of our country.
Distance and geographic barriers could be also blamed for division. For me, the first thing your
administration needs to address is the farm-to-market roads. This project would enable farmers to deliver
their goods quickly to the market and to prevent spoilage. Moreover, this could give farmers higher
income and market higher food supply. Expressways should also be built to connect one province to
another, which will stimulate better communication and economic activities, like tourism and trade, to the
provinces. Aside from this, improvement of the transportation is a must. I am not saying that you should
eradicate the traffic, for it will coexist with us forever, but to at least lessen it. According to Japanese
International Cooperation Agency, as cited by Francisco (2014), the Philippines could lose P 6B daily by
2030 if the traffic will not be solved. Furthermore, to diminish distance, your administration could also
connect the entire Philippines with bridges and or trains. This could fasten the transportation, carry on
economic and infrastructural development into various places, and advance the relationship among the
cities or provinces.
Another problem that the Philippines is facing is the density. Solution to this problem is proper
distribution of budget and government interventions. Those poor from the rural areas still believe that the
life in the city is a way better than in their hometown, thus they are going to the city, causing congestion
in the Metropolitan Manila. Your people-loving administration could do something about it like creation
of jobs in rural areas. This act could really make them stay, work, and live with their family in their
respective provinces.
Also, the growth is only focused on the Luzon, especially the National Capital Region, which makes the
other parts of the Philippines, especially the rural areas, stagnant in terms of economic progress. Since
agriculture is one of the major economic activities in the rural, we should give more attention to it for
these other parts to grow economically. Using the DAR-DENR-DOST-LandBank-DOTC-NIA
partnership, I think, the first things we need to solve are the problems in infrastructures, technologies, and
land reforms. As we all know, the irrigation projects in previous administrations are faulty, the land
reform programs are ineffectively done, and technological advancements are poor. With these, how could
a province progress if the programs implemented to their major economic activities are nothing but a
failure? In addition, the current power grid in the Mindanao is critically low that is why they experience
rotational brownouts. Building new power plants is the simplest and easiest way to solve the problem but
here they are, within his six years in the office, only a few of those were built. If proper distribution and
allocation of the budget is being done, where money is not concentrated in certain cities, development in
various parts in the Philippines could never be that hard.
Programs and reforms in taxation could also be a possible way to address the problem in density.
Proportionality in income and in tax could be implemented. For example, those who earn more pay higher
tax than those who earn less. This could somehow redistribute the wealth of the nation to most of the
Filipinos.
Truly, we are all hungry for change. The change that will make us involve in economic activities that
could uplift our standard of living. The change that will safeguard my entire family in disastrous acts of
violence. The change that will push us towards progress. Indeed, these three problems in density,
division, and distance, if addressed properly, will not only promote economic integration, but also
unification. In terms of the latter, unification of the minds and hearts of the Filipino people in loving and
protecting our beloved land. By the way, there is one more thing I beg for you, Mr. Presumptive
President. Please, continue to prove us wrong in the way we think of you. In the next six years, with the
Filipinos at your back, let the change come into this nation. Congratulations again and long live, Mr.
Duterte!

Sincerely yours,

DAN DREXTER Z. GARCIA

2014-21141
BS ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES LOS BANOS
References:
Francisco, K. 2014. Fix traffic or PH can lose P6 B daily by 2030-JICA. Rappler.com. Retrieved on May
13, 2016 from http://www.rappler.com/business/economy-watch/51824-ph-cost-traffic-jica.