Only the Gifted Prophets know what lies for Bohol beyond 2010.

Today, the political reality is that the Provincial Dispensation and the three Bohol solons are closely allied with President GMA who will definitely step down in 2010. The physical reality is that - defying Mother Time - we have a workaholic governor in Erico Aumentado who - as fate would have it - also exits the gate in 2010. What happens after that?

It is precisely this risk of uncertainty that Government must manage this risk. And we must plan - because those who fail to plan may have plans to fail.

And the best way is to run the Government like it was a corporation. How?

One of the great dictums of good corporate governance is that no institution should be dependent on one man. To assure that - the groundwork and the medium-term corporate plan must be in place such that no man is deemed indispensable. No institution must prosper mainly because it is run by a COO (Child of the Owner), as the satire goes.

The institution must be able to paddle its own canoe - and fight competition on its own merits. A Government must not receive wherewithal because of patronage politics - but because it deserves the funding.

And it will get the funding because withholding such will sabotage the National Government's own medium-term plan. How is that?

For example, an airport has to be built with international standards in Panglao - because without that - the targeted tourist number and spending will not be realized and thus upset foreign exchange rate and national budget assumptions. A humongous dam must be built in fertile Bohol in order to raise grain productivity - without which we will have the ignominy of importing rice (our staple food) from the countries our scientists in Los Banos taught how to plant hybrid rice a few years ago.

A concreted network of roads had to be built as a necessary adjunct to flow of commerce and trade and bring farm products from site to market - thus contributing in scaling down (national) inflation - as our provincial contribution.

Above is an ideal state that Bohol must not stop dreaming on.

What is the practical reality now?

"Strike while the iron is hot" - is what our provincial and congress leaders may have to do - to maximize the mileage of close affinity with President GMA during the last 30 months of the Governor and Representatives Edgar Chatto and Roberto Cajes. Use the Palace leverage to bring the line agencies' projects to benefit the island-province, that's what.

Our editorial postulated four concerns under the acronym WHAP (water, health, agriculture and power) - doubtless a result of exchange of ideas among stakeholders in the province. The Governor is listening - and will take up some of these matters in this Friday's PPDC Meeting. At the very least the "beneficial bridge" linking Cebu and Bohol - and perhaps solving power and water concerns got the earful of both GMA and the Japanese ambassador while both were here last week.

In voicing our concerns - on objective targets to be met in the last wave of Rico's Term - we simply relayed what we have been doing the last 53 years in community journalism. We simply want "continuity" in the positive projects that will be left unfinished as 2010 curtain call time comes. It is also to enjoin Rico's successor to mirror the Governor's own statesmanship - like his shedding off of political trivialism - by pursuing the good projects started but not completed by his political archrival former Governor Rene Relampagos.

We certainly hope that the Governor's last term must most of all be soul-inspiring and productive. It is our fervent hope that with the close alliance of the Province and the Powers-That-Be, the province will not become an easy vehicle for highly lopsided, questionable projects that will later on be unmasked as graft-ridden.

We are one with Boholanos in hoping that we will no more see the likes mega projects as doubtful as the "most expensive irrigation dam" like the BHIP-2 which the President GMA inaugurated last Friday.

Governor Rico and his political allies must make sure, the "books are clean" when they exit in 2010. That is the only way to ensure that the legacy of clean governance - with concrete result - will be the trademark of the Governor the day he steps out of the Capitol.

For Comments: email to bingo_dejaresco@boholchronicle.com Or editor@boholchronicle.com