ALL TALK AND NO WORK MAKES GLORIA A DULL GIRL - Even the half-wits among us know that inflation is punishing everybody. But for Economic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri to say that inflation beat Mrs. Arroyo in a survey is sheer effort to divert the minds of the people from the real problem.
We all have seen galloping inflation in the past, but life was not as miserable and purposeless as it is now in the Arroyo regime. It's not the soaring prices alone that sank GMA's rating to minus 6, the lowest a president ever had.
We are looking for signs of genuine efforts at reform. We can't seem to see any whatsoever. The President is unfocused and is not at all an effective hands-on manager. She is a micro-manager who runs the country on an ad-hoc basis. She doesn't seem to have a handle on anything, but we can credit her for being footloose in her country.
President Arroyo won with a doubtful mandate. She should erase that doubt by creating the jobs she promised, and the smuggling and corruption she said she would finally put to an end.
None of these is accomplished by frequent after- dinner speeches, travels and visits to typhoon victims and being everywhere but behind a desk. The election is half a year past but she is still on the campaign trail.
Inflation sinks her popularity rating? She is digging her very own grave by simply refusing to do her job. No ifs and buts about that.