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Will She,
Or Won't She: Business Wants to Know
By Michael Alan Hamlin
July 08, 2003
It's official: business executives
are feeling better about the economy. Ordinarily, that would be
cause for celebration. But the looming presidential election - and
the usual uncertainty that accompanies national contests - have
cast a shadow over the mid-term outlook. Perhaps heightening the
sense of unease is the failure of a clear frontrunner to emerge
less than 12 months from election day.
That's not all, though. Two of the
top contenders are media and entertainment personalities. Senator
Noli de Castro, a former broadcast journalist in the tradition of
Geraldo Rivera, topped one recent survey of possible presidential
candidates, favored by 22 percent of respondents. Action star Fernando
Poe, Jr. was the top choice of 16 percent. The two sandwiched former
senator and Education secretary Raul Roco with 19 percent. Ms. Arroyo
placed fourth.
These results give pause for the
obvious reason: the last time a popular entertainment personality
was elected - in 1998, of course - he lasted less than four years
before being chased from office. And there are plenty of good reasons
to believe that de Castro or Poe, if elected, would face the same
opportunistic scrutiny that bowed former president Joseph Estrada.
As a result, the Philippines would once again suffer from the perceived
ill effects associated with besieged leadership.
While Roco represents an alternative,
that alternative is a professional politician (despite his claims
to the contrary), something Filipinos have traditionally shied away
from, and for some very good reasons. That may explain why Roco's
party - Aksyon Demokratiko - despite his personal popularity, failed
to win a single seat in the last mid-term elections. Anecdotally
Roco is said to be opportunistic, but unlike other traditional politicians,
in ways that tend to disrupt alliances and partnerships, rather
than build them. For many in the business community, Roco's failure
to build alliances will make him an ineffectual president. His controversial
stint at the Department of Education - where he was stymied by criticism
of his reforms and management style - seems to confirm that assessment.
Given the tradeoff between a highly
controversial star personality and a popular but ineffective professional
politician, it's not surprising that business is hoping for a dark
horse to emerge. And who better to play the role of dark horse than
Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco? Cojuangco flew into exile
with former president Ferdinand Marcos less than 20 years ago, ran
for president impressively if unsuccessfully in 1992, regained control
of San Miguel Corporation (SMC) when Estrada became president, and
is once again being touted as an effective alternative to another
six years of mediocre leadership.
Whether Cojuangco, however, is as
much a leader as his spin machine proclaims is a question that deserves
some serious thought. During the Marcos administration, Cojuangco
operated as a monopoly, and gained the nickname "Pacman,"
in reference to the crude but popular computer game of that time.
Similar to the computer pacman, Cojuangco is said to have raced
around gobbling up all the businesses he could - with Marcos' blessing.
As chairman of SMC, he returned the company to profitability by
selling off assets, but soon found himself reinvesting when analysts
criticized the company for sitting on a pile of cash. Rumors abound
over the sanctity of the company's financial reports.
Yet to many, Cojuangco's rehabilitation
strengthens the association with strong, determined leadership,
which Filipinos haven't seen in quite a while. Strong leadership,
however, may not be what the Philippines really needs anyway. After
all, despite all of Estrada's faults, the Philippine economy continued
to grow at an impressive rate during his administration. It faltered
when Arroyo took over, but has since regained some of its momentum.
Concurrently, assessments of her leadership tanked. Outsourcing
trends globally have helped fuel expansion, not government policy
or reform, and those trends are likely to continue even when the
U.S. economy recovers as its companies seek to further streamline
their business processes.
The question of quality of leadership
must also be considered in the context of the choice between uncertainty
and certainty. De Castro, Roco, Poe, and Cojuangco may be familiar,
but how they'll perform as president is anybody's guess. Ms. Arroyo,
on the other hand, may be hugely uninspiring and broadly ineffectual,
but at least she's not malevolent, or incompetent. While the poor
masses undoubtedly want to elect someone that will be their president
- rather than the elite's - and improve the quality of their lives,
businesspeople want to make sure their lives and businesses don't
suffer.
For these reasons, Ms. Arroyo is
likely to proclaim before the end of the year. If the economy continues
to do reasonably well, that will likely be a welcome development
for most in the business community. Because this will be the first
presidential election in which candidates will be permitted to legally
advertise in legitimate ways - rather than doing things such as
advertising laundry detergent, for example - an announcement by
Ms. Arroyo is likely to result in a significant uptick in funding
to assure that the masses get the right message.
For business, the sooner they know
for certain, the faster they can begin to address that fearsome
uncertainty.
(Michael Alan Hamlin is the managing
director of consultancy TeamAsia and the author of three books on
Asian economies and companies. His latest book is Marketing Asian
Places, of which he is a co-author (Wiley, 2001), and he is currently
at work on High Visibility: The Making and Marketing of Asian Professionals
into Celebrities. Write him at mahamlin@teamasia.com.).
Copyright © 2003 Michael Alan
Hamlin. All Rights Reserved.
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