“Tayo bang mga Filipino ay sadyang nilikha ng Panginoon na mangmang, dukha at api? O kaya lang tayo ganito ay dahil hindi pa lamang tayo nabibiyayaan ng isang mabuting pamumuno? (Are we Filipinos created by God as ignorant, wretched and oppressed? Or are we like this because we simply have not been blessed with an enlightened leadership?)”

So our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal once asked his brother Paciano.

Less than two weeks before the elections, the Philippine Public Transparency Reporting Project wrote to the nine presidential candidates to ask for their commitment to increase participation of ordinary citizens in building public transparency and accountability.

While he has been assiduous with all his senior appointments, President Benigno Aquino III was especially careful when it came to the person who would head up the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).

It is after all the DILG which has to channel his transparency agenda from the national to the local level and down to the grassroots. Aquino essentially led the department himself for several weeks before designating former Naga City mayor Jesse Robredo as its chief.

The DILG has the Local Government Units (LGUs) as its main clientele. The LGUs are subdivided into 81 provinces, 136 cities, 1,495 municipalities and 42,008 barangays as of December 31, 2008.

With millions of Filipinos having family members, relatives and friends abroad, horror stories also abound about incredulously high custom duties and taxes one pays when receiving a package from abroad shipped through post offices, whether private or public.

Calvin’s aunt sent him some thermal underwear from Taiwan for him to use on his trip to Beijing. When the package arrived, he had to cough out PhP 1,435 (USD 32) for customs duties and taxes for something that cost about PhP 2,300 (USD 51).

“Insane!” he exclaimed. “I don’t mind paying taxes but they should be reasonable. If the tax is going to be half or more than half of the total cost then it’s totally unreasonable. And where do they use the money?” Calvin sighed.

News Analysis by Claire Delfin

With his campaign slogan “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap (When no one is corrupt, no one is poor),” Aquino vowed to lift Filipinos out of poverty by leading a graft-free government.

Millions of people are now poised waiting for the 15th President to deliver what he pledged during his campaign.

Just as with columnists in the mainstream media, bloggers are already poised over their keyboards ready to monitor and rate his performance: “He owes it to me and to the millions of voters out there the earnest fulfilment of his promises,” wrote Dine Racoma - one of countless citizens now using the Internet to follow the fortunes of the new administration.