Philippine Government Blog

Population races with food prices

2008-04-18T07:55:00.000+08:00

FILIPINOS numbered 88.57 million as of August 2007, according to a proclamation issued by President Arroyo.The proclamation was based on a national census conducted from August to September last year. This could be an undercount and the actual total could be higher. We know many friends and associates who were not visited by the National Statistics Office field men last year. Census takers, who are supposed to visit every home or place of business, are not perfect.

A population of close to 89 million is big for a country where the government could not efficiently deliver most basic services and where natural resources are finite. Currently, rice lines have begun to form in the cities and big towns besieged by poor rice distribution. Observers have suggested that growing population has hurt rice production because urbanization and “people pollution” have eroded farmlands and converted them to housing and recreation. An opposing school of thought says the size of the population is the last to blame for the loss of agricultural land to new housing subdivisions, roads and highways.

The annual growth rate of 2.04 percent in the past seven years, from 2000 to 2007, was higher than the government’s target of 1.95 percent annually up to 2010, according to Augusto Santos, acting director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority.

The debate on population growth

The NSO findings will again stoke the debate on the pluses and minuses of population growth and questions about the national population policy. The pessimists see sustained population increases as a drag to development and a great contributor to poverty. They claim that given the growing scarcities in land, food, water and natural resources, the government, the private sector and the economy cannot accommodate unchecked population increments without suffering a breakdown in public services and supplies of basic human needs.

Each child added to a family and the community is a great asset, the optimists claim. A huge population is a strategic tool for development under correct state policies with a growing economy. The more-body advocates cite the examples of China and India, each with a population of more than a billion that had defied conventional wisdom and had transformed their societies with the help of human and economic capital.

Current conditions strengthen the case against uncontrolled population increase. Poverty victimizes more than a third of Filipinos. Unemployment and underemployment are high, housing needs are unmet and water is becoming a scarce resource. The employment line to foreign jobs lengthens. The blessing of free universal education eludes millions of children. We continue to import rice for many reasons, including the loss of farmlands to development.

What it takes to become a developed nation

The promises of prosperity are unrealized despite 37 quarters of economic growth. We need, according to the wise men of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, 10 years of sustained growth, at an average annual rate of 8 percent to 10 percent. Failing this, we cannot hope to build the economy that is capable of producing well-paying jobs in the cities and the hinterland for every Filipino man and woman who needs one.

The President has informed us that the Philippines is poised for a takeoff, that in 15 to 20 years we shall become a “developed” country with a first-world economy. It is interesting that China and India, despite their tremendous growth, are still classified as developing states.

Economists, development experts and social scientists tell us a country may enjoy a breakneck 10-percent growth rate consistently, earn huge surpluses of foreign exchange, but until the quality of life of its people improves, it cannot move up the scale of civilization. How close or far are we from the wealthy nations that have spawned a new generation of millionaires but violate human rights, suppress the free flow of information, and deny their people the right to vote or to vote freely?

Our story on Thursday reported that despite the increasing number of Filipinos, the government has no plans to change its population policy.

Wise population policy as Arroyo’s legacy

Under this policy, President Arroyo has resisted the use of contraceptives and other forms of family planning other than natural methods, “a move applauded by the Roman Catholic Church but criticized by those who blame overpopulation for rampant poverty in the Philippines.”

There lies the crux of the problem. A policy that does not encourage married people to plan the size of their families or to space childbirth, give heads of families or unmarried adults information about or access to contraceptives, or offer the public choices on family planning, will help push population growth, create families bigger than planned or necessary or fail to check unwanted pregnancies.

Going into the last two years of her presidency, President Arroyo should think really hard about the legacy she wishes to leave the country and the Filipino people. One that she should work on is an informed, independent and courageous population policy that promotes responsible parenthood, compatible with development, justice and social equity, that looks to the future and the well-being of the nation.

The people’s president

2008-04-15T06:45:00.000+08:00

CORY AQUINO has faced many challenges in her life and she has always faced them head on. She’s had bad times before. Her presidency was plagued by both man-made and natural disasters (those debilitating coups, the great 1990 earthquake, Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption), but through it all she remained a person of courage and unwavering faith. It is one of the many personal traits that make her unlike any politician I know, and perhaps in the end, she was really never much of a politician, but more of a humanitarian. Looking at her life, in and out of politics, it is clear that she does not merely pay lip service to good values and to moral action. She lived these values. She represented the best of what we hoped for in our leaders.

A lot of other leaders can learn from her. Unlike the current president whose political legitimacy remains elusive because of alleged electoral fraud, Cory’s legitimacy was never in doubt. She survived those persistent coup rumors and actual military coup attempts, particularly the worst of them in August 1987 and December 1989, because people believed in her presidency. Yes, even when she disappointed not a few of the citizens, those who wanted the Edsa revolution to be indeed more revolutionary, they still stood by her. Cory was their hero, the only one who could have rallied and unified the people against the dictator.

One of the real lessons in Cory’s presidential term is that democracy offers the best means of overcoming extremism. Restore faith in the elections commission and strengthen other political institutions, have a vibrant civil society, restore constitutional rights and freedoms, and you’ve got a chance of quelling military adventurism, communist and secessionist rebellion and what have you. At the heart of it all, democracy’s survival lies in the people’s conviction that their president and her administration is legitimate; that the power of the president comes from the people, not a case of the president of wielding the vast powers of her office to rule over a her people, which is what many accuse GMA of.

Ninoy Aquino, whose death woke the Filipino people from their apathetic stupor, used to say that Marcos would leave the country with so many problems, his successor would be lucky to last six months. Of course, how could he have known Cory his wife would be the one to succeed the dictator. Maybe, knowing his wife, he would have given her better chances.

Never underestimate a woman with resolve and a just cause. She has an enormous capacity to inspire, as she did and continues to inspire Filipino people, and the world.

Cory was Time Magazine’s Woman of the Year in 1987, among Time’s 20 Most Influential Asians of the 20th Century in its August 1999 issue, one of Time’s 65 Great Asian Heroes (along with Mahatma Gandhi, Lee Kuan Yew, Aung San Suu Kyi and King Bhumibol Adulyadej) in its November 2006 issue. She was once nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Price. She was the 2nd woman to give a keynote address to the US Congress (the first was Madame Chiang Kai-shek). There are so many other honors given to her by the international community that when she is criticized here by fellow Filipinos, it is somewhat like a prophet not being accepted in her own land. She was adored and still is by the world.

Perhaps the Filipino people just expected too much of Cory. She was after all mythical—the devout housewife of a fallen hero who took up the cudgels and ousted the dictator without a drop of blood. How could what happened next (the real nitty-gritty of governance with all the confusing noisy politics and all the problems) top that? Edsa was a miracle. Perhaps we forgot that people worked hard to make that miracle happen. It is not just God’s and it is not just one woman’s inspiration alone. And if we expected true-blue socio economic emancipation after Edsa, well, that’s a miracle we had to work hard on as well. Who knows, maybe if there weren’t as many coup attempts during her term, maybe. If all those people who sought to bring her down, could have worked with her instead, who knows what could have happened?

Cory lasted more than six months. She did finish her term She was, after all, the people’s president. And as a testament of the woman’s character, despite having a chance to run again—and she would have won by a landslide—she walked away from it all, well actually, drove away, from Malacañang, in a simple privately owned Toyota sedan.

They say that power corrupts, but Cory Aquino’s personal probity was beyond reproach. Even her critics swore by it. She never personally profited from her stay in office. And when her tenure as president was up, she never thought of staying a day more, despite having the chance to. Which is a lot more than you can say from a president who would do anything and everything to stay in power.

Good luck and godspeed to you, President Cory. We are all praying for you and believing that you will get well.

Territorial baselines: Be quick but careful

2008-04-01T23:00:00.000+08:00

God must really be keeping close watch over the Philippines and the Filipinos. Territorial baselines bills are pending in Congress—consolidated and passed in the House on second reading last December. But, as revealed by Rep. Antonio Cuenco, head of the House foreign relation committee, action on the bill has been stopped because the Department of Foreign Affairs had told Congress of China’s objections to the proposed law. He also recounted that a Chinese embassy official had informed him passage of the bill would be considered an unfriendly act by the People’s Republic of China.

If the law had been enacted and not frozen for fear that China would take offense, we would have given up “an almost colossal” part of our territory. This is according to Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, who takes pride in being an expert in, among other things, international law, and is the Senate foreign relations committee chairwoman.

Santiago has warned that if the Philippines declares itself an archipelagic state, as the pending House bill does, the declaration would contradict the Treaty of Paris which sets the boundaries of our country. The national territory defined in the 1898 Treaty of Paris, she said, is vaster than what would end up as our territory under the archipelagic definition allowed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Under the 1898 Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States. The Philippine baseline law – in Republic Act 3046 and RA 5446 – is based on the boundaries defined under that treaty. Senator Santiago contends that “the Treaty of Paris sets out the International Treaty Baselines of the Philippine territorial sea.” But “the bills pending in Congress will eliminate such limits and thus, the Philippines would lose its boundaries.”

Declaring the Philippines as an “archipelagic state” would be a grave error because under the UNCLOS, the Philippines would end up being entitled to only 12 nautical miles of the territorial sea. This is “an almost colossal reduction from the wider boundaries of the International Treaty Limits under the Treaty of Paris.”

As an “archipelagic state,” Santiago warned, “our zone of sovereignty would collapse. Our internal waters would become archipelagic waters where the ships of all states will enjoy the right of innocent passage. In addition, foreign states would have the right of so-called archipelagic sea lane passage. Ships of all states would have the right of passage and their aircraft would have the right of overflight.”

The Philippines must submit its UNCLOS claims before the UN’s May 2009 deadline—otherwise we lose any claim we have on the Spratlys. But Senator Santiago warns that wrong wordings in any new law could also undermine the established claim of the Philippines on Sabah.

What should the Philippines do now?

The consolidated bill passed in the House in December 2007 would redefine the baselines of the Philippine territory to include the Freedom (Kalayaan) Group and the Scarborough Shoal off Zambales, and extend its exclusive economic zone by 240 kilometers.

Sen. Santiago also warned that a Philippines that is self-declared to be an archipelagic state would suffer environmental and marine pollution from ships freely entering its archipelagic waters.

The Philippines would then have less powers to discipline foreign vessels polluting our seas than we have now as a nonarchipelagic state dealing with ships in its territory.

The Kalayaan Island Group could actually wind up being defined as another archipelago different from the main Philippine islands. Santiago said that under international law the Spratlys could be termed “other islands” (not a separate archipelago) that falls under Philippine sovereignty. Under the UNCLOS, the Philippines as an “archipelagic state” would have to be defined as having two archipelagos—the Kalayaan Group and the main Philippine group of islands.

The bills now in Congress that would include the Scarborough Shoal in Philippine territory could pose problems because international law does not recognize the drawing of archipelagic baselines as a method of claiming territorial sovereignty.”

How should we prove our claim to Scarborough Shoal then?

Use the principle of “effective occupation under international law,” the senator recommends. The military exercises, the construction and use of a lighthouse, enforcement of laws against foreign vessels and nationals that have illegally entered the area, and many other political and administrative acts are proofs that the Republic of the Philippines has been effectively exercising sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal.

Hard times could begin next month

2008-03-26T07:50:00.000+08:00

Everyone should pay attention to the warnings made by UP Economics Professor Ernesto Pernia, the former chief economist of the Asian Development Bank and its expert in human-development economics, that the looming US recession, which has begun to cause a slowdown throughout the world, will hit the Philippines hard. Harder than the 1997 Asian crisis did.

Some economists, however, still believe the situation is not as bad as Pernia paints it.

The most complete presentation of his forebodings came out in Newsbreak last Monday with Lala Rimando’s byline.

Hard times will begin to be felt next month, Pernia forecasts, up to the third quarter of the year—if the stimulus packages recently launched in the United States work to arrest the slowdown or recession there. If not, Filipinos will feel the pains throughout 2008 and maybe beyond.

“It’s going to be a hard year for us. Everyone will be affected. And the hurt will be deepest among the low-income families,” Prof. Pernia was quoted as saying.

Economic domino effect

Although the Philippines is no longer as dependent on the USA as our largest export market (we now sell only 17 percent of our exports to Americans, it was twice that volume just a decade ago), the looming recession there also impacts on the economies of our other major buyers.

We sell 27 percent of our exports to China (including Hong Kong) and 20 percent to Japan. US purchases from China will be as badly hit as ours. This means China/Hong Kong will have its own slowdown, so they will not be buying from us as much as they used to. The same goes for Japan—which, despite its hobbled economy for many years now, buys 20 percent of our exports—and these are not just our bananas and mangoes but the automotive parts and harnesses we make for that country’s carmakers.

Europe buys less than 10 percent of our exports. It will also experience a slowdown as a result of the US recession. So even our sales to Europe—and everywhere in the world that has to do some belt-tightening in response to economic doldrums in America—will decline.

Cebu’s world-class furniture industry is now already suffering from the strength of the peso. If customers in Singapore and other countries need to economize, they will hold off buying from their Cebu suppliers.

Less labor exports

It won’t just be the hits on our product exports that will make us suffer.

Let’s not forget that hardworking Filipinos are in fact our country’s biggest exports. Less money for service companies in the United States and for companies and families in the Arab world, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan and Europe will mean POEA will be deploying less OFWs to those places. We pray all the Filipinos already holding jobs abroad are retained by their employers. Prof. Pernia, however, worries that some may have to be let go by the hardest-hit countries and business sectors.

This means there will be less US dollars in remittances from our OFWs to their families. These remittances have been a major driving force in our consumption-led economy. This decline will hurt our malls, restaurants, supermarkets, department stores and even the wet markets.

Bad news for OFWs

OFWs’ investments in family-owned small and medium family enterprises will also decline. Less OFWs will buy the condominiums now being built for them by property companies. We hope and pray not too many OFWs who signed their installment-plan contracts these past few years get pink slips—and end up being in default. Less OFW funds could abort the revival of the property market. And this will in turn mean less employment in construction and private-sector infrastructure building.

A poorer USA, Europe, Japan and China will mean less foreign direct investment here. And less foreign firms coming to the Philippines to open call-centers and other business process outsourcing offices (BPOs).

These forthcoming days of hardship for us Filipinos will be worse than the 1997 Asian crisis. That one was not so bad because at that time we were less pronouncedly involved in the global economy. APEC was just starting and the vision of Asean economic solidarity was only being fleshed out.

As usual the poorest segments of our society will be hardest hit. With such problems as a possible rice shortage and steep increases in the prices of food and fuel, the threat of inflation becomes real.

Beware of kleptocrats

The administration has announced various economic stimulus plans. Scores of billions will be spent for infrastructure. This will create jobs and inject money in the lower segments of society. Wonderful.

But massive government spending has a downside—success in meeting the goal of maintaining a budget surplus and liberation from the pressures of a deficit will have to be forgone. This means S&P’s, Moody’s and Fitch cannot soon raise our risk rating to investment grade.

The administration will also have to make doubly sure that all the billions allocated and released to pump prime the economy do not go to the pockets of the kleptocrats in the Palace and the Cabinet. Bureaucratic theft, in the perception of most of our fellow citizens as well as of the international country-assessment institutions, usually gobbles up at least 40 percent of government budgets.

Ping’s sting

2008-03-24T00:48:00.000+08:00

HOW could that have happened to Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson?

That was the question on everybody’s mind following the dud of a testimony given by Leo San Miguel before the Senate probe of the national broadband deal. For publicity’s sake, Lacson had built up San Miguel’s scheduled appearance before the blue-ribbon inquiry. Filipinos were made to expect that the new resource person would offer the same level of entertainment, which the now-famous Jun Lozada has provided the public.

As it turned out, however, San Miguel’s testimony became a source of major embarrassment to Lacson—for several reasons.

First, palpable is the public’s frustration over Lacson’s failure to satisfy their expectation that the new witness would be as exciting, if not as entertaining, as Lozada.

Second, San Miguel’s testimony tends to show that not everybody is afraid of the top cop-turned-lawmaker. For 12 hours Lacson tried to badger San Miguel into saying in the Senate hearing what the two of them allegedly discussed in private. But San Miguel dug in and stuck to his line—forcing Lacson to utter the scary words, “My patience has its limits.”

San Miguel did not flinch, however—apparently unintimidated by Lacson’s fearsome reputation.

Third, the San Miguel dud tends to show that Lacson is highly vulnerable to unreliable or deliberately misleading information. The senator’s press statements always carry the standard qualifier, “I have information that . . . ” It gave the impression that the former chief of the Philippine National Police has maintained an intelligence network, which possesses dossiers on just about anybody who matters in this country.

The San Miguel debacle loudly hinted that some of the senator’s intelligence sources might actually be peddling reports designed to mislead and embarrass him. Not a few observers now think that his much-vaunted machinery of spooks and stoolies has become what makes the senator vulnerable.

Given the embarrassment that San Miguel has caused him, Lacson should now take a second look at Dante Madriaga, author of the “Greedy Four Plus Plus” tale. It was Madriaga who created in Lacson’s mind the impression that San Miguel was a major player in the NBN-ZTE deal.

Madriaga’s “revelations” may have given the notion that San Miguel was in possession of a potential bombshell. Lacson may have unwittingly bought Madriaga’s pitch about the value of a San Miguel appearance at the blue-hearing inquiry.

As the saying goes, once burned twice shy. Lacson should now take a second look at everything that Madriaga has said at the inquiry—and elsewhere. The senator should now determine whether or not Madriaga’s so-called bombshells were merely meant to sell San Miguel to Lacson.

Observers suspect that Lacson has been had and that San Miguel was not alone in a conspiracy to embarrass him, deliberately or otherwise.

Evidently, it was Madriaga who inflated the value of San Miguel whom the former insisted was part of the Greedy Four. That description generated excitement for San Miguel, which was magnified through a second label, “surprise witness.”

Clearly, the biggest surprise was on Lacson. And the public is startled that despite his much-vaunted intelligence apparatus, Lacson could still be flabbergasted.

As far as many observers are concerned, the San Miguel dud further eroded what credibility Madriaga still has. It has now become harder and harder to accept what he has said—and what he would say in the future.

Was Lacson set up with a scheme that exposed his vulnerability to bum steers, which sounds even more humiliating in its Tagalog translation—kuryente.

Too bad, the confirmation that Madriaga has no credibility virtually dismisses his own allegation that former presidential chief of staff Mike Defensor was somehow involved in the NBN-ZTE scandal. Did Madriaga drag Defensor’s name into the controversy merely to spice up his tall tale?

Madriaga may be aware of it or not, but there is an ongoing smear campaign against Defensor, which knowledgeable sources say is being carried out by the “Thunderbird Gang.”

The clique’s moniker has nothing to do with the classic coupe that giant automaker Ford first rolled out in the 1950s. The gang takes its name from its members’ “I love my own” syndrome. The hatchet job on Defensor is, according to knowledgeable sources, all about local politics.

Lacson should not allow characters like Madriaga and San Miguel to highlight the chinks in the senator’s armor. He obviously has been had—and it will take some time for people to forget that he was publicly shamed by a nationally televised dud.

Lacson should also take a second look at his intelligence apparatus and clean it up before it is manipulated again by a San Miguel-type caper. The ex-PNP chief’s edge over his political rivals is his uncanny ability to get the “goods” on anyone he targets.

Another Leo San Miguel-type flop, and people might start to think that Ping has lost his sting.

So Insensitive

2008-03-24T00:43:00.000+08:00

THEY come in the wee hours of the morning, without ample warning, as we’re in our homes fast asleep after a long week at work. We’re not talking about thieves in the night, but they might as well be, considering how much they take away from our hard-earned incomes.

Since the Downstream Oil Industry Deregulation Act took effect more than a decade ago—and especially lately with the record crude prices worldwide—retailers have been raising prices at the pump when we are at our most vulnerable.

Their announcements—if we could call them that—hardly reach the public to be of any practical use. If at all, they would be aired during the late night TV news or barely 30 minutes before midnight, by which time most of us are already in bed and too beat up from a week’s work and the Friday traffic to have the energy to get up and drive to the nearest station to gas up.

For all the discomfort they’re causing commuters during transport strikes, we must hand it to public utility vehicle operators and drivers because they have the decency to announce their plans way ahead of time. At least people could plan their lives accordingly.

We can say the same about labor unions, which are required by law to file the necessary papers with the government before they embark on work stoppages. Not that we’re great fans of these two groups, but the antiquated restraints imposed on these factor markets betray the free-market ideologists’ bias for the powerful when it comes to sectors such as the downstream oil industry.

The underhandedness exhibited by oil companies is so insensitive coming at this time when very expensive oil products are causing inflation to shoot up again, raising fears that incomes may be slow in catching up to the erosion in people’s purchasing power.

What difference would it make for companies if they announce their price increases early in the evening, giving motorists enough time to pass by a station along the way home to gas up? Apparently it means a whole lot for their margins, as they would rather surprise most of us the following morning.

What we find so intriguing is that whereas multinational oil refiners had reported record profits last year, their local units and affiliates said their earnings barely rose from the previous year. And we hear this at a time when oil products are at their most expensive in history—and still rising, judging from the unabated increases in the futures markets.

The sad part is that the downstream deregulation law took away whatever legal remedies past edicts provided consumers. The 1998 law even emasculated the government, which has been reduced to a bean counter, tallying price changes after the fact. The operative word, according to the law, is “price monitoring.”

True, the law banned a handful of anti-competitive offenses to prevent price collusion, but oil companies have found a way around these practices. The law also gave the Department of Energy certain powers it could exercise in such circumstances, but left it to the local courts to deliberate on the matter. As it is, the courts are already clogged up with other pressing cases, so ordinary consumers are left to their own devices. Once again, the free-market ideologists have betrayed the lot of their unsuspecting middle-class supporters.

Despite the limitations set by law, we’re still waiting for the incumbent energy secretary to make good on his bluster when he took office. Last year, he had warned oil companies to comply with a directive to inform the department of price adjustments. Moreover, he announced a government plan to audit oil companies, tapping the services of a third-party service provider.

We’re well into a new year, and we’ve yet to hear anything come out of those initiatives. So, Mr. Secretary, we’re still waiting.

Mayor Lim: Consistent crimefighter

2008-03-19T06:25:00.000+08:00

The City of Manila’s Mayor Alfredo Lim made our day again. He has once more shown how consistent and admirable an enemy of crime he is.

The Filipino “Dirty Harry” vowed last Monday not to lift a finger to help his son, Manuel, who was arrested in a drug bust.

He said “Manuel should be man enough to face the music. I will not protect him. I will not lift a finger to help him. Whatever trouble he has got himself into he must bear by himself.”

Manuel is a 44-year-old man. He had been arrested with two other suspects for allegedly trying to sell methamphetamine—also known as shabu, which is the most popular illegal drug in the country. They did not know that their sale was a sting. Their buyer was an undercover agent of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.

Police have filed charges against the young Lim and his companions. If convicted, Manuel could face a long prison term for selling shabu.

A model LGU official

We have always admired Mayor Lim for being a staunch anti-crime crusader. He cleaned Manila’s red-light districts of prostitutes and drug dealers in his previous (pre-Lito Atienza) terms as mayor of the Philippine capital. He is a model for other local government officials.

Not too many Filipinos liked his use of the spray-paint in one of his anti-drug campaigns. What he did was spray-paint warnings on the the houses of suspected drug pushers. This was criticized by activists as a violation of the house-owners human rights. Besides, they reasoned, some of the residents in the spray-painted houses—the wives and children and parents of the actual drug pusher—were most likely innocent. What if some crazed anti-drug crusader threw a grenade at the house?

Mayor Lim relented and stopped his unusual campaign. But it was effective. Many of Manila’s drug pushers moved to other places—especially Pasay and the Baclaran area.

We need more public officials with Mayor Lim’s honesty and consistency as a crime-fighter.

It must have been painful for him to make the decision to let the law take its course in the case of his flesh-and-blood Manuel.

Mayor Lim’s posture runs counter to the feudalistic and overly-personalistic mentality of the Filipinos. That mentality is often the source of corruption in this country.

A less strong-willed and honest powerholder than Mayor Lim would have surely sprung Manuel out. The mayor could have easily managed such an operation. He is after all a former chief of the national police and a former senator. But it would have sullied his integrity.

If President Arroyo had been as firm a crime and corruption fighter as Mayor Lim, she would not have to suffer for the alleged corruption of her underlings—and perhaps some close friends and political creditors—whose wrongdoings are being exposed in Senate investigations.

Many people of good will are not joining the anti-Arroyo forces holding rallies and trying to organize the public into forming a massive movement that will force her out of office.

Among these are the Catholic bishops and the impressive body of former senior government officials (FSGO). These two groups have made sharp assessments of government corruption. They see the President as—at least—negligent in curbing corruption that has cost this country scores of billions. The FSGO says she must be central in these alleged corrupt deals.

Yet they do not want to add their voices to the call for her resignation or ouster by people power.

They want her to continue being president until her term ends in 2010. But they do insist that she must zealously go after her administration’s monsters of corruption.

We hope the President heeds the CBCP and the FSGO. Doing so can’t possibly be as painful as Mayor Lim’s resolve not to lift a finger to help his son out of the mess he has put himself in.

Lim as Malacañang anti-corruption czar

Here’s our inspired thought: Mayor Alfredo Lim—despite being an opposition party member and a close friend of former President Estrada who has of late been actively speaking against President Arroyo and asking her to resign—is one of those men of goodwill who want President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to finish her term.

He has vowed to keep her safe from any force that will unconstitutionally push her out of the Palace.

Why not make Mayor Lim the Palace’s anti-corruption czar? He can be that while keeping his job as Manila mayor.

But, of course, if she takes our unsolicited suggestion, she has to give Mayor Lim the proper equipment and resources to collar the thieves and scoundrels in the corridors of power.

The fastest and biggest deal

2008-03-18T21:33:00.000+08:00

ON Dec. 13, 2006, the state-owned PNOC Energy Development Corp. (PNOC EDC) sold its shares for the public for the first time. EDC is the world’s largest geothermal company. It generated P19.2 billion from the initial public offering (IPO) at P3.20 per share for 20 percent of the world’s leading geothermal producer.

The P3.20 share price was grossly underpriced. On the first trading day, investors easily earned 42 percent as the shares closed at P4.60 per share, thanks to CLSA Exchange Capital, the financial advisor and global coordinator hired by PNOC EDC President Paul Aquino.

In July 2007, PNOC EDC made a follow-on offering, for 20 percent of the company. It raised P17 billion and PNOC EDC was no longer a government firm. The IPO price was higher this time, P5.70 per share.

In November 2007, the remaining 60 percent was auctioned—40 percent in common shares and 20 percent in preferred shares.

EDC was acquired by the Lopez family’s Red Vulcan Holdings Corp. for a whopping P58.5 billion. EDC had become 100 percent private from 100 percent government three years ago.

Why would the Lopezes, the family that invented large-scale power ownership and management in the Philippines, value a company three times it was worth after 11 months and eight days?

The first answer is that the P3.20 per share IPO price was, it now turns out, really an anomaly. PNOC EDC was wrongly priced in December 2006.

The second answer is that PNOC EDC is a good company. It is literally steaming with potential. The largest geothermal energy producer in the world, it supplies steam to 12 operating power plants with total generating capacity of 1,199 megawatts (MW). Future projects will add 300 MW more in capacity.

EDC has hot geothermal properties. It has good management, especially the engineering team (including 750 geothermalists with combined 11,000 man years of experience). An archipelago of volcanoes, the Philippines is the world’s second largest geothermal producer, with 1,978 MW of installed capacity. The US is first, with 2,544 MW.

The company’s worth has been highlighted with oil soaring past $111 per barrel and by the global focus on green fuel like geothermal.

Finally, the team that auctioned the controlling 60 percent of PNOC EDC last November did a really good job, packaging the equity, drawing up the ground rules, adopting complete transparency, and thus triggering unprecedented investor interest.

That team was composed of PNOC President Antonio Cailao, president and CEO of PNOC, PNOC EDC’s mother company; veteran treasury expert Reynaldo G. David, president and CEO of the state-owned Development Bank of the Philippines; Manuel Salak III, managing director of ING, and topnotch lawyer Perry Pe, a partner in the Romulo Law Offices.

David’s DBP committed to provide what he calls “staple financing” or half of the financing needed by the winning bidder. “Where can you find a bidding where the bidders are given the financial wherewithal, the financial lubrication, the ammo for their bids,” gushed PNOC CEO Cailao.

The staple financing, David explained, “is that it would come in just in case the foreign partners of the winning bidder opted out.”

Rey also secured, quickly, the required approvals from government to sweeten the offer. This included continuance of government guarantees on PNOC EDC’s sovereign loans, the Monetary Board exemption from the single borrower’s limit on loans extended by the financiers, and the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission opinions that a 60 percent Filipino consortium could be considered 100 percent Filipino as far as the bidding was concerned.

At the time of the bidding, Pe noted, EDC was already about 30 percent foreign, leaving just 10 percent remaining to be owned by foreigners since utilities like energy must be at least 60 percent Filipino.

Salak packaged the deal to interested bidders. His ING has an enviable track record, having handled or played the leading role in the $98 million IPO of Meralco in 1992, the $400 million IPO of Petron in 1994, the sale of government’s 32.5 percent equity in PNB for $145 million in 2005, and the $336 million EDC IPO in 2006. It counts Aboitiz,Marubenim,Banpu of China, Siemens, and Mirant among its energy clients.

Lawyer Pe made sure that “the rules crafted were all transparent and of international standard.”

With the terms made appealing, the bidding naturally attracted what Cailao calls “the crème de la crème” of the energy business, 15 groups, later reduced to five, then four final bidders. The interested parties were amazed at the groundwork done by the privatization team. Two of them, Reykjavik Energy and Geysir, told the group: “You think like Bobby Fisher, 30 steps ahead.” Which means the team was a genius in their work.

Rey David’s heart sank when the first bid was opened, P33.2 billion by AP Renewables of the Aboitiz Group. PANASIA Energy of San Miguel quoted P39 billion. Then Andrew Gotianun submitted P48.5 billion. The privatization team’s hopes were buoyed. Then Red Vulcan’s bid was opened—P8.5 billion!

More than common economic indicators

2008-03-18T21:31:00.000+08:00

THE economy is performing better according to the standard measurements and the administration never fails to say so in every forum available.

The Philippine peso continues to strengthen after having the second highest appreciation among the currencies in Southeast Asia. Macroeconomic performance is strong and the 7.3% GDP output last year was the highest in three decades. Inflation is under control, the government is making headway in reducing the budget deficit, and unemployment is well below double digits.

The administration must be wondering why there’s hardly any kudos from its citizens. The economy is doing so well and yet there’s no applause and a great many Filipinos are not “feeling” GMA and her administration. Are they simply suffering from adjustment anxieties, from an economy that’s just picking up? Perhaps the so-called trickle-down effect has not trickled down yet? Or perhaps the economic indicators are painting a picture that is markedly different from what most Filipinos are actually experiencing?

The Philippines continues to have a high poverty incidence according to the Asian Development Bank report titled, “Philippines: Critical Development Constraints,” and this is because of poor revenue collections and rampant corruption. These are the “critical constraints” to sustainable growth, the ADB said. The pace of poverty reduction has been slow and income inequality remains stubbornly high because of corruption.

Even government statistics show that there are more Filipinos living below the poverty line today. The National Statistical Coordination Board said two weeks ago that 33 out of 100 Filipinos were considered poor in 2006 compared to only 30 out of 100 in 2000. Not a few, of course, suspect that poverty among the populace is higher than the 30% plus stats thus provided.

How “rampant” is this corruption that leads to poverty? The independent think tank Ibon Foundation Inc. said that in the past seven years, the figure could easily reach P7.3 billion, noting the allegedly highly anomalous projects and otherwise unresolved scandals like the P720-million fertilizer fund scam, the Northrail project, P400 million plus Jose Pidal bank accounts, the Impsa power-plant project, the Macapagal Boulevard project and the ZTE-NBN broadband project.

Yes, corruption is an economic problem too—perhaps the economic problem which the political arena seeks to address. So this administration cannot just resort to the usual “let’s-move-on-and-focus-on-the-economy” argument. Neither a strong peso nor a rising GDP will lead to sustainable growth and poverty reduction if the money circulating in the economy flows only among the political and economic elite, or if it just lines the pocket of corrupt officials in government

Economic growth has many dimensions. Ultimately, a country should gauge its economy on its ability to provide its citizens with what they need to live a decent life: enough food, adequate shelter and health services, a well-paying job, leisure and family time and a good education.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) came up with a way to measure or calculate more real indicators to measure growth and progress, which it called the Human Development Index, which measures things like GDP per capita, the literacy rate, life expectancy rate, school enrollment, the purchasing power of the currency, and others.

In the 2007/2008 UNDP Human Development Report, the Philippines’ Human Development Index ranking dropped to 90th place, lower than a lot of our neighbors in East Asia and the Pacific region.

Obviously the mere quantity of economic activity, as measured by a common indicator like the GDP, taken alone, says virtually nothing about whether life for the common Filipino is getting better or worse. It ignores the distribution of income and makes no distinction between workers with top-paying jobs and those workers who can barely eke out a living. It ignores the fact, for instance, that the record remittances which makes economic figures so rosy have a heavy social toll in terms of broken families. The booming mining industry which the government touts? That has environmental costs too which should count for something when you’re calculating economic balance.

Economics must be a means to an end. It is not an end in itself. Real economic growth must benefit the people. And when the economic figures are out of sync with the everyday experience of most Filipinos, the government cannot simply shrug its shoulders and say the figures are right, their (Filipinos) experience is wrong.

Chinese objection means RP is right

2008-03-17T06:01:00.001+08:00

That China is objecting to the baselines bill in Congress is a helpful sign for RP. It means the House of Reps is on the right track in defining once and for all RP’s western archipelagic boundary facing the South China Sea. Rep. Antonio Cuenco has all the reasons to bellow, “Full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes,” in pushing for his bill’s passage. Weak-kneed foreign affairs officials, shaking in their booties from China’s protests, must stand aside.

The bill would set 135 base points to draw RP’s outermost limits. The primary data are the same base points in the Treaty of Paris by which Spain ceded the archipelago in 1898 to the rising US naval power. It dumps the old RP claim to Sabah, now Malaysia’s state of North Borneo. But added are Scarborough Shoal off Zambales, and the Kalayaan Isles at the edge of the Spratlys west of Palawan.

Long occupation of Scarborough and the seven islets of Kalayaan, now a municipality of Palawan, is RP’s basis for territorial claim. Since the American Regime, Luzon fishermen have been using Scarborough, 135 miles west, for rest and repairs. As for Kalayaan, Filipino mariner Tomas Cloma discovered and laid claim to the isles in the early ’50s. RP in the ’70s dispatched soldiers to inhabit the islets. Civilians from Palawan and Luzon soon populated the biggest one, Pag-asa.

More than that, RP’s claim is geological. Earth science is the requisite, under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, for a coastal or archipelagic state to declare its borders. Specifically, UNCLOS entitles such a state to a continental shelf that geologically exists as an extension, albeit submerged, of its land territory. A shelf is officially defined as “the seabed and subsoil of the submarine areas that extend beyond its territorial sea throughout the natural prolongation of its land territory to the outer edge of the continental margin, or to a distance of 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured where the outer edge of the continental margin does not extend up to that distance.” The area 200 miles from its baselines is that state’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Dr. Jose Antonio Socrates, Palawan’s provincial health officer, has been explaining for two decades the geological basis to claim Kalayaan. Also a geologist, Socrates cites studies by the University of London on how Earth’s land formations evolved. Based on limestone and other evidence, it appears that Palawan once was a part of mainland Asia. Just that, a mighty earthquake, millions of years ago before man, flung the elongated island onto the Pacific Ocean. The split created between Palawan and Asia a water channel now called the South China Sea. And with Palawan pushing the ocean floor eastward along with volcanic eruptions, islands of the RP and Indonesian archipelagoes later sprouted.

The cited study goes on: as it drifted farther from Asia, Palawan grew its own continental shelf, stretching all the way to Kalayaan Isles near what is now the Spratlys. That shelf ends where it begins to slope steeply into the sea bottom, 50 miles west of Pag-asa.

From the evidence, Cuenco’s baselines bill draws RP’s 200-mile EEZ to commence westward from Scarborough and Kalayaan. Once enacted, RP must submit the baselines for UNCLOS verification. Thence, only RP may fish or mine its EEZ, and can enjoy UN shield against poaching or illegal passage of, say, vessels laden with nuke waste.

China protests because RP’s baselines bill goes against its own claims. Invoking false “historic rights”, China in 1992 arbitrarily drew baselines to cover not just Kalayaan and Scarborough but more. Roped in were Mischief Reef, Commodore Reef and Sabina Shoal, all closer to Palawan, in defiance of scientific evidence required by UNCLOS. On this basis, China built in 1995 “fishermen’s shelters” on Mischief that actually are naval and air force facilities. During monsoons when RP’s puny naval craft can hardly patrol the coast, China attempts to plant buoys on Commodore and Sabina. If China’s baselines were to be accepted, its 200-mile EEZ would encompass Palawan and RP’s internal Sulu Sea. China routinely barges into territories it dreams to own. Breaching international treaties in the ’90s, Chinese navy ships docked on Antarctica and machine-gunned penguins.

Victory for Pacquiao

2008-03-17T06:00:00.001+08:00

For several hours yesterday, lawless elements took a break, the military unilaterally observed an informal truce and politicians paused from their endless brawls as Filipinos, in a rare show of unity, rooted for one of the nation’s own. It seemed for some moments that the nation was in for a big disappointment, as the prospect of a draw loomed in the match between boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao and Mexico’s Juan Manuel Marquez. But in the end the judges, by a split decision, gave the World Boxing Council superfeatherweight crown to Pacquiao.

Several police commands happily reported zero crime rates throughout the match, broadcast live from Las Vegas. For the Filipino, Pacquiao has come to symbolize rare achievement in sports, a field where the nation is sorely lacking in international recognition.

Later this year the Olympic Games will be held in Beijing. The Games are a reminder of what the Philippines has not yet achieved: the highest honor in the world of sports, an Olympic gold medal. Pacquiao’s many feats show what is needed to excel in sports: disciplined development of natural talent, adequate facilities for rigorous training, and sufficient support from both the government and interested parties in the private sector.

Proper training in athletics, which ideally should start at a young age, does not come cheap. Many promising athletes are from poor families, and development of their athletic skills is often set aside because of the demands of day-to-day survival. Often, Filipino athletes who excel in regional games are members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, which has a special program for personnel with sports potential. Military discipline no doubt helps in turning these athletes into winners. But budding athletes who are too young for the AFP must look elsewhere for support in developing their skills. The nation’s jubilation over Pacquiao’s latest victory should encourage concerned sectors to provide that kind of support.

Making good use of BSP’s cooperation

2008-03-17T05:55:00.000+08:00

AFTER about a year of prodding by financial market players, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) finally succumbed to calls to limit access to a facility meant to temper inflation.

Its policy-making Monetary Board decided last Thursday to close some of the windows of its special deposit account (SDA), which has been competing for funds with the national government, preventing it from securing short-term borrowings during its fortnightly auctions of Treasury bills.

What appeared to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back was the Bureau of Treasury’s recourse to negotiated sales of T-bills after it had failed to sell these in the open market due to the attempts of banks to bid up their rates.

Conceding to the high bids would have led T-bill rates, the benchmark for banks’ lending rates, to shoot up, removing a key pillar of the country’s recent economic success. The low interest-rate regime has allowed businesses to expand and households to leverage their incomes and spend more, boosting investment and consumer spending, respectively.

Low rates also enabled the government to trim its debt servicing costs, helping it reduce its budget deficit to a record low and way below the ceiling ahead of this year’s objective of bridging the fiscal gap.

The government move to do away with auctions and negotiate T-bill rates however would have short-circuited the debt market, which is premised on transparent price discovery. The BSP no less warned that negotiated rates would throw off course capital market reform. Its decision to refine the SDA therefore is a case of walking the talk.

This move also reverts to its regular policy tools the burden of taming inflation. Alongside refining its SDA, the BSP also parted ways with its US counterpart, the Federal Reserve (Fed), suspending further monetary easing by keeping its overnight rates steady. Had it cut anew in lock-step with the Fed, the BSP would have encouraged an uptake in inflation.

The consequence of this action however is a wider differential between Philippine and US rates, especially if the Fed eases its funds rate later this month as is widely expected. From then onwards, we should expect a further strengthening of the peso vis-à-vis the dollar, which would also temper inflation in light of record prices of imported oil and other commodities.

The downside of course would be felt by, among others, the export sector, where jobs may be at risk due to slipping sales abroad. Data for January already showed this, as electronics shipments, the bulk of the Philippines’ sales abroad, decelerated. That data also lent credence to our susceptibility to a US slowdown as shipments to our largest market abroad likewise fell. State-run Philippine Institute of Development Studies (PIDS) just last week warned the country may have already contracted the Dutch disease, which infected the Netherlands in the 1960s when the discovery of huge gas reserves attracted big foreign investments, sending the kroner to record highs. This eroded the share of Dutch manufactured exports abroad, causing job losses.

PIDS said this might be happening in the Philippines, citing the weak manufacturing amid a strengthening peso. If we’ve been smitten, then expect unemployment to rise. This puts policy markers in a bind.

With monetary authorities preoccupied with reining in inflationary pressures, the task of ensuring the Philippine economy survives a US recession lay squarely on the fiscal side of policy. The question is whether the government has the wherewithal to rise up to this challenge.

Pump priming requires ample resources, which may not be forthcoming, as the government’s two main revenue agencies have insisted they are unlikely to meet higher collection targets this year. Last year’s record-low deficit was largely due to huge proceeds from government’s privatization, which is also unlikely to be replicated this year.

That leaves borrowing to plug the gap, which brings us back to where we started. Incurring more debt to accommodate the planned spending hike implies that the government would have to forego its balanced budget goal this year.

It’s a tough call given that this government has worked hard for the much-coveted upgrade in its credit rating hopefully by yearend. This Holy Grail would further improve the government’s chances of securing much cheaper borrowings from abroad.

But after the BSP’s recent policy move, the government should push this effort to its logical conclusion: jack up state spending to support economic growth. Otherwise, the central bank’s cooperation would all be for naught.

How do you solve a problem like Jamby?

2008-03-17T05:53:00.000+08:00

That is the question confronting the senators and congressmen who are members of the powerful Commission on Appointments (CA).

Last week Sen. Ana Consuelo Madrigal invoked wholesale Article 20 of the bicameral body’s rules, thus preventing the promotion of 24 ranking officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. She raised her objection in plenary session although other CA members do not recall her doing so when the appointment of the same officers were being tackled at the committee level.

Agusan del Sur Rep. Rodolfo Plaza told the Kapihan sa Sulo media forum Saturday that while Madrigal may have attended the pre-plenary deliberations on the officers’ promotion, he does not recall her coming on time.

Madrigal, according to CA and Senate sources, is notorious for her tardiness. Even columnist Angelito Banayo, in his testimony before the Senate blue-ribbon inquiry into the NBB-ZTE deal, revealed that Madrigal came late to the “secret meeting” former economic planning secretary Romulo Neri had with Sen. Panfilo Lacson, star witness Jun Lozada and others in Makati last December.

According to CA rules, any member can invoke Section 20 to suspend consideration of any nomination or appointment—including those favorably recommended by a standing committee and the chairman—without question from the rest of the bicameral body.

So why did Madrigal invoke Section 20 last Wednesday?

Other CA members said they believe it was her way of getting back at her colleagues who did not go along with her two weeks ago when she tried to block the promotion of a general who had a run-in with jailed Sen. Antonio Trillanes 4th, another Jamby favorite.

“She was awake but sleeping,” was how a published report quoted Plaza as saying about the incident when Madrigal failed to hear the name of the officer when it was read during plenary session for confirmation.

The only other CA member who agreed with Madrigal when she wielded her one-woman veto last Wednesday was Lacson—to the surprise of no one.

The Ping and Jamby tandem has been the motive force behind the NBN-ZTE probe, seemingly superseding the blue-ribbon committee chairman Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano.

A number of Senate reporters noted that Lacson and Madrigal—putative partners in the 2010 presidential election—now seem to be “running the chamber, setting the agenda, overstepping even some of their more senior colleagues, including those who also belong to the opposition.”

A veteran newspaperman who has covered the chamber since the 1990s noted how the Ping and Jamby team seems to be exercising greater influence over their fellow senators than Senate President Manuel Villar.

The tandem’s newfound sense of power has evidently extended even to the CA. However, most of the 22 other members of the bicameral body now feel that Madrigal, as abetted by Lacson, has gone too far.

Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, a former AFP chief of staff, fumed after Madrigal invoked Section 20. The former Marine general, who took up the cudgels for the officers affected by Jamby’s stunt, moved to amend the CA rules if only to prevent her from repeating it in the future.

Madrigal responded that she blocked the AFP officers’ confirmation because she wants to “reform” the CA.

“As minority floor leader of the commission, I invoke this powerful provision of our rules to send a strong message: Reform the commission now!” Madrigal said. “Tapusin na natin ang bata-bata at padrino system sa Commission on Appointments.”

Madrigal’s reformist posturing, however, failed to impress most of her CA colleagues—and the public.

Sen. Richard Gordon summed up the annoyance with Madrigal when he said: “She must explain to everyone and to every individual here that has earned star rank through blood and guts that she is using it fairly—without whim, caprice or arbitrariness.”

So, how do you solve a problem like Madrigal who evidently will not hesitate to brandish Section 20 just to make a point, no matter how bizarre?

Former Sen. Francisco Tatad said, also at the Kapihan sa Sulo, that any CA member “who does not actively participate in the pre-plenary deliberations should not be allowed to invoke Section 20.”

The leading opposition figure added that objections to any appointment should be voiced at the committee level, which Madrigal apparently failed to do in the case of the 24 AFP officers whose careers she has put on hold and whose individual reputations she has besmirched—with Lacson’s collaboration.

Tatad, however, did concede that the CA could stand some reforming. He said that the bicameral body needs to be “more proactive,” as he recalled the case of former Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. who was named the country’s permanent representative to the United Nations—even without CA confirmation and despite the fact that he is past the mandatory retirement age of 70 for public officials.

But that’s another matter—or is it?

Presidencies and piracies

2007-09-18T07:55:00.001+08:00

The verdict is out: Joseph Estrada is guilty of plunder!

The mixed reactions are understandable, given the prominence of the accused and the yawning political divide the plunder case has created since Joseph Estrada’s ouster in 2001. Everyone has a right to react to the decision based on one’s personal convictions and affiliations. Still, others have an equal right to react to those reactions. Let these be expressed openly.

Leaving the legal options to lawyers, what is worth pondering at this time is the subliminal message conveyed by the said anti-graft court Sandiganbayan’s verdict to civilized society, or to polities where the rule of law, and not of men, is an established norm.

The verdict on Estrada is undoubtedly a verdict on our justice system as well. By rendering the guilty verdict despite veiled threats of a consequential social unrest or even violent protests from die-hard Estradap fans, the Sandiganbayan justices effectively and clearly conveyed a message to public officials, more particularly to those on the totem poles of political power, that in this country justice is, indeed, blindfolded. Justice doesn’t see nor hear nor feel political power and is, therefore, not daunted by it.

Through its decision, the Sandiganbayan has stressed that no one -- not even the highest official of the land -- is above the law. The relevant laws contemplated in this case are perhaps best captured in these words prominently displayed on the main menu page of the Sandiganbayan website: “Public office is a public trust. Public officers and employees must at all times be accountable to the people, serve them with utmost responsibility, integrity, loyalty and efficiency, act with patriotism and justice and lead modest lives.”

The strong message implied in the decision is likewise sent to the corridors of power in Malacañang for its current occupant and her family to reckon with. That same message also goes to what-used-to-be-august halls of both houses of Congress, for the “witch hunters” and “whistle-blowers” in the Upper House and the “tongressmen” in the Lower House to heed. That same message should echo in the courts, for scalawags therein to think over. That same message should reverberate in all public offices, from national government agencies and constitutional bodies to provincial capitols, down to city, municipal and “barangay” [village] halls. Yes, that same message should send shivers down the spines of those involved in the fishy National Broadband Network deal.

Now, for the first time, Filipinos can hold their heads high before the Japanese and the South Koreans and tell them that in this country, too, there is a high sense of honor in public service. That sense of honor, that unequivocal standard of right and wrong, transcends politics. Now, for the first time, Filipinos can proudly proclaim that in this country’s drive toward transparency, honesty and accountability in public service, we don’t catch the small fish only; we get to catch the biggest ones, as well.

Had Estrada been acquitted despite the overwhelming evidence against him, the subliminal message would have been that in this country we confuse presidencies with robberies. Had Estrada been freed, we would have demonstrated to the world the inability of our justice system to draw the line between the roles of a president and the roles of a pirate. For, as Saint Augustine said, it is justice that distinguishes a kingdom from a band of robbers, an emperor from a pirate. In our context, to paraphrase Augustine, we can say that it is justice that distinguishes a presidency from a piracy, a president from pirate.

In this regard, what the saint and sage wrote in his City of God merits rereading and pondering:

“Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, “What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you who does it with a great fleet are styled emperor.”

Who's Next

2007-09-18T07:53:00.000+08:00

After the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan convicted deposed President Joseph Estrada of plunder last week, government officials, civil society leaders and media people began asking, “Who’s next?” The Sandiganbayan decision has shown that no one is exempt from accountability, not even a former president, and it should embolden everyone to pursue graft and corruption cases against those who have to answer for them.

For her part, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo last Thursday created the Procurement Transparency Group, which will monitor procurement for public projects and report irregularities to the agency heads concerned. She also formed a Pro-performance Infrastructure Monitoring Group.

But what is needed in dealing with the problem of graft and corruption are not new government agencies but resolute action against grafters. We already have many government agencies charged with bringing corrupt officials to justice. What is needed is the political will to go after these officials and not to let up until they are all behind bars.

For starters, Ms Arroyo and other officials should act on the following cases:

(1) The $2-million extortion charge against former Justice Secretary Hernando Perez filed by former Manila Rep. Mark Jimenez in 2001. Estrada had said then that Jimenez gave Perez $2 million to approve the $470-million contract to rehabilitate a power plant in Laguna won by the Argentine firm Industrias Metalurgicas Pescarmona Sociedad Anonima (Impsa). Graft prosecutors said there was sufficient evidence to establish that Perez and company had committed “illegal acts.”

(2) The P1.3-billion election computerization deal. The Supreme Court on Jan. 13, 2004 voided MegaPacific’s contract to supply the Commission on Elections (Comelec) with 1,991 automated counting machines because the deal was tainted “with graft and legal infirmities.” Strangely, however, the Ombudsman on Oct. 2, 2006 absolved of any wrongdoing Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos and other officials involved in the deal.

(3) The alleged P532.9-million overpricing of the P1.1-billion 5.1-kilometer President Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard in the Manila Bay reclamation area. The Ombudsman has upheld the allegation of whistle-blower Sulficio Tagud Jr., a former director of the Public Estates Authority (PEA), that the road was overpriced by 250 percent and the bridge by 67 percent. The Ombudsman has approved the filing of graft charges against 20 PEA officials, six auditors of the Commission on Audit and Jesusito Legaspi, owner of JD Legaspi Construction firm that constructed the road, described by Tagud as “the most expensive asphalt road in the country.”

(4) The P200-million Jose Pidal case. In 2003 Sen. Panfilo Lacson accused Jose Miguel Arroyo, husband of President Arroyo, of amassing more than P200 million from campaign contributions to Ms Arroyo and putting the money in secret bank accounts, including that of “Jose Pidal.” Last June, Lacson criticized Sen. Joker Arroyo, former chair of the Senate blue ribbon committee, for sitting on the Jose Pidal case.

(5) The $503-million Northrail project. Former Senate President Franklin Drilon said the project was one of the “colossal corrupt deals” of the Arroyo administration. In August 2005 the University of the Philippines Law Center said the contract between Northrail and the China National Machinery and Equipment Corp. Group was illegal because of “questionable terms” and should be annulled. It also urged the filing of criminal, civil and administrative charges against some public officials and private individuals.

(6) The P728-million fertilizer fund scam. Former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-joc” Bolante was accused of distributing P728 million in fertilizer funds to local leaders to ensure Ms Arroyo’s election victory in 2004. Bolante fled to the United States, was arrested at the Los Angeles International Airport. He has chosen to be detained in the US rather than be deported to Manila.

(7) The $329-million National Broadband Network.

If the President is sincere in going after grafters in the government, she should order all the government agencies concerned, including the two offices she recently created, to go hammer and tongs after all the individuals and offices involved in these seven high-profile cases. The Estrada plunder case has shown that “big fish” can be caught, prosecuted, sentenced and put behind bars. From now on, there should be no pussyfooting and foot-dragging on graft and corruption.

Meet the cowinners

2007-09-17T01:03:00.000+08:00

This is the people’s verdict after the antigraft court’s guilty verdict on Estrada’s plunder case: Estrada and President Arroyo are cowinners. We just don’t know who, later on, will emerge as the bigger winner. But both won because this is how things are playing out.

Estrada is now seen as a martyr. Not bad for somebody who squandered his towering political mandate and ruined himself while in office in pursuit of his hedonistic, baser urges.

The sentiment that Erap was a victim of political prosecution and not a crook is an across-the-board sentiment. Only the billionaires share the sentiment of the Arroyo hard-liners that Erap is a thieving buffoon who deserves a lifetime in jail. The verdict only enhanced the already awesome popularity of Estrada.

Estrada’s popularity will lead to two scenarios.

First, a premature presidential pardon just like what Vice-President Noli de Castro had suggested. Expect de Castro to take it up with the national leadership in the name of his new buzzword—reconciliation. The leadership is inclined to respond positively and urgently.

Before we know it, before the Estrada hardliners can even agitate people to take up to the streets to protest, Estrada might be out of Tanay, although with a minor inconvenience—the mark of a pardoned convict. But with our moral bar so low, who cares?

Even if this does not take place, Estrada can just sit back and relax in his Tanay rest house cum jail and wait for 2010. Sure as the sun rises in the morning, the presidential candidate who will win in 2010 will have to have Estrada’s backing. With Estrada’s mass base, a big 30 percent of the voting population, the candidate only needs to work on his or her own 20 percent to win.

The 30-percent solid Estrada voting bloc will be of greater significance if there are three or more candidates. Victory in the 2010 presidential election will be owed to Estrada.

In this context, the 2010 winner can pardon Estrada right after assuming power and this will be a popular (very) decision.

Those who doubt the political leverage and muscle that go with popularity should take it from Homer Simpson. Son, he told Bogart Simpson, “Popularity is the most important thing in the world.”

Especially to politicians.

What made Mrs. Arroyo a cowinner? Easy.

With Estrada in Tanay, she can go about with her business of governing without having to worry about having Estrada on the loose and physically proselytizing about injustice and corruption. The second-level leaders of the opposition do not have Estrada’s clout and popular appeal and they can’t stir the crowds as deeply and passionately as Estrada.

So she is safe in office. From his Tanay detention center, Estrada cannot manipulate the events in the country and sow the seeds of popular revolt. To be agitated and rebellious, the Estrada crowds need his physical presence.

She actually bought enough time to decide on what her course for the next two years or so would be: governing well or the guillotine.

If she governs well within the next two years or so and make amends for the many corrupt, bizarre and mediocre acts her administration has committed since 2001, she will be spared the guillotine. She will exit office, if not on a blaze of glory, on an appreciative note from the nation.

But if the rest of her term will be of the same deplorable stuff: ZTE, Jose Pidal, “Hello, Garci,” she will suffer a fate worse than a Tanay detention.

The choice is hers. She has time on her side. She can still reverse what is looming to be a cruel verdict of history.

The verdict was a temporary hump for Estrada. It also gave Mrs. Arroyo enough time to make amends for her past indiscretions and work for an acceptable closure to her mistrusted presidency.

The nation, in some weird sense, is a bit of a winner. It got its break, a relief from a head-on clash between two contending political forces (both lusting for power) which our prostrate and polarized people do not even deserve.

With our national expectations so low, with our national mood so downcast, that can be considered a win.

Moving on

2007-09-17T01:02:00.000+08:00

MOVING on” or “let’s move on” is the catch-phrase of the season.

The phrase has dripped from the mouth of politicians, columnists, editorial writers, broadcast journalists, Palace officials, the President and everyone wishing to sweep a nightmare away.

We are advised to move on after the resolution of a big political scandal, a messy business scam, an ugly congressional investigation or an unsuccessful attempt to destabilize the government.

It means that Filipinos should keep moving, get the nightmare behind them and just push on. Get a life, please!

We should move on after the trial of President Estrada, which consumed us for more than six years. We heard that advice after the nursing exam scandal, the May 14 election anomalies, the military boo-boos in Sulu, the attempts at government destabilization and poor government response to natural disasters.

Manfully, we collected ourselves, shook off the scary headlines and the TV news, and told ourselves we were flexible and strong, and that we have survived.

Filipinos, after all, are a forgiving and a forgetful people. We have a short memory for national troubles, sensational crimes and man-size scandals. We have a very high threshold for patience and leniency.

OK, we promise to move on. We close the book on the Estrada case. It’s time to resume our normal life. We have other important things to do.

Besides, look at the bright side. The peso is strong. OFW deployment will hit one million in less than a year. Remittances are up 16% in seven months.

S&P has reaffirmed its “BB+B” (plus or minus) for foreign and local currency issuer credit ratings on the Philippines, meaning the outlook is stable. Employment has risen as of July. Foreign investments are pouring in. Our ‘economic fundamentals’ are very strong.

Of course there are other worries on the horizon. The government has a hard time selling the national broadband network project. The Department of Education’s cyber-education program smells like a fake diploma. The Commission on Higher Education has discovered a suspicious P500-million campus-based call-center project on its backyard. The customs bureau and the BIR have not met their collection targets. It’s 2007 but we have not automated the voting system. We need to address the long-playing MILF secessionism and the NPA insurgency that are hindering development in the regions.

But what the heck—let’s move on.

Let’s book that trip to Macau next week. Order the Wagyu beef from TriNoMa. Let’s wake up late today, Sunday, and pretend nothing bad happened. Join the barkada for gin and coke. Rent the new Angel Locsin DVD. Take the family to Luneta. We will move on. We will not be defeated by the system. We will help the nation survive.

Gross national joy

IT would not be a bad idea if President Arroyo creates a National Commission on National Happiness to determine the level of our well-being and satisfaction.

The thought came to mind after reading that the World Database of Happiness, which lists 95 countries, has determined that Denmark (with a rating of 8.2), Switzerland, Austria, Iceland and Finland, all with high per capita income, are the “happiest” countries.

But wealth is not only the gauge of the Database, the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Institute and the Cambridge Institute of Well-Being, all doing research on what makes races and nations happy. Their yardsticks include education, nutrition, freedom from fear and violence, gender equality, mental health and having choices.

The United States makes it to the top 15 with a 7.4 index rating. In the middle range are the Philippines (6.4), Indonesia (6.2) and Iran (6). At the bottom are Tanzania (3.2), Zimbabwe (3.3) and Moldova (3.5).

The small kingdom of Bhutan said goodbye to gross national product a long time ago and said Bhutans should aspire to Gross National Happiness. Bhutan’s idea of collective happiness is based on equitable development, environmental conservation, cultural heritage and good government.

Today think tanks and research institutes are working on development models for methods to find out what makes peoples happy and why.

Filipinos are generally a happy people. Our sense of humor does not fail us even during national tragedies. Martial law and the Aquino assassination inspired many jokes, some still circulating today. OFW jokes about life in the US, Japan and the Middle East are plentiful. The only people who do not appreciate humor—especially jokes at their expense—are government officials.

We have a popular observation about Filipinos: Mababaw ang kaligayan (easy to please). We make do with the basics: three meals a day. A roof over one’s head. A good job. Family and friends. We are a hospitable people. We make friends easily. Pakikisama (the ability to get along) and utang na loob (returning a favor) are national virtues.

But the Presidential Commission on National Happiness could raise our level of well-being. It could look into quality-of-life issues, such as having clean air and water, less public noise, building more parks, making traffic more tolerable, building an efficient public-transportation system, insuring prompt trash collection, making medicine cheaper and making the neighborhood safer for children.

If we cannot become a First-World country, we could at least expand our national smile.

Health for the wealthy

2007-09-17T00:58:00.001+08:00

Filipinos can live with the high prices of food supplements with no approved therapeutic benefits, which are popular among health buffs. People can also live with the high prices of drugs for non-life threatening afflictions, such as Viagra and Cialis. But why do Filipinos have to contend with the high prices of drugs for chronic illnesses and even ordinary infections?

The House of Representatives committee on trade and industry, which is deliberating on a bill that will bring down the prices of medicine, reported that drug prices in this country are 22 times higher than those in India and five times higher than those in Pakistan. A 500 mg tablet of the popular painkiller Ponstan, for example, is retailed at P21.82 in the Philippines but only at P2.61 in India. An 80 mg tablet of the common antibiotic Bactrim costs only 69 centavos in India but P15.55 in the Philippines.

People can survive without ordinary painkillers. But what about a diabetic whose life could be shortened without maintenance drugs? A tablet of Diamicron, a drug for diabetics, is priced at P4.71 in India and P11.46 in the Philippines, the House panel learned.

There has to be more to the yawning price discrepancies than the fact that India has a flourishing local pharmaceutical industry – something that the Philippines has neglected to develop. The Philippines in fact imports from India several generic drugs sold in government health centers. But medicine prices are also lower in neighboring Asian countries compared to those in the Philippines. Congressmen pin the blame on what they describe as monopolistic pricing schemes of those in the pharmaceutical value chain.

House members are trying to address the problem by passing a new law that aims to bring down medicine prices – something that the 20-year-old Philippine National Drug Policy and the Generics Act have failed to do. Millions of Filipinos already lack the means to undergo complex medical procedures such as heart bypass surgery. Millions cannot afford even the expensive tests needed to determine cardiac problems. They should at least be able to afford maintenance drugs for common afflictions such as hypertension and asthma. It is often said that health is wealth. The government should avoid turning the country into a place where good health is only for the wealthy.

Automated barangay elections?

2007-09-16T05:57:00.002+08:00

Gloria Arroyo strikes again all the way from left field with her proposal to auto-mate elections starting with the October 29 exercise covering barangay officials.

For starters, there is no more time to prepare for automated elections which are scheduled in six weeks. Second, results of barangay elections do not require consolidation. Third, the barangay elections are nominally non-partisan. And fourth, as result of the second and third factors, barangay elections are hardly afflicted by the cheating, the buying of votes, the intimidation and the violence that characterize local and national elections.

In short, the barangay elections are not the problem. The local and national elections are. And automation, while it would help speed up the count, is a technical solution that misses out on the wider dimensions of the problem.

We don’t mean the sort of transformation in individual values that some argue is a prerequisite to an authentic exercise of the people’s sovereign power to elect their leaders. For we can storm the heavens with our prayers that the phone pals of Virgilio Garcillano be struck by their conscience and stop cooking the tabulations of votes, and only end up losing our belief in the power of prayer.

If we want honest and clean elections, we can start impeaching and jailing the election officials whose actions are for outright sale or, in the case of someone who is now in the limelight, in exchange for multi-million dollar- denominated overpriced deals.

But corrupt Comelec officials are the effects, not the cause, of a degenerate electoral process. For elections to be honest, we have to overhaul the structures and reverse the trends that make elections the equivalent of a war of total annihilation.

Joseph Estrada has just been convicted of plunder and sentenced to lifetime in jail. Many see his conviction as a triumph of the law. We certainly wish it were so, because we would be seeing most of the current high officials joining him in Bilibid in the not too distant future.

But the more likely outcome of Erap’s conviction is not the return of law. It is more likely to lead to a further travesty of the law.

Gloria is exiting in 2010. That certainly means a more dirty and bloody election for the presidency. Gloria will pull out all stops to secure the victory of her candidate, for she has to ensure she and her accomplices do not end up in the slammer like Estrada.

That’s the kind of dynamic we expect political developments to follow in the next three years and possibly further down the road. Computerization of elections is a minor sideshow to the grand drama unfolding before our eyes.

Stickup

2007-09-16T05:57:00.001+08:00

ON THE SAME DAY THE SANDIGANBAYAN ended the trial of the century by sentencing her predecessor, Joseph Estrada, to life in prison for plunder, President Macapagal-Arroyo announced the creation of a new body to help curb graft and corruption in government. The President told the Bishops-Ulama Conference in Malacañang Wednesday that she had created the Procurement Transparency Group to monitor procurement for public projects. The inter-agency body, chaired by the Department of Budget and Management, will have representatives from civil society. It will monitor procurement biddings and report anomalies to agency heads as well as the Office of the Ombudsman and the Commission on Audit. Its main purpose is “to ensure transparency and good governance in our massive public investments,’’ Ms Arroyo said. A separate group will “also harness civil society and the private sector in ensuring that public works projects serve the needs and objectives for which they are undertaken, and contract terms and timetables are complied with.’’

If the twin announcements were meant to signal a fresh resolve to combat graft in government, the President herself diluted the message with her other statements in the same forum. “We must be a government that honors contracts and agreements that go through the required processes, despite media attacks,’’ she said. “We live by the rule of law.’’ Later when asked by reporters if that policy included the ZTE contract to set up a national broadband network (NBN), Ms Arroyo reiterated that “as long as the contract goes through the required processes, we are required to comply’’ with its terms.

It was clear as day that she was referring to the $329-million contract with the Chinese firm ZTE. No other contract, whether involving foreign or local governments or companies, has been the subject of so much “media attacks’’ in recent months. And “transparent’’ is the last thing anyone can say about that contract or the processes that went before and after it was signed -- from the deliberations on the project to the negotiations and the decision to award it to ZTE.

To this day, top administration officials continue to dissemble and mislead the public about the NBN project and how ZTE bagged the contract. They cannot even agree if there is a contract or not. Some Cabinet officials say what has been signed is a memorandum of agreement or understanding, but others call it a contract. Commission on Higher Education Chair Romulo Neri, who used to head the National Economic and Development Authority, says there is a “supplier’s contract’’ but it is only a “prospective contract.’’ If that means it is not the real thing, then why did Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza sign it? And why did the President have to leave her husband, who had just undergone a delicate operation, to witness the signing in Boao, China? If the contract is “prospective,” it is probably because the plans and specifications are not spelled out so that no one can tell exactly what the country is getting for $329 million or if that would be the final price.

When pressed for answers, most Cabinet members point to Mendoza, saying the NBN is his baby and he knows it best. But Mendoza refuses to make the contract public and he doesn’t want to talk -- not to the press, not to the members of Congress. The only talking he has done recently was to the Cabinet where he supposedly explained the project in detail, including how it would save the government billions of pesos a year.

Funny that Mendoza bothered to do that. It was like preaching to the converted or at least to those who must act like true believers, given the President’s keen interest in seeing the NBN project through. But it is not the Cabinet that has been asking questions, it is the Filipino public. Does Mendoza think he owes it to the Cabinet to explain, but not to the Filipino people?

The Arroyo administration wants the Filipino people to approve a contract and pay for a project they know very little about, and it has the temerity to talk about transparency and good governance? In any other place, they would call this secret, rotten deal a stinking stickup.

Grace period

2007-09-16T05:56:00.001+08:00

THROWING MONEY AT A PROBLEM WON’T SOLVE it. President Macapagal-Arroyo says the government has the cash to automate elections. Clearly, she has the upcoming barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections in mind.

We believe pursuing automation in a rush would be counterproductive. The Commission on Elections, in particular as it is presently constituted under the beleaguered leadership of Benjamin Abalos, shouldn’t be entrusted with the authority to shortcut bidding processes in the rush to automate the barangay elections. Instead of modernizing our electoral system, this would only open up another opportunity for a controversial purchase of equipment, which could then put every subsequent electoral exercise under a cloud of doubt. Our political skies are too overcast for this at the moment.

What would a rushed automation of barangay elections next month achieve? An army of dubiously elected ward leaders eager to do the President’s bidding in 2010.

If we are to automate, let’s do it right, under a Comelec untainted by the most disgraceful set of commissioners since the Marcos years. If we are to automate, let’s give a sector that’s pretty much more respected and distinguished than our election officials—the IT sector—a chance to arrive at a consensus on the best form of automation to undertake. If we are to automate, and if we are (sensibly) to use the barangay elections as a laboratory to debug an automated system for voting, then let’s not rush into it pell-mell; let’s give it a year, no more, no less.

A happier confluence of events is possible. The President has a chance to fill the vacancy in the Comelec chairmanship that will occur in February next year—and other vacancies that may perhaps come up (we can only earnestly hope that the current Comelec commissioners see the light and resign en masse, together with their disgraced and disgraceful chairman)—with a credible appointment.

Electoral watchdog groups and the IT sector have a chance to show they can do more than make noise, they can achieve a consensus on solutions and, who knows, even on possible Comelec appointments. Our legislature can institute much-needed reforms, not on the basis of partisanship, but in acknowledgment of the public’s yearning for cleaner elections. There is an obvious opportunity here, for the executive and legislative branches to achieve a kind of redemption—or, at least, recovery of their standing—before the people.

While we’re at it, postponing the barangay elections by a year would also allow Congress to consider a much-needed reform. We endorse the manifesto signed on Sept. 5, in Baguio City, by educators and students calling for the abolition of the SK. The manifesto, signed during the annual training convention of student council leaders in public schools, proposes that the current revenue allotment for the SK—10 percent of every barangay’s budget—be re-channelled to public education instead.

The student-educator manifesto points out that all the SK has achieved is to put in the hands of young people large sums of money that they are not prepared to handle; and to serve as a take-off point for dynastic control of local politics. Money is power; and young people all over the country are getting a corrupt and corrupting introduction into power politics by means of the SK. In contrast, student governments represent a more integrated approach to representative government, without the tempting access to large sums.

Reduce carbs or lose weight to lower cholesterol

2007-09-16T05:55:00.001+08:00

Reducing dietary carbohydrates can improve atherogenic dyslipidemia, even in the absence of weight loss. Weight loss also improves dyslipidemia, mainly in people who have not already limited carbohydrates. For patients already restricting carbohydrates, weight loss offers little additional benefit to their lipid profiles. To take the reduced-carbohydrate path, focus on avoiding high-glycemic starches and fructose. Associates randomized 178 otherwise healthy overweight or obese men to one of four diets: one based on standard dietary recommendations (made up of 54% carbohydrates, 30% fat, and 16% protein), a diet with moderate carbohydrate reduction (to 39%), or one of two low (26%)-carbohydrate diets. To keep calorie levels the same initially, the researchers increased protein intake to 29% of the reduced-carbohydrate diet, and in the lowest carbohydrate diets increased either saturated or monounsaturated fat intake.

After 3 weeks (which is enough to stabilize lipids with no weight change), they found a linear relationship between greater carbohydrate restriction and a change in the type of LDL cholesterol. Carbohydrate restriction converted men from phenotype B individuals (who had dense, small-diameter LDL particles that confer higher atherogenic risk) to phenotype A (with medium-to-large-diameter LDL that’s less risky). Investigators then restricted calories, and patients in all groups lost similar amounts of weight. The type of diet “didn’t make any difference as long as they learned to eat less. Lipid levels improved with weight loss, but less so in the low-carbohydrate groups that already had shown improvements.

The only significant reductions in LDL levels were seen with the low-carbohydrate, low-saturated-fat diet. This is certainly the most effective diet in terms of LDL lowering that we’ve seen just by manipulating fat. The reductions in small LDL particles from lowering carbohydrate intake were independent of saturated fat intake. Higher saturated fat intake did not attenuate the lipid benefits of lowering carbohydrates. Saturated fat intake “doesn’t make it any worse.” That’s provocative, but that’s what they found. Previous studies of the lipid effects of low-carbohydrate diets didn’t control for the effects of weight loss.

You can get there either way. If you want to get the optimal result, you can either lose weight or you can drop carbohydrates. If you drop carbohydrates, it may not be as critical how much weight you lose. Other studies are attempting to replicate the findings. A recent study randomized dyslipidemic patients to one of four diets for 1 year: the severely low-carbohydrate Atkins diet, the more moderately carbohydrate-restricted Zone diet, a diet based on standard dietary recommendations, or the low-fat, high-carbohydrate Ornish diet.

The four groups had similar success in losing weight. Patients on the Atkins diet had somewhat better changes in body mass index, compared with the other groups, and profoundly better effects on lipid profiles, notably increases in HDL cholesterol and decreased in triglyceride levels. Changes in the different types of LDL cholesterol were not measured in this cohort, but “there’s just no doubt this would correspond to the same sort of changes they had seen. The most effective diet probably will be one that patients are able to maintain. In the end, that will be the biggest test of whether or not this works.

Losing a World Heritage Site

2007-09-16T05:54:00.000+08:00

Filipinos refer to the rice terraces in Banaue as the eighth wonder of the world. The site – the most extensive network of terraced rice paddies in Asia – failed to make it to the new Seven Wonders of the World, officially proclaimed recently. But the rice terraces are in the list of World Heritage Sites drawn up by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Now even that classification may be withdrawn. A recent report said Unesco may take the Banaue rice terraces out of its list of World Heritage Sites if the rice paddies continue to deteriorate. Unesco also noted the presence of structures that are not supposed to be within the heritage site and the apparent lack of a sustainable tourism program.

Local officials in Ifugao province have downplayed the possible loss of its Unesco classification. But the possible withdrawal of the classification cannot be taken lightly. In recent years other groups have expressed concern over the deterioration of the Banaue rice terraces. Though the site remains one of the country’s top tourist destinations, there has been little improvement in the tourism infrastructure in the area, from the two roads leading to the site to the accommodations and telecommunications facilities.

This could be the terraces caretakers’ idea of preserving the natural state of the site. But the terraces themselves are the ones that should be preserved; the surrounding areas can use some upgrading. The terraces themselves, however, are deteriorating. An infestation of giant worms eroded the terraces. Because of the low yield of the paddies and the lack of support to market the fragrant mountain rice, young Ifugaos were reported to be abandoning their farms to seek livelihood opportunities elsewhere.

In other countries, the rice harvested from a World Heritage Site would have been marketed worldwide as a gourmet variety at premium prices. The profits from tilling the terraced fields plus the tourism revenue would have guaranteed that the next generations of Ifugaos would have a stake in preserving their precious environment. It is not yet too late to do this in a site that is a source of national pride.

Memories, murmurs

2007-09-15T01:16:00.000+08:00

I'm doing a buffet column today. the articles can stand alone, but are related. So they can be read in installments. Choose what you want to read and when.

Mercifully brief, I thought to myself at 9:20 on Wednesday as the Sandiganbayan clerk finished reading the verdict and sentence for ex-President Joseph Estrada.

The Sandiganbayan was wise to choose that path because reading the entire decision, said to run more than 200 pages, would have been more "correctly" Filipino and yet dangerous. Like the "Pasyon" sung out every Holy Week, no one would have really been listening, much less understanding, the decision (written in English), but it would have amplified whatever emotions people had. I couldn't help contrasting Wednesday's courtroom atmosphere with that of the "Nicole" trial a few months back, where the "guilty" verdict for Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith was followed by cheering.

I'm glad, too, that government and media seemed to agree that we didn't need to stoke people's passions. The television cameras were not allowed to focus on Estrada while the verdict was being read. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo kept her silence, as did Raul Gonzalez and other presidential advisors with foot-in-mouth afflictions. We did get a still fiery but relatively subdued La Senadora Miriam Defensor-Santiago preaching about Christian magnanimity.

Maybe because there was so little of fireworks and political noise, we ended up hearing more of public "murmuring," muted but perceptible feelings that were actually quite similar, regardless of people's support of or opposition to Erap. I can summarize this feeling as: "But the looting and plundering have worsened," sometimes accompanied by a wistful: "She better be careful; someday she could be the one on trial."

I'm using "murmur" here in a medical sense. A heart murmur may be mild and muted, but it "speaks" of potentially serious trouble, even as it troubles the entire psyche. If the trial seemed anticlimactic, it is because people feel shortchanged . . . not by the verdict itself or the sentencing (which I think many people found too harsh, in the context of Erap's age), than by the way the country continues to plod along, like a patient with heart disease who has gone to see the doctor--and has been advised to stick a band-aid plaster on the chest every time he suffers distress. People want more, but we're not getting it for now, so we just move on.

Histories
Justice, oh justice. Visit Youtube on the Internet and type in "Cebu, Thriller" to get a video of a thousand Cebu prisoners dancing away to Michael Jackson's "Thriller." The star of the show is "Wenjell," a drag queen who ends up getting devoured by the "zombie" prisoners. Well, she's been in prison now for three years on drug-related charges, and has not been brought to trial. Erap got a trial, but languished, sort of, under house arrest for six years before a verdict was handed down.

In the long run though, justice comes not through courts and judges but from the pen (or computer keyboards) of our historians looking back at our troubled times. Years from now, historians not even born today will go through the archives--hard and electronic copies, court transcripts and newspaper columns and yes, blogs and YouTube--and pass judgment. We will hear again of our presidents, from Aguinaldo to Marcos and Aquino and Ramos and Estrada . . . and Arroyo.

Historians are no longer just chroniclers dishing out dates and names of great people. Today's historians are more like explorers and archaeologists, piecing together the most minute of detailed information to produce what they call "total events," complete with descriptions of context of places and people. They are not just using official archives now but also looking into letters and diaries, folklore and life histories. In the graduate anthropology course I teach, I often have quite a few history majors eager to learn new ways of understanding, and interpreting, our past.

Instead of one Philippine history, we have many histories written and waiting to be written. There are Filipinos who grew up learning about the Philippines from American historians. Then Filipino historians came in to rewrite the textbooks, sometimes questioning earlier accounts: Zaide, Agoncillo, Constantino, the Inquirer's own Ambeth Ocampo. Ambeth's books are best-sellers because they show the human side to our heroes and villains--what they ate, whom they loved (now why did I think of eating and loving at the same time?).

Historians give life and color and perspective to the events. For many years, Vietnamese history books tended to be hagiographies, full of praise for all the brave Vietnamese generals who defeated the American imperialists. Today, there are new books talking about daily life during the war. One of the current best-sellers in Vietnam is a book featuring excerpts from the diary of a young Vietnamese woman doctor who wrote about all her fears and anxieties and sadness, even while remaining totally committed to her work of ministering to the wounded and dying. She died before the war ended, and young Vietnamese feel that history must reflect, too, the valor of the Vietnamese outside the war arenas. (It's interesting, too, that the diary ended up with an American GI, who was able to return it to Vietnam after the war ended.)

Future histories of the Philippines will feature more "inside stories" about the famous and not-so-famous that will put many of our presidents in a new light. I have no doubt we will hear more of Joseph Estrada's life, when he was in Malacañang as well as under house arrest. So too, we will hear of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's life in Malacañang, as a president's daughter and as a president.

Time is always on the historian's side, people now silent will come forth in safer times to speak and to hand over important documents. But time is also on the side of controversial figures like Marcos and Estrada and Arroyo, allowing future generations of Filipinos access to more facts and therefore to become more critical, but kinder and gentler in their judgments.

UP memories
Our anthropology department at UP turns 90 this year while the university will be celebrating its centennial next year. From time to time, I'll be talking about some of the anniversary projects and activities, often with an appeal for help. For starters, the UP Diliman Information Office is compiling a coffee table centennial book, "UPD Sights and Sounds," and needs back issues of the Philippinensian (1918 to 1931, 1937 to 1941, 1949, 1951, 1966 to 1968), as well as The Plow, The Veterinarian, The Woolsack and The Tic. (You can figure out which colleges produced the first two magazines, but woolsacks and tics?) Call the Information Office at 924-1881 or 920-5802 if you have copies that you can lend or donate.

Omerta

2007-09-15T01:15:00.001+08:00

Reports earlier this week said President Arroyo had created not just one but two bodies to promote transparency in government. She should show that she means business by starting with the controversial $329-million broadband deal with Chinese firm ZTE Corp.

The other night Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza, who had signed the deal with ZTE executives in the presence of President Arroyo in Boao, China during the campaign period last April, stonewalled when asked by congressmen to shed light on the broadband project. The deal will require public funds to repay a loan from the Chinese Export-Import Bank that will be used to finance the project. Members of the House appropriations committee who were deliberating on the proposed national budget for 2008 wanted to know the details. Their interest in the funding was valid, but Mendoza, citing the advice of his lawyer, said a restraining order from the Supreme Court on the implementation of the ZTE deal prevented him from commenting on it.

The order of the high tribunal is the latest excuse invoked by the administration for its failure to come clean on a project that will saddle Filipinos with a $329-million debt burden for the next two decades. Administration officials say the document inked in China was stolen shortly after the signing. To this day different government officials have different versions of what exactly was signed. The nation learned of the purported theft of the original document only through a slip of the tongue of one of Mendoza’s underlings.

Malacañang has maintained a stony silence amid reports linking Chairman Benjamin Abalos of the Commission on Elections to the ZTE deal. Would his involvement have anything to do with disputed election results? There is no way of knowing. Officials implicated in the deal are either threatening to sue for libel or invoking orders from the President herself preventing them from facing congressional efforts to unearth the truth. This is not transparency but the code of omerta.

Magnificent

2007-09-14T05:48:00.001+08:00

The motion of defense counsel to dispense with a full reading of the Sandiganbayan decisions in the perjury and plunder cases against Joseph Estrada has allowed the ex-president, his family and his allies to fudge the truth--and confuse the public.

This is unfortunate, because the rulings, especially the 262-page decision in the plunder case, are a clear example of solid, straightforward legal reasoning. There are certain errors, to be sure, such as an innocent confusion between the two Estrada vs. Sandiganbayan decisions upholding the constitutionality of the plunder law, but in the main the three Sandiganbayan justices outdid themselves: They sift confidently through the mass of evidence, organize the most salient, set forth their findings of fact--and then apply the law.

Every single assertion made by Estrada and his supporters since Wednesday's promulgation can be answered directly from the decision.

Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, for instance, assailed the court (the same court which acquitted him) for convicting his father on the illegal gambling charge. Since when did jueteng money, he asked for argument's sake, become public funds?

His question is irrelevant, because the plunder law penalizes any public official who systematically amasses ill-gotten wealth. The "public treasury" is only one of six possible sources of illegal wealth specified by the law. The sixth, in fact, can be understood as a catch-all condition: "By taking undue advantage of official position, authority, relationship, connection or influence to unjustly enrich himself or themselves at the expense and to the damage and prejudice of the Filipino people and the Republic of the Philippines." (The decision quotes this ringing line toward its conclusion.)

We have to remember that the plunder law--Republic Act 7080, as amended--came into being as a legislative reaction to the excesses of the Marcos regime. (Now that was plunder, on a grand, one-for-the-Guinness-book-of-world-records scale.) As Justice Josue Bellosillo of the Supreme Court wrote, over a decade after RA 7080 became law: "Drastic and radical measures are imperative to fight the increasingly sophisticated, extraordinarily methodical and economically catastrophic looting of the national treasury."

In its own decision, the Sandiganbayan quotes at length from the Explanatory Note to the Senate bill that helped lead to the plunder law. One passage reads: "The acts and/or omissions sought to be penalized do not involve simple cases of malversation of public funds, bribery, extortion, theft and graft but constitute plunder of an entire nation resulting in material damage to the national economy."

In this dark light, centralizing jueteng operations in Malacañang certainly qualifies as plunder.

Estrada himself took the court to task for issuing a "political" decision, saying he could not blame the justices because the Sandiganbayan's special division was "programmed to convict" him. A close reading of the decision on the plunder case, however, will show that--despite obvious pressure from both the Arroyo administration and from Estrada's political camp--the three members of the Sandiganbayan stuck scrupulously to the law's straight and narrow.

They acquitted the younger Estrada and the lawyer Ed Serapio because, in their assessment of the evidence, the prosecution failed to prove the case against the two co-accused beyond a reasonable doubt. They found that the Velarde account contained unimaginable wealth, but said the prosecution failed to prove the money was ill-gotten--except, that is, for P189 million, which they identified, beyond any doubt, as the commissions Estrada received from the purchase of Belle Corp. shares by the Social Security System and the Government Service Insurance System. The language of the decision reflects the quality of the reasoning: measured, assured, humane, just.

The Sandiganbayan's plunder decision reminds us again that, through the turmoil of the last seven lean years, beginning with Estrada's aborted impeachment trial in the Senate, the courts have played a leading role in holding our democracy together.

Closing the book

2007-09-14T05:47:00.002+08:00

THE Sandiganbayan decision on the trial of former President Joseph Estrada closes a tumultuous chapter in our history. Whether President Arroyo offers Mr. Estrada a pardon or the Supreme Court sees fit to reverse the lower court’s ruling, we should be relieved to close the book on a very controversial case that took the court more than six years to make a judgment on.

The trial took a long time because both defense and prosecution laid claims to postponements and recesses in the interest of a fair trial. Both sides, but particularly the defense, took advantage of the legal dodges allowed by law. They were meticulous in their preparation and thorough in the court skirmishes. In the end, due process was observed. The trial upheld the rule of law.

It was a controversial case for many reasons. Mr. Estrada was not a 20-year dictator but a popularly elected president when he was thrown out of power. His defense in the impeachment trial never prospered because the prosecutors walked out abruptly over an unopened envelope. His own secretary of defense and his generals withheld critical support during the second Edsa revolt. When the Supreme Court validated his ouster and installed the vice president, the accusations against him took a powerful, inexorable force.

The case also had no precedent. Mr. Estrada had claimed innocence from the beginning but the government built a powerful argument against him. He claimed he was offered exile but he refused it. He would turn down a presidential pardon if offered because acceptance would imply guilt. Many Filipinos probably believe him, from the jobless and underemployed masa to the swarm of politicians he helped get elected in the May 14 elections.

The Sandigan cleared Sen. Jinggoy Estrada and the lawyer Eduardo Serapio. That should help console the former president. The lower court also said he could continue to stay in his comfortable home in Tanay. A motion for reconsideration before the Sandigan holds out some hope, even if slim. An appeal to the Supreme Court offers a lifeline.

The nation took the news with remarkable calm. Fears of a violent outrage came to nothing. Philippine share prices closed 1.21 percent higher Wednesday as investors discounted political instability after the court decision. Resignation in the opposition ranks seems to be the popular mood. Mr. Estrada urged his followers to stay calm. The administration said it could now focus on the task of strengthening peace and the economy with greater vigor.

What lessons have we learned? First, almost every Filipino is saying we should forswear “people power” as an alternative to bad government. Second, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, like the professional Civil Service, should uphold neutrality and independence on a grave constitutional issue. Third, the system is unfair because it allows the guilty to walk away from a crime. Finally, we learned that there is no sanctuary from misdeeds in the highest office of the land. The Estrada precedent will cast a lingering shadow on the political landscape for a very long time.

Lesson of Erap case lost on officialdom

2007-09-14T05:47:00.001+08:00

There’s a big lesson in the Joseph Estrada verdict. If a President can be prosecuted and convicted for graft, so too may lower bureaucrats. And so too other Presidents.

Will that sink into their minds and strike fear in their hearts? They don’t show it.

Red tape and petty sleaze have declined of late due to stricter civil service rules. Anti-graft watchdog Transparency & Accountability Network gave that good news last month. But TAN hastened to add that the secrecy that shrouds high-level government deals has given rise to grander, more lucrative corrupt practices.

TAN executive director Vincent Lazatin pointed out the irony during a workshop on dishonesty. Malacañang’s issuance last year of an anti-red tape executive order dramatically reduced under-the-table transacting and undue delays. But it is also Malacañang that prevents the scrutiny of major deals decried as onerous or overpriced.

Lazatin’s observation came amid cries to reveal the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement and the broadband supply from China’s ZTE Corp. Malacañang has since relented to prior ratification of the pact by the Senate before enforcing, as the Constitution requires. But contrary to constitutional rule for transparency, it still refuses to show the ZTE contract to aggrieved competitors, telecoms experts, businessmen, legislators and the media. And it’s been five months since the contract was signed on April 21 in Boao, Hainan, China, with President Gloria Arroyo no less witnessing.

Last Wednesday Trade Sec. Peter Favila snubbed the Question Hour on ZTE at the House of Reps because he didn’t get presidential clearance to talk. Transport and Communication Sec. Larry Mendoza declined, although he is the contract signatory and thus accountable officer. Expect the same to happen on Thursday at the Senate, where Finance Sec. Gary Teves, former economic czar Romy Neri, and seconds have been invited. A Malacañang factotum yelled to them to secure Arroyo’s assent to go, or else. Teves has gone anew on medical leave.

Opacity marked many recent government acts, among them the sale of sequestered assets. All run to hundreds of millions or billions of pesos. All are being questioned in Congress, the courts, or coffeeshop murmurs. But the worst embodiment of government contracting is the ZTE deal. It not only is being hidden from the public, but also is overpriced, based on the ignored offers of two rivals. An exclusive government broadband setup is even needless and would end up a white elephant, economists aver. Yet it would force Filipinos to repay a loan of $330 million (P16 billion) for 20 years at 3-4 percent interest.

Early this year the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy asked businessmen to rate government corruption from 0 as best possible score, to 10 as worst. They graded the Philippines 9. A Social Weather Station poll in March also found high disenchantment due to graft. Lazatin said it was becoming tougher for anti-graft groups like TAN to wring information and access documents from the Arroyo administration. Among such papers are the supposedly public statements of assets and liabilities of government men.

The situation is not about to improve. Last week five major business groups denounced “a growing culture of impunity” in the government. They wondered how Comelec chief Benjamin Abalos could travel at least four times to Shenzhen last year courtesy of ZTE executives, when he was supposed to be busy preparing for clean and orderly elections. They also warned Mendoza against belittling the outcry against secrecy in the deal.

The middle-class Black-and-White Movement also decried the officials’ “acquired narcissism.” People in high places, it noted, find it easy to behave in bizarre ways, as if election or appointment entitles them to do as they please, and operate under different rules because of stature.

Mendoza’s refusal alone to divulge the contract should be grounds for censure. The Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards requires officials to reply to requests within 15 days. The Red Tape Law further makes them produce complex papers within ten days. Yet Malacañang is silent about his silence.

Abalos’ admission of free travels also breaches the Code of Conduct. Yet the Comelec refuses to investigate him.

Estrada’s apologists maintain that if ever he took jueteng payola, he never stole from the public till. That may be hair-splitting. But the Arroyo administration has yet to explain fully the fertilizer scam that presaged the Garci tapes of the 2004 elections. More than a billion pesos were misspent on that. And now it has to explain the ZTE scam that presaged the Bedol affair of the 2007 balloting. About $70 million (P3.5 billion) reportedly was illegally raised for the campaign this time around.

Truly, the lesson of the Erap verdict is lost on officialdom.

Judicious spending

2007-09-14T05:44:00.000+08:00

Now that a former president of the republic has been convicted of plunder, public officials may want to exercise more prudence in pushing projects with stiff price tags to be shouldered by Juan de la Cruz. One of the most controversial projects so far is the government’s deal with Chinese firm ZTE Corp. for a national broadband network, which will require taxpayers to repay a debt of $329 million. That is over 10 times higher than the amount that warranted the conviction of Joseph Estrada for plunder. From the signing of a document in connection with the project during the campaign period last April, the public has been kept in the dark about details of the broadband deal.

Now certain quarters are expressing similar concerns over another project, again involving information and communication technology. A study conducted by the Philippine Business for Education or PBED – a grouping of the country’s top industrialists and groups involved in improving the quality of education – raises questions about the cost of the Cyber Education project and even the necessity for it.

The CyberEd project, to be undertaken by the Department of Education, involves setting up multimedia classrooms in 37,794 of the more than 42,000 public schools around the country. Each special classroom will be equipped with two PCs, four television sets, a printer and an antenna, at a cost of P479,000 per room. The PBED noted that similar projects undertaken by private groups with the education department have considerably lower costs.

The country certainly needs to catch up with most of its neighbors in developing ICT competence especially among public school students. Even within the country, there is a wide disparity in ICT competence between the rich and poor, and the gap continues to grow. Children from affluent families get to play with computers almost as soon as there is no longer any danger that they will spill milk on the keyboard. Less fortunate children learn to use computers only in high school, and only on a limited basis.

Narrowing the knowledge gap, however, must be done with care, especially when huge amounts of public funds are involved. In a sector where every peso in the budget allotment is precious, the government cannot afford careless spending. Before another scandal erupts, the CyberEd project must be reviewed.

Lessons from Erap

2007-09-13T00:14:00.001+08:00

It took six years and four months, but it finally happened: a president deposed amid charges of corruption was convicted of plunder and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. Where Filipinos failed in the case of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, it succeeded with Joseph Estrada, who was also permanently barred from holding public office.

The ruling handed down by the Sandiganbayan yesterday cannot please everyone, and the political opposition is trying to give the verdict a political spin. Even before Estrada was arrested in late April 2001, however, many Filipinos were already convinced of his guilt, throwing him out of Malacañang amid his impeachment trial for large-scale corruption, and then replacing him with his constitutional successor. An indication of public sentiment regarding the case was the dismal turnout at the rally for Estrada yesterday near the Sandiganbayan. The peaceful response to the verdict buoyed the markets.

The fate that has befallen a man who won the presidency by the largest margin ever in this country should serve as a welcome warning that corruption does not pay. The message is valuable in a society where corruption is deeply rooted and where public office is not regarded as a public trust but rather as a sure path to personal wealth. The nation’s failure to make any of the Marcoses pay for the abuses of the martial law regime, including the “kleptocracy” of the so-called conjugal dictatorship, gave the impression that in this country, the small fry get caught while the big fish get away with everything.

Estrada is the biggest fish ever caught in the anti-graft net, and his conviction for massive corruption or plunder shows a nation’s determination to stamp out the scourge. Even if he continues to receive VIP treatment as a prisoner and eventually gets pardoned or paroled, he is being made to account for high crimes. A powerful message has been sent: the people are watching, and no one is above the law.

Erap vindication will come

2007-09-13T00:12:00.000+08:00

Joseph Estrada had resigned himself that he would be adjudged guilty even before the Sandiganbayan handed down its verdict yesterday. He said he did not expect justice under the Arroyo administration, and that his worry was the reaction of his supporters to his conviction.

Now Erap is back in his rest house in Tanay pending "further orders from the court." His supporters, stunned by the judgment, have gone home with bitterness and anger in their hearts. Nothing was heard of from Gloria, with her stand in, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye, pontificating about how the administration has an economy to run and peace to be won.

The nation, in short, is back to where it was before judgment day, deeply riven by fault lines generated by the ouster of Estrada six years ago. The healing presidency promised by Gloria Arroyo has turned out to be more corrupt, more incompetent and more vicious in dealing with its perceived enemies.

The lines are becoming more sharply drawn. The expected review of the case by the Supreme Court may temporarily extend the prevailing uneasy calm. But the closure the nation is hoping for cannot be expected from this source.

As we earlier said it is Gloria, not Erap, who stands on the dock of history here. Despite his conviction and continued deprivation of liberty (being kept away from his friends, his family and his ailing mother is certainly not a vacation in a resort as his critics paint it to be), a defiant Erap is the real judge behind the scene from whom Gloria cannot escape judgment.

From Day One, Gloria wished that Erap had slithered away to foreign exile to legitimize her power grab. Erap, despite his well-known personal weaknesses, has proven to be a man of unbending principles. We would not be surprised if following the Supreme Court’s affirmation of the judgment, Gloria would dangle before him pardon for the "crimes" the Sandiganbayan found he had committed

The reality is, strangely enough, it is Erap who has all the time in the world to vindicate himself. In fact, he is at the moment as good as vindicated.

Edsa 2 is now widely seen as a grievous mistake for severely weakening the constitutional order. The Dionysian carousing of Erap while in the Palace is now seen as an authentic expression of his essential humanity in contrast to Gloria’s unfeeling, uncaring, mechanistic calculus of gains and losses (mostly gains for Gloria and her family; mostly losses for the rest).

In contrast, Gloria is due to exit in three years, with her reputation and her credibility in shreds. We don’t rule out redemption in her remaining three years. But we’re not holding our breath.

A new purpose for APEC

2007-09-12T06:59:00.000+08:00

It’s as good as it gets considering this is APEC.”

That was how a foreign newswire quoted President Arroyo’s view of the just-concluded summit of 21 leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. It is at once a positive assessment of the new initiatives drawn up during the Sydney meet, as well as a subtle indictment of its lack of progress on the key issue of jump-starting global trade negotiations under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The President is no rabid supporter of the WTO. After all, she pushed for delays in the implementation of certain trade commitments early in her term in response to appeals from local industries for import relief.

But as observers have said since its founding, the APEC remains four adjectives in search of a noun, to underline the group’s failure to come up with binding agreements to move forward the global trade agenda.

Frustration has emboldened not a few members to push for the conversion of the consultative body into a free-trade area, much like the growing number of regional and bilateral accords that have risen in the wake of the WTO’s Seattle impasse.

Cynicism over the global trading regime has grown, as the promises of free trade have yet to bear fruit. Instead of more jobs and higher incomes, free trade destroyed homegrown industries and wiped out jobs, especially in the developing world.

This is because the developed world has yet to dismantle barriers that have prevented their poor counterparts from shipping more of their produce. As unemployment and poverty push more of the developing world’s population to seek jobs abroad, the developed world responded by further raising barriers to the movement of labor, especially after the 9/11 terror attack.

In contrast, footloose capital mostly from the developed world lay waste developing markets in what a number of experts is calling “toxic finance,” an apparent swipe at the developed world’s failure to rein in its hedge funds and greedy money-men.

This is exactly how the polemic on substandard exports, triggered by China’s poor safety record, is shaping up: Beijing, as the self-appointed spokesman of the developing world, is trading barbs with the United States and other developed countries that issued recalls of the mainland’s products.

This word war, conveniently framed as a battle between the developed and the developing world, however masks the tensions among members of each bloc. Among the rich countries, the US and the European Union remain miles apart on farm subsidies.

With regard to China’s safety record, other developing countries, mostly in Southeast Asia, have their issues with Beijing. China’s refusal to acknowledge its substandard shipments risks a trade spate not only with developed countries, but also with its developing Asian neighbors.

What used to be an argument between the developed and developing worlds has degenerated to shouting matches and bickering between and among the rich and the poor members of the WTO. In short, the global trading order is in disarray, which is exactly what free traders had warned about years ago if the WTO wasn’t organized soon.

Amid this chaos, we however believe that the APEC may have found a new purpose. It however has to rise to the challenge and help the WTO police its ranks. Standards must be imposed, but the consensus-building approach the APEC is known for can soften increasingly hard positions.

If it were to persist in its role as an informal consensus-building mechanism for the global trading regime, then APEC should be allowed to smooth the trading order’s rough edges. Barring that, then the time to wind down the group is long overdue.

Judgment Day

2007-09-12T06:57:00.000+08:00

The long-awaited decision on the Estrada plunder case will be handed down Wednesday, and everybody is awaiting it with the proverbial bated breath. The accused, former President Joseph Estrada, has been having sleepless nights, and his situation has been aggravated by worry over the condition of his ailing 102-year-old mother. The nation just wants to have a closure to this highly divisive case.

Either way the case ends -- conviction or acquittal -- the government expects some civil disturbance to take place, and is preparing for it. The civil society groups that were largely responsible for Estrada’s fall from power in 2001 cannot see how the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court can return a verdict of not guilty when the damning evidence which were presented with crystal-clear clarity at the impeachment trial of the former president in the Senate were also the evidence presented at the court trial.

The defense contends that the prosecution has failed to prove that Estrada is guilty beyond reasonable doubt. But even some of the former president’s leading lawyers, like former senator Rene Saguisag, seem to be resigned to a guilty verdict. Saguisag said, “We don’t expect a lower court (the Sandiganbayan) to tell the Supreme Court that it is wrong.”

A verdict of not guilty could give rise to some complications, including the possibility of Estrada claiming the presidency back from Ms Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, although he has said he would not do that. The fact is that his unserved portion of the six-year presidential term has lapsed, and there is no way that he can turn back the hands of time.

A verdict of guilty could inflame the supporters of Estrada who still wields considerable political clout, and could spark a repeat of “EDSA 3,” the rising of the enraged masses who came to within inches of taking over Malacañang. The military and the police have said they are prepared for a similar eventuality on Wednesday.

Months before the scheduled promulgation of the decision, calls were made for the grant of pardon to Estrada in the event he is convicted. But Estrada himself has said he would not accept a pardon for that would practically mean an admission of guilt. He said he would appeal a possible decision of conviction to the Supreme Court.

A grant of presidential pardon that would be almost simultaneous with the handing down of a guilty verdict would send the wrong signal to the nation and the world. It would seem as if the government is not serious in punishing grafters and corrupt officials.

The best way to put a closure to Estrada plunder case is just to await the decision of the Sandiganbayan and to let justice and the rule of law take their course. Violence and extraordinary measures have no place in a democratic, civilized society.

Victorious

MANILA, Philippines -- They buried Luciano Pavarotti, the global opera superstar, on Saturday after a final, tear-stained standing ovation at somber funeral rites in his hometown of Modena, Italy. Death has stilled the live voice of one of the best tenors the world has ever known, but his recorded voice -- and his memory -- will live on for as long as recording devices work, and for as long as the world loves good music.

Superlatives have been used to describe Pavarotti, the best loved and most celebrated tenor since Caruso: “one of the world’s greatest voices,” “best-selling classical artist” (100 million records sold since the 1960s) and “an enormous crossover celebrity” whose appeal went far beyond the confines of classical opera. But more than a singer, Pavarotti was a humanitarian, a charismatic personality, a real human being.

Pavarotti took opera out of the stuffed-shirt confines of the opera houses of the elite, and by singing with such artists as Bono, Elton John and the Spice Girls brought opera to the masses and even the hiphop set. He captured a global audience for opera when he sang the aria “Nessun Dorma” (Nobody Sleeps) from Puccini’s “Turandot” for football’s 1990 World Cup finals. The highly successful “Three Tenors” concerts he had with Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras reached 1.5 billion people, and filled stadiums.

The last line of “Nessun Dorma” goes: “All’alba vincero” -- “At dawn I will be victorious.” Truly, Pavarotti has been victorious, his voice has conquered death, and he will be remembered for as long as the world loves good music.

Both sides guilty

2007-09-12T06:56:00.000+08:00

IT’S BEEN THE BATTLE OF THE ICONS LEADING UP to today. Yesterday, a full-page ad, signed by society matrons who have been busy signing pro-administration manifestos since 2005, came out with another signed statement appealing to the public to respect the Sandiganbayan’s verdict. Their ad was plastered with pictures of Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, former President Fidel V. Ramos and Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Teresita de Castro.

The camp of former President Joseph Estrada did its share. The ex-President himself growled that he was prepared to endure imprisonment in Muntinlupa. Sen. Jinggoy Estrada speculated on an unfavorable verdict. The defendant’s camp certainly did its share of trying to condition the public mind, including applying for a series of rally permits.

Fortress Malacañang has been on pins and needles for weeks now, maneuvering both publicly and behind the scenes to diminish the impact of whatever verdict the Sandiganbayan hands down. On one hand, it has pulled out all the stops to project power. That projection ranges from the Presidential Security Group not only being in full battle gear for some time now, but its commander remaining in the Palace compound even when the President went abroad.

On the other hand, its efforts to project a sense of unassailable armed strength have been belied by its dangling a proposal for an amnesty. A proposal, we’ve pointed out in the past, that has been used for its own purposes by Estrada’s partisans, even though Estrada himself has gone through the motions of saying he’d refuse any pardon or amnesty offer.

The result has been a country—including the financial markets—nervously awaiting a verdict, while the Palace and Estrada’s people work to undercut both the actual verdict and its effects on the defendants. Both sides, it bears repeating, have thus tried to undercut the court. Just as they systematically tried to undercut the trial itself, including dragging it out, which delayed the delivery of justice but gave both sides additional room for political maneuvering. Central to both administration and Estrada loyalist thinking was projecting the case as a rallying point for the faithful, instead of acknowledging that the justice system represented the best way to secure the interests of the citizenry as a whole.

Ferdinand Marcos might have escaped the long arm of the law. His disgrace, however, raised the bar with regard to the accountability of all his successors. Before Marcos, there was no crime called plunder. Since 1991, plunder as a capital crime has become a Damocles’ sword hanging over the head of every president of the republic.

The two former presidents of South Korea, Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, caused a sensation in Asia when they were convicted and imprisoned for acts committed during their terms. Both served only a year in jail, receiving a pardon from President Kim Dae-jung as an act of national reconciliation. The Philippines had a golden opportunity to match the symbolic impact of the conviction of two former presidents in a sister democracy. Sadly, today, our country has to confront the reality that for too many, the process has been so tainted as to deny the broader public a sense of satisfaction, whatever the verdict might be.

It will be premature to say anything concerning the verdict. We can only hope that the public will be pleasantly surprised by the Sandiganbayan decision. Just as the Supreme Court has managed to pull the nation back from the brink, despite the at times collective madness of the executive and legislative branches, so, too, may the Sandiganbayan amaze the public with a demonstration of the fearless and impartial application of the law.

If not, both prosecution and defense can still file an appeal before the Supreme Court. What the administration and opposition surely deserve censure for, even at this point, is how they both tried to turn what could have been an impartial trial into a never-ending series of opportunities to personalize, and thus politicize, the law. They will always be guilty of that.

Politics: Nothing but corruption

2007-09-11T06:11:00.001+08:00

POLITICS, as the word is commonly understood, is nothing but corruption.

This has been proven beyond cavil about Gloria Arroyo, who has used every dirty trick in the book of politics and corrupt practices to satisfy her intense desire for power and pelf.

She has built structures of deceit and corruption ever since she usurped the presidency from Joseph "Erap" Estrada in 2001, and, once again, when she cheated Fernando Poe Jr. on her way to six more years in Malacañang in 2004.

Indeed, in the last six years of her purloined presidency, she has raised corruption to a new level of magnitude unmatched by past administrations. And this dismaying fact has not escaped the attention of Filipinos in all levels of society.

They know this, and they have seen it all, in the scandal-ridden Arroyo administration. And they have affirmed this in the latest survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS). It showed that 71 % of the people believe that she has been enriching herself through corrupt practices. Those surveyed came from the ABC or upper and middle classes (73 %), the D Class (69 %), and the E Class (73 %).

Oh yes, in the same survey Estrada got better results on the corruption perception category. Of those polled, 66 % do not believe he enriched himself while he was president.

This latest blow dealt Gloria followed closely an earlier SWS survey that showed her trust rating was only 18 %, compared to a trust rating of 64 % for Estrada. In this new survey 76 % of ABC or upper and middle classes, 71 % in Class D and 73 % in Class E, all agreed that corruption has increased under the Arroyo administration.

The shocking survey results should have sent shivers down the spine of Gloria and her political minions and coterie of economic and financial advisers. But as it has been their wont, they have shrugged their shoulders and dismissed it all as untrue. "Hindi totoo ‘yan, "one Palace factotum arrogantly said. "Wala naman corruption nangyayari sa gobyerno." (That’s not true… There’s no corruption in government.)

This very clearly shows the moral apathy of those now in high places whenever conspicuous corruption in government is publicly exposed.

They are blind, and they refuse to read the handwriting on the Palace wall, mindless of that day when it will collapse into a heap of dust with all of them underneath!

An evening of arias and Broadway songs. I was elated to hear Rachelle Gerodias sing as guest artist in a song recital of baritone Noel Azcona at the Philamlife Theater on UN Avenue last Sunday night.

Rachelle was a clear standout with the clarion brilliance of her soprano voice. She displayed strength, accuracy and clarity in her singing of the arias "Sempre Libera" from Verdi’s "La Traviata" and "Chi il bel sogno doretta" from Puccini’s "Le Rondino." She exuded total security and self-confidence while spinning the melodic lines in the two arias, combining her sensuous and soaring voice to suit the emotion of the moment and inflecting the lyrics with theatrical energy.

Noel Azcona exhibited his musical sophistication in singing nine operatic arias and Broadway songs by Handel, Dvorak, Schubert, Mozart, Gounod, Schoenberg, and Rodgers and Hammerstein. He also sang the haunting "Magbalik Ka Hirang," a kundiman by Nicanor Abelardo. He possesses a superb voice that could easily glide from bass to baritone and even tenor levels, but, sad to say, he lacks clarity in singing the Latin, German, Italian and Russian lyrics in his repertoire.

Noel and Rachelle duetted in the delightfully gay aria "Papageno, Papagena" (from Mozart’s "Magic Flute"), and they also performed two other duets, "I Got Plenty O’Nuttin" and "Bess You Are My Woman Now" (from Gershwin’s "Porgy and Bess.")

In all the arias and songs, Mary Anne Espina, assisting artist, accompanied Rachelle and Noel with verve, dexterity and authority, on the grand piano.

Finally, Noel Azcona ended his song recital with the singing of "Anyone Can Whistle" (from Sondheim’s "Anyone Can Whistle" and "Wheels of a Dream" (from S. Flaverty’s "Ragtime", together with the internationally acclaimed UST Singers, with Prof. Fidel Calalang at the piano.

When the appreciative audience rewarded him with a standing ovation and cries for encore, Noel sang "Lenski’s Aria" from Tchaikovsky’s "Eugene Onegin", and "Iyo Kailan Paman," a serenade by Angel Pena.

By the way, Noel’s song recital was the first of three final presentations of impresario Pablo Tariman who announced, sadly, that he was drawing the curtains to a close on his "Great Performances Series", after the concerts of Alvaro Pierri, gold medalist classical guitarist, and Ilya Rashkovsky, prizewinning pianist, on December 4 and 8.

The legendary Luciano Mar warns drug industry lobbyists. His classic Italian tenor voice has been silenced by the ravages of pancreatic cancer.

"The voice of Luciano Pavarotti," as one music critic described it, "had the warm, enveloping sound, touched with a bit of husky baritonal darkness, which made his flights into the gleaming upper range all the more miraculous."

I heard Pavarotti, then dubbed the "King of the High Cs," for the first time when he sang "Tosca" at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. And later, I heard him again at the Philippine International Conference Center (PICC). He was not at his best when he performed there because he was nursing a terrible cold, but he still to managed to spin the lyrical phrases with bel-canto elegance of the arias and Ialian songs in his repertoire.

Now, the world of opera won’t hear anymore that powerful lyric voice that captured the hearts of millions of music opera.

Bravo, bravo, bravo, Luciano Pavarotti!

Guilty or not guilty?

2007-09-11T06:10:00.001+08:00

That’s the question most Filipinos will be asking more intensely beginning today until the Sandiganbayan releases its verdict on the plunder case against Joseph Estrada, et. al., on Wednesday.

Not that we’ve not been asking ourselves that question since Estrada was first arraigned. It’s just that with the date of the decision being officially handed down just around the corner, the excitement – and the tension – is beginning to build.

And there are so many other factors present today that add up to the tension as well as to the drama.

Even the health condition of Estrada’s mother, Doña Mary Ejercito, has added to the emotions surrounding the coming announcement of the verdict. Somehow, I cannot escape the feeling of that her condition is some blessing in disguise should the verdict be unfavorable as that would always be a tough thing to bear for a mother. At the same time you can just imagine the difficulty that someone in Estrada’s shoes will have to face – a verdict on the one hand which could be unfavorable, plus the deteriorating health condition of your mother with whom you cannot always be.

The other day I tool a poll of friends, asking them what they would like the verdict to be as against what they think the verdict will be. With regard to the latter, the answer was an overwhelming "guilty", for almost the same reasons.

One, they argued that the Arroyo administration cannot afford a "not guilty" verdict as it will re-raise all the questions about the legitimacy of the transition in January of 2001, with some even insisting that a not guilty verdict should restore Erap to the presidency!

Some even said that a guilty verdict is all that the Arroyo government wants, to put a closure to Edsa 2, and provide it a golden opportunity to look magnanimous by offering a pardon or giving a grant of clemency.

A few others also take the tack that the Sandiganbayan wouldn’t dare to "overrule" the Supreme Court with a not guilty verdict – not that the highest court has directly ruled on the Erap case but that the upholding of the 2001 transition would be put into serious legal doubt if the graft court were to rule otherwise.

In fact I don’t even remember hearing anyone of my friends tell me that the ruling will be "not guilty".

On the first question, however, the opinion I gathered was evenly divided. I found most amusing, however, as well as most thought-provoking, the argument that the ruling will hopefully be "guilty" so that Gloria will realize that she is next!

As explained, the reasoning goes like this: A guilty verdict on Estrada should send a clear signal to one and all that even presidents have to go to jail for the criminal offenses they commit. What is true for Estrada should be true for Marcos, as well as Aquino, for Ramos as well as for Gloria – of course with the only exception where the legal period within which to bring a case against any of the former p[residents for a criminal offense has since expired.

This is not the case for Gloria, though, as people are waiting for her term to expire in 2010 – or for her to leave public office whether this be before or after 2010, so that proper charges could be leveled against her. An Estrada conviction will set that all-important precedent of a president on the dock, and a number of my friends see this as one of the silver linings of an Estrada conviction.

Erap today, Gloria tomorrow.

I suppose I am like most Filipinos. I am watching the drama unfold with bated breath, knowing that there is far more an impact on our society than just the here and now and the question whether a former president will walk or will remain in jail.

I agree with a newspaper ad the other day that the decision, hopefully, will be a matter of pure application of law on facts, but at the same time I sense that this being the Philippines such will remain an ideal for years to come.

But I do yearn for the time when the law is applied even to presidents and kings, where a president can go to jail for lying, stealing or cheating the same way that a working man can; where theft is theft whether it be for P1,000 or for P1 billion; where a crime is a crime whether it is a Cabinet secretary who commits it or an office secretary.

Will the Estrada decision be the first step in the right direction? Hopefully it will, and in the process take the sting out from the judgment. Because more than the guilt or innocence of Estrada, what is at stake is the process of restoring the rule of law to a country where the high and the mighty benefit from a different interpretation and execution of such rule of law.

Guilty or not guilty? Erap is not the only one on trial here. So is Gloria. So are all of us.

Let’s see who gets justice in the end.

Socialized Medicine: A ‘Sicko’ (1)

2007-09-11T06:09:00.001+08:00

The infamous low-bud-get and controversial movie producer, Mi-chael Moore, arch-critic of US President Bush, came out with a new docu-film, "Sicko," released July 27, 2007, denouncing the US Healthcare system and advocating Socialized Medicine. The title "Sicko," in my opinion, more aptly describes Moore and his concept than the current healthcare delivery in America.

Otherwise known as a "government, or nationalized, or state-sponsored healthcare system," Socialized Medicine provides what is supposed to be "free" medical care to the people. And this is a misconception, if not a myth. Actually, it is not free, because the funding comes from the massive taxes levied by the government on its citizens. The people are really the ones who pay for their healthcare, with the exorbitant taxes collected from them by the state through mandated steeper taxation. This government-controlled medical care delivery is akin to nationally-sponsored veterans hospitals or provincial/city funded public or charity hospitals in the Philippines, or in the United States.

What does the United States have?

The USA has a free enterprise, private, system of healthcare delivery, where its citizens have a choice, and the options include personal out-of-pocket medical expenses, private insurance coverage (like Blue Cross/Blue Shield, etc.) which they, or their employees, could buy for them, or thru an HMO or PPO, which they could join, and the government-funded Medicare entitlements for all citizens who are 65 and over. Unfortunately, the Democrats in general, exemplified by Hillary Clinton, are in favor of government-controlled, nationalized, or socialized medicine for the country. Thanks to the Republicans, this move has been (and will always be) rebuked and thwarted to protect the integrity of the health care for its people. The imperfections within the US health care system are a direct result of statism, government intervention, and not the failure of its current healthcare delivery system itself. While the existing US healthcare delivery system is not perfect, it provides prompt access to state-of-the-art quality medical care second to none, compared to socialized medicine, where a long wait for medical services is a rule rather than an exception.

Which countries have socialized medicine?

Some of the nations with socialized medicine include the Great Britain and other European countries, Canada, the former USSR, Australia, New Zealand, and Cuba. And practically without exception, the plague of socialized medicine has victimized the citizens of these countries, who are up in arms, vehemently complaining about their "sicko" government-sponsored/managed healthcare delivery system. Like the United States, the Philippines, and many Asian countries, have the fee-for-service free enterprise system of healthcare.

How do people like socialized medicine?

People in those countries who have experienced their government-sponsored healthcare delivery system are mostly unhappy and frustrated, because, while medical care is "free," access to such "free care" is difficult. Most patients have to wait in a long queue, often for weeks, if not months, to obtain the medical services they need. This inefficiency and delays, and the concern about quality of care, have led affluent people in those countries to outsource surgical services to the United States or to Asian countries, where Medical Tourism is a multi-billion dollar new and rapidly evolving industry today. Some of the serious disadvantages of socialized medicine are listed below and continued in this column next Saturday, together with a number of most revealing and critical news headlines in those countries printed and televised media condemning their nationalized government-sponsored healthcare system.

1. To begin with, to provide the so-called "free" healthcare to all its citizens, the government must get the money from somewhere, and act like a health insurance company. To fund socialized medicine, which is exorbitantly expensive, the government must collect inordinately greater taxes from the people. In essence, it’s actually the people who are paying for their own medical care, so in reality it is not "free" healthcare, after all.

2. The high taxes collected from, say, Peter, who is healthy, will be used to pay the medical care of Paul. And if the latter continues to abuse his health, by living an unhealthy lifestyle, and requires repeated medical care, Peter’s taxes will continue to drain from the government coffers. Since people can see a doctor or go to the emergency room, even for a simple cold or headache, because it is "free" and they do not have to pay, they abuse the system, leading to a very high cost of overburdened healthcare system. So, there is that abuse and inequity. In the free enterprise system, you pay for your own healthcare expenses, so if you abuse yourself, you pay for it, and other people do not have to be burdened to pay for your medical expenses. There is more equity, fairness, and responsibility in this system.

3. To begin with, to provide the so-called "free" healthcare to all its citizens, the government must get the money from somewhere, and act like a health insurance company. To fund socialized medicine, which is exorbitantly expensive, the government must collect inordinately greater taxes from the people. In essence, it’s actually the people who are paying for their own medical care, so in reality it is not "free" healthcare, after all.

Beyond personal culpability

2007-09-11T06:07:00.000+08:00

Let’s not be deceived by the formality of the legal processes and the surface meanings of the trial of Joseph Estrada and the handing down of the verdict by the Sandiganbayan tomorrow.

Gloria Arroyo and what she represents, not Estrada, are on the dock here. Whichever way the Sandiganbayan decides, the jury will continue to be out on the question of the guilt or innocence of Estrada.

But the "guilt" of Arroyo, beginning with her usurpation of the presidency and her continuing debasement of constitutional processes to secure her continued stay in power, is as good as proven.

More important than the personal culpability of Erap and Gloria, however, are the social dynamics that that have been temporarily frozen, as it were, during these last six years. We are talking about the continuing struggle between the masses and the elites that are personified by Erap and Gloria in the Filipino’s march toward a just and equitable society.

It may seem anachronistic in this, the first decade of the 21st century, to view social dynamics through the lenses of the masses’ struggle for a place in modern society and the elites’ determination to keep their dominant and privilege position. But that’s precisely the self-understanding of the two protagonists in the drama.

Erap offered himself as the hope of the masses and won the 1998 election with an overwhelming mandate. Erap has been in detention for six years, but the perception that he is the champion of the poor and the powerless remains undimmed. Gloria has been representing herself as the embodiment of the ethos of the modernizing elite. But her mis-governance and corruption makes even the Makati Business Club cringe in embarrassment.

Gloria has given the modernizing elite a bad name. From a historical point of view, this is probably the biggest crime she has committed against Filipino nation. Counting from 2001 to 2010, she would have wasted almost a decade of opportunity in moving the economy strongly forward and in empowering the poor, two processes that are mutually reinforcing.

These unresolved social contradictions will continue to define our future in the near-term.

If Erap is found innocent, the bottled up pressure could tear the social consensus which has been frayed by a government lacking in legitimacy. Hopefully, elections of 2010 could come soon enough to enable the people to air their accumulated frustration and anger.

If Erap is found guilty, we see a massive outpouring of outrage. This could probably be contained through heavy-handed deployment of the state’s repressive apparatuses. Again, hopefully until the 2010 elections.

Three years of uncertainty. Three years of instability either way. And probably beyond as our scenarios are based on the assumption, which we are forced to make because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate, that the 2010 elections would lead to a return of social consensus.

A protracted war

2007-09-11T06:06:00.000+08:00

Britain’s Tony Blair stepped down and the Republicans lost the US Congress as the war on terror became defined for many people by the mess in Iraq. Meanwhile, as the sixth anniversary of the terror attacks in the United States approached, the world’s most wanted man again appeared in a videotaped message, hinting at more mass murders.

The appearance of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a new video was a grim reminder that the global war on terror, dramatically sparked by the suicide attacks in New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, is going to be a protracted one. While Bin Laden’s continued existence is seen by many as one of the biggest failures of the US-led war, it also serves as a warning to the world against the perils of complacency.

The atrocity of 9/11 was hatched years in advance. To this day the motives that drove the men who actually perpetrated those crimes against humanity remain incomprehensible to much of the civilized world. Six years after 9/11, governments are still responding to the deadly threat through trial and error, balancing the requirements of national security with civil liberties. Around the globe the balancing act is not easy. The Philippines is not the only country where citizens are debating how much privacy and freedom they are willing to give up in exchange for public safety.

Since 9/11, al-Qaeda has launched a major attack or attempted one in different countries about once a year, hitting mostly civilian targets. This is a borderless conflict, where a faceless enemy knows how to bide its time and is not bound by international agreements on the conduct of war.

Governments have developed new weapons to fight the threat, including legal means to foil terror plots. Authorities have apparently scored some successes, or there would have been more attacks on the scale of 9/11, the 2002 nightclub bombings in Bali or the train bombing in Madrid. As Osama bin Laden has indicated to his disciples, however, they aren’t about to give up trying. There will be many grievous errors in this war, but the world cannot afford to stop fighting. Through development, education, dialogue, law enforcement, and yes, through a military response where needed, the world can prevent a repeat of the 9/11 atrocities.

Once may be coincidence, but twice?

2007-09-10T06:19:00.000+08:00

Will we be saying goodbye to Medy Poblador soon? Surely she will be sum-moned by the Senate for the inquiry on the "Hello Garci" tapes. On Friday when she was tagged by intelligence agent Vidal Doble as the Palace operative who offered him money in exchange for not testifying in previous investigations, her office said she was not in. The next day, the Palace said she was on her own in dipping her hands in the wiretapping scandal.

Today, the first working day after Vidal’s testimony, we would not be surprised if no trace of Medy, undersecretary in the office of the press secretary, can be found. She likely could have boarded a commercial flight during the weekend to destinations beyond the reach of Senate process servers.

The Palace men in charge of damage control ought to have learned their lessons after the misadventures of former election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano and former agriculture undersecretary Joc Joc Bolante. Garcillano had to be spirited out via a private jet and could not return for months while the heat was on. He’s now ensconced in his farm in Bukidnon but has to continue living the lie he never went abroad.

Bolante’s case is more complicated. He slipped in and out through the airports despite a warrant of arrest issued by the Senate, presumably with the assistance of immigration officials. His status as a fugitive caught up with him when he landed in Los Angeles. He’s safe for the moment as a guest of Uncle Sam while he is fighting deportation. And even if he is, there are bets his destination of choice will not be Manila.

Bolante. Garcillano. Poblador. Specific examples of the length the Gloria administration would go to block the pursuit of the truth about its cheating, lying and thieving ways.

Those who can’t or are unable to contemplate living abroad, possibly for good, meanwhile, continue to hide under the skirt of executive privilege to evade appearing before legislative inquiries. Former AFP chief of staff Gen. (ret.) Efren Abu and Rear Adm. Tirso Danga, former chief of the Intelligence Service of the AFP, were no-shows Friday as they invoked MC 108.

Why invoke executive privilege when the issue at hand is the illegal wiretapping mounted by uniformed men in the service of the state? And why does Gloria agree to extending her mantle of privilege when the issue is how to ensure that nobody, especially agents of the state, listen to communications among public officials as well as citizens?

What is the message the administration wants to send across? That its people are above the law? The issue has gone beyond cheating, lying and thieving. At stake in the current inquiry is no less than respect and obedience for the law.

Hot news

2007-09-10T06:18:00.000+08:00

The Sydney declaration is not a breakthrough; it is not a milestone in the long march to find what the joint statement called “an enduring global solution to climate change.” But it is a step forward.

The statement by the leaders attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Sydney, Australia, declared their resolve to lower greenhouse gas emissions. “We are committed to the global objective of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere ... The world needs to slow, stop and then reverse the growth of global greenhouse gas emissions.”

To be sure, the Sydney Apec Leaders’ Declaration on Climate Change, Energy Security and Clean Development, to give it its complete name, speaks only of the need to work together to achieve a “long-term aspirational global emissions reduction goal,” in preparation for “an effective post-2012 international arrangement.” In other words, the consensus-driven APEC regional grouping did not call for binding commitments on the part of each member-economy to lower greenhouse gas emissions. That makes the Sydney Declaration decidedly unlike the 10-year-old Kyoto Protocol, which binds its signatories to specific reduction targets. Commitments under that controversial agreement, which took effect in 2005, end in 2012.

The principal supporters of the Sydney initiative are Australia, this year’s host of the annual summit, and the United States: staunch allies, robust business partners—and stubborn non-signatories to the Kyoto Protocol.

Essentially, what the Sydney Declaration does for the two economies is to give them the breathing room they need to flex the necessary political muscle at home. By cutting a high profile in their support for this new APEC initiative to counter global warming (the declaration was issued a day before the end of the summit, to coincide with US President George W. Bush’s accelerated schedule), both Australia and the United States can say they are doing something on the climate change front, without actually committing to specific emission reduction targets until at least 2012.

But consensus diplomacy being what it is, the Sydney Declaration also offers something for developing economies, especially China. The very concept of a long-term goal meets Chinese (as well as Canadian) preferences.

While the language of diversity in unity—”The future international climate change arrangement needs to reflect differences in economic and social conditions among economies and be consistent with our common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities”—can be said to favor both developed and developing economies, the latter found the statement’s unequivocal commitment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to their advantage.

“That’s fine,” President Macapagal-Arroyo told reporters the night the statement was released, “because at least they all recognized that the UN is the real forum for decision-making.”

“The important thing is not to undermine the UN,” she added.

As we said, a little something for everyone. But because consensus groupings like APEC and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations operate on the fundamental principle of precedents, the Sydney Declaration can be considered a real step forward. Even without formal formulas about binding goals, the joint statement already commits all APEC members to the general idea of emission reduction targets for both developed and developing economies by the next decade.

The collective decision to pursue “an effective post-2012 international arrangement,” therefore, can be understood to mean some progress forward.

One small step at a time

2007-09-10T06:17:00.001+08:00

A non-binding agreement is better than no agreement at all, and is easier to adopt by leaders of 21 politically diverse countries at different stages of economic development. The Sydney Declaration of Climate Change, Energy Security and Clean Development was signed last week in the Australian city by leaders of the Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. Together, APEC member countries consume 60 percent of the world’s energy resources and account for roughly the same percentage of greenhouse gas emissions.

Among other things, the Sydney Declaration promises to increase forest cover in the Pacific Rim by at least 20 million hectares by 2020. By 2030, APEC leaders also hope to cut by one-fourth the amount of energy needed per unit of economic growth – called energy intensity.

Rock stars and the movie industry are promoting public awareness of climate change, and the problem has become an election issue in certain countries. Freakish, destructive weather is forcing people around the world to confront the consequences of climate change. There is greater pressure on governments to deal with global warming. But the task is complicated by many factors that are not to the liking of environmental advocates.

Developing countries such as China, for example, cannot easily wean themselves away from dirty forms of fuel such as coal that abound locally and greatly reduce the cost of energy needed for industrial growth. In tropical regions, governments are realizing that saving rainforests becomes easier through sustainable agroforestry, where communities dependent on forest products become stakeholders, rather than through a total ban on logging that many developing countries find impossible to enforce. Rich countries themselves cannot easily kick their gas-guzzling habits; the United States is one of the world’s largest consumers of fossil fuels.

Yet every country must do its part, even if it’s just one small step at a time. Rising ocean temperatures are endangering the world’s marine resources. Melting polar ice caps are raising sea levels, which are threatening coastal areas. Weather patterns are changing, bringing devastating droughts, floods and hurricanes even off-season. Though the APEC declaration is non-binding, the forum members will increasingly find that they have no choice but to comply with their commitments.

The bigger perjurers

2007-09-09T07:23:00.000+08:00

Like good lawyers, Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Joker Arroyo and Dick Gordon yes-terday attacked the credibility of intelligence agent Vidal Doble. They said that Doble, under oath, had told a House hearing that he did not wiretap the conversations of former election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano and that he, also under oath, had told the Court of Appeals during a habeas corpus proceeding that he and his family were not held against his will by his old unit, the Intelligence Service of the AFP.

At yesterday’s hearing, the three senators said Doble was now singing a different tune. How could a self-admitted perjurer be believed now?

First, because there were those "Hello Garci" tapes whose existence could not be banished by the tiresome invocation of its inadmissibility as evidence under the Anti-Wiretapping Act. Second, because the administration has time and again demonstrated that it would stop at nothing in blocking the search for the truth about the wiretapping.

Given this background, Doble’s admission that he was part of the Isafp wiretapping team but that he was ordered to lie makes his testimony most credible.

Balanga Bishop Soc Villegas’ letter to the Senate joint panel holding the inquiry into the wiretapping is most revealing. He said he agreed to fetch Doble from San Carlos seminary because he was told by a Palace emissary, Remedios Poblador, that the military was determined to take Doble by force.

If Doble was a crank or a peddler of tales, why was the military ready to storm church grounds, a show of force not contemplated since the military raided the Jesuits’ house in Novaliches at the height of martial law, just to get hold of him?

Subsequently, Doble and his family were sequestered at the Isafp compound inside Camp Aguinaldo. These circumstances certainly were not conducive for a soldier in active service to accuse his superiors of violating the law.

Fast forward to the present. If Doble is now lying, why don’t his superiors appear before the Senate inquiry and controvert his allegations point by point?

The former head of Isafp, Tirso Danga, was a no-show. Likewise, former AFP chief Efren Abu. Their excuse for snubbing the Senate hearing? Executive Order 464 which has been reincarnated as Memorandum Circular 108 after the former was declared as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Clearly the stone-walling and the cover-up are continuing. Who then is the bigger perjurer?

Doble or those who continue to insist the "Garci tapes" are legally non-existent and who are as determined as before to hide the truth about the wiretapping.

Policy reversals and the NBN

2007-09-09T07:21:00.002+08:00

egitimate issues about the project to install a government-owned Internet NBN—a national broadband network—are being drowned out by exciting but peripheral noises. This is unfortunate.

Allegations of bribery and other forms of corruption, violations of the law, the incompetence of officials who lost their copies of the contract, questions about whether there is indeed a contract between the government and the ZTE corporation, etc. have been making the headlines.

They give a lot of titillation. But they keep the public from understanding the proposed government-owned NBN project and what sound reasons there are for not going ahead with it.

If there is indeed a deal, the government’s national broadband network is supposed to be installed by China’s ZTE corporation. The Internet NBN is supposed to serve as the backbone of a multi-media communications system among the Philippine government’s multitudinous branches, extensions and smallest local units and subunits in our archipelago of more than 7,100 islands.

Most experts agree that there is a need for such a backbone to insure fast Internet and multi-media interconnectivity among government offices.

An issue we would like to raise is the question of whether this government-dedicated NBN should be owned by the government.

There are at least two private sector Philippine corporations that can provide the NBN—PLDT and its Smart subsidiary. Globe, ABS-CBN/SkyCable and others can also form consortiums and do everything that ZTE (or its Chinese and American competitors) can do.

Have we abandoned the principle of allowing the private sector to do the work and allow business to profit from the country’s infrastructure projects? Are we about to launch a new period of state capitalism?

Does this mean that government should now also go into shipping? The leading companies in the passenger and cargo shipping industries are not expanding fast enough to meet the economic-productivity and basic-commodity price reduction and price stabilization goals of the Arroyo administration. Should the government therefore also fund and operate a mammoth national shipping network and compete with, or even swallow up, the existing shipping companies? We are sure China will only be too happy to provide the multibillion US-dollar loans for this supershipping project.

Is government going to dispense with the services of the many private contractors hired to build our roads and highways that year in and year out have to be repaired after every rainy season?

Another issue that has not been raised in the media is the claim of proponent government officials that a government owned NBN will save the government half of the P4 billion it now spends on “communications expenses.” This claim seems to ignore the meaning of savings. If you have a budget of P4 billion to achieve some work and you spend only P2 billion you have indeed made a saving of P2 billion.

But in this case, the government has to spend about P16 billion (exclusive of the 3-percent annual interest) to pay for ZTE’s setting up of the NBN. Government will also have to spend for the network’s operation. Where then are the savings? And IT is constantly advancing so that prices are always going down. Wouldn’t the P4-billion communications costs today be much less three years from now using private-sector facilities?

Apparently President Arroyo herself had questioned the need of a “government broadband.” This was, apparently, during a meeting of the Cabinet and the experts of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) in Malacañang in November 2006. The NEDA had told the President and the Cabinet that it was indeed necessary to link all the central government agencies with all government sub-units. But Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri batted for creating the connectivity through the private sector. The President herself then insisted that the NBN be handled as a build-offer-transfer project, not a government-owned project to be financed with a loan that the national treasury would have to shoulder for years. Why has this policy been reversed?

These policy reversals are very serious issues. They have far more enduring consequences for our nation’s future than the exciting side issues surrounding the ZTE deal.

The truth about the bribery, overpricing, incompetence and other sensational matters must, however, also be exposed.

No longer amusing

GAME shows and quiz programs are closely monitored in other countries because the fabulous cash prizes could promote cheating. In 2001 it was discovered that the winner of the 1-million pound prize in the British Who Wants To Be A Millionaire had been coached by a fellow contestant. In the 1950s, several contestants on the US quiz show Twenty One admitted they were coached by the producers.

Sen. Mar Roxas, chairman of the Senate Committee on Trade and Commerce, has filed a resolution seeking an inquiry, in aid of legislation, to strengthen protection of consumers or contestants who join TV game shows.

“Millions of Filipinos watch these game shows and send text messages or purchase products so they could become contestants, hoping that they win and uplift their lives with the prize money,” he said.

Allegations of cheating erupted over a recent edition of the popular ABS-CBN game show Wowowee. The host had reportedly switched the winning numbers to avoid giving away P2 million to a contestant. The studio blamed the incident to a “technical glitch.” But some viewers and a rival studio took potshots at the Wowowee host and producers.

With the proliferation of game shows and the millions given away, we must ensure fairness and transparency on TV and determine the government action needed to regulate them and ensure the protection of consumers and contestants. The Roxas resolution is timely.

Web gets wider

2007-09-09T07:21:00.001+08:00

TWO OF THE MOST FORMIDABLE, IF NOT intimidating, lawyers in the Senate took turns trying to beat Vidal Doble’s credibility (arguably shaky at best, to start with) to a pulp. Sen. Joker Arroyo tried to point out the contradictions between Doble’s past testimony and the version he gave the Senate. Arroyo seemed eager to spotlight Doble’s having had a civilian lawyer, which would suggest that the testimony was beyond military pressure—until Doble pointed out that his civilian lawyer was provided by the Philippine National Police.

Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile focused on Doble’s habeas corpus petition filed with the Court of Appeals, a document prepared by opposition-affiliated lawyers. Doble, however, revealed that he had been reminded, before he testified, that the long and short of whatever he said was that he remained under the authority of his unit, the Intelligence Service of the AFP. So, Doble said, with that pointed reminder still ringing in his ears, he lied.

Instead of demolishing Doble’s credibility, Arroyo and Enrile simply clarified the tremendous pressure—Doble himself bluntly said it was duress—that tainted not his latest, but his previous, testimony.

Arroyo and Enrile—as unlikely a pair of comrades-in-interest we would ever hope to find, but politics indeed makes for strange bedfellows—had to retreat with obviously ruffled feathers, in the manner of Estelito Mendoza and his confrontation with Clarissa Ocampo. We are far from saying that Doble is an Ocampo. But the way he stood his ground, and made a shambles of the two senators’ virtual cross-examinations, is a comparable demonstration of how a witness, instead of being impeached, can impeach the prosecutors.

But it is, perhaps, with regard to Doble’s testimony that he had been approached by presidential aide Medy Poblador, that his most recent testimony truly became more than a rehash or revision of his previous statements.

Doble said Poblador approached him, after he was spirited back to military custody under the auspices of Bishop Socrates Villegas, and offered him money in exchange for his refusal to testify before the House of Representatives. The public might just be willing to give the military the benefit of the doubt, for successfully retrieving one of its own who had, essentially, become a rogue agent. An aide of the President offering incentives to a witness to refuse cooperation with the House, on the other hand, is another matter altogether.

Poblador acts as a liaison between Congress and the President. She was perhaps most obviously in her role as presidential fixer during the first impeachment attempt, where she lurked in the lounge behind the Speaker’s chair in the plenary hall, for reasons best left to congressmen to reveal. There is no doubt she holds a favored place in the President’s innermost circle of can-do people.

The question now becomes, whether Poblador acted in a manner resembling US President Richard Nixon’s aides, to keep E. Howard Hunt, implicated in the Watergate break-in scandal, quiet in exchange for money. In the United States, the result of Nixon’s authorizing the bribe effort resulted in one of the articles of impeachment filed against him. We cannot emphasize how serious the allegation of Poblador’s potential involvement could be, precisely because it’s so reminiscent of the Nixon case.

Doble’s allegations concerning Poblador, who seems to have used family ties with Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, the Archbishop of Manila, to get Bishop Villegas involved, brings up questions about how the administration wields its clout with the Catholic hierarchy. Either the prelates naively acted in good faith, or were co-conspirators in crimes that range from intimidating a witness, including coercing the witness to commit perjury, to (possibly) outright kidnapping and the creation of a situation where an aide of the President could make an offer Doble couldn’t refuse.

At the heart of it is an insight into motive: If Doble were simply a liar, no government would have gone this far, possibly broken so many laws, or risked wrecking so many reputations. That it did suggests Doble really has the goods on them.

Waiting for the truth

2007-09-09T07:18:00.000+08:00

Scratch a liar and you’ll find a thief, a priest said, as he expressed the public’s hope that Romulo Neri would tell the truth about the government’s broadband contract with Chinese firm ZTE Corp. Neri was the socio-economic planning secretary and director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority when he was allegedly offered P200 million in exchange for a NEDA endorsement of the ZTE deal.

The story was followed by reports that Chairman Benjamin Abalos of the Commission on Elections had offered $10 million to the son of Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. so a ZTE competitor where the younger De Venecia is a majority shareholder would withdraw its bid for the broadband deal. Confronted with the story about the P200 million, Neri would neither confirm nor deny it, saying only that such matters were hard to prove.

Neri has been shunted to the Commission on Higher Education — a move that obviously caught both him and the man he replaced by surprise. The inevitable speculation is that the transfer was connected to the ZTE deal. Neri reportedly informed President Arroyo, who chairs the NEDA, about the purported P200-million bribe offer. The President allegedly told him to ignore the offer but approve the ZTE deal anyway. This is tantamount to condoning corruption, involving an amount that would constitute the serious crime of plunder.

Neri says he believes in karma, which is why he never accepted bribes. But crimes can also be committed through acts of omission. By looking the other way, the culture of corruption is perpetuated. It will take only a few good individuals to fight venality and other forms of evil. There must be such individuals of integrity and courage in this country — public servants who put more weight on truth and justice, who owe their allegiance to the nation and their Maker rather than their boss the appointing power.

At stake for Neri is a government position that he apparently does not even want. Would it be such a big loss for him in exchange for telling the truth?

What else is new?

2007-09-08T07:00:00.001+08:00

A foreigner visiting the Philippines for the first time reads the papers and watches TV news, gets alarmed, and asks his Filipino friend: “What the hell is going on in your country?”

To which the Pinoy replies, “Nothing to worry about, pal. These are normal times in the Philippines.”

Normal means our senators are running all over the place to initiate one investigation or the other, and our congressmen probing their favorite anomaly.

It means a number of Cabinet and sub-Cabinet members are getting embroiled again in scandals and the administration is circling the wagons in self-defense.

The police are helplessly looking for the slippery suspects in cases that threaten to join the Hall of Unsolved Crimes.

The military must fight in two or three fronts because no president has succeeded in smashing the 40-year-old New People’s Army insurgency and the three-decades old Muslim insurgency.

The foreigner takes a look at the headlines and the opinion columns and sees—day after day—new revelations and charges flying around the flavors of the month: the $329-million national broadband network project, the cyber-education program and the replay of the “Hello, Garcia” soap opera.

Coming soon: a reopening of the Kuratong Baleleng rubout by the police in Quezon City a dozen years ago and the kidnap-murder of PR guru Bubby Dacer and his loyal driver.

The police, meanwhile, could not solve the rape-murder of a seven-year old girl or the death of a UP student after a hazing ordeal in school. The authorities could not explain the whereabouts of the missing activist Jonas Burgos.

The 100,000-strong Armed Forces is tied down by the Abu Sayyaf—who number less than 200—in Sulu and Basilan. If you recall, the Philippine National Police, also with more than a hundred thousand officers, has the added responsibility of fighting the insurgency.

You have more than 200,000 troops and lawmen chasing the ragtag Abu and 7,000 NPA regulars. They are receiving expert training and advice from US soldiers who are also building camps in parts of Mindanao and Sulu.

The Bureau of Immigration has admitted at least 700,000 Illegal aliens are working and running their businesses in the country. The number of unwanted guests is increasing everyday.

The photo of the week appeared in the Malaya newspaper yesterday: a group of children staring at the body of a man shot and killed by the police reportedly for carjacking in Quezon City.

The foreigner grabs his friend and asks, “Where can we relax? This place is scary.”

Whereupon the Pinoy takes him to a dimly lit girly bar where teenage girls dance naked in front of rich businessmen, politicians and policemen looking for sex.

Culture of impunity

2007-09-08T06:59:00.001+08:00

If this administration has learned any lesson from the history of social upheavals in this country, it would give serious consideration to the sentiments of major business groups. In a paid advertisement that came out yesterday, the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines, the Makati Business Club and Management Association of the Philippines, together with two other groups, condemned the “growing culture of impunity” in government “that appears to have spread to an extent exceeding that of all past administrations.” That is a damning observation that cannot be ignored.

The business groups singled out the government’s $330-million broadband deal with Chinese firm ZTE Corp., which Commission on Elections Chairman Benjamin Abalos allegedly brokered in exchange for favors and a possible huge kickback from ZTE. The businessmen urged Abalos to resign and Transport and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza to rescind the deal.

After surviving two impeachment attempts and seeing Filipinos lose their appetite for people power despite allegations that she cheated her way to a six-year term, President Arroyo should resist the temptation to behave as if she and her officials can now do anything they want, without worrying about public accountability. As the business groups have pointed out, if the President cannot “rectify blatant wrongdoings of public officials,” she could be accused of condoning them.

Already the President’s former socio-economic planning secretary Romulo Neri has said he had informed her of a P200-million bribe offer to approve the ZTE deal. Bribery is a criminal offense, yet the President reportedly ordered Neri to simply ignore the offer and approve the deal anyway. The other day, amid allegations of corruption and overpricing, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita announced that the ZTE deal would push through. Finance officials had earlier said the deal was not yet final.

Taxpayers, who will bear the burden of repaying a $330-million foreign debt, with interest, for the next two decades, have yet to see exactly what Mendoza had signed with ZTE executives in Boao, China last April in the presence of President Arroyo. The lost document is supposed to have been reconstituted. Why is it so difficult to bare this document to the public? If the President goes along with this policy of secrecy, suspicion will inevitably focus on how high up the alleged anomalies go. A culture of impunity cannot flourish without blessings from the top.

Worsening stink

2007-09-08T06:57:00.000+08:00

The Chinese company that bagged the contract to build the $329 million national broadband network (NBN) for the Philippine government says it has nothing to hide. “There was complete transparency in the proposal, evaluation and approval of ZTE’s application for the Philippines’ NBN contract,” the company said in a statement issued earlier this week.

Transparency, however, is the last word that comes to the mind of anyone who has followed the controversy as it has slowly unfolded since the contract was signed in April this year. Up to now, Filipino taxpayers know little about the NBN contract beyond the fact that they will be paying close to P1 billion a year for over 20 years for a project that may not be necessary and which the government is ill-equipped to operate and maintain, according to two economics professor from the University of the Philippines.

Everything that the Filipino people know so far is either what ZTE’s competitors have revealed or what the media have extracted bit by bit from government officials. At one point, Cabinet officials even tried to mislead the public by denying that a contract had already been concluded and claiming that what was signed in Boao, China, last April was either a memorandum of agreement or a memorandum of understanding. More is probably known about the negotiations and how top officials, like Comelec Chair Benjamin Abalos, allegedly helped broker the deal and tried to hush up ZTE’s unhappy competitors for the project, or got bribe offers amounting to hundreds of millions of pesos.

But a contract does exist and it was signed and sealed in the presence of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in China. And what it says and what it does not say probably explain why the Arroyo administration wanted to keep it under wraps.

One interesting item in the contract, for example, gives the two parties plenty -- even unlimited -- elbow room to adjust the price. It says: “The Priced Bill of Quantities shall be revised in accordance with the actual requirement to be determined and approved by the purchaser and the contractor during the detailed engineering stage.” In other words, the $329 million contract price, which is already too much, according to ZTE’s rivals, can still go higher. Could this be the reason the government signed a $400-million loan, so that it will have an extra $71 million to cover what is called a “change order”? This is a ploy often used to jack up the price so that greedy officials can get more from an already graft-ridden project.

What is even more unusual is that the contract does not say exactly what the government will be getting for $329 million. The scope of work is left undefined. The contract merely says that ZTE “shall prepare and complete the detailed engineering services, the plans, specifications and designs” for the government’s approval. If there are no plans, no specification and no designs, what is the government committing to pay $329 million for?

Only an idiot would pay for a car without knowing what kind of engine he is getting or how many passengers it can take, but that is not much different from what the administration is doing in regard to the NBN project. The only difference is that it is not the signatory, Transportation and Communication Secretary Leandro Mendoza, or the witness, President Arroyo, who will be stuck with the bill, but the Filipino people. And the administration would not even want them to know what they will be paying for. It wants the people to take on blind faith that the project is necessary and the terms of the contract are the best anyone can get. Thus, it has gone ahead and signed the contract without opening the project to public bidding. And the excuse it is giving is that this is a government-to-government transaction.

That is true of the loan agreement signed last week in Manila. It is not the case with the supply agreement with ZTE, unless that company has declared its independence from China.

A growing number of lawmakers have been calling for the abrogation of the contract, and the investigation of everyone involved in it. The business community has voiced a similar demand. Now that the onerous details of this funny contract are becoming known, there is even more reason to trash it. The stink is just too much for anyone to ignore

Our skewed immigration policy

2007-09-06T05:12:00.000+08:00

You would think that an archipelago of 7,1000 islands, stretching 1,100 miles north to south, would have a professional career immigration service to protect the country’s national security and defend its sovereignty.

You would expect that a country with a coastline twice as long as that of the United States’, whose shores are extremely porous and vulnerable to alien intrusion, would be amply protected 24 hours a day by a security umbrella using modern hardware and technology.

And since this is the 21st century, you would also imagine that the country’s immigration and citizenship laws are sufficiently dynamic to cope with the fast-moving global economy, international travel, unchecked migration, borderless crime and global terrorism.

You’d be wrong to think in the positive if you live in the Philippines. Our immigration policy is hopelessly dated. The immigration service creaks. Our principal immigration bill—The Philippine Immigration Act of 1940—is more than 60 years old. Our priorities for protecting our national gate are misplaced.

A self-respecting immigration office—such as the Bureau of Immigration—should be sufficiently manned, funded and equipped for the threats to our national security and sovereignty. This is not the case. The bureau is underfunded, undermanned and lacking in basic resources.

It does not have a single aircraft, not even a hand-me-down helicopter, to patrol the skies, or a decent pursuit boat to chase illegal aliens or drug smugglers. Its motor pool lacks the necessary number of vehicles. The communications system belongs to an earlier age.

The bureau has about 900 regular employees—backed by 300 temporaries—to man the big and growing network of airports, seaports and other ports of entry. It operates on an annual budget of P300 million, 70 percent going to salaries and housekeeping. These are not enough for the demands on the service. The volume of newcomers—tourists, businessmen, students, jobseekers (posing as tourists)—is increasing every day. Out of necessity, the bureau has to pull out temporaries from their desks and designate them as immigration officers.

The immigration bureau has to hone its skills and train officers against global terrorism. Poaching on our waters is rampant. Borderless crimes that have washed on our shores include gunrunning, drug trafficking and human smuggling.

We were stunned to learn that citizens from 132 countries could enter the Philippines without a visa. That’s opening the national door to the world. Do we have reciprocity agreements with these states? Despite this generosity, aliens have been known to gatecrash on our shores anytime of the day because we don’t have the resources to protect our coasts.

Visa-free aliens may stay for 21 days, with the option to stretch their stay by formally requesting the bureau for extension. In a given month, nine percent of the newcomers overstay. This adds up to 15,000 overstaying foreigners. The bureau estimates anywhere from 500,000 to 700,000 aliens are living and working illegally, many running their business or competing for jobs with Filipinos. A considerable number must be engaged in crime and vice. This estimate is very conservative. Illegal immigrants could number from one to 2 million. We have thrown away the keys to the gate in the past 50 years.

A big problem is that the bureau does not have an accurate count of how many aliens have entered the country, how many have left, and how many have stayed and overstayed.

‘No longer our country’

WE had an interesting roundtable with Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan on Tuesday.

The commissioner had just completed his first 100 days in office, so it was a good chance to review the work of the Bureau of Immigration and the history of immigration in the country.

In his first hundred days, Commissioner Libanan, a three-term congressman from Eastern Samar, did well enough to introduce timely reforms and to revive the culture of discipline and professionalism in the ranks.

The bureau took the instructions of President Arroyo to heart, crafted and carried out programs to help promote tourism, investment and education in the country.

It cracked down on the lucrative escort service, protected women from human traffickers, strengthened border control and scored a few significant victories against illegal immigration.

Libanan took his oath with the specter of Administrative Order 175 looking on. A few weeks before his assumption, the President ordered the transfer of the responsibilities of the bureau to the Office of the Justice Secretary, an indictment on the poor work of the immigration agency owing to past and recent records of corruption.

Graft had taken roots because of poor management, low pay, pressures from work, scarcities in resources, opportunities to make money from controversial deportation and citizenship cases and a perception that the legislative and the executive had neglected the immigration service and had not appreciated its work.

The new commissioner persuaded his superior and the chief executive to recall the order and to give him a chance to restore discipline, bring back professionalism, curb and punish graft and tighten control at the national door.

Libanan has a big job ahead, including getting critical support from Congress and Malacañang to develop the immigration bureau into a professional, disciplined and muscular career service that could effectively check illegal immigration.

Failing to do so, the commissioner warned, we will wake up one day and “discover this is no longer our country.”

Cop-out

2007-09-06T05:10:00.000+08:00

The police have changed tack on the Jonas Burgos mystery, and unfortunately for the missing activist and all those who hope to see his abductors brought to justice, the police have moved in the direction first tracked by the military. Now the police see communist rebels, and only communist rebels, as responsible for the crime.

We have serious reservations about the new witnesses presented by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), however. Many of these concern the implausibility of the military’s claims, but the most significant doubts arise from what went before these witnesses were presented.

Military sources that journalists have relied on for years have sworn that a unit of either the Intelligence Service of the AFP or of the 56th Infantry Battalion based in Bulacan were involved in the abduction. A state prosecutor has asserted that six soldiers were behind the disappearance, a claim that earned him the justice secretary’s displeasure. And ever since Burgos was forcibly seized in a mall last April, the leadership of the AFP has acted in a less-than-forthright, suspicion-inducing manner: stonewalling, finding excuses not to appear before the courts, refusing to turn over the results of internal investigations.

For these and other reasons, we find the military’s most recent version of events suspect. Unfortunately, the police now share that interpretation. And they have brought to it their own worst practices.

Let us, using the most recent statements of Senior Supt. Joel Coronel of the Criminal Investigation Detection Group, consider only two of these fatal flaws.

First, an almost total dependence on eyewitness testimony.

Coronel is well within his rights to judge the testimony of Emerito Lipio, a member of the New People’s Army, as providing the most “logical and coherent” picture of the Burgos abduction. That is his lookout. But his complete reliance on Lipio’s belated testimony illustrates the weakness of many, if not most, of the cases our police officers investigate.

They are, most of them, based on the say-so of someone or other. For that very reason, many of them do not prosper in court—the testimonies are eminently recantable.

To be sure, in the Burgos disappearance, Coronel speaks of a pattern he sees in the testimony of other witnesses. “[Lipio’s] statements are consistent with what other witnesses have told us before.”

But his case, as he makes it, depends entirely on these witnesses. He excludes such evidence as the license plates of the Toyota Revo used in abducting Burgos from the mall, which have been traced back to the impounding area inside the headquarters of the 56 IB in Norzagaray, Bulacan. (Why? They, too, were pointed out by eyewitnesses.)

This brings us to the second worst practice. Coronel’s statements remind us, yet again, that the police sometimes have the habit of disregarding the evidence that is right before their eyes.

Coronel, for example, said he found the alleged connection between the controversial license plates and military involvement in the Burgos abduction “really puzzling.”

Now that’s a puzzlement. By any reasonable standard, the fact -- and it’s a fact -- that the plates on an abductor’s vehicle were traced back to a battalion HQ should be considered to mean that a prima facie case does exist to investigate the possible involvement of battalion officers or men in the abduction.

Unfortunately, it would take enormous self-confidence and political will on the part of the police to say that. Thus, the cop-out: Police officers who now choose to give credence only to those witnesses whose testimony favors the military.

Frat brats

2007-09-06T05:09:00.000+08:00

EVERY human being that walks on this planet has a good side and a bad side. The difference is in degree. Ergo, every member of a university fraternity has a good side and a bad side. The difference is in degree.

From time to time we come across news stories that tell us about fraternity initiates who end up dead as a result of hazing, or being forced by their initiators to perform strenuous, humiliating, or even dangerous acts to prove their worth as potential members.

Of course, if they end up dead on arrival at a hospital, they no longer qualify as members, but get to have their names and photos (full of life and smiling) appear in newspapers and television screens.

The few who have perished at the hands of their killers--oops, sorry, frat members---did not die of loneliness or old age. They died because they were not made of steel, only flesh, which could not stand the bludgeoning and the clubbing at the hands of their masters, each of whom had assumed the personality of Mr. Hyde into which Dr. Jekyll's evil impulses had been channeled, thus the tendency to inflict bodily harm.

Imagine a blindfolded fraternity recruits being set upon by a group of tormentors, much like a pack of wolves ganging up on a hapless prey. Each succeeding whack from a wooden paddle/club heavier than the one before it, the club wielders getting a high from their acts of violence upon a fellow human being--and seemingly oblivious to the consequences of their act. Men had turned to beasts.

The beatings stopped only after the frat brats finally regained their senses, realizing too late that their victim had been reduced to, well, not a pulp really, but to a lifeless creature. They had become accessories to a crime of homicide (they had not meant to kill, after all).

And what was it all about in the first place?

No more postponement

2007-09-06T05:05:00.000+08:00

If this were a presidential election, postponement would have triggered another people power revolt. But because the lowest ranking officials in the local government totem pole were involved, opposition to a postponement was muted. And so the election of village officials and youth council members, originally scheduled in October 2005, was reset to October this year. Now, with election day again approaching, congressmen want yet another postponement, this time to 2009 – another two-year term extension for their grassroots political leaders.

Those endorsing a postponement have a good excuse: elections are expensive and this exercise will cost billions of pesos in public funds. But there will never be a lack of excuses for postponing all electoral exercises in this country, foremost of which is the disaster that is the Commission on Elections. National leaders will simply have to see to it that all voting schedules and term limits are followed, even as lawmakers review the wisdom of holding the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections separately from major electoral exercises.

Since Ferdinand Marcos tried to make himself president for life, Filipinos have been leery of any attempt to allow any official to serve in perpetuity or extend his term of office. A proposal last year to extend the terms of lawmakers by only six months, to make way for constitutional amendments, was immediately shot down. The same aversion to term extensions should apply to all elective officials.

Lawmakers can authorize a postponement of the barangay and youth council elections. This means they don’t have to shell out funds to contribute to the campaigns of their political leaders, who helped them in the May elections. This also earns them the gratitude of those leaders, who get another bonus of two years without having to seek re-election. By the time Congress allows the elections to push through, the current youth council members will be too old to be classified as youths. Barangay and SK officials who have performed badly must be replaced. There are other people who want to serve and must be given a chance. That is the essence of democracy, and lawmakers must not stand in the way.

Law is bent to serve the powerful

2007-09-05T07:53:00.000+08:00

Will some of our leaders continue to block the public clamor for a reinvestigation of the “Hello, Garci” incident? When will they face the fact that some questions are still hanging in the air because they chose to ignore them three years ago?

To put it simply, ignoring the questions made them live with the painful consequence, which is that the ordeal left them confused and dazed, unable to recognize what is right and what is wrong. If Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago indulged in more clever rhetoric in her speech (Aug. 28) about what is illegal and inadmissible in court, it was only because the trash she stored in her already cluttered mind made her forget that the spirit of the law is more important than the letter of the law.
What good is the law if, in the hands of the deluded, it only serves the interests of the powerful few to the detriment of the marginalized multitude? Is Santiago denying that the law has time and again been used by the rich and strong to frustrate the will of the poor and the weak?

It is time our leaders understood the fact that our Constitution is there purposely to uphold the dreams and aspirations of the entire citizenry, not just the ambitions and greed of the selfish powerful. That means leaders cannot persist in interpreting the law according to their own selfish inclination.

Indeed, they must realize that their tendency to talk glibly about the law -- while they ignore the need for public consultation -- hides the intention to deceive. This is what muddles the issues, thus violating the true objective of the law. This is why there is so much injustice in our system. Indeed, it is sad that our deluded leaders have wrought so much divisiveness -- the product of the bad advice to “divide and rule” -- just to stay in power.

And it is certainly a shame that a senator of long standing like Santiago chose to belittle the “tortured analysis” by Sen. Francis Escudero during his interpellation. For it clearly showed she has no respect for anyone who would dare to show more insight, more honesty and more promise than she could in something as important as upholding the truth for the nation’s sake.

The question now is, if the corrupt in our midst have soiled the law with their dirty hands and expect us to bow down to their antics, will the rest of us not rise up to fight for the truth and thus preserve our nationhood?

Bad posture

2007-09-05T07:52:00.000+08:00

Posturing, with regard to the coming verdict on the plunder trial of former President Joseph Estrada, is the name of the game. In this game, neither the opposition nor the administration is innocent. In the non-stop rumor mill that is the Philippine political scene, not only is a looming verdict widely whispered about, but the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan is supposed to be finding difficulty wrestling with the complexities of the case. What is sure is that the coming verdicts (there are multiple charges, after all) have political circles caught up in a kind of mass hysteria.

The result is saber-rattling on both sides, literally on the part of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and rhetorically on the side of Estrada’s partisans. The AFP has held parades to show off the troops, while the Philippine National Police has pledged to mobilize enough policemen for crowd control. Malacañang has launched a propaganda offensive to condition the public into expecting trouble, which the Arroyo administration says it can handle. Estrada loyalists have reacted by proclaiming they can muster crowds and that these crowds would be big and angry.

As if such posturing weren’t enough, the Palace and opposition leaders have also taken to working at cross-purposes with Estrada himself. For months, the idea of either a presidential pardon or an amnesty proclamation ratified by Congress, in case of a conviction by the court, has been floated. Administration allies went through the motions of proposing it, and the Palace has also gone through the motions of considering it. The opposition has tacitly endorsed the idea by releasing the results of surveys it commissioned.

However, Estrada himself, whether merely in an act of political theater or because he genuinely believes in his innocence, has insisted that he will never accept a pardon. He may be in detention, but he remains a political virtuoso.

On the surface, it may seem appropriate for the Palace and the opposition to publicly consider options for Estrada after the verdicts have been handed down. Considerations of a pardon or amnesty, after all, mean politics only begins where justice ends in terms of a verdict. It would be a great error, however, for the public to think that all the posturing is par for the course. It is not. The administration and opposition both obviously think they have an insight into the eventual decisions of the court. More than that, both are actively trying to influence the court.

Left to its own devices, the court would have wrapped up the Estrada trial and proceeded with its deliberations and handed down its verdicts at its own pace and in its own good time. The public, used to Estrada’s long period of comfortable detention, would probably have shrugged off the whole thing, including the verdicts. The Palace, however, began to sound the alarm with regard to the reactions of Estrada partisans. The alarmed nature of the Palace’s reactions in turn inspired new heights of rhetorical bravado on the part of Estrada loyalists.

Sounding the alarm is a tried-and-tested administration tactic to hijack the headlines. The opposition is also an old pro at playing that game, hence its commissioned survey. Both sides are always looking for ways to reinvigorate the dedication of their supporters, while weakening the resolve of their enemies. Obviously, considerations of fair play and justice are irrelevant in the face of such tactical concerns.

The Palace is trying to reassure the Sandiganbayan that there won’t be chaos in case of guilty verdicts. The opposition is trying to frighten the Sandiganbayan into thinking there would be a revolt if it convicts Estrada. Both sides are trying to temper whatever verdicts are in the works, by emphasizing the verdicts they’d prefer (and options, including conviction for some charges and possibly, acquittal for others) and verdicts the public allegedly wouldn’t like.

In other words, the administration and the opposition are trying to turn the case into a political football and to strong-arm the court. By doing so, both sides are further eroding public confidence in the justice system. They are doing a disservice not to Estrada, who is a player in this two-sided game, but to the citizenry.

World War Two matters

2007-09-05T07:50:00.001+08:00

Jovito R. Salonga, president of the Senate of the Republic of the Philippines from 1987 to 1991, is the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Government Service. He is recognized for the exemplary substance of his long public career "in service to democracy and good government."

Salonga, Chairman Emeritus of Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation, fought the fascist Japanese who invaded his homeland in 1941, for which he was arrested, jailed and tortured. In his autobiography, the founder of Bantay Katarungan revealed: "I decided to counteract Japanese propaganda in Pasig by circulating news about the war, based on short-wave broadcasts from Australia (BBC) and from San Francisco, California. I made use of my typewriter and added my own comments." [A Journey of Struggle and Hope. Quezon City: UP Center for Leadership, Citizenship and Democracy, 2001, p. 14]

In April 1942, Salonga was arrested by Japanese military police at the instigation of pro-Japanese elements in his hometown. "I was detained in the Pasig municipal jail and investigated day and night at the nearby Kempeitai headquarters (house of well-known contractor Fortunato Concepcion) in the presence of my father. I was slapped, beaten up, and made to carry a heavy load of water atop my head while under interrogation."

A few days after the Fall of Bataan, Salonga was transferred to Fort Santiago, then to the City Jail in San Marcelino (Manila) where he met other Filipinos ("men of breeding and dignity") who had also been circulating war news from Allied sources. He was already in the Old Bilibid in Manila when he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

It was June 11, 1942. After his trial and sentencing, Salonga was brought to the New Bilibid in Muntinlupa. Eight months of incarceration. He was lucky to be released due to Kigensetsu, Japan’s foundation day, February 11, 1943.

Salonga went back to his law studies, took and topped the Philippine Bar Examinations in 1944. While he was taking the tests for admittance to the practice of law, his fellow Evangelicals were being oppressed by the imperialist Japanese. On August 24, 1944, Tito Dans, Agustin Ortega, Serafin Aquino, Col. Jose Moran and Severino Araos, who were members of Rev. Mary Boyd Stagg’s Anti-Japanese Propaganda and Espionage Movement based in Cosmopolitan Church, were court-martialed and sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment in Muntinlupa. He himself had narrowly evaded the round of arrests and guerrilla suppression. Salonga was listed as a captain in the ROTC-Hunters Guerrillas.

In the aftermath of the Japanese Occupation, Salonga testified in the war crimes trial of Colonel Nagahama, Kempeitai chief and Fort Santiago commander.

In addition to the Shintoist war criminals, native collaborators of the fascist invaders were also being held to account for their treasonous behavior. Who victimized Salonga’s fellow Protestants? "I was to be told later that a certain Franco Vera Reyes, a double agent, who had probably been in Cosmopolitan a number of times, was the one who squealed on Mother Stagg and her co-workers." (p. 27)

What about the fanatical follower of Benigno Ramos who caused the arrest and torture of Salonga? The name is found in page 38 of his memoirs.

Be that as it may, the matter of Filipino wartime collaboration with the murderous followers of the Japanese emperor was also tackled in the 16th National Conference of the UP Lipunang Pangkasaysayan.

The collaborators were native inhabitants and residents of the Philippines who allowed themselves to be tools of the Nipponese war machine. They were Hitler’s Oriental imitators, spies, snitches and stool pigeons, puppet politicians and bureaucrats, pro-Japanese propagandists and opportunistic profiteers.

The label most synonymous with collaborator is "Makapili," which the Supreme Court defined as "the "Makabayan Katipunan ng mga Pilipino (Makapili), an organization of military character, founded and organized for the purpose of giving material support and physical or moral assistance and aid to the Empire of Japan and Imperial Japanese Forces in the Philippines." [People of the Philippines vs. Domingo Capacete]

In this case, the High Court affirmed the conviction of the appellant for murder, for which he was sentenced to reclusion perpetua and ordered to pay a 10,000-peso fine and costs for treason. [G.R. No. L-943 November 22, 1947]

In another case, a collaborator was convicted of treason, sentenced to life imprisonment and fined 10,000 pesos and the costs of treason for the following acts: "In the month of February, 1945, adhered and given aid and comfort to the enemy by joining the Makapili organization in the City of San Pablo, Laguna, and cooperating with the Japanese Army in the apprehension of guerrilla suspects, in particular, in the rounding up, on February 24, 1945, of over six hundred civilians in the said city and the identification and segregation out of that group of a number of guerrilla suspects, who were on that same day massacred by the Japanese soldiers." [People of the Phil. vs. Ismael Aquivido]

Military collaboration, that is, assisting the Japanese armed forces in its operations, made the Makapili and similar bands accessories and accomplices in homicide and genocide.

How about political collaboration, that is, accepting Nippon’s imperial ambitions and using the political and policy process to facilitate fascist and elitist intentions?

Prime mechanism of this political crime was the puppet regime – an illegitimate agency whose "Constitution was never submitted to the people for approval, and whose President was not elected by popular suffrage." [Arturo M. Tolentino. Voice Of Dissent. Quezon City: Phoenix Publishing House, Inc., 1990, p. 51]

The puppet regime invited "the (Japanese) Army to administer the coal mines and their properties which belong to the National Development Company located in Uling, Naga, Cebu; Danao, Cebu; and Malangas, Zamboanga." [The Tribune, July 12, 1944]

The puppet regime was also a vehicle for the Nipponization of Philippine society. A unit in the Ministry of Education was created for the "function of spreading Oriental culture principally among school children." The Bureau of Oriental Culture was charged with the preparation of textbooks for both public and private schools, and "in its studies and researches on other East Asian cultures, special emphasis will be laid on the culture of Japan." To carry out its non-Filipino mandate, "a separate section will be created to conduct studies and investigations Japanese culture." [The Tribune, February 3, 1944, p. 1]

These Nipponese indoctrination units, ostensibly civilian, became military in intent when push came to shove. The New Philippine Cultural Institute, an educational institution created by the Japanese military, turned "later into a volunteer army which showed determination to fight against the returning US forces." [Motoe Terami-wada, "Lt. Shigenobu Mochizuki and the New Philippine Culture Institute," Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, March 1996]

At present, to be branded a "bagong makapili" for, say, supporting the onerous provisions of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA is harsh indeed).

World War Two matters

2007-09-05T07:50:00.000+08:00

Perception vs reality

2007-09-05T07:49:00.000+08:00

Sergio Apostol again exhibits his abysmal ignorance of how a modern society is governed in dismissing a Social Weather Stations survey where 7 out of 10 respondents said they believe Gloria Arroyo is enriching herself through corrupt practices.

Apostol says that’s just perception; reality is different. He sounds like one of those 70s New Age gurus talking pop philosophy by drawing a distinction between appearance and reality. But he doesn’t carry it off well. It clashes with our, uh, perception about Apostol, he of the multi-million allowances when he was ensconced in his sinecure as chairman of one of the subsidiaries of the Philippine National Oil Co.

We have, however, to give it to Apostol. That posting was his "consuelo de bobo" for not getting a Cabinet post in the Arroyo cabinet despite doing what he perceived as a yeoman’s job in prosecuting Joseph Estrada in the impeachment trial. Let’s not be uncharitable by saying the reality of his performance as prosecutor was something else.

Anyway, Apostol is now a member of a Cabinet as presidential legal adviser. With the exception of Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, Apostol is perceived – here we go with that fashionable word again – as the most rabid attack dog of Arroyo. If there’s justice in this world, he ought to be in line for the post of the ailing Gonzalez. Agnes Devanadera, however, seems to have the inner track to the justice portfolio.

Apostol, like Avis, should try harder by equipping himself with a less shopworn analytical tool than the appearance/reality distinction. He should, we suggest, start with trust, the principle that underpins relationships in a democratic society. All our waking moments, we implicitly trust that all others will abide by society’s norms. Trust gains even more importance when we are dealing with the relationship between the citizens their leaders.

When people start believing their leaders are talking from both sides of the mouth, then that relationship of trust starts fraying. When the discordance between appearance and reality – and word and action – becomes habitual and institutionalized, trust is irredeemably broken.

We are near that stage. Everybody believes the worst about Gloria. While we won’t say perception is reality, we cannot simply dismiss the never-ending scandals – the $330 million national broadband project is but the latest – that hound the Arroyo administration.

If we have any consolation, it’s the thought that Gloria will be exiting in 2010. We are looking forward to the day when good governance becomes the appearance and the reality.

Back to square one

2007-09-05T07:48:00.002+08:00

They say that the more things change, the more they remain the same.

The sad part is when change comes by force, it never really changes things, we simply rearrange things. Once again this truth occurs to me as people anticipate the decision to be handed down by the Sandiganbayan regarding the plunder case against President Joseph Estrada. All the anticipation, speculation and security preparations make me feel as if I’m going back in time. But why do we seem to be on a permanent political “Unmerry-go-round”? Let’s look back and figure it out.

When people staged EDSA 1, many believed that they had truly changed things for the good. They had successfully kicked out the dictatorship and sent all their allies packing to the US, Switzerland, Thailand etc.

It did not take long for people to learn the saying that “the Revolution always eats its children”, slowly those who were in the forefront of the People Power found themselves displaced by experts, interest groups as well as sweet talkers and operators. In time the first and second wave of believers and idealists were eventually pushed out or walked out in frustration.

One morning people woke up realizing that the oppressors they had chased out of the country were now back in town. Soon they would eventually be back in circulation and eventually back in power, but with a more positive image as businessmen, seasoned politicians, and king makers.

EDSA 2 was less than idealistic since it was as history has shown us nothing more than a “power grab”, supported and fueled by fear and greed, not by a few politicians but by businessmen, the church, as well as ordinary people convinced that a “drunk” and a “womanizing gambler” would lead the country into ruin. But rather than finish the “Impeachment process” the matter was settled at EDSA.

Now seven years later the deposed President casts his shadow on the national landscape like an unpredictable storm cloud. After years of imprisonment in his Tanay rest house, Erap continues to receive the individuals who were architects and supporters of his removal from office. In a matter of weeks the Sandi-ganbayan is expected to read out its decision and judgment. Several thousand soldiers and policemen have been deployed all over Metro Manila in anticipation of protests or civil disturbance from Erap supporters. Even in jail Erap is somehow back in power.

The contending parties are once again formulating strategies, trying somehow to throw blow for blow with Erap, determined to score points while Malacañang desperately tries to somehow put closure. So we are “Back to square one”. But why do we always end up here?

Simply put, because the ones who call themselves “the good guys” or most Filipinos for that matter, do not fully appreciate our “Laws” and they are either too poor or too impatient to go through the process of finding justice. In addition those in a position to contribute to a good justice system, Like the executive department, associations of lawyers, judges and justices, Religious organizations etc, generally contribute with their interests in mind.

On the other hand, the so called “Bad guys” who were run out of office or chased out of the country are left with no choice but to follow the law and utilize the justice system. First to get back into the country, get back their personal assets, and to re-establish their position whether in government or society. Since they have the assets or the money to begin with, they always have the option of hiring the best and the brightest legal minds. They have access to qualified strategists and tacticians, and their most useful weapon is that they have all the time in the world to fight and wait while in jail or in exile.

So we see that in our rush to change things we simply rearranged them. The rest of the Marcos clan are back in the limelight, in politics, even in the front pages. Imelda Marcos reminds us of the hundred or so charges hurled at her, but none has stuck and now all that remains can be counted on her fingers.

The once reviled and original “Pacman” Danding Cojuangco is more than back in the saddle. From exile he has reclaimed his leadership of San Miguel Corporation which has grown into a regional giant and a source of pride for Filipinos. The irony is that San Miguel continues to gobble up other companies, but instead of cursing Danding Cojuangco, his former critics are rejoicing because the shares they acquired will certainly go up in value.

Much has been said and suggested on how to deal with a problem like “Estrada”. There is the talk of reconciliation, pardon, amnesty or appealing to the people to respect the decision of the court. Soon enough we will face our greatest test and our biggest opportunity to prove that our courts are independent, that our laws are just, and that the government (not its political leaders) will stand ready to uphold the law without fear or favor.

God willing when we pass this storm, all of us will give more importance and greater value to learn as well as to teach others that our laws and our Justice system serve an equally important purpose in the life of Philippine society.

As individuals like Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno who works hard to clean up the courts of scalawags and incompetents, everyone else, beginning from the universities all the way to Malacañang must learn and teach that revolts and revolutions are merely temporary solutions. Politicians must remember that life and public office have a limited term, while laws and justice are eternal.

Regaining strength

2007-09-05T07:48:00.001+08:00

From all the noise coming out of Malacañang, the bishops and police, deposed President Joseph Estrada will soon be convicted of plunder, ending a six-year wait.

And from all indications, he will be pardoned by President Arroyo. If the pardon is absolute, Erap can’t reject it.

Conviction will require his transfer from the comfort of his rest house in Tanay, Rizal to one of the national prison facilities, most likely the one in Muntinlupa. Serving time in a real prison, even if he gets VIP treatment, could soften Erap’s avowed opposition to any pardon from the woman who is still referred to as a “usurper” by his followers.

There could be some haggling over the inclusion of a specific clause in an absolute pardon that will allow Erap to hold public office again.

For a man who has managed to retain his mass following during his six years in detention, it will be a breeze to return to the Senate.

And the presidency? Erap has made no secret of his wish to return to Malacañang, if fate allowed it. Will the current administration give him the chance to return to power — and possibly get back at those responsible for his humiliation? There is an apocryphal story about Erap urinating on a San Juan cop who had incurred his displeasure when he was the town mayor. You wouldn’t want this kind of guy to hold a long-simmering grudge against you.

Yesterday Senate President Manuel Villar said he favored the acquittal of Estrada. Villar is widely believed to be positioning himself for the presidential race in 2010, and he is said to have persuaded Erap’s son, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, to be his running mate.

Offhand getting Jinggoy looks like a political coup for Villar, who is guaranteed the support of that 30 percent of the population that has remained solidly behind Erap.

The move becomes disconcerting only when you remember that it was Villar, as speaker of the House, who fast-tracked Erap’s impeachment through the chamber in 2000, paving the way for the Senate trial.

Then again, Villar’s reported alliance with the Estradas is no longer surprising. Teofisto Guingona Jr., whom President Arroyo picked as her first vice president over microphone holder Aquilino Pimentel Jr., and who first formally hurled the accusations that led to Erap’s impeachment, went over to Erap’s side first.

Erap was impeached on allegations of large-scale corruption. People were so certain of his guilt that when his Senate allies tried to block the opening of an envelope believed to contain damning evidence against him, EDSA II was born and Erap found himself out of a job. Three months later, he was held without bail for plunder.

If the death penalty had not been abolished, plunder would have been a capital offense. This was supposed to be an open-and-shut case, and Erap’s ouster was supposed to herald a new dawn in governance.

Instead the case dragged on for six years, at the end of which Erap now finds his mass support still intact and his family firmly entrenched in both local and national politics. His support is courted by both pro-administration and opposition politicians. A recent survey said his trust rating in Metro Manila has soared. And the government is already dangling forgiveness even before his guilt is announced by the anti-graft court.

This phenomenon can be attributed not so much to anything new that Erap has done in the past six years, but to the unfulfilled promises of EDSA II and the failures of the administration.

* * *

Erap’s acquittal would have triggered a crisis of legitimacy for the administration. Was his ouster through people power unwarranted? With his conviction, the legitimacy question can be put to rest.

If he is pardoned, we must ask whether justice was rendered. The administration can point to Erap’s six years under rest house arrest as time served and explain that this is sufficient punishment for someone who, after all, won the presidency by the largest margin ever in the nation’s history of free elections. Even South Korea’s two former presidents were incarcerated for only half that time before being pardoned, and they were convicted of more serious offenses.

Another question in case of conviction is whether lessons have been learned. Will Filipinos henceforth bear in mind that corruption does not pay?

Judging from recent scandals, this has not happened.

Corruption scandals hounded this administration almost from Day One, starting with the $2 million that the President’s first justice secretary, Hernando Perez, is accused of receiving in exchange for a legal opinion that favored Argentine firm IMPSA. The case remains unresolved.

Today the nation prepares for the verdict on Erap in the midst of another corruption scandal. The amounts mentioned in connection with the ZTE deal are even larger than the kickbacks Erap allegedly received. The latest story yesterday was that officials of the National Economic and Development Authority were offered P200 million to endorse the broadband contract. Whether out of fear of prosecution, stupidity or genuine honesty, the NEDA officials reportedly declined.

The administration cannot even stage a show of determination to stamp out smuggling in Subic without the whole thing being dismissed as a cheap publicity stunt.

Aside from critics noting that the smuggled luxury vehicles destroyed were mostly old, “white papers” are now circulating, accusing Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority board director Jose Calimlim, said to be a presidential relative, of coddling smugglers at the freeport. Elsewhere in the country, administration allies are also being linked to smuggling and illegal gambling.

Such scandals have bolstered Erap’s political stock even without his lifting a finger. And he is bound to become stronger in the next three years.

Inoculation

2007-09-05T07:47:00.001+08:00

Someone submitted an impeachment complaint to Congress against Chairman Benjamin Abalos of the Commission on Elections yesterday. Going by the record of the complainant, however, this looks like another one of those inoculation operations that critics say have served President Arroyo well. A defective complaint, meant to be thrown out by the majority bloc in the pro-administration House of Representatives, is filed, thereby ensuring that the subject of the complaint cannot face another impeachment effort within one year. That one year gives Abalos ample time to retire in peace in early 2008.

The House can still prevent this inoculation of Abalos by rejecting the complaint filed by Oliver Lozano, a lawyer identified with the Marcos loyalists. But if the performance of the 13th Congress were to be a gauge, Lozano’s complaint is meant to bring closure, however messy it might be, to all the accusations of impropriety and criminal acts leveled against the Comelec chief. The complaint dwells only on the Comelec’s P1.2-billion poll automation contract with the private consortium Mega Pacific, which the Supreme Court nullified. Lozano suggested that his complaint be incorporated with any formal charge that may be lodged by congressmen who are studying the impeachment of Abalos in connection with the government’s $330-million broadband network deal with Chinese firm ZTE Corp.

Abalos has denied involvement in the ZTE deal and has said he is ready to face Congress. His impeachment does not necessarily mean he will be removed from office; it will merely be the first step in a process that will bring any complaint against him to the Senate for trial. Removal from office as a result of the trial is uncertain. Depending on the evidence presented, Abalos can also be cleared or merely censured by the Senate. But in a case that has been marked by a complete lack of transparency, the process will allow the truth to be known, quicker than it will take if the case goes through the snail-paced judicial system. The truth will never be known if the House allows a defective complaint to sabotage the process.

Dirty word

2007-09-04T06:07:00.000+08:00

“Logger” is a dirty word in this neck of the woods. Not us, snaps San Jose Timber Corp. (SJTC). Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile’s firm logs within a 95,770-hectare area that straddles protected zones of the country’s last old-growth forest in Samar Island. SJTC claims it works by “sustainable management.”

Bought in 1977 by then martial-law Defense Minister Enrile, SJTC got the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to scrub a logging moratorium. This feat affects what the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) lists as “one of the top 200 endangered spaces on the [planet].”

Catholic bishops, green groups and international foresters fret over threats to one of the world’s richest biodiversity pools. Exactly 406 of Samar’s more than 2,400 species of flowers bloom nowhere else. And it has 39 species of mammals and 197 birds. Many are endangered. “This genetic pool has incredible value,” marvels Food and Agriculture Organization forester Patrick Durst.

To protect this critical resource, the UN Development Program, the Global Environment Facility and the government launched the Samar Island Natural Park. But government often snitches with the left hand what it hands with its right. Here, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) spiked the log ban -- and stretched SJTC’s license by 16 years and five months. Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Mike Defensor’s Aug. 16, 2005 order tacked this rider for SJTC: “extension of period of said TLA equivalent to the time lapsed from 31 May 1989 until promulgation of this order.”

Extension constituted “restitution.” “Onli in da Pilipins” [Only in the Philippines], retorted the Samar Island Biodiversity Foundation in a letter to senators, church leaders and NGOs. “Extension of a TLA as ‘restitution’ never happened in the Philippines before,” wrote its president, Agustin Docena.

“Restitution,” the dictionary says, “is making good for injury done.” In a country where crime pays, the idea of making good for harm inflicted startles many. But the concept of reparation goes way back.

Some dub it the “Zacchaeus precedent.” In Luke’s account, the tax collector Zacchaeus pledged before the Master: “Half of my goods, I give to the poor. And if I’ve cheated anyone, I pay him back four times as much.” This fourfold restitution amplified the 7th Commandment, “Thou shall not steal.”

In an Orwellian country, like the Philippines, some people are more equal than others. A moneybag aristocracy dominates here. By manipulating government levers, pecuniary aristocrats grab all resources within reach. The Ten Commandments are watered down to the “Ten Suggestions.”

The result is a moral vacuum. It shuts out “restitution” -- except where the elite cash in. The powerful monopolize the Zacchaeus precedent but deny it to the weak. Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. and Ferdinand Marcos’ cronies couldn’t be bothered with “restitution” for wringing, under martial law, billions in levy from helpless coconut farmers.

Defensor’s order, in effect, says that SJTC has been prejudiced and is entitled to “restitution” -- by extension of its license. Who inflicted the harm? The Catholic bishops of Calbayog, Catarman and Borongan who supported the moratorium? The DENR?

Who calibrates the value of “restitution”? SJTC?

And how? In open hearings? Or was all this a secret, as Oliver Franks said, “in the Oxford sense—you may tell it only to one person at a time.”

Fairness is often the first victim in smoke-filled backroom negotiations. And the Catholic bishops’ pastoral letter opposing SJTC’s claim to “prior rights” makes the same point. This “legal assertion… does not reflect true justice or morality… The people of Samar have more prior rights... Justice dictates that the natural wealth of Samar Island benefit Samar’s poor, not end up (with) the already wealthy.”

Scientists have estimated losses if erosion of Samar’s biodiversity continues. “More than $40 billion in just 25 years,” says Marcelino Dalmacio, who led the UN’s Samar Biodiversity Project. “That’s more than the projected value of bauxite minerals. And it’s definitely greater than timber.”

Water accounts for more than 80 percent of the bill, Dalmacio adds. “Water will suffer consequences of logging and mining, particularly in karst (limestone) areas.” Underground cave systems in the country’s largest karst region would crumble from logging trucks.

Beyond price tags is the “killing curve.” Plant and animal genes form life’s building blocks. They spin off into diverse products, from high-yielding seeds to anti-cancer drugs. Only 15 percent have been studied. Of today’s 300,000 plants, only 200 or so appear on our dinner tables. Three crops -- rice, maize and wheat -- provide most of energy.

Yet, Oxford University’s Norman Myers estimates that some 30,000 species slip into extinction every year, compared with “two or three lost every five years or so before man appeared.” This “genetic library” took eons to evolve. “Its destruction would wreck the very systems that enable us to feed the world,” warns Thai Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award. “It would foreclose options for generations coming after us.”

Biodiversity loss is irreversible. There is no recall mechanism from obliteration. Who’ll make restitution for such damage? Forest cover here stood at 57 percent in 1934. It’s been whittled down to 18 percent today -- and is still dropping.

The Samar Island Biodiversity Foundation prodded the Senate to consider the “restitution” flap when selecting Commission on Appointments representatives. The foundation asks: Did Defensor swap extension-plus-restitution for Enrile’s vote in confirming his appointment?

Were you born yesterday?

Serving the President

2007-09-04T06:06:00.001+08:00

Last week President GloriaMacapagal-Arroyo, through Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, asked Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez to go on leave for two months so his health would improve. The 76-year-old Gonzalez, who is obviously afraid his leave would become permanent, the next day said he would take only a one-month leave because he did not want to be idle for a long time. He even made a great show of signing 20 documents in his hospital room.

We say, like some senators, that Gonzalez should make his leave permanent because it will be good for his health. He has rendered enough service (or disservice, depending on one’s point of view) to his country and should be allowed to rest. There are hundreds of brilliant lawyers who can fill his shoes at the Department of Justice. It is not as if Gonzalez is indispensable, and is the only one who is qualified to be secretary of justice.

From newspaper accounts, Gonzalez’s ailments are serious. Last month he was hospitalized for a bleeding ulcer. Gonzalez said the ulcer affected his legs so he found it difficult to walk without any help. There is a photo of him being assisted to his seat at a meeting in Malacañang last Wednesday, a piece of gauze over his right wrist. There is talk that he may have to undergo dialysis. The secretary is obviously very sick.

He is in no condition to remain in a key Cabinet post where every day he will be subjected to various pressures -- not just work and deadline pressures, but also political pressure. For his own good, the President should ask him to go on leave permanently.

Gonzalez is a prime example of a Cabinet member who has politicized his position. He has not dispensed impartial, unbiased and apolitical justice. In many of his decisions, actions and statements, he has been biased, political and very protective of Ms Arroyo. Most of the time, one listening to him would think that he is not the justice secretary but a political or publicity spokesperson of the President and her administration.

On the Subic rape case: From the start, Gonzalez expressed disbelief at “Nicole’s” claim that she was raped by four American Marines. In his statements it appeared that he was lawyering for the US Marines whose interests were already being protected by the US Embassy and Filipino attorneys acting as their defense counsel.

On the Julia Campbell slaying: Gonzalez exhibited the height of insensitivity when he blamed the victim, saying that “she was careless when she took a lonely walk by herself in a deserted area” and added, “[she] is also a little irresponsible.” Apparently he made the statements to try to erase the impression that peace and order is very bad under this administration.

On the extrajudicial killings: Gonzalez said that United Nations Special Rapporteur Philip Alston, who made a report on extrajudicial killings to the UN, was “just a ‘muchacho’ [a hired man]” of the organization. He was apparently downgrading Alston’s position to lessen the effects of his negative findings on the political killings.

On setting up a “rogues’ gallery” of purported coup plotters: On one hand, Gonzalez said there was nothing unconstitutional or illegal in this proposal. On the other hand, constitutionalists like Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J. and the Concerned Lawyers for Civil Liberties said the proposed rogues’ gallery would violate the right to privacy and cause a “chilling effect” on critics of the administration.

On the $329-million broadband deal with China’s ZTE Corp.: Gonzalez said the contract was an executive agreement that did not need to go through a public bidding. He made the statement even without reading the contract, the original copies of which were lost and which had yet to be “reconstituted.”

These and other statements indicate that Gonzalez on many occasions acted not as a justice secretary but more like a political spokesperson or a propagandist for the President and her administration. His statements have hardly, if at all, promoted the ends of justice, but on the contrary, may have even caused injustice, as in the cases of “Nicole” and Campbell.

Gonzalez has rendered enough service to President Arroyo. He is no longer needed as a political spokesperson and propagandist -- unless she has secret political plans for 2010. For his own good and for the good of the nation, he should be allowed to retire permanently.

Sadists

2007-09-04T06:04:00.000+08:00

If his son has not been involved in homicide, it would be better for Francisco Cruz, a physician of the Veterans Memorial Medical Center, to surface — preferably with his son — and shed light on the death of Cris Anthony Mendez. The 20-year-old public administration student of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City died of injuries from a severe beating over a week ago apparently during a fraternity hazing.

A VMMC security guard identified Cruz as the person who, together with his son, brought Mendez to the hospital early in the morning of Aug. 27 in a Toyota Innova with government license plates SAB-393. Three other vehicles arrived later. Were the passengers members of the Sigma Rho fraternity, which Mendez was reportedly trying to join? The guard was not sure if Mendez was still alive when rushed to the emergency ward.

With so many details available to investigators, perhaps it would be easier to obtain justice for Mendez. Hazing has persisted because fraternities in this country have a twisted concept of brotherhood. Older members who occupy prominent positions in government and the private sector cover up crimes, from misdemeanors to heinous ones, committed by younger fraternity brothers. The judge who convicted members of the Aquila Legis law fraternity for the hazing death of Lenny Villa, for example, has curiously run into a lot of legal troubles. There is little effort among senior fraternity members to put a stop to hazing. Having experienced painful initiation rites, the older members apparently want applicants to undergo the same suffering.

What do these violent, degrading initiation rites promote? It cannot possibly be fraternity. Such rites give full rein to every fraternity member’s inner sadist, with violence inflicted in the cowardice of anonymity. It is tempting to compare this Neanderthal behavior with those of animals, but it would be unfair to the beasts, which kill only for food or in self-defense and never for sadistic fun. If Doctor Cruz and his son are not parties to such inhuman behavior, they should face investigators.

Making sense of the broadband deal

2007-09-03T22:34:00.002+08:00

The administration seems to be backtrack-ing on the $329 national broadband deal. Some more pressure from the public and we would not be surprised Gloria Arroyo would appear on nationwide television one of these days to announce the project had been cancelled.

The people who packaged the deal are now facing the real possibility of being haled before the Sandiganbayan on plunder charges. Perhaps not during Gloria’s time. But in three years, it’s a near certainty that whoever would run on a platform of good governance would have the inner track to Malacañang. "Ikulong ang mga magnanakaw!" would be an unbeatable campaign slogan.

Now we’re hearing from Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya that the $329 million thievery is not yet a done deal. No loan agreement has been signed with the Chinese Export-Import Bank. Why, Andaya said, the project is not even included in the proposed 2008 budget.

So why did Transport Secretary Leandro Mendoza keep on saying the deal was good as done? That the National Economic and Development Authority has vetted the project. And the paper work is all that needs to be done. Trade Secretary Peter Favila was also quoted as saying during the Asean economic ministers meeting here that the Chinese foreign minister had signed a credit accommodation for $1.3 billion, within which the $329 million for the broadband project would be accommodated.

How do we explain the seemingly conflicting statements?

We tend to believe Mendoza’s explanation. The project has secured an imprimatur from the highest level, that is, Gloria. That’s all that’s needed. Everything else is mere procedural requirements.

There are two main hurdles remaining. First is the actual signing of the contract. Second is the Monetary Board approval of the loan to be secured from the Chinese Eximbank. The two hurdles can be cleared in a week after Gloria says "go."

The deal is not being pushed now because of the ongoing controversy. Election Chairman Benjamin Abalos has been tagged as the Chinese proponents’ "padrino." The quid pro quo is assumed to be Abalos’ "cooperation" in last year’s elections and continuing silence over the "Hello Garci" tapes.

The Palace is watching how the storm plays out. If this attempted thievery does not trigger widespread outrage, then the deal will push through. If this scandal threatens the continued stay in power of Gloria or her precious liberty after her exit, then this deal will be scuttled.

Which way would it be? We’ll know soon enough. We have gone out of the business of speculating, however well-reasoned, when it comes to this administration. There is no rationality in decision-making. It seems every decision now depends on which side of the bed Arroyo wakes up on any given morning.

Sleight of hand or mechanical glitch?

2007-09-03T22:34:00.001+08:00

Insinuations that a game in the popular noontime show Wowowee was rigged spread via text messages last week. A video clip of the supposed sleight of hand was posted on YouTube, further fanning speculations. In the clip, show host Willie Revillame pulled out a box that supposedly contained the number 2, which represents the P2-million grand prize a contestant had failed to win. What appeared, however, was the number 0. Realizing that the number was the wrong one, the host promptly pulled out of the same box the number 2.

Not surprisingly, the gaffe was played up by Joey de Leon, one of the hosts in the noontime show on a rival network. Revillame was compelled to issue a rebuttal, and a full-blown word war was on.

Like a typhoon drawing energy from the high seas, the controversy has since grown in size and intensity. Sen. Mar Roxas feels the issue merits a congressional inquiry. Roxas said there is a need to determine if the Consumer Protection Act has to be amended as it pertains to game shows.

De Leon himself has volunteered, along with his longtime show-biz buddies, former senator Tito Sotto and Vic Sotto, to explain the workings of a game show if an investigation is called.

Some might scoff at the idea of the Senate spending its time and resources on a hearing to find out if deception was committed during a TV game show, when other, more pressing issues cry for its attention. We think such an inquiry is in order. If there has been an attempt to deceive not only game show contestants but television viewers, it becomes a consumer concern that is worth investigating.

In the 1950s, several celebrity contestants in an American TV quiz show, Twenty One, admitted during a congressional probe they were coached by the show’s producers. As a result, the US Congress passed a law banning fixing in game shows.

More recently, scandal tainted the British version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. In September 2001 a contestant won the show’s grand prize of 1 million pounds. When the tape of the episode was reviewed by the producers, they found that the contestant was being helped along by an accomplice in the studio audience who was using coughs as cues. The prize was withheld, and Scotland Yard was summoned to investigate.

In the end, the contestant, his wife and his prompter, a college lecturer, were charged with deception and conspiracy.

ABS-CBN has attributed the Revillame’s faux pas to a “mechanical glitch.” The network, however, did not explain in detail what the problem was. It should have, if only to quell speculations that it was covering up for its high-rating show.

We would also like to hear from the Department of Trade of Industry, which monitors game shows, and the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas, the organization to which ABS-CBN belongs. They should have been the first to react to the allegations of deception. In the Wowowee issue, their silence is deafening.

30 years to resolve a case

2007-09-03T22:30:00.000+08:00

The crime was committed in 1977. Thirty years later, the Supreme Court has issued a final ruling upholding the guilty verdict on two civil engineers of what was then the Ministry of Public Works. Simeon Fernan Jr. and Expedito Torrevillas were found guilty of falsifying documents for the disbursement of P86 million meant for roadwork in Cebu. It took 20 years before the two were convicted by the Sandiganbayan, and another 10 years before the Supreme Court upheld the ruling.

The nation should probably count its blessings; at least there were convictions in this case. Ferdinand Marcos died before anything could be pinned on him with certainty. If he were alive today, he would likely be as fully rehabilitated as his heirs, never spending even a minute behind bars, and possibly considering another run for the presidency.

The slow pace of justice in the Cebu civil engineers’ case is just the latest example of the difficulty of stamping out corruption. Seeing the corrupt go unpunished is the best incentive for others to commit similar crimes. Thirty years is a long time; evidence and witnesses can disappear, plaintiffs can die without seeing justice done, and dirty money can be laundered to buy respect for a corrupt official’s family.

Swift justice cannot be guaranteed even for someone like deposed President Joseph Estrada, who has been languishing under “rest house arrest” for most of the six years that he has been held without bail for plunder. If ever Estrada is acquitted, those six years would be seen as a grave injustice.

It has been said often enough that justice delayed is justice denied. This is true both for the guilty and the innocent, and both for the plaintiff and defendant. The slow pace has encouraged many Filipinos to simply turn to murder to settle scores or else join rebel movements that can guarantee swift justice. The slow pace also hinders efforts to stamp out corruption. If it takes 30 years to determine the guilt of the corrupt with finality, potential complainants and witnesses are likely to think it’s not worth the effort.

The bigger challenge

2007-09-02T07:11:00.001+08:00

Let’s enjoy the occasional good news and appreciate the fact that gross domestic product grew 7.5 percent in the second quarter — the fastest rate in the past 20 years. But let’s also acknowledge that too many people are complaining about the failure of economic benefits to trickle down to the grassroots. The administration should be credited for implementing unpopular but necessary measures to put the nation’s fiscal house in order and promote economic growth. But economic managers themselves have admitted that they need to work more on the trickle-down effect.

In confronting this challenge, the government should listen to its critics. Economic growth is consumption-driven. While figures on foreign direct investments and exports aren’t too bad, they pale in comparison to those of neighboring countries. Entrepreneurship can use a boost. Agricultural production is down. All of these factors translate into fewer job opportunities. And the unemployed and underemployed are the first to bemoan the absence of the trickle-down effect amid glowing economic growth figures.

Attracting more job-generating investments has long been a challenge to this administration. We know what investors need, foremost of which are adequate infrastructure facilities. But almost every big-ticket infrastructure project in this country, including an airport terminal, becomes bogged down in corruption scandals. Investors complain about high power costs, but efforts to address the problem are going nowhere. Investors want transparency, accountability, a reliable regulatory environment and the rule of law, including curbs on smuggling — factors that guarantee a level playing field for all. These things the government cannot guarantee.

There is another factor that accounts for the absence of the trickle-down effect: economic growth cannot keep pace with population growth. An ever-increasing number of people are competing for the same amount of resources, basic services and job opportunities. But the administration has always regarded the population problem like a cold virus that will go away by itself even if ignored. This policy of benign neglect is mandated from the very top. President Arroyo should not be irritated when critics question the economic good news from Malacañang. The bigger challenge is making the masses enjoy the benefits of economic growth.

Trickle or trick

2007-09-01T08:48:00.000+08:00

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was said to have been euphoric Thursday as she announced the strong performance of the Philippine economy in the second quarter of the year. And quite understandably so. The economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, grew by 7.5 percent in the period from April to June, a growth rate that exceeded not only the government’s forecast of 6.6 percent but even the most optimistic expectations. It was, as Ms Arroyo proudly pointed out, the highest growth in any quarter in the past 20 years, keeping intact the series of successive growth during her six years in office. That is a record unmatched by any other administration, she added. And it came after an already healthy first quarter growth of 7.1 percent -- better than the 6.9 percent growth earlier estimated by the National Statistical Coordination Board.

This is certainly good news for everyone but those who do not wish the Arroyo administration well. But can such growth, which is still slow by Asian standards, be sustained? Businessmen and economists, who were just as elated as the President was over this year’s economic performance so far, see the economy continuing to grow for the rest of the year, but at a slower pace. Ms Arroyo herself said the government would stick to its full-year growth target of between 6.1 percent and 6.7 percent, which means essentially the same as what the businessmen are seeing: a slight slowdown in the second half.

The reason is that some of the main drivers behind the unexpectedly robust growth in the second quarter will either become weaker or even be gone. Election-related spending, for instance, will no longer be there to boost consumption, which expanded by 6.0 percent during the quarter; and construction whose growth was propelled by a 39.6 percent increase in government spending on infrastructure. For the short term, mining is expected to power the growth of the industry sector as foreign investments continue to pour in, and business process outsourcing, which mainly involves call-center operations, should keep the growth in services healthy. But it is doubtful whether these two growth centers by themselves can pull the economy as a whole to a vigorous level of growth.

Giving her administration a pat on the back, the President declared that the remarkable performance of the economy showed that “our economic plans succeeded.” Said she: “No one thought that we could get more revenues, cut down on tax cheats, strengthen the peso and move the stock market. No one thought, we could bring our budget into balance, repay our debts and increase jobs, but we have done it.”

As far as those things are concerned, the review should be mixed. For one thing, the administration cannot claim all the credit for the stronger peso, without ignoring the more significant contribution of the inward remittances of overseas Filipino workers. Revenue collections may be higher in the last two years, but that is largely the result of the introduction of new tax measures, particularly the increase to 12 percent of the value-added tax. In fact, collections of both the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Bureau of Customs fell short of target during the first half of 2007, and now their chiefs are seeking lower collection targets for next year, even as the government seeks to increase its expenditure program to P1.227 trillion. True, a part of the country’s debts have been retired sooner than planned, but the government has not balanced its budget yet. Neither has it made a lot of headway in going after tax cheats as well as corrupt officials not only in the BIR and Customs but in the entire government bureaucracy.

Job creation? That is still one of the weakest points of the administration. Senate President Manuel Villar pointed out that 2.7 million Filipinos remain jobless while close to 6.4 million are holding either part-time jobs or jobs in which their education, training or talents are not being fully utilized. The bellwether of economic progress, he said, should be whether or not this army of unemployed and underemployed benefits from the growth being touted by the administration.

Apparently, years of growth has not opened more jobs or created the kind of jobs that put a little more food on the table for millions of Filipino families. Ms Arroyo has to do a lot more to ensure that the benefits of growth trickle down to those who need them most. Otherwise, as Villar put it, people might think they are being tricked to believe there is progress.

Fore!

2007-09-01T08:39:00.001+08:00

Many tales have been told and retold about megabuck deals hatched and struck on the fairways. In the four to six hours that golfers in the same flight are stuck together, they run out any new thing to say about the weather. They are all by themselves in the middle of the course. Nobody is eavesdropping. So there’s the perfect opportunity to talk business.

But if we are to believe Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos, he and officials of ZTE Corp. not for once talked about the latter’s $330 million national broadband project. Not at Wack Wack when Abalos was hosting; not at Shenzhen in China when the ZTE officials were reciprocating.

Abalos, reacting to a privilege speech of Rep. Carlos Padilla where he was tagged as having brokered the deal, said his only role was to introduce ZTE officials to Finance Secretary Margarito Teves. He did not talk to Gloria Arroyo or to Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza, the Cabinet man who is now on top of the broadband project. For making the introduction, Abalos said, he deserves the gratitude of the nation, not accusations of lining his pocket thick with "commissions" from his Chinese golfing buddies.

Without jumping to any conclusion, we have news for Abalos. Expecting gratitude from the people for what he did is at a par with wishing before May that he expected to leave as legacy a record of clean elections.

The ZTE deal is alleged to be overpriced. The government says it isn’t. Critics do not accept the government’s claim on its mere say-so. They demand that the agreement be made public. The government says the original document was stolen. It has since been reconstructed, but the government to this day refuses to make public the terms of a contract that will cost taxpayers P14 billion and change.

Abalos could well be innocent of Padilla’s allegations. But his stint at the Comelec has been marred by so many anomalies people will always believe the worst of him.

Remember the P1.3 billion election automation project? Or the "Hello Garci" scandal? Or, closer to the present, the farcical elections last May in ARMM?

Any of these scandals would have prompted a man with "delicadeza" to resign. In the case of Abalos, his reaction to all these scandals was to dare his critics to file a case against him if there was any evidence of wrongdoing.

At least, Gloria Arroyo said "I’m sorry" at the height of the "Hello Garci" scandal.

Not in his worst nightmare would Abalos probably see himself being compared with Arroyo. And Gloria ending up better in comparison to him.

The truth . . . in trickles

2007-09-01T08:36:00.000+08:00

He kept mum as stories swirled about an official of the Commission on Elections who visited China about four times since last year at the expense of ZTE Corp., a company that was seeking a $330-million broadband deal with the Philippine government.

Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos finally spoke up only when all the other poll commissioners had denied that they were the official alluded to. Even then Abalos gave details of his links with ZTE in trickles, initially denying that he was familiar with the controversial broadband deal. After he was linked to the project by Nueva Vizcaya Rep. Carlos Padilla, Abalos finally admitted that ZTE executives in Manila were his golfing partners, and they had shouldered his expenses during his visits to China since last year. Abalos said ZTE executives helped his daughter source materials for her import business.

It is not clear if the daughter was present when Abalos introduced ZTE executives to Finance Secretary Margarito Teves. The finance chief distinctly remembers that the broadband deal was discussed.

What other admissions are in store from the Comelec chief as more people come out to jog his memory? Perhaps he could tell the nation if the project, signed by Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza with ZTE officials in the presence of President Arroyo in Boao, China last April, violated an election ban on such contracts. He would not know, Abalos claimed, because the project was never cleared with him in connection with the election ban.

Mendoza, one of the President’s most trusted lieutenants, now faces graft charges for the deal together with two other officials of his department as well as several ZTE executives. Abalos can be removed only through impeachment, but he is not immune from prosecution for graft. The project is double the price offered by ZTE’s closest competitor, and will be financed through a soft loan to be provided by China’s Export-Import Bank. At current exchange rates, that’s P15.4 billion that Filipino taxpayers must repay with interest for the next 25 years. The public deserves to know the full details of this deal, including who brokered it and why. So far the official response to demands for transparency is: Uncover the truth… if you can.

Ending enforced disappearances

2007-08-31T05:56:00.000+08:00

Approximately 183 citizens have disappeared since 2001, according to human-right groups that keep count; about 1,900 since 1973. Enforced disappearances continued during the administrations of Corazon Aquino, Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada. Who carried out the abductions? What happened to the victims? Were the perpetrators ever been prosecuted and punished?

Leftist organizations have blamed elements of the military and the police since most of the victims were persons known to have socialist or communist leanings. They said they have witnesses and evidence to back their claim. The Armed Forces and the Philippine National Police have denied the charge. The military said the New People’s Army, the Abu Sayyaf or the Moro secessionists could have had a hand in the abductions.

The International Convention for the Protection of Persons from Enforced Disappearance defines involuntary disappearance as “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence by the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.”

The latest abduction being pinned on the military is that of Jonas Burgos, a farmer and a training specialist for a national organization of peasants. It has been three months since a group of men seized him at a shopping mall in Quezon City. The military has denied involvement. The PNP on Tuesday produced three “communists” who said at a press briefing that the NPA abducted the son of journalist Jose Burgos.

Still missing are Ma. Luisa Posa-Dominado and Nilo Arado, missing since April 12; Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan, two UP students said to have been abducted by the military on June 26, 2006, and other students, workers, farmers, lawyers and labor organizers identified with left-of-center organizations.

The search for the desaparacidos continues while efforts to stop abductions by the military, police and enemies of the state intensify. In what could be a giant step, 131 congressmen, crossing party lines, have introduced a bill that defines involuntary disappearance and prescribes sanctions on perpetrators and accomplices.

House Bill 2263, “an act defining and penalizing the crime of enforced or involuntary disappearance,” metes life imprisonment for persons involved in such crime. The bill describes five categories of involvement.

It seeks the rehabilitation of the victims and prescribes compensation to their families. The measure aims to provide protection to victims, families, legal counsel, human-rights organizations, the media and witnesses of involuntary disappearance.

The principal author, Rep. Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna, said that he phenomenon of enforced disappearance has largely remained undefined, unchecked and unpunished in the country. No specific offense related to it has been recognized despite its systematic occurrence in the past 30 years, he added.

The vigor with which the administration and opposition lawmakers supported HB 2263 is comforting. We hope the Senate, under President Manny Villar, would pass its version soon and a conference committee would work on a unified bill for the signature of President Arroyo.

The unabated kidnapping of Filipino citizens—whether socialists, nationalists or communists—is a blot on our democracy and system of justice. It mocks our pretensions to law and order and claims to development with social conscience.

Any law protecting human rights and the safety of citizens, however, will fail unless the Establishment—political, police and military—accepts left-of-center thought as an integral part of the body politic and that socialism or any ideology close to it is not poison but an expression of legitimate political action, an option to the conventional wisdoms about the political economy.

The Magsaysay Awards

It’s the late Ramon Magsaysay’s 100th birthday anniversary. Among Filipino presidents, he has no peer in honesty and devotion to duty.

The nation honors him by conferring the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation’s Award on seven distinguished Asians for outstanding service to humanity.

The Foundation says “the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay awardees are collectively advancing causes to improve lives and correct unjust social conditions across Asia.” They will receive their awards in fitting ceremonies today, joining the 256 previous awardees in a distinct hall of fame.

We join the Filipino people and the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation in congratulating:

The revered former Senate president Jovito R. Salonga, the awardee for government service, for the integrity and substance of his long public career in service to democracy and good government.

Kim Sun Tae of Korea, the awardee for public service, for helping his fellow blind and visually impaired in South Korea.

Mahabir Pun of Nepal, the awardee for community service, for his innovative application of wireless computer technology in Nepal, particularly in the villages.

Tang Xiyang of China, the awardee for peace and international understanding, for guiding China to meet its mounting environmental crisis.

Palagummi Sainath of India, the awardee for journalism, literature and creative communication, for his commitment as a journalist to restore the rural poor to India’s national consciousness.

Chen Guangcheng of China, the awardee for emergent leadership, for leading ordinary Chinese citizens to assert their legitimate rights under the law. And,

Chung To of China, another awardee for emergent leadership, for his proactive response to AIDS in China.

Obstruction

2007-08-31T05:55:00.001+08:00

If the “Hello, Garci” tapes had never surfaced, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would be firmly in charge, there would be, at best, a token opposition, and she wouldn’t be, today, the Richard Nixon of Philippine politics. But the tapes surfaced, and the country then, as now, must ask: Why does the chief victim of the wiretapping, the President, seem the least inclined to get to the bottom of the matter?

When the first (modified) versions of the tapes appeared, let no one forget that the Palace began by trying to muddle the issue with its own doctored version. Then it proceeded to wield its own interpretation of the law like a club. It threatened media with prosecution if they broadcast the tapes or published transcripts. It then issued executive issuances that were found defective by the courts, but which provided a shield for vulnerable Cabinet and military officials. It embarked on a divide-and-rule strategy by resisting both a truth commission and impeachment, until it had lobbied enough support to block both.

The President herself tried to grovel before the people. When that failed, she proceeded to do her best to intimidate those who wouldn’t be induced into cooperating with her. We should never overlook the reality, however, that throughout this time, until the present, she has acted as the primary defendant, instead of the foremost victim, and that is because whether she instigated the wiretapping or not, at the heart of the tapes is the revelation of a larger crime, the subversion of democracy.

The public instinctively knew then, and on the whole continues to believe, that these revelations stripped the President of legitimacy. While the public has also, on the whole, been willing to keep an open mind, all efforts to resolve this paramount question have failed. This failure has given the President an uneasy tenure.

But there is a difference between what we, the people, knew about the “Hello, Garci” issue in 2005, and what we know today. Someone has stepped forward to testify how it was done, by whom, and to whom. That someone is Vidal Doble Jr.

In 2005, he was the kind of fugitive over whom various camps conducted a tug-of-war that the intelligence establishment won. Today, he is acting as a whistle-blower. And now the public wants to see if his allegations can be debunked, or if they can withstand sustained scrutiny.

Instead of finally resolving matters, the Palace has reached into its old bag of tricks. It has dismissed the whistle-blower out of hand, threatened to recycle discredited executive issuances, proclaimed its own interpretation of the law as the only valid one, and tried to rally its old reliables in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Doble has finally done what he didn’t do in 2005, which is to give testimony on the vital questions of who were wiretapped, by whom and how, all of which suggest a possible answer, at long last, to the question of motive. Who was interested in getting the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines to eavesdrop on such a wide-ranging group as a member of the Cabinet (Michael Defensor), a constitutional officer (Virgilio Garcillano) and members of the opposition? In 2005, the public could only wonder, but now we are inching closer to suspects, and the chief suspect seems to be a member of the President’s official family.

These are allegations that demand an investigation. We are told that Congress can investigate with one of two purposes in mind. It can investigate in order to exercise oversight over the executive branch, or it can investigate in aid of legislation. Every aspect of these allegations touches on these two justifications to hold a Senate hearing.

Former senator Francisco Tatad warns of a constitutional crisis if the Senate proceeds to investigate the case. The separation of powers, he says, means the Senate cannot investigate a president unless articles of impeachment have been approved by the House.

Tatad is being true to the spirited defense he made of then-embattled President Joseph Estrada. But we are not convinced by his reasoning, and we’re glad that the Senate committee on rules voted that hearing by the committee of the whole is in order.

To be sure, the Senate, at the end of the hearings, can only recommend action or amend existing legislation or pass new bills. It cannot remove the President from office without an impeachment. But it can, and should, ask: Why the President, who may have been victimized by her own people, coddles them. Why did the law prove impotent to prevent such a situation? And is it being used to protect the culprits?

Murphy’s deal

2007-08-31T05:53:00.000+08:00

With the ZTE deal, everything that can go wrong has gone wrong. Is it any wonder, if the lurid reports ultimately prove accurate, that a Commission on Elections (Comelec) official was actually involved in the deal?

The Comelec should have nothing to do with the ambitious but fatally flawed plan to construct a National Broadband Network -- unless, that is, previous participation in another ambitious but fatally flawed computerization contract (think Mega Pacific) was a prerequisite. But, if the reports are accurate, the hiring of the election official to lobby for the contract was a masterstroke of cynicism: during an election period, the influence of election commissioners is second to none.

As it is, the entire NBN scandal has all the hallmarks of a Comelec project under the chairmanship of Benjamin Abalos.

Like the infamous claim of Maguindanao election supervisor Lintang Bedol, the scandal involves stolen documents. To be sure, the ZTE deal wasn’t the only such contract stolen in Boao, China, last April, hours after it was signed in the presence of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. At least five other contracts were filched, too. But like Bedol, officials of the Department of Transportation and Communication waited an inordinately long time to report the alleged theft.

The scandal also features clueless government officials, in the mold of Abalos himself. The President’s chief lawyer, Sergio Apostol, announced that there was, in fact, no contract. Transportation and Communication Secretary Leandro Mendoza, whose department will manage the network, kept a studied if embarrassed silence. And the Department of Justice ruled that the contract between ZTE and the Philippine government was valid -- without, however, actually seeing a copy of the contract.

Like the Maguindanao vote recount, the scandal is marked by a thorough lack of transparency. The contract for the network mysteriously ballooned in the course of a few months, ending as a $330-million project. In the process, the competitive and in fact superior bids of two other companies were virtually ignored.

Above all, and like Abalos’ oft-repeated claims of his commitment to clean and honest elections, the scandal involves a betrayal of the project’s very objective. Instead of an infusion of foreign capital to produce a functioning network, we will get the opposite: an unnecessary and expensive piece of government infrastructure, paid for by Filipino taxpayers.

Last March, officials of ZTE, described in news releases then as China’s largest listed telecommunications equipment provider, pledged (together with officials of another Chinese company) to invest heavily in the Philippines. “Officials of Pioneer Metals Group of Companies based in China and Hong Kong and ZTE Corp. ... told President Macapagal-Arroyo in separate calls in Malacañang of their intentions to invest here….”

This notion of investment, however, has been stood on its head. A few days ago, the Philippine government took out a loan from China’s Import-Export Bank, including a $400-million allocation for the National Broadband Network. What does this mean? It means ZTE is not in fact investing in the Philippines; it has bamboozled the Philippine government into taking out a loan from the Chinese government to fund ZTE’s “investment.”

Surely this “investment” is not what the President and her economic officials had in mind, when they discussed the need for a “privately funded government broadband network” in November 2006, and resolved that “the government connectivity and infrastructure should be developed at no cost, and with savings, to the national government.”

For these or similar reasons, Rep. Carlos Padilla of Nueva Vizcaya has filed graft charges against Mendoza, two of his assistant secretaries, and at least four officials of ZTE, for violating anti-graft and government procurement laws. “The officials I have charged are liable for misleading the public and executing this anomalous contract and should be punished accordingly,” Padilla said.

Let’s hope Murphy’s Law, at work in this controversial deal at every stage, does not extend to the prosecution of Padilla’s case.

Leadership and integrity

2007-08-31T05:52:00.001+08:00

When lawmakers are likened to clowns and crocodiles and all it takes to land a Senate seat is a public denunciation of any member of the First Family, it is good to remember that not too long ago, Filipinos voted into high office deserving statesmen like Jovito Salonga. His body weakened by shrapnel from the bombing of Plaza Miranda on Aug. 21, 1971, Salonga went on to fight Ferdinand Marcos’ oppressive regime. After democracy was restored, he steered the Senate with wisdom, responsibility and integrity — traits that are now sorely missed in the chamber.

Salonga will be honored today with the Ramon Magsaysay Award for government service. Sharing honors with him are six other people from all over Asia who have dedicated their lives to the service of others and to making the world a better place to live. Their stories reflect the life of the late President Ramon Magsaysay, who left behind a legacy of leadership and integrity, and who showed Filipinos the virtues of hard work, education and determination.

The honor roll:

• Kim Sun-tae, awardee for public service, for providing assistance and hope to his fellow blind Koreans and other visually impaired people through his ministry.

• Mahabir Pun of Nepal, for connecting his mountain village to the world through wireless computer technology, bringing progress to mountain communities. He is being honored for community leadership.

• Tang Xiyang, awardee for peace and international understanding, for contributing to China’s awareness of its environmental crisis.

• Chen Guangcheng and Chung To, both also from China, for emergent leadership, for baring ugly truths about their country at great risk to their personal safety, to compel Beijing to address the problems squarely.

• Palagummi Sainath of India, awardee for journalism, literature and creative communication arts. He is being honored, the Magsaysay foundation announced, for “his passionate commitment as a journalist to restore the rural poor to India’s national consciousness.”

Like Magsaysay, the life stories of all the awardees can lift people out of despair and cynicism. They are sources of inspiration as the nation marks the centenary of Ramon Magsaysay’s birth today.

Malu Fernandez: Hate ugly Filipinos

2007-08-30T06:50:00.001+08:00

Don’t we ever run out of scandals? Lately it has been the fierce and fabulous author Malu Fernandez of People Asia magazine. Allegedly she already resigned from her writing job due to the numerous complaints against her article of June 2007 titled, “From Boracay to Greece!” It is a travel piece recounting her summer spent in the beautiful island of Boracay fighting off insects and protecting her immaculate pedicure from the white sands and then jetting off to Greece to see the goddesses but having to go through ugly Filipinos en route.

What exactly did she write? She said that to save on ticket going to Greece, she bravely took the economy class via Emirates with a stopover in Dubai, only to remember that the latter was the hub for OFWs. She “wanted to slash her wrist at the thought of being trapped in a plane with all of them.” She was tormented in her sleep with “endless yelling of “HOY! Kumusta ka na? At taga saan ka? Domestic helper ka rin ba? I thought I had died and God had sent me to my own private hell.” On the return trip [of course she had to fly back somehow], she “resigned [her]self to being trapped like a sardine in a sardine can with all these OFWs smelling of AXE and Charlie cologne while my Jo Malone evaporated into thin air.”

With these lines, Malu offended our sensibilities, went against political correctness and doomed herself to public condemnation.

Our sensibilities say that to travel for leisure is a privilege and a luxury. Millions of our countrymen brave foreign shores in search of the proverbial three meals a day. Hence to vacation in Bora or, rather and, Greece in one break is something we whisper a prayer for and count our blessings. How can Malu be so ungrateful, we ask not out of envy?

Malu writes for the sosi crowd. For outsiders, sosi means sosyal—a Filipinized word of “social” referring to high society and the rich and/or famous. It is obvious from her article that Malu is part of this class (otherwise she will not be a credible source so essential in sosi magazines). Well, she scrimped on her plane ticket to shop for more accessories and her nose spotted the difference of AXE and Charlie, scents of the masa (masses) and her exquisite Jo Malone. That is how socialites are.

She flaunted political correctness when she dared to be true to herself and called OFWs for who they are: A noisy lot intruding into personal space sacred to others in small places like economy seats. At least she is honest with her thoughts. She could have injected the value of empathy—understanding that it is beyond the OFWs themselves and largely attributable to socio-economic factors like education and professional attainment. She may perhaps have been trying to be cute about it or simply reflected the elite mentality.

She is publicly condemned for pointing out, albeit unintentionally, the stark truth that we are a society of pretenders—of OFWs buying branded goods and perfumes instead of saving up and matronas spending three hours at hair spas and then going to their favorite charity balls, of migrants fighting for survival and public servants swimming in pork barrel, of urban professionals concerned with the next gimmick or new car or exotic vacation and our national budget in perpetual deficit because of low tax base and tax evasion, of mall goers hugging dogs and cats and young children on the streets begging for alms. Damn, we sure deserve what we see and don’t see. Don’t we just hate Malu and hate ourselves the ugly Filipinos. How could we look away?

Malu, you are not alone, come back and write. Let us hate the ugliness of the OFWs in us, enough to do something about it.

What Sison’s arrest means

2007-08-30T06:48:00.001+08:00

Manila newspapers headlined yesterday the arrest of Mr. Jose Ma. Sison, political consultant of the National Democratic Front, in the peace talks with government. He is more known as the founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines which is engaged in armed struggle with the government.

He was reportedly arrested in the city of Utrecht in The Netherlands which also hosts the foreign chapter of the NDF rebel coalition.

It is a significant development in the history of the insurgency, almost similar to the time Mr. Sison was arrested sometime in 1977 in the Philippines while he was in the underground. After his release in 1986 by the Cory government, he went on exile in The Netherlands.

The report said that Mr. Sison would be tried in Dutch courts on the ground that he violated Dutch laws. One of that crime is he reportedly ordered the killing of some people in the Philippines while staying in The Netherlands.

The previous arrangement in Mr. Sison’s exile was that he could stay as a political refugee in The Netherlands provided he did not violate local laws. The legal question now is whether the state prosecutors of The Netherlands could prove that Sison indeed ordered the killing while staying in the European country.

That would be matter of a presentation of evidence. Remember that the Dutch courts and government are under pressure to show fairness in their trials because many elements in the Dutch Parliament are human rights-oriented. Public opinion also won’t allow unfair trial for political refugees or their eventual extradition to their native countries, even for a suspected communist like Sison.

From 1986, Joma could stay in The Netherlands since he was supported by many members of the Dutch Parliament who thought that no political refugee should be expelled if he is in danger of being persecuted at home. Even before his arrest, Joma could travel to the Benelux countries: Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg.

For the Philippine audience, the more important question on the Joma arrest is its implication on the peace process. Would this development lead to resumption of peace negotiations between the government and the communist rebels? Or will this lead to more violence in the insurgent areas?

The peace talks that started in 1992 have been canceled several times because of the many contentious issues that cropped up during the talks. After the initial agreement on human rights, the other three topics held vital to a final peace accord had been put on the backburner. One obstacle is the disagreement on truce, a foolish attitude since ceasefire is supposed to benefit both sides.

Just a recollection: The arrest and incarceration of Joma during the Marcos years did not check the insurgency. As a matter of fact, it even increased the number of rebels and their arms to the point of threatening the government in 1986. At that time, the rebels were already proclaiming the entry of strategic offensive, which means readiness to enter Manila. What we are saying is that the arrest of a leader did not mean the end of the insurgency.

The Philippine government should take advantage of the situation by proposing a resumption of peace talks with the NDF, with no conditions. And in that effort, The Netherlands and members of the European Union would fully support the peace initiative.

Remembering del Pilar

We remember today, August 30, Marcelo H. del Pilar, the chief propagandist of the Philippine Revolution. Like Rizal and Bonifacio, we honor his memory because of his role in building our race and nation.

Samahang Plaridel will honor this Bulakeño with flowers at his tomb in the Children’s Park (in front of Manila Zoo). Journalists and city officials will be there to pay tribute to the man who set the standards of Filipino journalism.

BRIEF NOTES. General Avelino “Sonny” Razon will be our guest at the Kapihan sa Sulo on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sulo Hotel in Quezon City . . . Puerto Princesa Mayor Edward Hagedorn is angry at the proliferation of mining claims in his city. Local government cannot sit idly while the environment is being destroyed by profit-oriented firms. . . . The same is happening in Sibuyan Island in Romblon. Heard that some mining firms are out to destroy the beautiful Mt. Guiting-Guiting just to mine iron ore and nickel in San Fernando. . . . Good that Congressman Carlos Padilla has filed charges against the ZTE and the DOTC for the national broadband contract.

The case for JPEPA

2007-08-30T06:47:00.000+08:00

Perceptive observers believe the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement, or JPEPA, notwithstanding the objections raised against it, will be able to pass muster in the Senate. Individual senators, they predict, will find it in their collective wisdom to ratify the treaty, of course after going through it with a fine-tooth comb. The accord, after all, is necessary to hasten the country’s economic development.

Sure, Japan expects to derive benefits from JPEPA as well, along with similar deals struck with other countries. That is the primary reason it signed the agreement in the first place. But only the paranoid would describe it as lopsided, skewed in favor of the other side. Despite its economic clout, Japan cannot dictate—or hope to dictate—on the Philippines, or any other country for that matter, as if it were a client state. This is no longer the age of colonialism.

As explained by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), JPEPA will result in the expansion of the country’s market in Japan, not only for its agricultural products but also for its industrial output, with close to 95 percent of its exports granted zero duties. Of course, Japan’s exports to the Philippines will also enjoy the same preferences. It is this particular trade-off that draws the ire of leftist groups. They claim that the Philippines will be flooded with manufactured products. Well, we already import cars and television sets from Japan, but no country can force consumers to increase their purchase of these items, treaty or no treaty.

Detractors train their guns on the supposed entry of toxic wastes as a result of the treaty.

There is nothing in the treaty that remotely suggests that the Philippines will allow itself to be a dumping ground for hazardous substances. Moreover, the exchange of notes between the two countries expressly prohibits it. Still, those who choose to oppose the treaty claim the assurance is not nearly enough. If so, will it help if the two governments renounce the pledge to protect people and the environment?

In any case, we are not a nation of half-wits, who will accept things that threaten to poison us and our children.

The provision on nurses and caregivers is another argument used by those who oppose ratification. As the Philippine Nurses Association tells it, Japan dangled the entry of workers as a bargaining chip to win concessions without giving something substantial in return. It looks great at first glance, but requiring the nurses to pass the licensure examination in Nihongo practically makes the provision unenforceable, or so says the group.

To the protesters, it’s like a case of the left hand taking back what the right hand gives away. But Japanese hospitals and health-care institutions really need the services of foreign nurses. The language requirement is insisted upon to ensure that the nurses, who will be working under Japanese doctors, understand the orders given them, particularly in life-and-death situations. No doubt, the nurses cannot pass the examination without prior language training. And Japanese officials are aware of that fact. That is why training is made part and parcel of the agreement, and the Japanese are footing the bill, proof of their honest intentions to hire the nurses as full-fledged professionals.

About the only valid concern raised against the treaty is the loss of customs revenue, projected at P16.1 billion in the next few years. But DTI says the additional taxes derived from an expanded export volume will more than offset the loss. If that is true, then the Senate must put its stamp of approval on the treaty at the earliest possible time.

We have not much time left. Barely a week ago, Indonesia approved a similar economic partnership agreement with Japan. And it is only the latest of the countries to have done so, after Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. If we fail to ratify JPEPA, these countries will reap all the benefits—to our detriment.

Ping, work for run off elections instead

2007-08-29T05:13:00.001+08:00

The reopening of the “Hello, Garci” controversy is but the first leg in the race for the presidency in 2010. Even Sen. Panfilo Lacson, the instigator of the probe into the 2004 bugged telephone conversation, does not seem confident that a second inquiry would go any farther than the first.

What it would accomplish though is to help Lacson capture the sort of media coverage that this early could put him on pole position in the presidential race. You don’t have to be a political scientist to figure that one out.

If there is still any doubt that a reopening of the “Hello, Garci” case would be anything but investigation in aid of election, how come it has drawn either perfunctory or no support from Manny Villar, Loren Legarda and Mar Roxas—all likely rivals of Ping’s in 2010?

By placing all its bets in the last senatorial elections—which it won in spectacular fashion—the opposition blew any chance of beefing up its presence in the House of Representatives. True, the opposition succeeded in turning the senatorial elections into a referendum on President Arroyo; but it found itself outmaneuvered in the congressional races.

As a result, there are now fewer oppositionists in the House than there were in the Thirteenth Congress—meaning, there are not enough congressmen to launch a credible bid to impeach Mrs. Arroyo once more. And impeachment is still the only legal way to sack a sitting president.

Lacson is well aware an impeachment bid now would be an exercise in futility—that is, if deposing Mrs. Arroyo is really what he has in mind.

The last senatorial elections showed that a candidate need not spend a bundle in campaign advertising. Rather, it is constant, favorable coverage by the legitimate news media that really counts come Election Day.

Reopening the “Hello, Garci” case—or just the attempt to do so—gives Lacson the advantage of a flying start.

But even if Lacson does manage to come out on top in 2010, he will be vulnerable to the same kind of instability that has plagued the current Chief Executive and her immediate predecessors.

With the introduction of the cumbersome multiparty system, as mandated in the 1987 Constitution, the presidencies of Fidel V. Ramos, Joseph E. Estrada and Gloria M. Arroyo—not to mention Corazon C. Aquino’s—have been wobbly at best. Election by a mere plurality of voters made sure there is a larger segment of electors who did not vote for the winner.

FVR could never quite get rid of the thorn on his side named Miriam D. Santiago, who insisted—and still insists—that she was robbed of victory in 1992.

Erap, despite being the darling of the masses, could not defend himself from his “elitist” and leftist adversaries who took less than a week of street demonstrations to force him out of Malacañang.

That GMA has managed to survive a plebian uprising, a couple of mutinies and impeachment bids—not to mention Cabinet defections—gives ample testimony to her staying power. Still, it has not put to rest the stubborn questions about the legitimacy of her mandate. Although she can no longer seek reelection in 2010, the President continues to behave like she is still on the campaign trail.

An insecure presidency is what Lacson—or whoever wins two and a half years from now—will inherit even after hise proclaimed. Faced with so many rivals, the victor in 2010 will have to contend with the same causes of destabilization that GMA must deal with now.

What could assure an indisputable mandate is a mechanism long practiced in many mature democracies: runoff elections. If the first round of voting does not result in a clear majority—i.e. over 50 percent—for the first placer, another election is held between him/her and the second placer.

The winner of the runoff could then claim a solid mandate. Having gained the support of over half the voters, he/she could put to rest any questions about the legitimacy of his/her presidency.

Rather than continue to shake up the current administration, Lacson—along with the other presidential hopefuls—would be well advised to help ensure that when their time comes, their own regimes would not be as shaky.

More than a reshuffle of the Commission on Elections or a purge of the voters’ list or even multibillion-peso automation, a runoff vote could prove more effective in restoring confidence in our presidential elections.

Broadening the Filipino investing class

2007-08-29T05:09:00.000+08:00

THE growing number of people falling for investment scams underscores the inaccessibility of the country’s financial markets to ordinary savers. That otherwise educated people would risk losing their hard-earned savings to any of a growing number of illegitimate get rich-quick schemes says a lot about how far removed higher-yielding investment instruments are from the average Filipino’s life.

The blowout in the preneed industry is partly to blame, as it eroded trust in what were supposed to be legitimate investments. But there are structural reasons as well.

With savings account rates dropping close to zero, it’s no wonder consumer spending has been the main engine of economic growth. Why leave your cash in the bank when it would earn less than the inflation rate.

Price increases have sunk to historic lows, pulling down interest rates, with the benchmark 91-day Treasury bill rate at one time slipping to an all-time low early this year. The government fancies that the low rates are a result of its narrowing budget deficit. So while an improving fiscal position brings down the cost of borrowing and allows government to cut its debt, the dividends of this fiscal restraint are not shared equitably by all.

Sure companies, especially big ones trading at the local bourse, have been enjoying a bonanza of fundraising. We’ve seen many of them refinancing their expensive debt with cheaper ones, while a growing number of firms are raising fresh capital by selling additional shares at the stock market. More importantly, family-held firms are braving the market, and opening ownership to the public through maiden share offerings.

All of this fundraising has attracted its share of new investors, particularly from the retail side. But we’re far from where China is, where you see ordinary people in their shorts and sandals, crowding in any of the neighborhood stock market satellite stations, watching their bets while reading the papers, gossiping, knitting, even playing cards or chess.

Local financial regulators luckily have noticed and have been going the rounds of key cities imparting the virtues of investing in the stock market. Unfortunately, we have a long way to go before we can raise our country’s domestic savings rate in a sustainable manner.

This is unfortunate because our low savings rate is a key reason why we go to great lengths, even foregoing much-needed tax revenues, to attract foreign investments to fuel our economic expansion on a more sustainable pace. Foreign money however is fickle and no serious reformer would rest his (or her) industrial policy on the lone leg of foreign investments.

Restoring confidence in the financial markets is in order. But regulators have to do more.

Low interest rates should be a boon since they bring down the cost of borrowing to build houses, buy cars and establish or expand businesses—all worthwhile activities that would create jobs and raise people’s incomes.

But financial market stakeholders should go beyond a literacy program. Pricing or the cost of investing obviously is an issue.

Regulators should take their cue from the world’s most advanced markets so we can broaden the Filipino investing class. Failing to do so would prevent our economy from really taking off.

Obstruction

2007-08-29T05:07:00.000+08:00

Deeper in debt

2007-08-29T05:05:00.000+08:00

The 1987 Constitution requires the government to give “the highest budgetary priority” to education. Like the constitutional provision on the separation of church and state, however, the provision on budget priorities has never been followed. Debt servicing, not education, has always eaten up the biggest chunk of the annual national budget. The strong peso has shaven off a substantial chunk of the country’s foreign debt, but the amount is still in the trillions, saddling generations of Filipinos with debt.

Yet the government continues adding to that mountain of debt, the latest of which is a whopping $1.8-billion loan from China. That’s approximately P84 billion at yester-day’s exchange rates; the amount could balloon if the peso weakens. Government officials have pointed out that the loan from the Chinese Export-Import Bank will have easy repayment terms. The cash-strapped government can use foreign assistance especially for badly needed infrastructure. But because what is involved here is not a grant but a loan, the repayment of which will be shouldered by taxpayers, with interest, the government must give a full accounting to the public about the purpose of the loan.

A big part of the loan — $330 million — will be used to finance a broadband network for the government. The deal has been awarded to Chinese company ZTE. The $1.8-billion loan was signed a few days ago by Philippine and Chinese government officials. It is not clear whether awarding the contract to a Chinese company is part of the loan agreement. Too many things, in fact, are not clear about the broadband deal, starting with the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the original document that was signed in the presence of President Arroyo in China last April by ZTE executives and Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza. The lost document is supposed to have been reconstituted, but this new version also has not been made public.

A big question is whether the country needs the broadband service at all. Another question is why this service is double the price of the offer for a similar service by another interested party. The nation is already up to its neck in debt. The least that the government can do is convince the public that any new indebtedness is justified.

Foot-dragging

2007-08-28T07:07:00.000+08:00

Last Thursday, officials of the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission expressed frustration over the slow pace of the Office of the President in acting on 90 cases filed by the commission. The following day, Malacañang denied that it was sitting on 90 cases; it said that only 35 cases were pending. It said that four Cabinet officials had been recommended for punishment.

But even if the actual total is 35, that’s still 35 unresolved cases too many. Only two officials have been dismissed so far: National Labor Relations Commission Chair Victoriano Calaycay and Dominador Ferrer Jr., chief of the Intramuros Administration. Calaycay was sacked for allegedly demanding P200,000 from a recruitment agency that he was helping to obtain a license from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration. The PAGC found Ferrer liable for an unliquidated P2.2-million cash advance used for the eviction of squatters.

The Calaycay and Ferrer cases are relatively petty cases when you compare them with high-profile cases that are still pending up to now. These include the plunder case against former President Joseph Estrada, the P1.3-billion poll automation contract of the Commission on Elections that was nullified by the Supreme Court, the P728-million fertilizer fund scam involving former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-Joc" Bolante and the $2-million bribery charge against former Justice Secretary Hernando Perez. And now there is that $329-million broadband agreement between the Department of Transportation and Communication and an allegedly notorious Chinese company.

Cases like those mentioned above were among those that probably led 1,476 expatriate businessmen in Asia to give the Philippines the worst rating of 9.4 (out of a possible 10 for the worst) in the poll conducted by the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy last March. Based on the summary given by PERC, Agence France Presse wrote a story saying that “foreign businessmen perceive[d] the Philippines to be the most corrupt economy among 13 countries and territories across Asia." Two months later, PERC said it did not single out the Philippines as the most corrupt country in Asia.

But the perception remains, and now the Philippines has the dubious distinction of being one of the most corrupt countries in Asia. If this perception remains, one of the major causes is probably the snail’s pace at which major corruption cases are being resolved. For instance, no Cabinet or Cabinet-level official has so far been penalized, although four such officials have been recommended “for punitive action," according to the PAGC.

The corruption trial of Estrada has been dragging on for more than six years. Recently, when it was disclosed that a decision could be expected in two months, fear was expressed in official circles that whichever way the decision went, there would be tumult and disorder all over the land. Fear of disorder should not be used as a basis for deciding a corruption case. The primary considerations should be: (1) Is there enough evidence to convict the accused? (2) Will the decision do justice to both the accused and the people against whom the wrong was allegedly committed?

In its report, PERC said that the corruption situation in the Philippines “is bad and has been bad all along. People are just growing tired of the inaction and insincerity of leading officials when they promise to fight corruption." Robert Broadfoot, PERC managing director, cited specifically the unresolved corruption case of Estrada and the opposition’s [corruption and electoral fraud] charges against President Arroyo."

The lack of closure in the high-profile cases, among other things, is what fuels the perception that the present administration is insincere in its protestations that it is determined to stamp out corruption. Broadfoot said credible corruption trials could convince businessmen that the Philippines is serious about fighting corruption.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo could begin setting the house in order by agreeing to the setting up of an independent commission composed of private individuals of unimpeachable integrity that will resolve, once and for all, the corruption and electoral fraud charges against her and by ordering the quick resolution of major cases on which the administration has been dragging its feet. A government cannot fight corruption with flowery, illusive rhetoric.

Confidence building

2007-08-28T07:06:00.000+08:00

In putting an end to unexplained killings and disappearances, the buck stops with the president and commander-in-chief. This was pointed out during the recent multisectoral summit on extrajudicial killings, by the United Nations’ rapporteur on human rights, and by other sectors worried over the continuing deadly attacks on left-wing militants and journalists.

The commander-in-chief can show that she’s in command of her troops by ordering the military to come clean on the disappearance of activist Jonas Burgos, son of the late press freedom fighter Jose Burgos. Instead the government refuses to release even a report on the license plates used in the getaway van of the armed men who kidnapped Burgos at noon last April 28 from a crowded mall in Quezon City. The plates were later found on another vehicle at the camp of the Army’s 56th Infantry Battalion in Norzagaray, Bulacan. The vehicle was reportedly impounded from illegal loggers by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the 56th IB.

Bulacan accounts for one of the highest cases of militants killed or reported missing in what relatives say were enforced disappearances. It is part of the region that used to be under the command of Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, tagged as a “butcher” by militants. But military officials in Central Luzon as well as in other regions have consistently denied involvement in extrajudicial killings, insisting that most of the purported victims were slain in legitimate counter-insurgency operations.

The government is not the only one to blame for the failure to ferret out the truth. Verifying the military’s version of what is happening has been complicated by the refusal of left-wing groups and relatives of alleged victims of state-sponsored killings and disappearances to cooperate with authorities in any investigation. But the refusal to cooperate is also rooted in a mistrust that is not entirely misplaced, given the military’s long history of human rights violations in the campaign against the communist insurgency. Gaining that trust and cooperation will require some confidence-building gestures on the part of the government. Coming clean on the case of Jonas Burgos would be a good start.

Another look at nuclear power

2007-08-27T07:24:00.000+08:00

Nuclear power, if properly harnessed, can meet the rising energy demands of developing countries such as the Philippines, cutting power costs for both household and industrial users. The idea of drastically bringing down air-conditioning bills and manufacturing costs can be irresistible to many quarters.

But before the government expends a lot of time, effort and taxpayers’ money on studies to harness nuclear power for peaceful uses, there are several things to consider. One is that while nuclear power can cut electricity bills and is cleaner than energy derived from fossil fuels, nuclear waste is toxic, volatile garbage that cannot be recycled and is non-biodegradable. The world’s best minds have not yet found a way to dispose of nuclear waste without posing a threat to the environment.

Another factor that must be considered is the site for a nuclear plant. The $2.3-billion Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was mothballed partly because it was built near an earthquake fault. The Philippines lies along the so-called Ring of Fire – a section of the planet that is littered with active volcanoes and earthquake faults. One nuclear accident can be catastrophic for the country.

Proponents of nuclear power argue that, except for the Chernobyl accident in the former Soviet Union, there has been no major nuclear disaster in the other countries that harness nuclear power for peaceful purposes. But here lies another factor that must be considered: if corruption and sloppy work have given us roads that disintegrate in a downpour and bridges that collapse from the weight of regular vehicular traffic, we are likely to end up with an unsafe nuclear plant like the one in Chernobyl rather than those in Japan or South Korea.

Corruption must also be a serious consideration, given the country’s experience with fat commissions in the construction of the Bataan nuclear plant. The late dictator Ferdinand Marcos was never made to answer for the $80-million commission he reportedly received from power plant builder Westinghouse. If building personal fortunes is the overriding consideration in the latest efforts to harness nuclear power, the idea must be abandoned immediately.

This won’t be a big loss to the Department of Energy. It can always focus on expanding the country’s use of alternative forms of energy, including wind, natural gas and geothermal power. These energy sources produce clean fuel without safety risks.

Discouraging cheating

2007-08-26T09:09:00.000+08:00

Over a year after the qualifications of Philippine nurses were compromised by a cheating scandal in the nursing board examinations, the government is finally set to file criminal charges against the operators of two review centers. Certain quarters are calling for similar charges against the operators of another review center plus the indictment of suspected sources of the leaked test questions, believed to be personnel of the Professional Regulation Commission. Investigators have not identified the possible beneficiaries of the leaked questions in the June 2006 nursing board exam. If anyone is ever identified, the person should also be prosecuted and barred from the nursing profession.

Apart from prosecuting the suspected culprits, the government should consider a proposal to include course reviews in the regular school curriculum. Graduates of all courses that require licensure examinations want refresher courses before taking the exams. The review program for nursing graduates can be free. Schools, after all, gain prestige from the good performance of their graduates in professional licensure examinations. Or else schools can charge fees that are lower than those in review centers.

The government need not shut down existing review centers. Graduates of certain nursing schools may believe they can get exam pointers from these review centers that they cannot hope to obtain from their schools. But the review centers will have to compete with the review programs that will be included as part of the regular nursing curriculum. Review centers may also be required to have formal link-ups with nursing schools.

In the wake of the nursing board exam scandal, the government should also be on the lookout for cheating schemes in other professional examinations. Similar scandals have rocked the medical board examinations as well as the bar exams. Schools and fraternities have been implicated in previous cheating scandals.

The best way to discourage cheating is by sending the culprits to prison — both those who leak test questions as well as the beneficiaries — and by imposing stiff penalties on schools whose operators participate in any form of cheating in examinations. The nation awaits the outcome of the nursing board case.

Lackey

2007-08-26T09:08:00.000+08:00

We do not know if Raul Gonzalez spends time looking at the portraits of his predecessors. He should. His portfolio has been held by public servants, quite a few of whom took their positions seriously, and didn’t view it as an opportunity to be a lackey; some viewed it as the summit of their legal careers or a stepping stone to the Supreme Court. Two, in particular, established the possibilities for integrity while holding office: Jose Abad Santos and Jose Yulo. For all time, we would have thought, but how mutable time has proven in terms of the institutional erosion Gonzalez represents.

Abad Santos in 1922 originally stayed above the fight between Governor-General Leonard Wood and Filipino politicians, until Wood told Abad Santos that it was a fight between Americans and Filipinos: at which point Abad Santos resigned saying if such a line was being drawn, he had no recourse but to side with his countrymen.

Reappointed under subsequent American governor-generals, and then under the Commonwealth, Abad Santos then took pains to resist political pressure, whether from legislators or even the President of the Philippines: he would not hire or fire on the basis of purely political considerations, and he would not file or drop cases for political convenience. He would go on to serve in the Supreme Court and become the foremost Filipino martyr of World War II.

Jose Yulo was offered the position of secretary of justice four times. Each time, he declined. When he finally did accept the position, as the inauguration of the Commonwealth loomed, he attached a condition. He accepted, he said, “But only on one condition: that the Department of Justice be detached from politics.” Yulo would go on to become Speaker of the National Assembly, but he did so without wrecking the judiciary or leaving a reputation for partisanship while he held the justice portfolio. Two decades later, when President Ferdinand E. Marcos wanted to put together an impressive first Cabinet, he convinced the elderly Yulo to serve again, an appointment that conferred prestige on the administration.

We are used to Cabinet officers excusing every possible instance of petty politicking, on the grounds that they are merely “alter egos” of whoever happens to be president. But even the most obsessively political of our presidents (that is to say, all of them) put a premium on the justice portfolio as a flagship for their administrations. The present disreputable state of the position can be firmly traced to the present administration.

Raul Gonzalez takes what can only be described as a malicious pleasure in using his office for the partisan interests of his president. When the Senate expressed interest in pursuing allegations of wiretapping, Gonzalez said he’d start looking into the Aragoncillo spying case. He made a big to-do about asking the Americans for copies of court transcripts.

For what? The Americans investigated, then punished, one of their citizens, Leandro Aragoncillo, for leaking classified documents to his Filipino pals. Definitely a crime for an American. Is it a crime for a Filipino, under our jurisdiction? Only if we are still an American colony, with citizens and officials bound by an oath of loyalty to the United States of America.

Is there something about our government we don’t know? Does Gonzalez serve two masters—and expect everyone else to be liable for punishment for crossing Gonzalez’s apparent boss, Uncle Sam?

Gonzalez would be the first to insist he serves no master but our Republic—what he really wants to do, as he told the press, is warn the Senate it can expect “tit for tat” when it comes to investigations. He mentioned the Kuratong Baleleng case, too: suggesting his interpretation of justice is as crude as it gets. Anything and everything can be papered over, forgotten, dismissed, so long as President Macapagal-Arroyo is left alone. Embarrass the President, and the full weight of the justice department will lean on whoever dares to fight with the Palace.

So by all means, let him hide behind the President’s skirt, and let him sneer that he is only her alter ego. It only goes to show the President is foursquare behind Gonzalez: and that he is not the secretary of justice, but a crude lackey, a disgrace.

Purge or whitewash?

2007-08-25T05:59:00.001+08:00

Corrupt officials crowd the corridors of power, but Malacañang is reluctant to send them to jail or even to just let them go. The Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC) found sufficient evidence of graft and corruption against 92 presidential appointees over the last few years, but the really big cases seem to be gathering dust in the Office of the President (OP). The PAGC serves as the investigation arm of Malacañang in graft cases involving presidential appointees, but it is the OP that decides whether to suspend or dismiss erring officials and endorse the filing of charges against them to the Office of the Ombudsman.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the OP had disposed of all but 35 of those cases, with four of the remaining cases involving members of the Cabinet, and had until the middle of September to act on them. The two most recent OP decisions saw the dismissal of the chair of the National Labor Relations Commission for allegedly extorting P200,000 from the owner of a recruitment agency and the firing of the head of the Intramuros Administration for allegedly failing to liquidate P2.2 million in cash advances to cover the expenses for the eviction of squatters and cutting by half his agency’s share of parking fees estimated to reach almost P6 million annually.

Curiously for an administration that is not exactly publicity shy, few people, if any, seem to have heard about the dozens of graft cases that Malacañang has reviewed and acted upon, except for these two cases. And even then, these are far from earthshaking in an era of multimillion-peso scandals, when even minor functionaries at the Bureau of Customs or the Bureau of Internal Revenue have been found to own houses in posh villages and fleets of expensive cars and to travel abroad as often as senators and congressmen. It’s either that the OP has been conducting a quiet purge of penny-ante grafters or it has been operating a giant whitewashing machine that puts all the PAGC’s efforts to waste.

Suspecting that the OP is stonewalling the really big cases, several lawyers in the PAGC are said to be thinking of resigning. What is especially frustrating for them is the OP’s inaction on cases involving heads of government corporations, who are said to be close to First Gentleman Mike Arroyo.

But maybe these lawyers are getting carried away by their idealism. The cynics would be quick to point out that to this day no case has been filed against another close friend of Mr. Arroyo, former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn Bolante, who could not account for some P728 million in fertilizer funds. The Senate has investigated the case and the Commission on Audit has concluded that the money was indeed misused. However, despite all the documentary evidence provided by the Senate, the Office of the Ombudsman still has not brought formal charges against Bolante, who has skipped to the United States in the meantime. So what makes the PAGC lawyers think that the cases they have built against officials with powerful connections would fare any better and get anywhere?

The PAGC was reportedly endowed with a P1-billion grant from the United States and allocated the same amount by the Philippine government. If the most that it is permitted to do is pin down officials who extort P200,000 or fail to account for a couple of millions in government funds, it might as well be dismantled. There’s no sense in throwing away billions to catch officials who steal a couple of million pesos. The PAGC should not be used as a show window for a cleanup that is really intended to sweep the dirtiest scams under the rug.

New Englishes

2007-08-25T05:57:00.000+08:00

FILIPINOS have long learned to read, speak and write En-glish. Call it what you will, "American English, Philippine style" or "Philippine English" or whatever, it is still English language. And it is one of many new Englishes spoken and written in many countries of the world, from the Philippines to Singapore and Malaysia, from India, Ceylon to Pakistan, from North America, Australia, New Zealand, to South Africa.

Unlike Filipinos who learned American English, in those other countries the peoples there learned English from the British. And today, as I wrote in this column last Thursday, English is being learned by millions and millions of young students in China, South Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Germany, Austria and Greece. In these nations, with strong national identities, they are aggressively promoting bilingualism. And their citizens, young and old alike, are remarkably becoming proficient in English.

And here in the Philippines, our people have learned English long, long ago. As a matter of fact there was a time when English and Filipino were considered both as official languages, until some language nationalists succeeded in making Filipino as the national language in the 1987 Constitution.

And, very recently, a group of educators, savants, writers and two National Artists in Literature went to the Supreme Court to stop a Department of Education order implementing a presidential directive mandating that English be used as the medium of instruction for math and science in public schools, beginning with the third grade and for all subjects in secondary schools.

This is strange, indeed. They are prominent persons who are what they are today because they read, speak and write in English! And they want to deprive our young students of learning a second language? They don’t want our youth to acquire English skills which would surely be useful to and help them compete in a globalize world where English is growing rapidly as an international language.

Instead, they insisted that Filipino and the regional languages should be used as the primary media of instruction. They said that the government’s failure to do it has, "led to serious difficulties in learning among elementary and high school students, such as ineffective communication in the classrooms, low academic achievement and a high dropout rate."

They continued, "the harmful effects of using a foreign language for learning are not just limited to low academic achievement and cognitive growth, it impairs the emotional security and sense of self-worth and the ability to participate meaningfully in the educational process by lower class children who develop an inferiority complex as they are stigmatized by their use of the native tongue."

Furthermore, they added, "the use of Filipino would enable them to learn to read and write since it is easy for them to understand… This change will make students stay in school longer, learn better, quicker and more permanently, and will in fact be a bridge to more effective learning in English and Filipino."

These are quotations from their petition filed with the Supreme Court. If you, the ordinary citizens, have become breathless or moved to mirth or irritation by just reading their long-winded, boring, unbearable, run-on and hard to read sentences, and getting lost in the thick verbiage, what more of the fifteen magistrates of the land?

Wouldn’t those learned justices, who write their decisions well, vividly, and wisely in plain English that every one can understand, throw that petition (of those savants, linguists and writers), which smacks of pedantry, into the garbage heap?

Already, according to the Social Weather Stations, our national proficiency in English has declined by 10% over the last 30 years. And, sad to say, we are being left behind, particularly by China where some 175 million people are now studying English, in the global march to English proficiency.

Indeed, English has become the lingua franca of the world.

The rot must be stopped

2007-08-25T05:54:00.000+08:00

Gloria Arroyo has nothing to fear about a renewed investigation by the Senate into the "Hello Garci" tapes. One, she is in no danger of being impeached at the House which is packed with her running dogs. Second, she can nonchalantly shrug off any embarrassment that may arise as the inquiry unfolds; she has long demonstrated by her actions that she has the hide of a hippopotamus.

Let’s put aside Gloria’s person and her obsession to carve out a legacy. After six years, we know her and her lying, cheating and thieving ways as well as the back of our hand. As to her legacy, she will be long remembered for, first, grabbing the presidency and, second, for stealing the 2004 election to stay in power.

Let’s take her out of the equation and focus our attention in grappling with the dangers exposed by the "Hello Garci" scandal. The issue goes beyond Gloria, who is already a lame duck and just marking time until her exit in 2010. The very future of the Republic is at stake.

Let’s stop being silly like Joker Arroyo, who apparently has lost his liberal vision and democratic moorings in his dotage. The "Hello Garci" controversy goes beyond the admissibility as evidence of the Arroyo-Garci recordings as Joker insists.

At this point, whether Garcillano was talking to his dog or to a ventriloquist is a subsidiary issue. We are talking about an intelligence agency, the Intelligence Service of the AFP, which has turned rogue by mounting a politically motivated wiretapping operation in violation of the law.

This is not the first time Isafp has engaged in contemptible and condemnable political action. Remember Isafp’s cooking up of a report about Ping Lacson’s hundreds of millions of dollar deposits abroad?

Isafp commanders and their superiors have perjured themselves in denying they had wiretapping equipment in their inventory. They have since denied any involvement in other wrongdoing such the kidnapping and killing of militants. So what’s the worth of the word of liars? What other skeletons are rattling inside Isafp’s secret closet?

We hope the Senate inquiry could come up with the answers. We also look forward to new laws that would put an end to the we-are-above-the-law mentality of these intelligence people. And not only of the intelligence types in the military. The danger farther down the road is a military completely beyond control of the civilian authority. Let us stop the rot before it infects the whole body.

Gloria may have condoned, if not ordered, the Isafp’s illegal actions. No matter, a single diseased sample does not make for a pathology infecting all.

We have given up on Gloria. But we continue to believe our people will one day – and may that day dawn soon enough – come to enjoy the blessings of democracy and of the rule of law as vouchsafed by the Constitution.

Traffic mismanagement

2007-08-25T05:53:00.000+08:00

Malfunctioning traffic lights, theft of copper wires, the use of jumpers to steal electricity — all these things have been trotted out as reasons for the traffic jams that have been plaguing motorists at all hours of the day especially on the northbound lane of Roxas Boulevard for several weeks now. How about incompetence and traffic mismanagement? These factors no one will cite.

The traffic slowdown started at around the time that the ministerial meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations were held in Manila, when some bright guys must have fiddled with the traffic lights to ensure smooth traffic flow for ASEAN participants emerging from the Cultural Center of the Philippines complex. Now traffic jams have become a daily nightmare from the Vito Cruz intersection all the way to Rizal Park, affecting traffic flow up to the Redemptorist church in Baclaran, Parañaque. The traffic snarls are occurring even as Manila’s Baywalk has been cleared of restaurants and parking along the boulevard has been banned.

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to deal with the reasons for the gridlock that have been cited by those tasked to manage traffic in one of the busiest thoroughfares in Metro Manila. But officials of the Manila city government, the Metro Manila Development Authority and the Manila police are all scratching their heads and pointing to each other as the one responsible for untangling the mess.

Traffic managers have often blamed the continually increasing vehicular density in Metro Manila for traffic jams. But this is where management skills come into play. There are traffic schemes to ease gridlocks. And if traffic cops do their jobs well and do not accept bribes, bus and jeepney drivers cannot turn three lanes of a four-lane thoroughfare into a virtual terminal. If a computer glitch that wreaks havoc on one traffic light cannot be fixed for months, that’s the human factor at play. But working traffic lights and smooth traffic flow cannot be a priority for government officials who can part traffic with their blinkers, sirens and security escorts. Motorists will just have to get used to traffic gridlocks. There is no cure for human incompetence and neglect.

Everyone’s at risk

2007-08-24T03:59:00.000+08:00

The technology that unites the mighty and obscure, the wealthy and the humble of means, isn’t television (class lines get delineated by the programs people choose to watch) but the cell phone. Politically, the battle for hearts and minds since 2000 has been waged by means of text messages. And whether it’s President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo sending instructions to her subordinates, an overseas worker keeping tabs on the kids at home, bankers or security guards, the ties that bind are maintained by means of the cell phone.

When news first broke that a conversation allegedly between the President and Election Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano had been intercepted and recorded, a troubling thought sent shivers down the spines of many people. If it can happen to the President, people said, it can happen to anyone. That troubling thought has once more gained currency following the revelations made by Sen. Panfilo Lacson in a privilege speech last Tuesday.

We will set aside, for now, why Lacson’s witness, retired T/Sgt. Victor Doble, took so long to detail the circumstances surrounding the tapping of Garcillano’s phone. Doble explained how the phone tapping was done. He says it was undertaken by the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (Isafp) with the assistance of someone, or some people, at Smart Communications Inc. The media relations machinery of Smart then kicked in, taking pains to deny that the company has a policy of conniving in the tapping of its subscribers’ phones. It also denied that its officers or rank-and-file condone, much less assist, wiretapping activities.

But the allegation has been made, and what’s more, what was alleged is not beyond the realm of possibility, according to the statements of Smart itself. It is possible, the company said, that someone, acting in an unauthorized manner, might have consorted with the Isafp and helped it. Of course, it can be said that anything is possible, but the question is: Did it happen? And if so, how could it have happened?

The privacy of communication is a constitutionally protected right; it applies to everyone, the exceptions being clearly spelled out in our laws. Our laws are so zealous in this regard that the anti-wiretapping law tries very hard to make any intercepted communication of little or no value in court.

Still, the allegations are grave enough, in terms of their implications to not only national security but to civil liberties, as to require a thorough investigation. There are fundamental issues of governance -- not just political, but corporate -- at stake here. There are issues involving civilian control over the military, and combined politico-military influence over private enterprise, or people who work for private corporations.

If the Isafp did conduct surveillance operations, who ordered it? If an officer did, why didn’t the civilian authorities know about it? If a civilian official authorized it, on what basis? And if somehow, Smart or some of its employees assisted the Isafp, how could it happen without management finding out, or being able to properly determine how it might have happened once allegations were made? Of course, there is a more sinister question: Could Smart have resisted at all a military “invitation” to assist in eavesdropping?

There are technological questions that need to be resolved, as well. Lacson, by way of Doble, suggests intercepting cell-phone calls is quite easy, as is recording conversations for future use and abuse. We have no shortage of technologically knowledgeable people who can verify or dispute this claim, outside of the private firms and public agencies that have a vested interest in dismissing such allegations out of hand.

Good corporate governance, not just effective public relations, suggests Smart would be wise to undertake a more thorough investigation of these allegations. If the Isafp can snoop on its subscribers, then kidnappers and extortionists can do the same, if all that eavesdropping requires is a pliable low-ranking technician. The economy in general, not just Smart, can ill-afford a blue-chip stock taking a hammering in the local or New York bourses because of investor concerns over the vulnerable security of telephone communications in the Philippines.

Automation can only worsen election fraud

2007-08-24T03:58:00.000+08:00

Pending before the Commission on Elections are bids from private contractors to automate voting. Exasperated by the slow counting of ballots—along with the cheating that accompanies the process—many Filipinos are clamoring for electoral reform. Automation is now seen as the panacea to the stubborn disease of election fraud.

Some Filipinos, however, warn that automating the vote count can only make things worse. One of them is Roberto Verzola, ironically an information technology expert.

Verzola is described as a pioneer in the local desktop computing and Internet scene. In 1982 he built the first Filipino computer. In 1991 he set up the first online systems at both chambers of Congress. Later he was awarded by industry the title of “Father of Philippine Email.”

Yet, it is because Verzola is an IT icon that he knows only too well how automation could make election cheating easier. Verzola is not just an engineer; he is also a convener of the election watchdog Halalalang Marangal, which monitored irregularities in the last polls.

Verzola writes in an online article: “The misfocused objective of ‘minimizing human intervention’ will result in fewer instead of more witnesses when fraud does occur making it easier for cheats to cover up their crime once they break the system.”

In many proposals to automate elections the public will not be able to witness the vote count. They will only be shown the totals after the automated canvass is done. The result: loss of transparency.

Flawed assumptions

The automation proposals are based on what Verzola calls flawed assumptions:

• Automation eliminates human intervention. “It will not,” says Verzola. “Automation can only reduce, but never eliminate, human intervention. Automated systems will always have points of human intervention…”

Vezola points out: “Reducing human intervention can actually work in favor of the cheats, who will now need to recruit fewer accomplices and deal with fewer potential witnesses to the fraud.”

• Automation minimizes if not eliminates cheating. “It can do no such thing,” says Verzola. “If they work as intended, automated machines can only: a) speed things up, and b) follow more faithfully the instructions of those who program them. If they are reprogrammed to cheat, the machines will follow the new instructions just as faithfully and quickly.”

• Safeguards can prevent cheats from manipulating an automated system. “This is an illusion,” says Verzola. “Cheats can master automation technologies as well as anybody else. Sooner or later they will be able to identify the system’s weak points and break it.”

• The main cause of cheating is the slow manual count. “This confuses the symptom for the disease,” Verzola writes. “Obviously, cures based on wrong diagnoses will probably be wrong too.”

Actually, counting at the precincts is not slow. For the most part, it is over within several hours. Moreover, the precinct count is the most transparent part of the whole process.

“Here, like the audience in a basketball game, the public can see each vote counted and the candidates’ score updated, vote by vote,” Verzola says. “Cheating that occurs at this level often involves brazen, in-your-face kind of acts that no machine can stop and no cheat can hide.”

Maximize transparency

Verzola is not entirely against election automation, however. What he does propose is “not to minimize human intervention but to maximize transparency, or the ability of interested third-parties and the public in general to double-check and audit the system.”

He points out a proposal to use digital imaging technologies to make more copies of election returns at the precinct level. “The more copies of the ERs circulate the more difficult for cheats to cover-up their crime.”

A systems expert has suggested LCD projectors at the municipal level. “Projecting ERs on a big screen enables more people in the audience to audit the ongoing canvass,” Verzola says.

In last May’s midterm elections, Halalang Marangal conducted a “citizen’s tally,” which asked nonpartisan volunteer precinct watchers to use cell phones to text the results to the watchdog’s databases.

“Once they adopt ‘maximizing transparency’ rather than ‘minimizing human intervention’ as objective, technical experts can no doubt come up with even better schemes,” Verzola says.

“Unfortunately,” Verzola says, “the attention of Congress has been focused on hardware-intensive proposals that will not only waste our scarce resources automating the most transparent portion of the whole electoral process but may even make it easier for future cheats to cover up their manipulation of the results.”

Besides—although Verzola did not say so—hardware-intensive options, which cost billions of pesos, to automate elections are where the proverbial killing could be made. Wink, wink.

Cyber-Ed dreams

2007-08-24T03:57:00.001+08:00

Aside from it being the most exciting that will happen to the Philippine educational system since the Thomasites, it is, without a doubt, the best response to the challenges we face in the basic education sector today,” Education Secretary Jesli Lapus said in a DepEd statement about the Cyber-Ed Project (CEP).

The statement continues: “The Cyber-Ed Project uses satellite technology to provide an efficient and cost-effective solution to the need to deliver educational services to public elementary and secondary schools throughout the country. It links these schools to a nationwide network that provides 12 video channels, wireless wide area networking, local area networking and wireless Internet connectivity.

“A total of 37,794 schools, or 90 percent of all public schools nationwide, would be connected in the next three years. These schools would receive live broadcasts featuring lectures and presentations from master teachers as well as coursewares on demand and other valuable resource materials.”

Lapus also said: “The real challenge in basic education lies in narrowing the disparity between those who perform well and those who do not. Those in the far-flung areas will benefit from this technology since they will be given access to our best teachers and our best resource materials.”

The CEP, the department says, is based on China’s E-Education Project which covers some 500,000 schools and universities.

The project will cost P26.48 billion. Funding will come from a loan from China for 86 percent of the cost, so that the Philippines will shoulder only 14 percent or P3.71 billion. We will have to pay for the loan over the next decades.

Lapus explained that satellite-based distance learning technology is widely used worldwide—in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile, El Salvador, Panama, Guatemala, Honduras, Thailand, India, Indonesia and China.

In the countries where satellite-supported MDE (Modern Distance Education) technology is successfully used, students in spacious classrooms watch and listen to teachers—the best in their fields—on TV or on their computers. One computer per student is the norm for lessons are done in real time. The teacher giving the lesson is often doing so live. The lessons are even interactive. This means each student uses his or her computer to answer or ask questions.

Most of those enrolled in MDE schools are teenagers and older high school and college students—as well as adults taking continuing-education courses. Their classrooms have all the space for the TV sets, computers and other equipment. The schoolbuildings are equipped with satellite discs and are wired to receive and send all sorts of multimedia transmissions.

If Secretary Lapus’ vision comes true, we would be envied even by China and the USA. For we would become the world’s greatest achiever in primary and elementary pedagogy and in the use of information communications technology (ICT) for six to 12-year-old children.

Ground-zero realities

Many experts oppose the Cyber-Ed Project for technical and financial reasons. We will only focus now on whether the department’s CEP indeed addresses and solves the most urgent problems of Philippine public-school basic education.

The most urgent problems now of our public school system as purveyor of basic education all arise from fundamental lacks.

(a) The lack of school buildings and classrooms. This school year, 41,000 classrooms are needed despite the large size of classes and the 3-shift use of schoolhouses. Some pupils sit on the floor and write on their laps. Some classes are held on staircases, the teachers look up to their pupils from the landings below. Where will the TV sets and computers—ideally one for each child—be placed? The average number of pupils in a basic education classroom is 43.9. If five eight-year-old classmates share one computer will they learn anything?

(b) The lack of electrical power in areas where pupils severely need the most help—in slums and in mountain and island communities of the archipelago. These are where you find the schoolchildren most left behind by those in the richer areas. How can the TV sets and computers receive satellite-fed lessons if there is no electric power?

(c) Lack of good and competent teachers—because many have become OFWs—in English, Math and Science. Does CEP address this lack adequately?

(d) Lack of thorough and methodical training and assessment of teachers. Indeed, the Cyber-Ed Project would be able to provide first-class TV and multimedia training and competency upgrading of teachers. What about teachers in far-flung areas mentioned in (b) above?

(e) Lack of good, error-free teaching materials, textbooks, teaching manuals, etc. that every child and teacher should have. Will Cyber-Ed use the electronic versions of the same error-riddled textbooks and guides?

There has also been a lack of analysis of the project as a means of “narrowing the disparity between those who perform well and those who do not” among the littlest children in the public primary and elementary schools. Those who are most behind now, will even become greater victims of the “knowledge and information gap.” For the best performers in the urban areas will end up being the most benefited by the CEP while the worst performers in the slums and the mountaintops will become the most disadvantaged.

Also not given weight is that MDE/Cyber-Ed—in the USA and China—has been found to be inappropriate for kids in primary and elementary schools.

Fine-tuning

2007-08-24T03:56:00.000+08:00

Monetary officials are worried that terrorists could take advantage of loopholes in the Human Security Act to launder funds. Senators, for their part, want to introduce more safeguards in the HSA to prevent the state from abusing wiretapping powers. Law enforcers, meanwhile, have been so spooked by provisions in the new law that leave them no wiggle room for making mistakes that no terror suspect has been arrested so far by the police since the HSA was passed. Instead the cops have left the counter-terrorism battle to the military, not only in Basilan and Sulu but also, it seems, even in Metro Manila, where over a thousand soldiers have been deployed ostensibly to conduct civic operations.

The biggest danger in these developments is that the campaign against terrorists will suffer because a new law has paralyzed those who are supposed to enforce it. This paralysis must be avoided. The terrorist threat is real and terrorists never sleep. They bide their time, waiting for targets to let down their guard, and then strike. There are other laws that can be applied in going after those who plan to commit mass murder. These laws are inadequate – precisely the reason counter-terrorism forces sought new tools from the legislature to fight the terror threat. But if everyone is scared to enforce the new law, public safety can be compromised.

A big deterrent to the enforcement of the HSA are provisions – 22, as counted by authorities – that could land counter-terrorism forces in prison for more than a decade and require them to pay fines of at least P500,000 for certain methods of arrest and interrogation. A number of these methods have long been employed in regular law enforcement. No law enforcer wants to serve as the guinea pig in testing the provisions, which are meant to protect the public from state harassment.

There is a common enemy here, and it’s neither lawmaker nor law enforcer. The HSA was passed because legislators recognized the need for it. But the law can use some tweaking. While the HSA is undergoing fine-tuning, the battle against terrorism must not be derailed.

Freezing the ball

2007-08-23T19:04:00.000+08:00

Here we have a case of agents of the state apparently having engaged in a criminal act. Compounding the offense, their superiors apparently perjured themselves before official bodies in repeatedly denying the men and the unit to which they were assigned had the technical capability to undertake the alleged criminal offense.

Comes the Senate which is proposing an inquiry in aid of legislation that would seek to prevent a repetition of the illegality. The Palace answer? It would not only not cooperate in the inquiry. It would also actively block the investigation by preventing the appearance of officials in the executive department from attending hearings.

The case is the wiretapping which was allegedly mounted by the Intelligence Service of the AFP.

The targets were sundry opposition personalities, one Palace operator (Mike Defensor) assigned to liaise with the opposition and a Comelec commissioner named Virgilio Garcillano. In the course of the wiretapping, the Isafp agents caught on tape somebody who sounded like Gloria Arroyo talking about cooking the results of the 2004 elections with Garcillano.

The administration has been stonewalling and muddling investigations into the "Hello Garci" tapes since Day One (remember Ignacio "I-Have-Two Tapes" Bunye?). We understand why the Palace has been moving heaven and earth to block investigations. If the Garci tapes are authentic, it means Gloria Arroyo stole the 2004 elections and her stay in Malacañang is under illegitimate pretenses.

We were, therefore, not surprised when Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita yesterday said the Palace would invoke EO 464 to prevent people from the executive department from attending Senate hearings.

It’s probably for the best, Malacañang again seeking refuge in an issuance the Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional. The Senate can again go to the Supreme Court and seek a tighter ruling on when executive department officials can be prevented by the President from attending inquiries in aid of legislation.

The ruling clearly says executive privilege may only be invoked when it involves department secretaries. It also sets specific conditions the legislature has to meet in inviting department heads. But it is also categorical in saying officials who are not department heads cannot be considered as enjoying executive privilege, which attaches to the President by extension.

It will be recalled that EO 464 was issued on the eve of the appearance of Marine Brig. Gen. Francisco Gudani and Lt. Col. Alexander Balutan before a Senate hearing into election rigging in the Lanao provinces. The hearing was called as an offshoot of the "Hello Garci" scandal. Gudani and Balutan were subsequently punished for violating a direct order from the AFP chief to ignore the Senate invitation.

The Supreme Court said Gudani and Balutan could not possibly be among the officials who require presidential approval before they can attend congressional hearings.

The way is clear for the Senate to invite all those perjurers from the Isafp and the AFP. So we are perplexed by Ermita’s mention of EO 464. A Supreme Court rebuff is a certainty. We guess the game plan is to freeze the ball until Gloria exits in 2010, which has been the strategy of the Palace since Bunye came up with his I-have-two tapes announcement.

It’s the basics, stupid

2007-08-23T19:03:00.000+08:00

Fifteen years after a congressional commission defined the problems besetting the education system, much remains to be done to check and reverse the worsening state of basic education. Some of the commission’s recommendations have been adopted, such as the establishment of the Commission on Higher Education and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority. But it seems the separation of higher learning and vocational education from the responsibility of the old Department of Education, Culture and Sports has only underscored the knotty state of basic education and along with that, the problematic bureaucracy and workings of the new but graft-prone Department of Education (DepEd).

As the Inquirer series, “Education in Crisis,” demonstrated, despite the commission’s findings and recommendations, education has taken a turn for the worse. A Unesco report ranked the Philippines 74th in terms of the Education Development Index, below Mongolia, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. Results of the National Elementary Achievement Test and National Secondary Achievement Test showed that students could only correctly answer less than 50 percent of the questions. And Philippine students performed poorly in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science study, ranking 41st in a field of 45 in Science and 42nd in Math.

Apparently the education system faces two major challenges: access to education, and issues of quality. The commission already identified 15 years ago the need to stress basic public education because that’s all the formal schooling the masses of Filipinos get and because they are entitled to that constitutionally. But the shortage of classrooms has become graver through the years -- some 41,000 as of this year, which means P16 billion is needed for the construction of new classrooms. The student-teacher ratio is the worst in the region so that the Philippines has an average class size of 43.9 students in public elementary schools and 56.1 in public high schools.

The sticky problem of access to education can be seen in the high dropout rate. Fifty-one percent of Filipinos have had only elementary education. Only 14.3 percent of rural poor Filipinos graduate from high school or have higher educational attainment.

Access, of course, refers to “quantity.” And when numbers are involved, can corruption be far behind? This seems to bug Sen. Edgardo Angara, who headed the congressional commission. He said that international donors and business concerns had given the DepEd a tremendous amount of money but the department had nothing to show for it. No assessment has been made of the impact of the scarce resources put by donors and businesses into the DepEd. The needs of the DepEd are “a bottomless pit,” he concluded.

Angara also expressed suspicion about DepEd statistics, which he described as “inaccurate, sometimes even falsified.”

Eventually, issues of quantity, including accuracy of statistics, have a bearing on the other major problem of Philippine education: quality. In fact, the report had suggested the close link between quantity and quality, arguing that since throwing money into the system would not be good enough, then it would be better to go for value-added -- in another word, quality. “There’s only one thing we can do,” the commission report said. “We must extract more efficiency and more productivity from both our education budget and our education department.”

There’s the rub. As Angara has said, there has been no impact report on the money poured into the DepEd by donors and businesses. For example, multilateral and bilateral institutions have poured millions into textbook development, but the textbook regime of the DepEd remains under a cloud of doubt over defective and substandard textbooks. Moreover, Congress keeps on passing laws establishing new public schools without checking if existing schools are delivering the goods well. Meanwhile, the government is pushing for an ambitious cyber education program to would be backed by international funding, except that even Filipino IT experts doubt if the Philippines has the competence to establish and manage such a program; and in any case, what’s immediately needed is to address the basic lack of classrooms and teachers, not the lack of multimedia.

Obviously education reforms are needed, but they should start at the heart of the matter: a bureaucracy that is supposed to address the needs of the education system but can’t get the basics right.