Stanly Chan

2014-00698

BA 120.1 ACLE Incentive Paper

JPIA’s ACLE was a surprise for me. The speakers they invited, and the conversation that
was had that day was quite unexpected. At first I thought, it would be an objective forum
on what the Duterte administration has done over the first year and a half of his term. The
talk on the open government was interesting, the push for transparency was something
I’d agree with. When we got to the 2nd speaker, things got a bit weird. The speaker was
obviously one of those who would call themselves Dutertards, as he was not academic in
his speech. I was very willing to listen to a pro-Duterte speaker or people who were part
of his administration, but the 2nd speaker was a really bad representation of the
administration. He spoke of his personal admiration for the president, and told us that
we’ve never had a president quite like our current president. He also talked about how
admirable Duterte’s political will is, and that the drug war is just being used to ruin
Duterte’s image. He was the typical man you’d see on videos on Facebook trying to
defend Duterte senselessly. His statements were all charged with emotions and baseless.

The 3rd speaker was alright, she was an alumni of the UP School of Economics if I’m not
mistaken. She talked about how she used to work for Miriam Santiago, and even voted
for her. She now works for the administration under the Department of Budget
Management. She implored all the attendees to take a stand should we have any qualms
about the current administration.

I liked how most of the speakers were inviting students to work for the government. They
told us to be the change we’d want to be.

Overall, I wish I didn’t go to this ACLE because there were many more out there that were
far more interesting than a forum on the current administration. It’s a good thing that 120.1
incentives were offered for any ACLE, but the fact that 116 had only given incentives for
a select few ACLEs, most of the batch were forced to attend the one JPIA held. I wish the
incentive culture during ACLE could change, even if I would no longer be able to benefit
from this change as I am only here for about 3 more ACLEs.