Dr. Phillips, You Are A Part Of The Government Of Jamaica, Act Like It.…

Let me just come out and say it, though not a fan of the PNP, Portia Simpson Miller, the not so edu­cat­ed, but savvy for­mer par­ty President and two times Prime Minister of Jamaica has demon­strat­ed that her polit­i­cal savvy is vast­ly supe­ri­or to [Peter Phillips’] Ph.D.
Portia was a pop­ulist, those char­ac­ter­is­tics are not easy to repli­cate. In fact, some sug­gest either you have it or you don’t.
So, it is small won­der that Damion Crawford can­not win a seat in the low­er cham­ber of the House of Representatives but he is sec­ond only to Simpson Miller in that par­ty. Popularity is some­thing you have or you don’t.
On the oth­er hand, Peter Phillips, a Ph.D. has stum­bled along mak­ing mis­take after mis­take since tak­ing the reins of the PNP.
Clearly, Phillips’ edu­ca­tion is not being man­i­fest­ed in the strate­gies he has embarked on, or the hills he has cho­sen to die on.
Does Peter Phillips not under­stand that the role of a respon­si­ble oppo­si­tion is not just to oppose but to be a part of a respon­si­ble Government?

If Peter Phillips was attuned to his role in the gov­ern­ment not mere­ly to oppose, he would know that his role is to help the gov­ern­ing par­ty to fine-tune leg­is­la­tion and offer advice for effec­tive gov­er­nance of the peo­ple.
Why would Peter Phillips oppose the con­tin­u­a­tion of the Zones Of Special Operation (ZOSO) in the Parish of St James which was sav­ing lives?
Why would Mister Phillips oppose the ini­tia­tive, which though not sus­tain­able, was sav­ing lives?
In Greek Mythology, the myth­i­cal King Midas had a wish that what­ev­er he touched would turn to Gold. The fic­ti­tious nar­ra­tive indi­cat­ed that King Midas got his wish but it turned out it was not all it cracked up to be.
On that score, Dr. Phillips is turn­ing to be the anti-Midas, the oppo­site of King Midas.
It appears that every­thing that Mister Phillips touch­es turns to dust, and maybe that was the rea­son that he found him­self at a work site on Hagley Park Road where unprece­dent­ed devel­op­ment is hap­pen­ing which will pro­pel Jamaica far into the 21^st cen­tu­ry.
After meet­ing with one busi­ness­woman in the area and cre­at­ing a video of her com­plaints Mister Phillips post­ed the fol­low­ing on social media.

[Quote] After being in busi­ness for 24 years, Charmaine Lee was about to throw in the tow­el’ because of the effects of the bad­ly admin­is­tered road­works on Hagley Park Road on her busi­ness. There are many more sto­ries like this. We are com­mit­ted to fight­ing for the peo­ple.# PNPforthePeople#PNPatwork.

Most of the com­ments in response to Mister Phillips’ post were less than com­pli­men­ta­ry.
I asked the Opposition leader: Mister Phillips, How exact­ly is the new infra­struc­ture sup­posed to be put in place with­out the incon­ve­niences?
Why is Peter Phillips there?
If you were in pow­er what would you have done dif­fer­ent­ly?
Mister Phillips was gra­cious by respond­ing to my inquiries, respond­ing thus.

I am there in my capac­i­ty as MP and ser­vant and advo­cate of the peo­ple. I have expe­ri­ence in this area being a for­mer Minister of Transport and Works. One of the basic prin­ci­ples of road­works is to secure all the lands that you need before start­ing. This was not done. Therefore, pro­long­ing the dis­rup­tions and incon­ve­niences expe­ri­enced by the busi­ness own­ers and res­i­dents. [Peter Phillips]

I respect­ed the fact that the Opposition Leader respond­ed to our ques­tions and we respect his point of view as well, but my response to the esteemed Opposition leader was the same as my response when I start­ed this arti­cle.
“Minister Phillips, as leader of the PNP, and a mem­ber of Parliament, I would rather see you and your par­ty in a role in which you under­stand that you are a part of the Government. By those mea­sures, explain to the peo­ple, and help the gov­ern­ment to fine-tune this young democ­ra­cy. [Michael Beckles]

It isn’t that the con­cerns of that busi­ness­woman Charmaine Lee are mer­it-less. Surely, the (Jamaican Government) PNP & JLP can come togeth­er to ensure there is leg­is­la­tion which ade­quate­ly takes care of prop­er­ty own­ers before build­ing out Infrastructure.
The Americans have ( Imminent Domain Laws) to pro­tect prop­er­ty own­ers from Government abuse. It is less than per­fect.
Surely the two par­ties can come togeth­er for the good of the peo­ple to ensure that busi­ness own­ers like Ms. Lee and oth­ers ‚are not dri­ven into bank­rupt­cy, when the gov­ern­ment is putting infra­struc­ture in place.Phillips a dinosaur of the pro­fes­sion has a role in this.
In America, they show up and start dig­ging and there is noth­ing that busi­ness own­ers can do about it.
But even though it is hard­ly per­fect in the most pow­er­ful coun­try in the world, we do expect that the (3) ‑year-old JLP Government is sup­posed to have the answers for all of those prob­lems.
I implore the good­ly Mister Phillips, to see him­self as a part of the Government.
In our coun­try, it is com­mon for the oppo­si­tion par­ty to see itself as divorced from the Government, it should not be so.
The Opposition par­ty is a part of the gov­ern­ment and should start act­ing as if it knows it.