Who do you think is the best President who had served in the Philippines?

[ReadmeByAmy]

As a Filipino citizen who do you think is the best President who had served in the Philippines in terms of good leadership and love for its country and its people?

[Corzhens]

Some eyebrows may be raised with this comment. I think President Marcos is so far the best president the Philippines had. First, he was intelligent. Second, he is an action man. Third, he knows politics. And the proof of his intelligence is that he ruled the country beyond his legal tenure. Martial was repressive but it brought progress unlike now that we have freedom but we have nothing on the table. Ironically, I was anti-Marcos during that time and I was a fanatic of Cory Aquino during the elections before Marcos was ousted.

[ReadmeByAmy]

@Corzhens Actually we had the same thinking because for me I always think that President Marcos is the best President who served our country. How I wish our country was like before under his regime and nowadays I had this fears already for the safety of my family in our country. That is why I had also this fear for myself and my husband if we will go home or not for a vacation because of all the bad images that I am hearing on the news and even here internationally the news already had been spread and it is just a sad thing to know that things are happening to our country right now.

[missbookworm]

Corzhens, My mother would have approved your comment. She also thinks the best president the Philippines has ever had is Ferdinand Marcos. She said Marcos was really an effective leader. I couldn't really agree with her though since I haven't been born yet during that time.

[roger1003]

Your question is actually mind boggling. I'm not sure if there's any president who was able to lead the country very well because the Philippines is suffering from corruption. If I'm going to force myself to choose one, I would probably choose Marcos. When he was the president of the Philippines, the country is still rich.

[Jam]

Marcos would have been the best president in my book - intelligent, driven, ambitious. However, everything went down the drain when forced his rule over the country by declaring martial law. Legally, his term would have ended on the succeeding year but he declared martial law to suspend the elections. Supported by the military, he reigned over the country like a monarch whose will cannot be thwarted. Whoever gets in the way gets killed. The fact that he looted the country had been widely proven in international and local courts. Whatever they managed to give to people as benefits were morsels compared to what their family members were enjoying. The people deserved better than that. Some people say that life, back then, was easier. Globally, it was easier. Now, even first world countries have social welfare dependents and homeless people.

It's difficult to compare presidents with 6-year terms to a president who had ruled the country for more than 20 years. After all, it wasn't just a one-man rule. Marcos and his wife Imelda (Malakas and Maganda) ran the country as if it belonged to them, expanding their rule by appointing relatives and friends to government posts and corporations. It would not be fair to compare an irregular arrangement to a normal one. Among the presidents with regular terms, I would pick FVR as the one with the vision to promote the Philippines globally as a business destination and for his drive to modernize public infrastructure. His rule was also the least tainted among them. While PNoy had stepped up on welfare programs like Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps, he could have done more for his countrymen. His last year was marked by controversies. He denied the increase in pension but granted huge bonuses to SSS executives. I can understand the denial to a certain extent (for the reason that SSS will run out of funds in the future), but why rub salt to injury by giving away bonuses to government people who are just doing their jobs? His administration created a lot of enemies by prosecuting/persecuting people who disagreed with their policies or the way they run the government.

[tpicks]

As for me I consider this a thought provoking question to answer. One thing it's not going to be this current government I think. I am looking at the immediate past president Benigno Aquino as one president that was fair enough in handling the affairs of things while in office as the Philippine president.

[Alexandoy]

The current president Duterte seems to be doing good although I am not a fan of his. But I see the changes that he had done especially in stirring the awareness of the population against the menace of drugs. But on the other side of the fence, Duterte has been tactless in dealing with foreign affairs particularly his quarreling stance with the US. Maybe he has to be fair in his approach with foreign countries because he is obviously biased when it comes to China and Russia.