In the last of a three-part series entitled PNoy’s Poverty Challenge, Malou Mangahas and Che de los Reyes writing for the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism or PCIJ speak of PNoy’s Bold Blows vs Corruption, Cautious Steps vs Poverty. They are referring to his campaign slogan, kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap (which essentially presumes that corruption leads to, if not exacerbates, poverty, and that reducing corruption will help alleviate it).

Their basic complaint seems to be that PNoy is muddling through: failing to craft a narrative that builds on his presidential campaign–failing to communicate with the public his strategy for improving their plight, having been the first candidate since Erap to bring the poor under his tent.

By taking small, incremental steps, the administration avoids many of the costly mistakes associated with big social experiments that are often attended to and defended with dogmatic or ideological zeal derived as they usually are from some cult of personality.