Turning point?

Turning point?


Posted 10:56pm (Mla time) Jan 30, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the January 31, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.



REGARDLESS of what will finally happen in the polling centers of Iraq, US President George W. Bush will declare a victory in the precincts of Washington. That is what troubles us the most about the elections for the Iraqi national assembly, which were held yesterday but whose official results won't be known for a couple of weeks. Regardless of the evidence, Bush will declare that, yes, democracy is truly on the march.

If only it were that simple.

As a people still recovering from the sometimes-unacknowledged effects of martial rule, Filipinos can only look at the Iraqi elections with the deepest sympathy. We wish the vote would be orderly, peaceful and popular. We hope that the vote will lead in quick succession to the formation of a new government with a true mandate, the drafting of a modern, post-Saddam Hussein constitution, and the bloodless conduct of a referendum to ratify it. We pray that the vote would prove to be a true turning point in the Iraqi journey to democracy.

But the reality is much more complicated, and violent, than what we would like to believe.

The political crisis in Iraq is, in truth, a civil war. Under the best of circumstances, a first election (as in East Timor or Cambodia) is a difficult achievement. But hastily conducted in a country that is spinning out of anyone's control, an election does not only put the lives of candidates and voters at stake; it actually undermines the very ideal of democracy.

(As the Economist notes, the names of most of the 7,000 candidates for the 275 seats at stake in Iraq were kept secret "until the last minute, for fear of making them an assassination target." Why? Insurgents had declared a "holy war" on the entire electoral process.)

It is possible to hold credible elections even in the middle of a civil war; robust democracies have given proof of that. The United States famously reelected Abraham Lincoln while the American Civil War raged. But a fledgling democracy?

The decision to push through with the elections regardless of the deterioration in the security situation, however, was not made by the government of interim prime minister Iyad Allawi. It was the call of a White House desperate for a face-saving way out.Bush announced only last week that US forces will stay in Iraq as long as the new government needs them, but already we can sense a shift in his administration's priorities. True, he has asked the US Congress for an additional $80 billion for the upkeep of US forces in Iraq (increased to 150,000 troops in the run-up to the elections). But the supplementary budget is short-term. The Bush administration now has a new focus for the medium-term: Iran.

We have seen this peculiar, fire-and-forget approach to democracy-building before, under the same Bush administration. The year after invading Afghanistan in 2001 and toppling the Taliban regime, the administration failed to include a single dollar for Afghan rehabilitation in its proposed budget. By then, of course, the cowboys in the White House were rounding up a posse against Iraq.

Extrication from the Iraqi quagmire has proven more difficult, but the elections and the prospect of a new government will give the White House the perfect excuse.

Are we contradicting ourselves? We had joined the international chorus of condemnation against the unilateral American military action in Iraq. Shouldn't we support both the election, as a milestone in democracy, and the eventual pullout of US troops, as an index of self-determination?

We support a democratic, unoccupied Iraq. If the Americans had made sure that the legislative elections would take place in security and enjoy the support of a majority, we would have sung Washington's praises. But the US occupation of Iraq had a fatal flaw: The United States was not prepared to administer the country. The results include a country wracked by violence, with no real center of control, and an election struggling for legitimacy.

By rushing the vote, the White House will be able to claim a short-term victory. But the danger of a rushed election may very well be long-term: the erosion of the Iraqi people's confidence in democracy.

The new team

The new team


Posted 00:07am (Mla time) Jan 30, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 30, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



AT LEAST this much can be said about the President's new Cabinet appointments. They don't have "political payback" written all over them.

This time around, the list of appointees is not burdened by an undistinguished ex-senator like Ramon Revilla or an undistinguished Cebu congressman like Ace Durano, who were chosen because of their political clout rather than for their management acumen.

The new finance secretary, Cesar Purisima, is already a known quantity, as a former SGV managing partner turned trade and industry secretary. (Having given up his high-paying job to serve as an alter-ego of the President only months before last year's elections, he was the surest bet to stay on in the Cabinet.) His replacement at the Department of Trade and Industry, Juan Santos, is even better known in business and political circles, as the long-time president of Nestl‚ Philippines.

Raphael Lotilla, who takes over the energy portfolio in April, is not as well known, but he has a record at the National Economic and Development Authority (where he was assistant secretary general) and the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (where he is president) that recommended him to President Macapagal-Arroyo. Alberto Lina, the new Customs commissioner, is a well-known entrepreneur, not least because of his sponsorship of basketball teams. He runs the successful local franchise of Federal Express. (Bureau of Internal Revenue commissioner Guillermo Parayno was "prevailed upon" to stay, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said.)

The reaction of both the business sector-and by implication the international investment community-was summed up in the welcoming words of the executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines. "They look like solid, serious businesspeople and that is what we need," Robert Sears said.

Of course, none of this is to say that a businessman or a technocrat necessarily has the nation's best interests at heart.

Already, militant groups have taken aim at Santos, whose term at Nestl‚ was marked by outbreaks of labor unrest. And questions are being raised about Lina, who is himself in the customs brokerage business. (Lina is also the older brother of ex-Laguna governor Joey Lina, a close Arroyo ally.)

But President Arroyo would have done the country a disservice if she had appointed, say, another clutch of politicians as the country's new economic managers. That would have sent the wrong signal to decision-makers here and abroad. And the impact would have been both immediate and lasting.

We aren't even talking of foreign investments, which often come, as the expression goes, with strings attached. We are talking about local businessmen choosing between expanding in the country and parking their money abroad, about fund managers and credit analysts looking for signs of political will in our sometimes rambunctious democracy, about middle-class citizens weighing a decision to take out a loan for a car or a home.

If a politician had been named to head the Department of Finance, for instance, say as part of a deal with the opposition, the inevitable uproar would have slowed the economy.

Bunye was understandably upbeat in announcing the appointments. "The ongoing revamp projects a renewed sense of continuity and direction towards the realization of the President's 10-point agenda, as a new team is brought in to pull the economic carriage forward," he said.

(A curious choice of metaphor, that. Bunye's image assumes an "economic carriage" that is not only under-powered but even non-motorized. For the carriage to move, the new economic managers have to pull it forward. What, is the carriage stuck in a rut?)

Now the burden is on the appointees to work smart, and to work as a team. (Already, Lotilla has been warned by his former teacher, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, that he had only six months to show he was up to the job.) Their challenge is to stimulate economic growth and reduce poverty at home and to restore institutional confidence abroad. More than ever, these twin objectives are mutually dependent. They define the nation's best interests.

Unfriendly act

Unfriendly act


Posted 11:22pm (Mla time) Jan 28, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the January 29, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



THE UNITED States has traveled far from the days of Herbert Hoover, when US Secretary of State Henry Stimson shut down the cryptonalytic office (which was in charge of intercepting written intelligence), saying, “Gentlemen do not read each other's mail." As secretary of war to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Stimson presided over some of the most famous code-breaking efforts in the history of espionage, such as the breaking of the Japanese code "Purple." By the time Stimson retired, the United States, which established the Office of Strategic Service (precursor of the CIA) under his watch, ran one of the most efficient and vast spy networks in history.

Under President Harry Truman, who established the CIA, American intelligence efforts concentrated on two kinds of spying: the gathering of "humint" (human intelligence) and "elint" (electronic intelligence). With the development of spy satellite and jet planes, and the computer, Americans have gotten to increasingly rely on elint.

But as far back as the Reagan years, conservative critics of US intelligence methods, such as Donald Rumsfeld, increasingly felt that the CIA was devoting far too many resources to elint rather than humint -- not least because of an executive order dating back to Gerald Ford making assassination illegal as a means of promoting American interests. There are fairly strict guarantees of congressional oversight on CIA activities that Rumsfeld and his allies feel are too tight. The CIA, in Rumsfeld's opinion, is "understaffed, slow-moving and risk-averse."

The result is the creation of a rival spy service directly under Rumsfeld, within the Department of Defense, exempt from congressional oversight and other requirements that, in his view, have turned the CIA into an over-careful and ineffective agency. The name of the new organization -- Strategic Support Branch -- betrays it as a throwback to the cloak-and-dagger and more ruthless days of the World War II OSS. "Designed to operate without detection and under the defense secretary's direct control,'' the Washington Post said, "the Strategic Support Branch deploys small teams of case officers, linguists, interrogators and technical specialists alongside newly empowered special operations forces," giving Rumsfeld the "full spectrum of humint operations."

The new agency has, according to American media, actually been in operation for two years now. The Post quotes Gen. Richard B. Myers, chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, as saying that the focus of the intelligence initiative is on "emerging target countries such as Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, Philippines and Georgia."

It is Rumsfeld's zest for undercover operations in nations not actually inside the theater of operations of US military forces, like the Philippines, that has caused great concern here at home. Filipinos are quite familiar with the controversial history of CIA operations in this country, particularly during the anti-Huk campaigns, when American success was so spectacular that they thought it could be duplicated in other places such as Vietnam (it couldn't).

Today the question facing Filipinos concerns the declared intent of the United States to engage in a new, lavishly funded and apparently risky espionage effort on a declared major ally, especially since the US Department of Defense has traditionally undertaken intelligence gathering in locations identified as war zones. Now, the entire planet seems to have become a war zone in Washington's eyes.

Where does the Philippine stand? And to what pressures -- both official and unofficial, both traditionally sanctioned, such as parties and person-to-person talks, and unsanctioned, such as blackmail, bribery, and snooping on telecommunications and the mail -- will Filipinos and their leaders be subjected to?

The country needs reassurance on this point. The United States has, time and again, punished with deportation or imprisonment, American and foreign nationals, whether from enemies such as the Soviet Union or allies such as Israel, caught engaging in espionage in US territory. All countries engage in espionage, but every country considers espionage aimed against it a crime deserving harsh punishment. Does the Philippine government intend to give the United States free rein to spy on Filipinos, and to an extent that goes beyond what is expected even of the CIA? Even more important, is such spying going to be done with the active assistance of the Philippine government or without its knowledge?

Sharing intelligence is what allies do. Spying without consulting or informing an ally is, to put it mildly, an extremely unfriendly act.

Judicial underworld

Judicial underworld


Posted 11:20pm (Mla time) Jan 27, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 28, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



THERE seems to be a conflict of interpretations of the results of the survey of the Social Weather Stations on judicial corruption. Although one newspaper reported that the survey showed lawyers believing that corruption in the judiciary had lessened compared with 10 years ago, this paper stated otherwise. In any case, if there was a slight improvement in perception, it was negligible. As the SWS press statement said, "Corruption remains a problem."

"Touché," the judges seemed to say. According to the survey of judges, lawyers have become more corrupt.

What we are treated to here is the sight of judicial professionals not only eyeing one another with suspicion, but throwing mud at each other. Neither side seems to know that mud has been in its domain in the first place, so that each side has plenty of mud for ammunition.

A plague on both their houses! Lawyers and judges seem to be impervious to the deepening disenchantment of the public with the workings of justice. If the survey results are any indication, even legal professionals have become disenchanted with one another, so that they can only put down each other. They violate the underworld rule of honor among thieves, and may yet shame the professional criminals. The ultimate Mafioso does not come in pompous suit and cigar, but in judicial robes.

But there's more. The SWS survey disclosed that lawyers felt they couldn't do anything about corruption. "Although half or 49 percent say they know a case in their own city or province where a judge took a bribe, only 8 percent reported the bribery," the SWS firm said. "The main excuse of those who kept silent is that they could not prove it."

Considering this finding, one cannot share the optimism of SWS head Mahar Mangahas on the "idealism" that the members of the bar supposedly have. The pollster said that the survey showed that corruption "remains a serious problem in the judicial system but it is not cultural." He added: "They're saying there's nothing to be done about (corruption) but it's not accepted. There's still idealism."

Frankly, we can't see any idealism there. What we see is resignation and cooptation. The negligible percentage of lawyers who said they reported the bribery of judges means that lawyers would rather go along with the corruption current rather than fight it. Our law schools seem to have produced lawyers without spine and ethics. It seems that for all their long years of study of legal jurisprudence and the intricacies of the law, our law graduates have become so overwhelmed by legal scholarship and technicality that they arrive at a point of stagnancy whenever they are confronted with blatant acts of corruption. To expose or not to expose? To oppose or not to oppose? The Hamletesque dilemma, of course, seems to have been resolved in the direction of stasis. The SWS survey should support the call for a moratorium not only on new law schools, but also new law graduates for 10 years. Our civil law schools are filling the bar with lemons.

The corruption of lawyers and judges-and the gutlessness of members of the bar against graft-are reasons enough to despair about any hope for reforming the system of justice in the Philippines. If all that lawyers could do about judicial corruption is to be sensitive about it-to turn away and let things be but also tell pollsters that they are "idealistic" and frown on bribery and extortion-then there's no hope for justice in this country. No, there's no hope for this country, period.

If lawyers cannot turn up evidence that would stand in court to prove that a judge had extorted money to render a favorable decision, or another lawyer had bribed a judge, then how much less would ordinary people be in a position to produce the evidence and make a strong case against corruption? Should the public have any reason to hope for the coming of good government and a fair administration of justice with lawyers who slink away at the sight of corruption?

One suspects, of course, that the weak-kneed response of lawyers to the corruption of their fellow members of the bar is true to form of the legal establishment that seems to mask its depredations under the veneer of legal punditry, avowals of honor, and correct deportment. Alas, our lawyers seem to have made a mockery of the law they have sworn to uphold. When the lawyers become the lawless, justice cannot be dispensed. Our lawyers have run off with the law, and we are left with nothing but legal gibberish and lawyer's thunder-all signifying nothing.

Small fry

Small fry


Posted 09:40pm (Mla time) Jan 26, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 27, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



THE ANNOYING THING about the exchange between Environment Secretary Michael Defensor and Sen. Jamby Madrigal is that the fundamental connection between forestland use agreements and deforestation has been lost in the din. With Defensor's shooting-from-the-hip ad hominems (unfortunate for, as he has admitted, lack of research) and Madrigal's prompt rebuttal coupled with a call for his resignation, there is nothing much to chew on beyond the question of who between them actually has the bigger penchant for photo ops. (Both officials are highly visible, each obviously aware of the importance of media mileage; both have been known to invite reporters and photographers to join some raid or other that they instigated.)

The attentive observer is left to wonder whether, after the smoke has cleared, it will be proven that the Anti-Illegal Logging Task Force is indeed afraid to "go up" to the big fish (as Madrigal and others suspect), or whether "small fry" Mayor Hernando Avellaneda of General Nakar, Quezon, one of those charged with illegal logging per Defensor's earlier announcement, is indeed a target of political harassment (as Bangon Pilipinas has claimed). Avellaneda has gone on record to call Defensor a "liar." The environment secretary has yet to give the lie to that charge.

Defensor also has to amply demonstrate that Pamalakaya was merely talking through its hat when it said that the task force was turning a blind eye to six big logging corporations supposedly permitted by Malacañang to operate in the provinces of Quezon and Aurora. All he has said by way of rebutting the grave accusation was that members of the militant alliance of fisherfolk were helping illegal loggers take timber out of the forest via the Umiray River-an accusation that the group has both ridiculed and denied.

Blood being thicker than water, it's understandable that Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago would publicly request Madrigal to go easy on her "juvenile" nephew. (Imagine the tongue-lashing that the nemesis of fungus faces must have privately administered on the young man in the course of improving his education in politics, also known as the art of the possible, or even in simple prudence.) But it's unlikely that the discerning public would be as indulgent. The state of the Philippine forest cover as dismal as it is, there is just no room for "exuberant excesses" in whoever holds the environment portfolio. It's not child's play. If Defensor can't address the problem of deforestation even with state resources to back him, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo should find him another playground.


Big time

BEFORE DEFENSOR accused her family of maintaining interests in logging and mining, and the thrust and parry between them ensued, Madrigal had asked that the glare of official attention be trained on "big-time loggers," or "the people who hide behind the so-called forestry agreements and other forest land use special permits." These are not the "illegal loggers" against whom the full might of Defensor's task force is ranged; these are the ones armed with such papers as timber license agreements, or industrialized or socialized forest management agreements, and therefore "legally" allowed to operate in Philippine forests.

These are the loggers that Defensor had earlier absolved of responsibility in the landslides and floods that killed more than 1,000 people in Quezon and Aurora, but whose operations the clergy of the Prelature of Infanta (Quezon) had asked to be stopped. "We should no longer allow the irresponsible use of the environment for the self-interest of individuals and the so-called development agenda of the government and some private sectors," Bishops Rolando Tria Tirona and Julio Labayen and 24 priests said in a "statement of conviction" issued early this month. They said "God's clear message for all of us now" was that the Sierra Madre and all other Philippine forests should be protected for the generations to come.

For the past years God's message, as illustrated vividly in the terrible toll exacted on life and property by the decimation of our forests, has been constantly flashing. But it has been for naught, and, like broken Haiti, this country is inexorably washing into the sea.

Now where would reforestation czar Victor Corpus, having officially, inexplicably, beat an early retreat from the fight against illegal loggers, find ground to plant his trees?

Islam and peace

Islam and peace


Posted 10:43pm (Mla time) Jan 25, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 26, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


ONE of the five pillars of Islam is the hajj, or the pilgrimage every good Muslim is encouraged to take to Mecca at least once in a lifetime. On the last day of this year's hajj, Sheik Abdul-Aziz al-Sheik, speaking at a mosque near Mount Arafat on the climactic day, denounced the violence waged by Muslim militants against Saudi Arabia.

"The greatest affliction to strike the nation of Islam came from some of its own sons, who were lured by the devil," al-Sheik, who is the Grand Mufti, or senior Sunni imam (teacher-scholar) in Saudi Arabia, said. "They have called the nation infidel, they have shed protected blood and they have spread vice on earth, with explosions and destruction and killing of innocents."

He asked young Muslims, in particular, to ponder the consequences of their actions: "How would you meet God? With innocent blood you shed or helped shed?"

The importance of al-Sheik's most recent statement is best understood in terms of the role individuals such as he play in Islam. There are three major interpretations of Islam as a consequence of the schisms that took place during the 7th century: Sunni, Shia and Khariji. Of these, the most prominent are Shia and Sunni. The Sunni (which means "The Way") interpretation of Islam has the largest number of adherents in the Muslim world: about 90 percent of Muslims are Sunni. Sunni Islam is hierarchical, devoted to Islamic law (Shari'ah law), as interpreted by Muslim scholars and teachers. Of these scholars and teachers, the most senior and influential is the Grand Mufti of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (although there are muftis in other Islamic countries), who not only makes sermons but also issues statements that define and explain the proper interpretation and relevance of Islamic law to current events. Indeed, among his titles is "President of the Committee of Major Scholars and the Center for Knowledge Based Research and Verdicts."

When the World Trade Center was destroyed in 2001, the Grand Mufti swiftly issued a statement declaring the violent attack to be an abomination to Islam. Said he: "These matters that have taken place in the United States and whatever else is of their nature of plane hijackings and taking people hostage or killing innocent people, without a just cause, this is nothing but a manifestation of injustice, oppression and tyranny, which the Islamic Shari'ah does not sanction or accept; rather it is expressly forbidden and it is amongst the greatest of sins."

The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, then, reiterated to the two million Muslims listening to his sermon that terrorism and terrorist means are incompatible with Islam. He clearly placed the interpretation of Islam that permits terrorism for political ends firmly beyond the pale for 90 percent of practicing Muslims. This is an important teaching that non-Muslims must be aware of.

As the Grand Mufti himself said in 2001, "It is upon the media outlets and whoever is behind them, from amongst those who make accusations against the Muslims and who strive to revile this noble and upright religion, and describe it with that which it is free from, all in order to kindle tribulation and to harm the reputation of Islam and the Muslims and to separate the hearts and constrict the chests-it is obligatory upon them to refrain from this misguidance and to realize that every sane and just person knows of the details of Islam, and knows that it is not possible for him to describe it with these descriptions, and that he cannot make these types of accusations against it. This is because, on account of the passing of history, the nations have not known the followers of this religion and its adherents except to be those who fulfill their rights (due to others) and their absence of injustice and oppression."

It is reassuring at this time that Islamic leaders are channeling the faith of their co-religionists to peaceful ends. But it is equally important for non-Muslims to understand the teachings of Islam, and the interpretation of the same according to its leaders.

Once again the world has been reminded that the Islamic religion is peaceful and non-violent; and that the millions who went to Mecca in recent weeks did so in accordance with the teachings of a faith that does not profess, or condone, sectarian violence and hatred.

Golden carrot

Golden carrot


Posted 11:25pm (Mla time) Jan 24, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 25, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



IT'S HARD to say if the highly publicized filing of graft cases against high-living internal revenue and customs officials has put the fear of the law in the hearts of their peers and the rank and file. What is clear is that it did not have the equally desirable effect of raising higher revenues for the debt-ridden national government, or at least not by as much as what the administration wanted. While the Bureau of Customs reported a P10-billion surplus vis-à-vis its collection target of P112 billion in 2004, the Bureau of Internal Revenue admitted that it was P6.3 billion short of its target of P470 billion, even though it was able to increase its collection by 10.2 percent over that of the precious year.

But even as the effectiveness of the stick of criminal prosecution still remains to seen, the administration has unveiled a carrot that ought to be as tempting as any enticement offered by smugglers, tax evaders and other criminal characters. A bill approved by Congress last week provides generous incentives to real achievers in the two revenue-collection arms of the government as well as punishment for those who fail to deliver.

Under the bill, which President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is set to sign today, officials and employees of the BIR and the BOC will get to share among themselves part of the revenues they collect in excess of the targets set by the Cabinet-level Development Budget Coordinating Committee (DBCC). Specifically, the agencies will get 15 percent of their extra collections if they exceed their targets by 30 percent, plus an additional 20 percent of any amount beyond that. For instance, had the bill been in place last year, customs officials and employees could have divided among themselves something like P1.5 billion for exceeding the target collection by P10 billion. That would have at least doubled or even tripled the incomes of everyone in the bureau, which had a budget of P1.12 billion last year.

Of course, getting 3-or even 10-times their present salaries would still not allow some grossly corrupt officials and employees to maintain their present lifestyles. On such incomes, they cannot afford to buy the kind of mansions and luxury vehicles that some of them have been found to own; or to go abroad as often as they wish. But any honest and hardworking civil servant would be happy to earn that kind of money, since it should be sufficient to provide a comfortable existence to any family of modest ambitions. It may not make anyone fabulously wealthy, but this system of rewards and incentives offers a way for those who work in two of the most corrupt government agencies an opportunity to earn much higher incomes honestly and on the basis of their actual work.

It is not as if the government is trying to squeeze blood from stone, by demanding higher collections and threatening dismissal of those who cannot deliver. There is plenty of room for improvement in the revenue collection effort. The National Tax Research Council, for instance, has estimated that the government loses more than P120 billion yearly on account of uncollected taxes. Smuggling, on the other hand, is said to cost the government P60 billion yearly in uncollected import duties and taxes. If the BIR and the BOC can recover a substantial part of such losses, then they should not only be able to achieve their targets but also earn enough to make everyone, except the really greedy, happy.

How much the workers will share by way of incentives will depend largely on the targets set by the DBCC. And in the first year of the program at least, the committee cannot go wrong if it sets targets that are on the conservative side if only to ensure that that there will be rewards to parcel out at the end of the year. This is necessary to demonstrate how the system works and provide a boost to the workers, who will have to strive increasingly harder to achieve the progressively higher targets that will be set each year. Setting the incentives program off to a good start should take precedence over the need to raise more revenues quickly to narrow the deficit, pay off some of the government's debts and get the seal of good housekeeping from international credit rating agencies.

The Bush jubilee

The Bush jubilee


Posted 11:41pm (Mla time) Jan 23, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the January 24, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.



WHAT has US President George W. Bush's extraordinary second inaugural address wrought? Mainly, it has pushed Americans right to the brink. The leader of the world's only superpower has asked his fellow citizens to take a leap of faith with him, but in truth it is a suicide jump into a dangerous world.

On its face, the new Bush doctrine is both categorical and unobjectionable: "So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." But the doctrine seeks to spread the gospel of freedom throughout the world in a way guaranteed to subvert it.

Bush is not the first American president to raise the banner of freedom on inauguration day. His own father, in 1989, unfurled the flag. "For a new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn; for in man's heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over." (Bush senior was the same man who, in 1981, toasted the dictator Ferdinand Marcos' "adherence to democratic principles.")

But most American presidents have used freedom's standard, not to reshape the world, but America itself. In 1969, in Richard Nixon's first address, the challenge was racial. "We have given freedom new reach, and we have begun to make its promise real for black as well as for white." In Ronald Reagan's second inauguration, it was primarily economic. "The time has come for a new American emancipation-a great national drive to tear down economic barriers and liberate the spirit of enterprise in the most distressed areas of our country."

Most American presidents have also believed that freedom is best served through the power of example. In 1965, for instance, Lyndon Johnson described the United States in city-on-a-hill terms: "Conceived in justice, written in liberty, bound in union, it was meant one day to inspire the hopes of all mankind." In 1981, the first time he took his oath, Reagan described a similar vision: "We will again be the exemplar of freedom and a beacon of hope for those who do not now have freedom."

Most American presidents have also preferred to speak of freedom in the language of service. Carter: "The passion for freedom is on the rise. Tapping this new spirit, there can be no nobler nor more ambitious task for America to undertake on this day of a new beginning than to help shape a just and peaceful world that is truly humane." Bush senior: "We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world."

Now what has Bush junior done, exactly? In an increasingly pluralist world threatened by the specter of religious extremism and political fundamentalism, he has turned freedom into an American religion.

Using evangelical language, Bush announced the new mission. "America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world, and to all the inhabitants thereof." It is an echo of Leviticus 25:10, when the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob instructed Moses: "Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you."

Thus, the new Bush doctrine is not merely a restatement of Jimmy Carter's confession in 1977: "Because we are free we can never be indifferent to the fate of freedom elsewhere. Our moral sense dictates a clear-cut preference for these societies which share with us an abiding respect for individual human rights." It is not merely a reiteration of Bill Clinton's pledge in 1993, in his first inauguration. "Our hopes, our hearts, our hands, are with those on every continent who are building democracy and freedom. Their cause is America's cause."

The new Bush doctrine is Manifest Destiny all over again, but this time in theological terms. As author David Domke has written: "The result, by implication in the president's rhetoric, is that the administration has transformed Bush's 'Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists' policy into 'Either you are with us, or you are against God.'" Pity the opposition, both in the United States and abroad.

By assuming his new role as high priest and prophet of freedom, Bush has not made the world safe for democracy. On the contrary, he has made it more difficult for democracy to take root elsewhere in the world.

Cease fire

Cease fire


Posted 01:04am (Mla time) Jan 23, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 23, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



THE NEWS from tsunami-stricken areas has taken a disturbing, if not unexpected, twist in recent weeks. Renewed fighting between government troops and insurgents in some parts of Indonesia and Sri Lanka has effectively held relief operations hostage. The violence threatens to complicate rehabilitation in the two countries most severely damaged by the Dec. 26 calamities.

The news also reminds us, as we struggle with our own relief and rehabilitation efforts in eastern Luzon, that we must do all we can to prevent the same violence from overtaking the most affected areas. The Philippine National Red Cross has the right idea: A six-month ceasefire between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the New People's Army operating in the area offers the best form of prevention.

In Aceh, the Indonesian province hit hardest by the Dec. 26 earthquake, the fighting has already gone back to pre-calamity levels. According to the Indonesian military, government troops killed about 120 Acehnese rebels in the last two weeks.

Indonesia's top general defended the military action, saying the rebels were killed because they were interfering with relief operations. "We cannot allow that to happen. We have to be able to guarantee that aid workers-foreigners and Indonesians-are safe to do their work," Gen. Endriartono Sutarto said.

But the foreign press reports that the flow of aid has not in fact been disrupted. And the Aceh rebels' spokesman said only 20 rebels had been killed, and accused Jakarta of killing over a hundred civilians.

The clashes, however, may yet cause an early withdrawal of US military presence in the province. A decision to recall the 16 US Navy ships off the coast of Sumatra, possibly to get the 11,000 American soldiers on the ground conducting relief work out of harm's way, will be an unbearable setback for the relief operation. American helicopters carry the main burden of distributing relief aid.

The situation in Sri Lanka, which has an even older insurgency, is not as grim, but the ceasefire between government forces and Tamil Tigers is wearing dangerously thin. Both sides have accused each other of interfering with relief work. Tamils are reported to have hijacked relief goods allocated to the Sinhalese, while Sinhalese have been reported to have stopped relief caravans bound for northern Sri Lanka, Tamil territory.

Chillingly, these reports do not strike us as unfamiliar.

Late last year, while the country was still in storm shock, the NPA attacked an AFP infantry unit that was on its way to rescue flood victims in Bulacan. Ten soldiers died; six others were injured. The NPA offered a lame excuse for its ambush: The soldiers, it said, were on a military mission.

All told, over a thousand people perished in the floods and mudslides last November and early December. But the deaths of the 10 soldiers were a special case. For one thing, they had put themselves in harm's way. They were on their way to a calamity zone. For another, the NPA's attempt to justify the ambush and diminish their sacrifice ended up doing the exact opposite.

Could the same thing happen again? Could an armed encounter, initiated by either side, interfere with the slogging work of relief and rehabilitation? Because the seven most affected towns are inside or near NPA-contested territory, the answer can only be "Yes."

The communist insurgency has smoldered in parts of eastern Luzon for decades, and the citizens of Infanta, General Nakar, Real, Dingalan, Baler, San Luis and Maria Aurora have seen their share of the fighting. To get back on their feet, to recover from the trauma that overran their lives, they need the fighting to stop-if not for good, then at least for a few months.

Both relief agencies and peace advocates call it a "six-month humanitarian ceasefire." In the Red Cross' reckoning, six months is the absolute minimum needed to complete the relief campaign and begin the rehabilitation work in earnest. But it is also enough time for concerned citizens, both in the seven towns and outside, to plant the seeds of lasting peace.

We add our voice to the growing chorus. Cease fire!

Swagger

Swagger


Posted 00:53am (Mla time) Jan 22, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 22, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



THE 55TH presidential inaugural in American history held Thursday night (Manila time) formally set the 43rd president of the United States on his second and last term. George W. Bush successfully sought reelection as a wartime president. But unlike his wartime predecessors, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, there was nothing austere about the inaugural or the preparations for it.

The inauguration was actually the highlight of a week-long affair that began with a military gala and a youth concert on Jan. 18, musical acts, entertainment and a fireworks display on the 19th, the inauguration itself at noon on the 20th, followed by a parade and nine inaugural balls that evening. Of the inaugural balls, one was a new addition: the Commander-in-Chief Ball. This event was free of charge to 2,000 members of the armed services and their families, featuring those who recently returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, or those who would be deployed there soon.

The inaugural festivities cost a whopping $40 million, amid criticisms that the money would have been better spent for tsunami victims' relief, or simply set the amount aside since the United States is at war. The primacy of big business in the reinaugurated administration's scheme of things was illustrated by CEOs being "asked" to donate tens of thousands of dollars each for seats at the various inaugural balls, and for other "contributions," viewed as nothing more or less than payback.

Preparations for the inaugural parade were marred by a court case being filed by protesters, who alleged that their democratic rights were trampled by security measures and their being shunted aside as a result: most of the parade route from the US Capitol to the White House was occupied by bleachers reserved for those who had donated funds for the inaugural. A group calling itself Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (Answer) protested the reserved bleachers. But a judge threw out the case saying, "It's clear, as I think it always has been, that the official inaugural parade and the bleachers connected with it get the bulk of the space." Protesters retained the right to distribute literature and carry signs, but the US Secret Service forbade signs to be attached to sticks or poles that could be used as weapons.

Stripped of the hoopla and controversy, the reality is that the second term of George W. Bush is of tremendous significance for America and the world. On the eve of the second Bush inaugural, veteran American journalist Seymour Hersh published a piece examining the American president's significantly increased power over intelligence and covert operations. What sparked headlines around the globe was an unnamed source telling Hersh that US military action against Iran is already underway. According to the source, with the help of Pakistan, the Bush administration has sent reconnaissance teams into Iran for some months now. Furthermore, Bush had authorized secret commando groups to target terrorists in at least 10 nations, as well as approved the recruitment of local "action teams."

Hersh points out that since these missions are classified as military-rather than intelligence-operations, they are not bound by existing American legal restrictions on the Central Intelligence Agency in reporting to the US Congress its covert operations.The world can therefore expect more war, more cloak-and-dagger operations, more of what made Bush so unpopular and America so feared and despised the world over. What's more, with his electoral triumph, the world view of the likes of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, the leading neoconservatives in the White House, are all the more on the ascendant, while the chances of moderates to influence policy have been significantly lessened by the very public marginalization or outright removal from office of known moderates such as Colin Powell.

There was a brief time when it seemed that Bush would be more conciliatory, less reckless, a little more willing to listen. The triumphalism and the swagger of his second inaugural dispel all doubts that this is a man who feels he has all the more reason to push ahead with his God-appointed mission.

Downgraded

Downgraded


Posted 00:48am (Mla time) Jan 21, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the January 21, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



NOW that the feared-for has come true -- a sovereign credit downgrade from Standard & Poor's -- comes the finger-pointing between Malacañang and Congress. If the blame-pinning continues, then the country risks a further downgrade.

It may be that the government can take comfort in the confidence of the business community in the face of the credit downgrade. Most of these businesses have either fully funded expansion plans plus liquidity requirements over the medium term or have converted their dollar-denominated obligations into peso debts. But we must remember, this is the case for big business conglomerates. What about medium businesses and recent investors?

The government had it coming, of course. Either through its own complacency or recklessness, it drove up the budget deficit to astronomical levels. There had been some misgivings about President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's claim early in her second term that there was a fiscal crisis, following the critique of the country's financial standing by 11 University of the Philippines economics professors. Some sectors had looked at the admission as overkill, a ploy to compel Congress to pass new tax measures. In fact, the just resigned national treasurer, Mina Figueroa, had tried to clarify that the country was not in a fiscal crisis. She said however that if the country did not do something to stem the deficit, then it would slide into a crisis.

To be sure, the Philippines might not have slid into a fiscal crisis, but it has slid into a credit downgrade. Depending on how the government reacts to the development, then the country may risk a crisis, which doomsayers paint along the contours of the Argentina debacle in 2002. And if the buck-passing that has characterized the reactions of the executive branch and the legislature is any indication, then the Philippines could indeed go the way of Argentina sooner or later.

Ah, but the President had declared ahead of the credit downgrade that the fiscal crisis was a thing of the past. This was an instance of crisis handling by wishful thinking. She did not get her wish. Instead she got a downgrade.

The President's declaration was characteristic of the way she handles relations with Congress. If she can't have her way, then she declares the crisis is past or on the way to resolution. When the finance department failed to totally upgrade the sin taxes because of the reservation of lawmakers, she beat a retreat and said that the watered-down version of the bill would do. Apparently, Standard & Poor's thinks otherwise.

Similarly, Congress has been acting in its typically queasy way in response to new tax measures proposed by Malacañang. It has either been politely stalling or outright rejecting any request for new or improved taxes. In short, it has been acting irrationally.

In the first place, there's no rational basis for Congress to reject offhand the tax measures proposed by the executive. Increasing the excise taxes on tobacco and liquor is only practical because both are sin products whose consumption must be regulated. In the same way, widening the value-added tax to cover lucrative professions is not only practical but fair.

Strictly speaking, widening the VAT coverage is not a new tax measure; it's merely improving on a tax measure and plugging the loophole.

While Congress frowns on new tax measures to stem the fiscal menace, it seems unwilling to cut its pork barrel. It passed the 2005 budget with nary a gesture to cut the representatives' P65-million and the senators' P200-million pork barrel.

Considering that the President enjoys comfortable majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, it is unacceptable that she has gone about pulling the nation out of what she admitted to be a fiscal crisis in a manner that has been half-hearted and even clumsy.

The President's weak response to the threatening fiscal crisis has been tentative and clumsy, belying her claim that she's firmly in control together with her vast coalition. If she and the administration lawmakers fail to get their act together and bite the bullet, then they doom the entire nation. It's not as if she's powerless to stop the crisis. Indeed, what is she in power for?

If at all, the protracted fiscal crisis and the weak responses to it have unmasked the canker in our sovereignty -- a powerless leadership that obtains because the people in power don't know how and when to use power where and when it is needed. There is a crisis ahead and we are drifting into it.

High on publicity

High on publicity


Updated 11:00am (Mla time) Jan 16, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the January 16, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



THE GOVERNMENT has an addiction problem; it is addicted to law enforcement by publicity. Consider the case of illegal drugs, the country's worst law-enforcement problem. Last year, the anti-illegal drugs campaign seized over P8.3 billion in methamphetamine hydrochloride, in 21 high-profile raids on shabu laboratories or storage facilities. But, if Rep. Antonio Cuenco is right, only one of the raids resulted in criminal charges against suspected laboratory owners or syndicate masterminds.

In other words, despite all the hype, the raids left the suspected owners or masterminds untouched, free to start plying their trade again. As with other addictions, the government's fatal weakness revealed its most serious consequences only after the fact.

"Is this an inadvertent mistake of our law enforcement agents? A mere lapse of our country's prosecutors? [Or] Is there a sleight of hand by the masterminds?" asked Cuenco, the chair of the House oversight committee on dangerous drugs, in a press statement. "I am enraged why the remaining cases, mostly in Metro Manila, did not include the filing of raps against the owners of these laboratories and facilities when they are clearly liable as accomplices at the very least."

Twenty out of 21? We do not think such a large-scale failure can be explained by mere inadvertence. Cuenco suspects collusion, between the owners and masterminds, on the one hand; and "slipshod prosecutors and rogue drug enforcement agents," on the other.But Cuenco is a Cebu politician, and because the only drug raid last year that threw the book at the owners themselves happened in Mandaue City, his reading of the situation is colored by Cebu politics. He proposed, for instance, that the government "use the Cebu style of prosecuting drug cases, if Manila lacks one or if it wants a reinforced model in dealing with these cases."

The Mandaue bust seized at least P1.3 billion of shabu, and led to the arrest of Calvin de Jesus Tan, the alleged mastermind, in Hong Kong, where he had fled and is now facing extradition. Thus, at first glance, Cuenco's regionalism may have something to it. The political leadership in Cebu has not yet recovered from the stigma of hosting one of the largest shabu laboratories in all of Southeast Asia; this helps explain why there was no lack of political will in pursuing the owners.

In contrast, authorities elsewhere may have already been inured to the high-profile raids. "Here in Manila and elsewhere, we do not only fail to implead them [the suspected owners or masterminds], some names were even reported to have been expunged from the list," Cuenco said.

But is there anything particularly Cebuano about the handling of the Mandaue case?

We hope not, because otherwise the slippery slope to Colombia-hood becomes even steeper than any of us would like.

Granted, it is not the easiest thing in the world to gather compelling evidence against criminal masterminds. And intense public pressure can lead to fabricated evidence, a shortcut that weakens the administration of justice in the long run. But surely the government has other resources it can bring to bear on the problem.

For one thing, the deep investigative work that precedes a raid does not take place in a vacuum; sources will talk not only about location, for instance, but ownership as well. It is not unlikely that even rumors or hints of ownership will fit into a pattern, which the authorities can then act on.

For another, the Department of Justice can look for state witnesses aggressively, with the principal objective never out of mind: to lock away those who have the money to fund the laboratories. A shabu capitalist in hand is better than a hundred pushers in the bushes of detention.

For a third, the government can break its dependence on law enforcement by publicity. Or rather, it must not stop with photos of the latest drug raid. Instead, it must regard the filing of solidly-backed charges against the suspected owners or alleged masterminds as the real milestone in the anti-illegal drugs campaign.

Through it all, the congressional oversight committee can continue to keep score-not of raids, but of convictions.

A new dawn?

A new dawn?


Updated 11:46pm (Mla time) Jan 16, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the January 17, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.



EX-PRESIDENT Joseph Estrada returned from Hong Kong on Saturday with new, titanium knees and old, leaden rhetoric. His 19 days in the former Crown Colony, he said, had given him strength of will and clarity of vision. To do what, precisely? "To unite the people and set the path for them to see a new dawn."

A new beginning? Apparently, Estrada did not only undergo knee surgery; he also had a heart transplant. How else explain his change of heart? After whooping it up in Hong Kong as if there were no tomorrow, he is now ready for the rigors and rapture of the Second Coming.

"I have returned as promised to fulfill a sacred covenant with our people. I have returned to the country and the Filipino people whom I love, stronger, and more determined than ever to restore hope that has been lost; to fight for a better future; uphold the Constitution and restore the rule of law," Estrada said.

This is phrased to appeal to everyone, perhaps as a basis for "uniting the people." But the last four clauses are all code for undoing the work of People Power II, including the unanimous rulings of the Supreme Court in 2001. To address only one of Estrada's key assumptions: The rule of law has in fact already been restored, precisely through People Power II and the key events that followed. The rupture took place when the criminal game of jueteng was centralized in Malacañang during his term; the repair proceeded furiously when he was arrested and made to account for his conduct.

But we have already gone through this; the country has already come to terms with People Power II and its aftermath. Any attempt to restart the debate by recasting its terms does not herald a new dawn, but a return to old, discredited ways.

"My unconstitutional removal from the presidency in January 2001, as history shows, had clearly opened a Pandora's Box: One that contained social divisiveness as the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen; hope has been lost, being transformed into disillusionment on promises made, but not kept by the de facto administration."

Estrada seeks to place the blame for the political turmoil that followed his ouster on those who deposed him. But in truth it was he who turned the key in the lock of Pandora's Box. When he toyed with presidential privilege, to the point of running a criminal enterprise from the Palace, he did not take into account the people's absolute unwillingness to suffer another corrupt president.

It is true that a sense of drift seems to mark the national polity. It is also true that the gap between social classes seems to be widening. But any attempt to politicize this divide, by an ex-president who was the first to run for office on class politics, will not guarantee a new dawn, but a return to old, discredited ways.

Is Estrada promising his own brand of people power? He sees equivalence between the charges against him and what he describes as "the unrestrained corruption in all branches and levels of government." He also places special emphasis on the Arroyo administration's dismal survey numbers.

But, on the other hand, he has been categorical about not joining any destabilization attempts. And there is also this crucial sentence in his arrival statement: "I have returned to do what the Constitution has tasked me to do in June 1998."

This is the sentence that has given some of his supporters clammy hands and sudden palpitations. On June 30, 1998, Estrada was sworn into office as the country's 13th president. What the Constitution tasked him to do that fateful month, therefore, was the honorable discharge of his duties as president. Does the statement mean that he still considers himself the rightful president?

Despite his pointed insult about a "de facto" government, even Estrada cannot avoid the terminal fact. The six-year term he was elected to expired in June 2004.

The sentence, therefore, and thus the entire statement, can be read as a tantalizing hint about running again. Estrada may believe that the legal consensus on whether he can run for president again is still fluid. We can be sure that he will test the waters. He will call it a new dawn, but we only see a return to the old and discredited.

Kid in a candy shop

Kid in a candy shop


Updated 01:05am (Mla time) Jan 15, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the January 15, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



THOSE days are gone. I have responsibilities now," Joseph Estrada told Agence France-Presse the other day. He was responding to media reports that he was living it up and partying in Hong Kong following his knee operation. But who did the disgraced former president he think he was kidding? Possibly, at the rate Hong Kong has been scandalized by his stay, the only person left to fool is himself.

When Estrada pleaded to anyone who would listen that "I ate dinner with friends, what is wrong with that? And the authorities would not give me leave to have a haircut before I came here, so I brought over my barber. Where is the harm in that?" he quite possibly thought he was entitled to some luxuries after his rather luxurious detention at home. The statement, in fact, summarizes what was-and is-wrong, with Estrada: he has such a total lack of propriety he shoots himself in the foot and then complains of the pain.

Estrada has announced that he is coming home. People should believe it when they see it. But even if he does return, the fact is his biggest enemy is himself.

After having rented a 2,700-square-foot flat at the Parkview in Hong Kong, after hosting dinner there for his family and his former Cabinet members and their wives, after having rented rooms in the hospital he was staying in (one reportedly just for the purpose of holding a round-the-clock buffet) and after flying his barber to Hong Kong on business class-no rational person can believe that Estrada is a new man. He is the same man who turned a formidable mandate into a people power revolution.

The behavior of Estrada in Hong Kong, where he underwent knee surgery, has been similar to that of a spoiled kid let loose in a candy shop. He stuffed his face, indulged his senses, spent wads and wads of cash. When he was called to task for his actions, he whined and cried.

This is the same man who says he has discovered God, who says he was at death's door several times, only to petulantly go against the authorities if they dared impose conditions to his requests for medical treatment. This is the man who says he wants to uphold the rule of law, but turns law enforcers tasked with supervising him into lackeys condoning his breaking the rules. This is the same man who pleads poverty, but has his barber flown to Hong Kong, and business class at that.

It shouldn't be surprising to anyone anymore that if Estrada is given an inch, he'll take a mile. He's been that way all his life. Still, it is galling that he grumbles about justice delayed, when he has intervened to ensure his trial would be delayed long enough to offer the prospects of a pardon in case of the election of his best friend. It is outrageous that he complains of his health, after he kept using his knees as a bargaining chip to get precisely the kind of trip he wanted. It is ridiculous that he claims to be in reduced circumstances when, locally and internationally, he has used every stratagem to make sure he can enjoy the utmost luxury.

To be sure, Estrada has also gotten a lot of help from a Palace that remains paranoid about his waning popularity. An imprisoned has-been still puts the fear of the mob in the mind of an administration that is possibly even more unpopular than Estrada. If Estrada shoots himself in the foot time and again, the administration seems to derive a perverse joy from making sure it gets hit by the ricocheting bullet.

Estrada has proven himself not only unrepentant, but incapable of not causing mischief. The government has given him every consideration, to the extent of being an accomplice to the delays and special consideration that both help Estrada's defense and harm the prosecution's efforts.

"Recoup and revive the rule of law, we insist, and no nonsense this time," former Senate President Jovito Salonga now demands. We agree and so do most rational people, we believe. Estrada's scandalous behavior is not just the self-indulgence of a self-destructive politician. It is a national -- and since his Hong Kong surgery, an international -- disgrace. How much more must the justice system and our political landscape endure?

Enough is enough. Estrada is far too old to continue acting like a spoiled brat.

Democratic substitution

Democratic substitution


Updated 00:32am (Mla time) Jan 14, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the January 14, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



IN ASKING the Presidential Electoral Tribunal that she be allowed to substitute for her deceased husband Fernando Poe Jr. in his election protest against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Susan Roces shows her faith in the democratic process. Whatever the political implications of her decision to prosecute her husband's protest, she shows her faith in our democracy, a democracy that she thinks has been violated last May 10.

There may be legal questions about whether a case can be pursued even after the plaintiff has died. But this is the duty of the lawyers of President Arroyo to argue. They are expected to ask the tribunal to deny the petition. In bidding her lawyers to do so, the President is merely performing her role in the democratic process. She, too, is expected to give credence to the process. And to her credit, she has not reacted hysterically to Roces' petition, just as she did not immaturely respond last year to the opposition's bid to question the results of the election through the tribunal.

Despite her outburst on national television during Poe's wake last month, Roces has demonstrated considerable grace. She has refused to allow her husband's untimely death to be used as a political tool to harass the administration, however strong the temptation to do that, considering that her husband's iconic stature -- and her own influential figure -- could sway legions. She might have berated ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. for allegedly conducting a one-sided coverage of the election that supposedly cast her husband's campaign in a negative light, but she was sport enough to accept the apologies of Karen Davila, if indeed the news anchor had the authority to apologize on behalf of the network.

There may or may not be truth to the charge that Poe was robbed of victory, and that is why it is best that the conduct of the elections be subjected to inquiry by the tribunal. What is at stake is nothing less than the relevance and authenticity of our democracy.

This is not to say that Ms Arroyo prostituted our democracy and cheated Poe of his victory. For all intents and purposes, the opposition might have cheated, too, since despite the administration behemoth, the opposition was also well funded and had widespread support in the grass roots, particularly among local political bosses. Many of these bosses, like Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay and the Marcoses of Ilocos, are well entrenched and represent the worst of dynastic politics in the Philippines.

What we are saying is that the protest case may yet yield the truth and expose the canker in our democracy. At the very least, it may confirm widespread belief about the incompetence of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in managing the electoral process. It is not the President who's cast under the glare of the spotlight in this protest; it's the Comelec.

It was the Comelec that failed to computerize the election because of partisan politicking of the commissioners, notably Luzviminda Tancangco. And even when it had purchased the technology to computerize the election, the Comelec was humiliated when the Supreme Court declared the contract null and void because of irregularities in the bidding.

The failure of the Comelec last May to stop the illegal posting of campaign bills, make transparent election spending by the candidates, stem electioneering and stop violence in election hotspots should have been a prelude to the lamentable manner it handled May 10 and afterwards. That Poe and the opposition questioned the result of the election was a slap in the face of the Comelec.

To be sure, the protest is also a slap in the face of our democracy. For far too long now, our election has been in the thrall of petty political bosses and of political dynasties that have made elective seats a family fiefdom, and of voters who will give their vote to the highest bidder. It is in the thrall of pre-modern attitudes that wouldn't want to modernize the election system and would seek to keep it in the primitive manual stage because it makes it easy to buy, bribe and cheat one's way to "victory." It is not farfetched to say the worst features of our democracy as experienced during elections can be seen both in the sitting power and the challenger. The failure of our democracy is a failure of both the administration and the opposition.

Almost forgotten

Almost forgotten


Posted 01:59am (Mla time) Jan 20, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 20, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



FOUR years ago today, the Filipino nation repeated what it did in 1986 when it overthrew a dictator, a feat that was unprecedented, by ousting a corrupt president through a peaceful revolution. Edsa II was definitely one of the proudest moments in our nation's history.

But for reasons that are not so hard to understand, Malacañang chose to play down the celebration. A "simple thanksgiving Mass" on Jan. 16 was the lone activity lined up for the commemoration of that historic event. And it was held not even at the Edsa Shrine -- where it happened, and as had been done in the first three Edsa II anniversaries -- but inside Malacañan Palace.

Aside from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, only a sprinkling of Cabinet members and government officials were around for the "celebration." Conspicuously absent were the people for whom Edsa II was supposedly mounted. No one among the Edsa II masses and very few of the leaders who rallied them were invited. Even former Presidents Fidel V. Ramos and Corazon Aquino were not there.

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said the President wanted to keep the celebration subdued. If indeed, that was her intention, she certainly managed to make it also exclusive. And Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita only succeeded in coating the occasion with double-speak with his explanation: "She wanted the Mass held in Malacañang rather than outside to make an important symbolism that Malacañang is for the people."

The celebration was purposely made low-key because "a bigger celebration is being planned for Edsa I on Feb. 25," Bunye said. He didn't explain why Edsa I and Edsa II have to be jointly celebrated for the first time this year. But another newspaper quoted him as saying that for the Feb. 25 anniversary, it will be the Edsa People Power Commission that will decide if there will be a celebration.

Bunye might as well have said, "Leave it to the people to decide if they want to celebrate Edsa People Power," and he would have sounded more logical. Except that the people are clearly in no mood to celebrate the Edsa Revolution, and most surely not Edsa II. And this is because, since then, so little in our national life -- if any -- has changed for the better, even as so many things have gotten worse and continue to get worse.

Corruption, the evil that Edsa II sought to exorcise, is still very much around. We don't need Transparency International, which ranked the Philippines among the top six most corrupt nations in the world, to tell us this. Each day that brings us farther away from Jan. 20, 2001, the deposed president, Joseph Estrada, instead of being brought nearer to the bar of justice, is treated more and more with kid gloves by the very people whom Edsa II brought to power. And this travesty of justice is being repeated in the administration's apparent lack of zeal and enthusiasm in prosecuting corrupt military officials, like retired Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia.

The President and her advisers seem to have forgotten that Edsa II was, more than anything else, an expression of the people's outrage against corruption. It was launched primarily to oust a corrupt and incompetent president, not to make her president. Ms Arroyo was almost incidental to the mass movement.

From Day One of her presidency, Ms Arroyo applied herself to realizing her ambition to win the highest office of the land on her own. This was obvious in her actions, most particularly her appointments, many of which were clearly intended to consolidate her political support. Instead of instituting reforms, she strengthened traditional politics and squandered the good will and fresh hopes she inherited from Edsa II.

In the last four years, the economy has gone from bad to worse, with the government stuck with a huge budget deficit and a fiscal crisis looming in the horizon. It hardly reflects well on her administration that the number of Filipinos leaving this country, which is so rich in natural resources, for unfamiliar, lonely and even dangerous places continues to grow.

But nothing speaks more loudly of the failed expectations of the people than that Estrada, whom Edsa II toppled, continues to wield political influence and can now even offer himself as a unifying force for the opposition, as if he had not been disgraced and driven out of Malacañang. There can be no greater indictment of the Arroyo administration than this.

Watching cops

Watching cops


Updated 04:47am (Mla time) Jan 19, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 19, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer




IN THE WAKE of PO1 Jonathan Moreño's serial shooting of five policemen and a young girl, the Philippine National Police has responded with the usual noise: investigations and talks about reforms galore. But the reforms being contemplated--mandatory drug testing and neuro-psychological exams--are actually standards that are supposed to be there all along. And the investigation to be conducted by no less than six police generals seems top-heavy. It is a glittering, but ad-hoc, solution at best.

When Moreño went berserk on the final day of the Ati-Atihan festival in Aklan, he literally gunned for his fellow policemen. (The young girl, it seems, was collateral damage.) The selectiveness of Moreño indicates a grudge against his superiors (Aklan provincial police chief Supt. Odelardo Magayanes, and Kalibo police chief Chief Insp. Manuel Ilejay Jr.) and his peers (three other cops shot dead). Speculations have even begun as to why, if the PNP statements are to be believed, Moreño reacted to stress by running amok. While it is too early to give free rein to such speculations, the grisly effects of his actions surely had a cause.

Determining the cause is the problem. What faces the PNP is less a matter of attending to one shocking case, but rather, instituting an effective means of selecting, monitoring and investigating policemen as they apply for and are accepted into the service, and, on occasion, do wrong in the conduct of their duties.

It may be, for example, that Moreño passed all the necessary tests and qualifications required for acceptance into the police force. But what had the PNP done by way of evaluating his continued suitability for the force? Considering, for example, reports that Moreño became a witness in a case against a drug lord, what institutional controls were there to ensure that he would be able to cope with the pressure?

The nature of the PNP's responses so far only shows how weak it is as an institution. There seem to be no mechanisms in place to investigate the case according to existing procedures and policies, instead of the personal interest of the head of the PNP.

PNP Director General Edgardo Aglipay is a man obsessed with projecting a good image of the police (as well as his own) to the public, and he can be counted upon to do something--anything--to get good press, following this latest black eye. But nothing can hide the glaring lack of an institutional mechanism for preventing and investigating such disasters.

Since it was officially "civilianized" during the term of President Fidel V. Ramos, the PNP has been slowly, but inexorably, undergoing a transformation. The martial law era relicts of the defunct--and disgraced--Philippine Constabulary are passing from the scene. The generation of old, tired, cynical pot-bellied cops of the martial law years have been retiring and there is a lot of new blood in the police.

The quality of the new recruits, however, is pretty much an unknown quantity to the public. It sees many young cops on the beat, but how good are those cops? The answer is, the cops are only as good as the selection process that vetted them, and the policies that ensure that they are properly monitored while they are in the service. Drug and neuro-psychological tests should be continuing procedures in the force. And there should also be a methodical, professional means of identifying potential problem cops and for looking into the causes and results of their misconduct.

Investigating the causes of Moreño's actions will be a painful and potentially highly embarrassing process for the PNP. But such a process is necessary if the truth is to be obtained and it is essential if the PNP is to stop simply reacting to things, and, instead, become proactive in preventing crimes and misdemeanors.

It shouldn't require a top-heavy investigating board to get to the bottom of the grisly serial shooting. It should be fully within the capacity of the PNP to identify policemen who might be under almost unbearable pressure before they actually lose control. Or, in cases that are much too hard to predict and prevent, to get to the bottom of things so that measures that will improve the institution and its members can be put in place.

Looking up

Looking up


Updated 00:09am (Mla time) Jan 18, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A10 of the January 18, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.




THINGS are looking up for the economy, and unless something catastrophic occurs, 2005 should be a good year.

Last Wednesday the peso rallied to a five-month high against the US dollar, appreciating to the 55-to-$1 level on a burst of positive local economic news and expectations of increased foreign investment inflows. Last Friday, the peso continued to gain ground against the dollar, closing at 55.67 to the dollar, up from Wednesday's 55.91.

The bull run of the stock market started late last year and was expected to continue this week, with investor sentiment being supported by the stronger peso, increased export earnings and improvement in the government's fiscal position. Share prices rose last week on better-than-expected November export figures and a steadier performance overnight on Wall Street.

Exports grew at their fastest rate in more than two years in the 12 months through November 2004, rising 19.5 percent on the back of increased electronic shipments. Economists however see an uncertain environment for Philippine exports this year because of an expected easing in the global demand for electronics, which make up two-thirds of the country's exports.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas expects the country to attract more foreign portfolio investments or "hot money" this year. BSP Deputy Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said some movement on key fiscal measures was convincing fund managers to put money in local investments. Investors, however, will monitor closely the development in the government's package of fiscal reforms, including several major tax bills in Congress.

A road show that started yesterday in Beijing and an international mining conference next month should attract interest in the mining industry in the Philippines. Trade Secretary Cesar A.V. Purisima said mining could become a major player in the national economy now that the industry has been given the green light to proceed with its investment promotion efforts.

The business community sees better prospects this year. Typical of the businessmen's sentiments are the views expressed by Raul Concepcion, consumer advocate, and Henry Schumacher, executive vice president of the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines. Concepcion predicted that "things will be better this year." But the President, he said, has to get her economic program and fiscal reforms going. Schumacher also sees better times ahead but stresses the need to address the fiscal problem decisively.

Budget Secretary Emilia Boncodin said there will be better times this year but this would be possible only with the adoption of fiscal reform measures and continued belt-tightening. She foresees an improvement in the government's fiscal position with the passage of the six tax measures that are expected to raise P50 billion in additional revenues. She also bases her optimistic forecast on a projected budget deficit of about P192 billion, which is lower than the target of P197.8 billion for this year.

Increased remittances from overseas Filipino workers should fuel greater activity in the economy, but only if a great part of the money is used for productive enterprises and not just for conspicuous consumption. The Department of Labor and Employment has said that last year's OFW remittances could reach $8.3 billion despite a minimal growth in workers' deployment. The government and the private sector have to get together to set up projects that would make the best use of the OFWs' remittances.

Another factor that could boost the economy is an expected increase in the number of tourists visiting the country this year as a result of the destruction by the tsunami disaster of tourist facilities in some South Asian countries last month.

On the security front, everything seems to be under control. Rumors of destabilization, coups or another Edsa event have remained rumors, and things are back to normal. We can only hope that political maneuverings will die down and that everybody will contribute their bit to insure national peace and stability, a factor that is crucial for economic growth to occur.

The executive branch will have to continue with its belt-tightening and fiscal reform measures. The legislature has to do its part by passing as soon as possible key fiscal and revenue bills. All of us have to continue to work, to curb our spending, to save and to put some of our savings in investments instead of letting them lie idle in banks, in safety deposit boxes or under mattresses at home. It's good to dream about a better year but all of us have to act and strive to make it a reality.

Joking?

Joking?


Updated 01:15am (Mla time) Jan 13, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 13, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



IF it were a song, the "accomplishment report" Vice President Noli de Castro handed out to the media last Sunday would have sounded offbeat and out-of-tune. He trumpeted particularly his achievements as chair of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), as presidential adviser for OFW (overseas Filipino workers) concerns and as price control czar.

At his direction, he said, the operations of the government's key shelter agencies (KSAs) -- the Home Development Mutual Fund or Pag-IBIG Fund, Home Guaranty Corp., National Housing Authority, National Home Mortgage Finance Corp., and the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board -- were streamlined and simplified, their collection efficiency improved and their systems of delivering service made more responsive. On top of these, he said, he directed the efficient disposal of the KSAs' non-performing assets to make them more viable and self-reliant.

We must give it to the Vice President that he understands what the KSAs must do to live up to their mandates. But directing them to do what they ought to do is definitely not our idea of accomplishment. We still have to know how much better the KSAs are performing now because of the Vice President's orders. It would have certainly cheered the public to hear about and, better still, see the concrete, positive outcomes of those orders.

De Castro cited the P3.5 billion in Pag-IBIG funds loaned to housing developers. Even as we have yet to see how effective the loans have been in addressing the country's housing needs, we cannot help but recall the P353-million Pag-IBIG loan made to the real estate firm of Mike Velarde, the leader of the Catholic charismatic group El Shaddai, who supported De Castro and the President's candidacies in last year's elections. The single biggest drawdown in the history of the Pag-IBIG Fund looked no different from a political payback. Meanwhile, the HUDCC that he chairs projects that 3 million new houses would have to be built in the next five years to completely eliminate the housing backlog.

As Palace adviser on OFW concerns, De Castro boasted of his trip to Libya where he got a commitment from the Libyan government to hire more Filipinos and resume the Philippines-Libya Joint Committee Meeting and the Philippines-Libya "oil talks." Of course, we would like to see that this accomplishment does not remain in the realm of all-talk-no-action. And we will certainly be happy if something comes out of this deal with Libya.

De Castro also said he had submitted to the President his recommendations on what to do with the 80,000 or so Filipino overseas performing artists (OPAs) in Japan, who are now facing sudden unemployment because of a new Japanese law. At this point, it should be clear to the public who's to blame if nothing is done about the OPAs' problem. And we are at least assured that we don't have just a "spare tire" waiting in the wings.

The most astonishing by far among the Vice President's many wonderful accomplishments in his six months of holding public office was "keep(ing) the supply and prices of basic commodities stable last Christmas." For sure, there were still loads of Christmas goodies in the grocery stores way past New Year's Day. But this was not because some high public official was able to keep the supply lines working. This was more because higher prices had weakened Juan de la Cruz's buying power. Either the Vice President hasn't been to a market for a long time, or he was there just one time last Christmas so that he didn't have any way of making meaningful price comparisons.

As far as we can recall, this is the first time a vice president felt the need to submit his own accomplishment report to the Filipino people. It's not that it is totally wrong; some Filipinos would certainly appreciate knowing that public money is not being wasted on maintaining the Office of the Vice President. But it does seem strange, if not inappropriate, for an administration Vice President to make public his own accomplishments. After all, isn't his accomplishments also the accomplishments of the President and her entire administration, and therefore fit for inclusion in the President's “Ulat sa Bayan” [Report to the Nation]? Now, if he were an opposition vice president, a separate report might have been more understandable.

But then, going by the contents of his accomplishment report, the Vice President could have been joking.

Can of worms

Can of worms


Updated 01:39am (Mla time) Jan 12, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 12, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



WHY did Sandiganbayan Justice Edilberto Sandoval resign? Or rather, why did he quit his post last Monday as chair and member of the special division trying former President Joseph Estrada on plunder and perjury charges? Sandoval, after all, remains chair of the second division of the anti-graft court.

To put it in a better way, why did Sandoval partially, but not totally, quit? Sandoval said, at first, it was for health reasons. Then he said (with a smile) it was due to a "hectic schedule." Then he made comments critical on his colleagues' decisions in the anti-graft court, decisions that Sandoval has a record of opposing, such as the question of allowing Estrada to travel to Hong Kong for knee surgery. Sandoval was the lone dissenter against the decision to allow the travel to Hong Kong.

Others are convinced he quit out of pride, or “delicadeza” [sense of propriety], depending on how one looks at it. From opposing camps, Estrada defense lawyer Rene Saguisag and Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez see eye to eye on this. Said Saguisag, "We bumped into him and he told us that he would resign if he was not appointed (Sandiganbayan presiding justice)." This was in November, after Presiding Justice Minita Chico-Nazario was appointed to the Supreme Court and Sandoval was named to her previous post as Sandiganbayan presiding justice in an acting capacity. Gonzalez says Sandoval "probably felt that he was humiliated because he was not appointed presiding justice. He felt, that out of delicadeza, he should resign. This has happened before in the Court of Appeals."

The opposition view and administration opinion seems to be that Sandoval was disgruntled over appointments made to the Sandiganbayan, and quit as a result.

But if the reasons for Sandoval's resignation from heading the division trying Estrada seem murky, the implications of his resignation are clear. In becoming the third head of a division trying Estrada to have resigned, Sandoval's actions have put the Sandiganbayan on center stage, and by doing so, called attention to the poor executive record in appointments to the graft court, and the court's uninspiring record in handling the Estrada trial.

The third division first had retired Presiding Justice Anacleto Badoy hearing Estrada's plunder and perjury charges, until the Supreme Court ordered him to go on forced leave in December 2001. Then Presiding Justice Minita Chico-Nazario was named chair of a special division established to specifically handle the trial in 2002. Nazario approved Estrada's application for permission to go on a trip to the United States on Dec. 23, 2003. After Estrada's request to travel abroad on Dec. 1, 2004, the Palace announced Nazario's appointment to the Supreme Court. Then, soon after approving Estrada's trip to Hong Kong, Justice Teresita de Castro was named head of the Sandiganbayan, setting aside the seniority of Sandoval.

Who can blame state prosecutors for thinking that the promotion of Nazario and De Castro were rewards for allowing Estrada to stay in the comfort of his rest house in Tanay, and then travel abroad, thus according the jailed former president special treatment and giving potential political benefits to a Palace frightened of Estrada's popularity? And who can blame others for thinking that Sandoval was shunted aside because he tends to dissent from what the other justices (and perhaps, the Palace) want?

Perhaps Sandoval has done the country a service by, in his own way, standing up for seniority and against political accommodations in the judiciary. And while his action may further delay a spectacularly overdue judgment, the Estrada camp has no business complaining. For every possible government-inspired delay, there's surely case after case of the trial being affected by Estrada's own wishes to delay the case. What does the resignation of one judge compare to Estrada's past decision to hire, fire and then rehire, his own defense counsel? Or the consistent, and creative, manifestations made by Estrada's counsel to ensure every possible delay in the trial?

We rest our case.

Heating up

Heating up


Updated 10:53pm (Mla time) Jan 10, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A10 of the January 11, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.



THE RECENT tsunami disaster, the fatal heat wave in Europe in 2003 and the stronger and more violent storms that have hit various parts of the earth in the past four or five years should set the world thinking about the abrupt climate and geological changes and what could be done about them.

Scientists are agreed: Global warming and climate change are no longer in the realm of computer forecasts; they are very much upon us. Among the signs of these changes are:

• The heating up of the world -- the temperature has risen one degree F over the past century. The 1990s was the warmest decade and 1998 was the warmest year on instrumental record.

• The melting of glaciers and breaking up of ice shelves -- snow cover and ice extent have decreased by about 10 percent since the late 1960s.

• The rise in sea level -- the rate of global average sea level rise during the 20th century is in the range of 1 to 2 millimeters per year, with a central value of 1.5 mm/year.

• Increase in global ocean heat content since the late 1950s, the period for which adequate observation of sub-surface ocean temperatures have been available.

• A shift in seasons -- shorter winters, the earlier arrival of spring, hotter summers and fiercer heat waves and the later arrival of autumn. (The heat wave in Europe in 2003 killed 35,000 people.)

• Longer periods of drought -- warmer episodes of El Niño have been more frequent, persistent and intense since the mid-1970s, compared with the previous 100 years.

• The drying up of rivers and streams, shrinking of lakes and the erosion of the coasts.

• The bleaching and dying of coral reefs, depriving fish of habitats -- 1998 was the worst year on record, when 16 percent of the world's coral was left bleached or dead.

• Changes in the animal kingdom -- habitats change, plants flower earlier, birds nest earlier, exotic species appear and amphibians are disappearing.

• The fast spread of diseases.

• Changes in the intensity and frequency of storms. Conflicting analyses, however, make it difficult to draw definitive conclusions, especially on extra-tropical or hurricane activity.

These data are telling scientists -- and us -- that the earth is definitely heating up and that climate is changing. Scientists agree that the burning of fossil fuels like oil and coal causes greenhouse gases to escape into the air and these gases are causing most of the global warming. Another major cause is deforestation, for trees absorb carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gases, from the air.

Global warming is very difficult to solve. It is very easy to say that everyone should use less energy, but a growing, developing world requires the use of more energy, and fossil fuels, particularly, at this time.

The Kyoto Protocol offers a start toward the solution of the problem. It would commit the parties to individual, legally binding targets to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. But although 84 countries signed the protocol, indicating that they intended to ratify it, many were reluctant to do so and thus bring it into force. One of the reluctant countries is the United States, which should be exercising moral and political leadership in solving global warming but is not.

Even the Kyoto Protocol does not offer the ultimate solution. Jeremy Mahlman of the US National Center for Atmosphere Research said that controlling the increase in greenhouse gas emissions "would take 40 successful Kyotos. But we've got to do it."

A long-term solution would be a fundamental change in the way the world powers its economy, shifting from uncontrolled use of fossil fuels to an increased and more efficient use of renewable sources of energy such as the sun, wind, water, waves and the heat coming from the bowels of the earth (geothermal).

The way has been pointed out by the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992 with the adoption of Agenda 21, a wide-ranging blueprint for action to achieve sustainable development. Although Agenda 21 has been watered down by negotiation and compromise, it is considered the most comprehensive and effective program of action approved by the international community.

Global warming and climate and geological change have become very urgent and immediate social and personal concerns, as the shocking death tolls from the horrific tsunami, fierce storms, massive floods and long droughts have testified. The world cannot wait for the oceans to boil or for hell to freeze over before all nations join hands in taking aggressive action on global warming. It has to start now.

All wrong

All wrong


Updated 11:44pm (Mla time) Jan 09, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the January 10, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.



THE TRIAL balloon that was the Romeo Jalosjos pardon seems to have fallen back to earth, deflated of its pretensions. Have justice and reason triumphed? We cannot be sure, because President Macapagal-Arroyo has not yet ruled the pardon out.

We must also never underestimate the resourcefulness of the wealthy and influential. Anything can yet happen, which is one reason to reiterate what we said last week. The proposed pardon for Jalosjos, the congressman from the Zamboanga peninsula convicted of statutory rape, is all wrong.

In the first place, he is not yet eligible for pardon. A convict meted out two life sentences, he must serve at least 15 years in prison before qualifying for the privilege. Secondly, the essentially political act of executive clemency carries enormous political risk for the President. Having wasted the political capital (she won from the May elections) through partisan appointments and lackluster performance, she risks losing even the little that is left.

Thirdly, pardon for Jalosjos assumes that the penal system has successfully rehabilitated him. In truth, the impact has been the other way around; Jalosjos, a wealthy politician with a vigorous political network, has undermined the system. His privileged quarters inside the prison are only the most visible sign of a zone of influence that extends beyond the maximum-security walls of the national penitentiary.

(Incidentally, the notion that pardoning Jalosjos is the Christian thing to do, as popularized by the likes of Rep. Ernesto Nieva, is a warped interpretation of Christianity. That it is an all-too-familiar argument does not make it any less warped. Forgiveness, the Christian faith teaches, comes to those who repent. Is Jalosjos the 21st-century equivalent of the prodigal son, whose guilt and remorse lead back to the father he has forsaken? To ask the question is to answer it.)

The first two reasons are intimately connected. If he is not yet eligible, then deeming him qualified is already an extra-legal and thus a political decision. Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, a multiple-termer in Congress like Jalosjos, did not only raise the possibility of such an extraordinary decision; he correctly identified the President's option as necessarily a political act. That makes the grant of the pardon itself doubly political.

And then there is the fact that Jalosjos is an important political ally of the President; his political network gave her a wide margin of victory in its bailiwicks. That makes a Jalosjos pardon a political act three times over.

Can President Arroyo afford to play politics, during what she herself calls "the year of urgent change"? From the perspective of the national interest, there is nothing either urgent or change-related about the Jalosjos case. In truth, it represents a return to the same old, discredited ways of doing things. Thus, a Jalosjos pardon can only be a setback.

But perhaps the President is thinking of the support the pardon enjoys among many congressmen and local politicians. With a difficult legislative agenda to push, a presidential decision that warms congressmen's hearts and pleases local politicians on a gut level can be politically potent. Can the President afford not to play politics?

The answer is Yes. The President's task today is to finally leave partisan politics behind. In part, that means rising above the fray, addressing the public above the heads of congressmen. It also means cracking the whip on the House majority, regardless of the consequences. Paradoxically, it is by demonstrating political will over Congress that the President can regain her congressmen's confidence. She can disabuse them of the notion that she is a creature of Congress, a President with a million-vote mandate manufactured in the House.

She can attack these unspoken assumptions by taking Congress on in the Jalosjos case: This pardon may be dear to you; you may hold the opinion that all your unfortunate colleague really did was to get caught; but a pardon that reinforces public cynicism about politics and the administration of justice is a pardon we can all do without.