BBM, Isko, Leni, Manny & Ping Can Learn About Visioning From Ilocano William!

Mid-morning today, Wednesday, 03 November 2021, I was trying to get some sleep when I suddenly felt wide-awake with an unprecedented, unpresidential idea: Ideal candidate for President of my beloved Philippines is not a candidate!
(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 20^thto the 22^nd 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 Marcoscame 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