Broken bread

Broken bread


Posted 00:22am (Mla time) Mar 24, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A10 of the March 24, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


EASTER may have the climax, but Maundy Thursday has the oldest practices peculiar to Holy Week. Of course, many Catholics associate Holy Thursday with the Mass since the day commemorates the institution of the Holy Eucharist. And since the Mass is basically a celebration, it is not surprising that many of the practices revolving around Maundy Thursday are joyous, a foil to the pathos of Good Friday and the grief of Black Saturday.

Since the day has a practical character -- the preparation for the Lord's sacrifice on the cross -- Holy Thursday has evolved into a day of different accessory ceremonies. In ancient Rome, for example, while the preparation for candidates for baptism was being finalized, the Catholic Church also celebrated "missa chrismalis," the ritual for the preparation of the holy oils that would be used for the baptisms and other important liturgical rituals. Along with the baptism of neophytes, penitents took part in reconciliation ceremonies.

That Maundy Thursday is associated with rituals of preparation is evident in the washing of the feet. Biblically, the washing was a prelude to the Last Supper, and was a form of libation or cleansing. Theologically, too, it became a ritual of self-debasement or humility, since Christ made the gesture of washing the feet of his apostles in order to deliver his message more powerfully for the apostles to be servants of the people. Service, to Christ, means nothing short of self-sacrifice. He himself set the powerful example when he died on the cross.

The Last Supper, of course, prefigured that sacrifice. As the central event that instituted the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, it took its chief symbolism from the breaking of the bread, which was both a metaphor for fellowship and for sacrifice. That Christ instructed his apostles to do the supper in his memory indicates that sharing and sacrifice are two sides of the same coin.

All of these injunctions and encouragement should indicate that Maundy Thursday is the day in which Christians prepare themselves in order to be able to fulfill Christ's mandate (Maundy comes from the Latin "mandatum," which means mandate). The Christian imperative is to love one another and share in the fellowship of service and sacrifice.


Broken people

IN THE PHILIPPINES, the joyous preparatory character of Maundy Thursday is quite evident in the "visita iglesia," in which penitents become pilgrims going the rounds of churches to perform in quite a literal fashion the passion of the Christ, as summed up in the 14 Stations of the Cross. The latter devotion has been updated by the addition of a 15th station, the Resurrection, obviously as a corrective to what some critical churchmen and modern Catholics perceive to be the martyrdom complex of the Filipinos, their penchant for bathos and self-disparagement.

The addition is quite unfortunate because the liturgy is performative, and it would be pointless to perform the resurrection while going through the motions of sacrifice and death, which are the foci of the Stations of the Cross. And in the colorful calendar of the Roman Catholic Church, there is an appointed time for everything. Insinuating the resurrection on a day traditionally reserved for the performance of rituals to prefigure the sacrifice is poor programming. It makes Easter redundant.

Moreover, the attitude that looks at the Filipino Catholics' rituals of sacrifice and martyrdom as nothing but defeatist and fatalist is arrogantly secular and liberal, sensibilities that are basically anti-religion. These sensibilities have given rise to the sun-sunny and saccharine attitude of evangelicals and charismatics. Culturally, this is manifested in the media's and other sectors' determination to trumpet "world-class" Filipinos and their international victories. Tired of defeats and sorry stories, this nation wagers on Manny Pacquiao to give it a nice feeling. Now that Pacquio has lost ...

But there's no denying Filipinos are a broken people. But so are the others. Brokenness comes not only from the struggles and pains of existence, but also from the divisions and backbiting that obtain during the struggles. A people's solidarity amid sufferings should indicate that they would come off the challenge whole and more consummate. They go through the rituals of brokenness to be reconstituted as a people. And that's the promise -- and mandate -- of Easter.

Champion

Champion


Posted 00:15am (Mla time) Mar 23, 2005
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service



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


FIRST off, it's a lesson for local TV. Next time it covers a blockbuster sports event, it has to do it in real time. The days when networks can be a little avaricious and air those things "on a slightly delayed basis" to crowd in commercials are over. Well before the Pacquiao-Morales fight was shown on Solar TV, the result was already known and talked about in Metro Manila.

I remember that in the 1970s and 1980s, only people in media knew the result in advance. The messengers in the office where I worked were among those who milled around the teletype, waiting for word about the result of a fight, with the intention of rushing off to some part of Greater Manila, as it was called then, and betting on a sure thing. Without fear of being caught cheating and roughed up.

Today, there are all sorts of media reporting events instantaneously. Radio was already broadcasting the result of the Pacquiao-Morales fight shortly after it started on TV. I had resolved to resist the temptation to look at the Internet and at my cell phone messages, the latter being where in the past I learned, to my chagrin, the ending of a fight just as it was beginning on TV, but I let one slip away. I saw a friend's name on my cell just past noon, and imagining he might have an urgent thing to say, read his message. Only to learn of Pacquiao's defeat. I felt defeated.

I was, of course, one of those who mourned his loss. Though while at that, I did not greatly envy him his monumental burdens from the start. It wasn't just his reputation and title at stake in that fight, it was the life and happiness of his country. The country had been pummeled by adversity, natural and woman-made, and needed a win badly to feel good about itself, or indeed have something to cheer about. Well, only Mike Arroyo and a slew of congressmen were there to inspire him. Better if they had sent Ynez Veneracion instead.

While at that, someone sent me this text message after the fight, jokingly quoting President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo: "My countrymen, the need to impose new taxes has now become more urgent. Naubos ang CDF ng ating mga congressmen sa pustahan sa Las Vegas [Our congressmen lost their CDF (Countryside Development Fund -- pork barrel) betting in Las Vegas]. We may now have to borrow from Mexico." That is the kind of joke that could make you die laughing.

Like most Filipinos, I expected a dazzling victory and dancing in the streets. My cable TV turned snowy early last week, a development I didn't particularly greatly mind (I use TV pretty much to watch DVD), until I remembered that Pacquaio was fighting last Sunday. I frantically called up SkyCable Friday, and they assured me they'd fix it in 24-48 hours. Friday came and went, and I called them again. The repairmen came Saturday afternoon and were friendly enough. They laughed when I told them the reason why I badly needed the cable fixed, and one said he himself wasn't watching the fight, he was afraid Pacquiao might lose. I told him not to worry: if Pacquiao's showing last December were any indication, he would flatten out Morales in no time. Morales had lost to Barrera, and Barrera had lost to Pacquiao, in a complete rout. Not to worry, I repeated, Pacquiao would take out Morales.

Alas, as it turned out, boxing is not Algebra. In Algebra, if A is greater than B and B is greater than C, then A is greater than C. In boxing, C can always be greater than A. Morales certainly was so, dominating Pacquiao pretty much the way Pacquiao dominated Barrera. Much would be made of the fact that Pacquiao suffered a cut midway into the fight, but he was already losing the fight to the more savvy Morales even then. The same way he did -- though it was ruled a draw -- to Marquez last year, Marquez clawing out of three knockdowns in the first round and reclaiming the rest of the fight with superior skills.

I still think Pacquiao could have made up, and will make up in future, for rawness with quickness and power. But he has to regain something he has lost tremendously in a couple of years, and that is the fire in his eyes. That was the one thing I saw in his fight with Barrera, and even with Marquez in the first few rounds, which wasn't there with Morales. A fire born of hunger, a fire sparked by desire, a fire fanned by an obsession to excel. It just wasn't there last Sunday, even before a head butt virtually closed his right eye.

I'm glad at least that public officials have commiserated with him, including President Arroyo, who said, "I praise Manny Pacquiao's courage, ability, and fighting spirit." Though I suspect the prepared speech for when he won was far more effusive. If I recall, the President preempted the showing of the post-fight analysis of the Pacquiao-Barrera fight by going on air to congratulate Pacquiao. But like I said, I'm glad at least for the commiseration, including Dick Gordon's "(This will) make (Pacquiao) a better fighter and a better champion in the future. There's nothing to be ashamed of." It has nothing to do with Joseph Estrada's or Robin Padilla's idea of "walang iwanan" [no one leaves anyone behind], it's just basic decency.

A fighter's mettle is not shown in victory, it is shown in defeat. Or indeed, as Muhammad Ali proved, it isn't shown entirely, or even largely, in the ring. It is shown outside of it, in life. Ali's greatest defeat wasn't in the ring and wasn't caused by any of his pugilistic archenemies. It was caused by the US government, which stripped him of his title and his license to fight because he refused the draft. As it turned out, that was his greatest victory, too. I don't know that Pacquiao will ever have occasion to fight a fight like that. I do know that the way he comports himself after this defeat will decide whether he will go the path of Muhammad Ali or Rolando Navarette.

Character. In the end, that's the stuff that makes for true champions.

Vigilance

Vigilance


Posted 11:38pm (Mla time) Mar 22, 2005
Inquirer News Service



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



JUSTICE Secretary Raul Gonzalez was being true to character when he blithely told the media that a potential terrorist threat to Baguio City had been "mentioned" at a Cabinet meeting, while saying in the same breath he hoped this didn't lead to assumptions of the government being "paranoid." Philippine National Police Director General Arturo Lomibao tried to be more specific, saying on national radio: "This morning, we would like to say that we have confirmed the revelation of Boy Negro ... Upon interrogation, he said four or five Abu Sayyaf members and one Indonesian JI [Jamaah Islamiyah] have been sent to Metro Manila in the past few days." Lomibao explained that Gamal Baharan (alias "Boy Negro") confessed to the police that at least five Abu Sayyaf members had been given the mission to plant explosives in shopping malls in Metro Manila. "Their plan is to conduct bombings in Metro Manila ... Their target is to put [explosives] in the dry goods section, like clothes, which would easily burn."

State prosecutor Philip Medalle chimed in by saying a person knowledgeable about the Abu Sayyaf's operations advised him to be careful when going to Catholic churches. "If you go to church, don't sit on the last rows or on the side of the pews. Better sit in the middle," he advised helpfully.

The statements made by Gonzalez, Lomibao and Medalle followed a similar threat issued by the spokesman of the Abu Sayyaf. According to Abu Sulayman, the Abu Sayyaf would "bring the war to Manila" in retaliation for the assault mounted by the police in Camp Bagong Diwa. And it is because of the Abu Sayyaf's own statement, perhaps, that tough questions aren't being asked of the three officials.

First of all, although every member of the press finds it most convenient that officials like Gonzalez exist, Cabinet members leaking like sieves is not conducive to forming a calm and sober picture of the security situation. Lomibao, too, failed to explain just how the alleged confession was extracted during "tactical interrogation," since it is public knowledge that such interrogations have involved torture in the past, and confessions extracted from beatings can be unreliable since they tend to reveal what the interrogators want to hear. Finally, Medalle may be trying to help, but are anonymous phone calls giving such specific information really meant to be passed on to the general public?

Whether the Abu Sayyaf hopes to sow terror during the Holy Week by bombing Catholic churches or shopping malls, it's clear that the times call for heightened vigilance among the populace. The PNP has achieved solid and credible gains in arresting terror suspects in the past, through the help of civic-minded individuals. It's been joked about that Filipinos are such notorious gossips and so terribly inquisitive, that they serve as an early-warning system for the police. What is true is that concerned neighborhoods are the bulwark of public safety, and that local communities can have a big hand in securing their own safety. Not only from terrorists, but also from the bad habits of our military and police.

There are thousands of policemen on the front line, so to speak, during Holy Week. They deserve the full support of the public. We cannot leave things in their hands, however. Every person who decides to travel can help make the job of the police easier by being patient when long lines form, and by doing what they can to facilitate inspection. Keeping a sharp eye out for anything that may be amiss doesn't mean panic needs to set in when something appears troublesome. Remember, sowing fear in people's hearts is the primary objective of all terrorists.


Victimized

IT'S unfair, of course, to criticize Manny Pacquiao for hitting the blackjack tables in Las Vegas, but in case anyone wants to do so, remember he was only following the example of government leaders. Millions of Filipinos were content to endure the miserable coverage of his fight on their TV sets, but apparently for our congressmen, television isn't exciting enough. At a time of soaring deficits, a spectacular number of congressmen trekked to Las Vegas to watch Manny Pacquiao in person.

One congressman went as far as to justify his junket, saying it was merely a pit stop on the way to "consulting" with Filipinos overseas. One or two congressmen might have gotten away with such an excuse, but as there were nearly enough congressmen in Las Vegas to constitute a quorum in the House of Representatives, the justification fails to convince.

Fighting spirit

Fighting spirit


Posted 11:42pm (Mla time) Mar 21, 2005
Inquirer News Service



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



MANNY Pacquiao fought a good fight, but he lost to a taller, smarter, more experienced boxer. Still he deserves our applause for his courage and fighting heart. He gave the fight his all, but it was not enough to defeat Erik Morales, much less to knock him down.

People will be talking about the slambang bout in the next few days. What if Pacquiao had not suffered a cut on his right eyebrow, the result of a headbutt (which was not seen by the referee)? Would he have seen better and landed more telling blows on Morales? What if he had been allowed to use his favorite brand of boxing gloves? Would his blows have been more effective?

Boxing aficionados will be discussing many "what ifs," but the fact is that Pacquiao himself conceded defeat to Morales. He lost to a better boxer.

Still, he need not hang his head in shame. He did his best, and he even tried to stage a rally in the last round, but he could not turn the tide.

Pacquiao is still young, he has a great fighting spirit and he can still bounce back. He has many fights ahead of him. He has already proved his drawing power at the tills, and should be getting other fight offers in the near future.

President Macapagal-Arroyo rightly said that Pacquiao set an example of the "toughness we need to surmount our trials and in fighting our way to become a strong Philippines." Yes, it's time we discarded our negative, defeatist attitude and became tough, courageous and more determined to attain our goals, despite all the adversity and the bad breaks that we have been encountering.

If all of us can have the grit, determination and fighting heart of Manny Pacquiao, we can overcome all our personal and national trials, achieve more, and ultimately become a more progressive nation.




Big winners

ERIK Morales was of course the big winner of the fight. Before the fight, and during the bout itself, he simply played it cool. He was not affected by all the hype about Manny Pacquiao. He just played it smart, put into play all the ring experience in the 49 bouts that he had previously fought.

The Mexicans were also big winners. They must have believed all the hype about Pacquiao, because if reports are correct, they did not bet heavily on their man. But Pacquiao's defeat revived Mexican pride, which suffered a big blow when Pacquiao beat Marco Antonio Barrera in 2003. Now the Mexicans can even afford to taunt Pacquiao, saying that he is "all sound, no fury," and that he is not that smart and strong.

The promoters also won big and must have made a killing in the sale of tickets and TV rights. But they had a good gate because Pacquiao is "hot property," one of the best boxers in his class, pound for pound. So they have Pacquiao to thank for the millions that they made.

The audience, both at the MGM Grand Hotel Arena and those who watched the fight on TV, also won because Pacquiao and Morales fought a thrilling, closely contested fight. They got their money's worth.

Big winners in the Philippines were Solar Entertainment and RPN 9. The scores of commercials inserted between rounds -- even in the rounds of the undercard fights -- must have made millions for Solar and RPN 9. We wonder, however, if the two organizations did not violate an understanding in the TV industry to limit the number of commercials in a program or the coverage of an event. Is there really no way they can enforce the limit on the ad load of televised coverage of boxing bouts and other sporting events?

Can't we give the TV audience a better deal? Last Sunday, the radio had the results earlier than TV. It was not the first time that happened. Television stations delay the airing of the fight to be able to pack in all the commercials that the program can bear. But the main purpose of TV coverage of sporting events is to give the result -- as soon as possible -- and not only to provide entertainment. And so, in a sense, last Sunday the TV audience was a loser. But of course, the audience stays tuned to the carrying station because nothing beats the visuals of television.

Chicken wire policy

Chicken wire policy


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



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



THE REST of the country may not care about Bayani Fernando's latest experiment in urban planning and development, but we think there are crucial lessons to be learned from the ongoing fiasco that is the "chicken wire" traffic management scheme.

The first lesson is that it is a failure. The scheme, meant to ease traffic on Edsa, the national capital region's main thoroughfare, has instead added to traffic congestion. We are not certain whether Fernando and other officials of the Metro Manila Development Authority recognize this fact, or understand why. But a simple explanation, based on the experience that hundreds of thousands of commuters have endured every day for the last three weeks, should suffice.

The scheme required the setting up of portable chicken-wire fences along certain portions of Edsa, to reinforce the demarcation of the bus lane. In other words, the idea was to force the thousands of buses plying the Edsa route to stick to their lane.

The problem was, by setting up the fences, which at the base took up maybe only a foot and a half of space, but at the designated exits occupied as much as half a lane, the MMDA actually added traffic bottlenecks to Edsa. Instead of easing traffic flow, the scheme, from Day One, choked it instead.

Why? At certain points in the affected stretches, buses and cars had to negotiate a bus lane that had effectively been reduced from two lanes to one.

The second lesson is that the spirit of experimentation is not enough. When Fernando first assumed the MMDA chairmanship, we welcomed his openness to try new solutions to old problems. It is not often, we said then, that we get public officials willing to press initiatives based on the rigors of science rather than the pressures of politics.

MMDA officials defending the chicken wire scheme have invoked the initiative's experimental character, saying we should wait until the findings are in. But this is like saying that any experiment will do.

An experiment must be thought through and thoroughly prepared for. Unfortunately for Edsa's commuters, this has not been the case with the chicken wire disaster.

Every day, the details of the scheme changed. One day, for instance, southbound traffic from Cubao in Quezon City had the option to turn right on Annapolis Street in Greenhills. The very next day, the Annapolis exit was closed off, catching motorists by surprise. For a few days, motorists from Connecticut street in busy Greenhills could turn right on Edsa. Then one day, without so much as a by-your-leave, the MMDA closed the Connecticut exit off.

The sudden changes sowed confusion among Edsa's regular motorists. Worse, the changes were done, not late at night, when traffic is light, but in the middle of the day. There were even a few times when the fences were moved or traffic barriers and gates relocated during rush hour.

Can anyone in the MMDA actually say that conditions for the experiment were stable enough, or controlled enough, that we can draw valid conclusions from it? Anyone who has ever driven down Edsa knows that traffic conditions vary every day, with Friday, for some reason, always bearing the heaviest traffic. How can, say, a one-day experiment for a particular exit point prove anything?

The third lesson is that effective governance requires managing the public's expectations. The MMDA's chicken wire scheme played fast and loose with both motorists and commuters. No explanations were given, no announcements were made. The fences went up, then down, then up again; and the exits moved from one location to another, without any attempt to inform the public beforehand. Is it any wonder that the scheme enjoys little public support?

The last lesson is philosophical, a matter of outlook. Fernando and his MMDA crew seem to have given up hope in the effectiveness of regular methods of traffic enforcement. The pink fences are like an admission of previous failure: we need to put them up, the MMDA seems to be saying, because our traffic enforcers cannot enforce the bus-lane rule. It is all of a piece with Fernando's notorious wet-rag scheme. If pedestrians in that case, and motorists in this case, don't follow the rules of their own accord, then it is the MMDA's job to force them to. But we cannot agree with Fernando. We distinguish between a realistic approach and his cynicism. Thus, Lesson No. 4: Don't expect progress if you treat people like, well, chicken.

World Bank democracy

World Bank democracy


Posted 08:56pm (Mla time) Mar 19, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 20, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



BY TRADITION, it is the United States which nominates the president of the World Bank; Europeans choose the managing director of the International Monetary Fund. In nominating the controversial Paul Wolfowitz, a leader of the American neoconservative movement and the most influential No. 2 man in the history of the Pentagon, US President George W. Bush has prompted other industrialized countries to rethink that tradition.

We doubt whether much will come out of this collective soul-searching. The Europeans, too, have a stake in the post-Iraq, post-reelection thawing of transatlantic relations; they will feel needlessly provoked but, in the end, they will grit their teeth and swallow their pride.

The rest of the world, of course, has no say in the matter. To be blunt about it: beggars can't be choosers, especially when it comes to choosing the new creditor-in-chief.

But those of us who have been on the sometimes sharp end of the World Bank stick can certainly use the next few days-while Europe thinks and US allies in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East come to terms with Wolfowitz's nomination-to raise the necessary questions.

Under James Wolfensohn, the World Bank tried mightily to reckon with some of the unintended consequences of its brand of economic development. Can Wolfowitz take the next step and lead the World Bank to accept its mistakes and change some of its policies?

We ask, because the man Bush affectionately calls "Wolfie" is one of the principal architects of the US invasion of Iraq. The war was waged on non-existent grounds: there was no immediate terrorist threat from Iraq, there were no weapons of mass destruction, there was no conspiracy between Saddam Hussein's odious regime and Osama bin Laden's equally monstrous terrorist network. All of these have been confirmed many times since the invasion was launched two years ago. But have Wolfowitz and the rest of the Bush administration's war council taken the opportunity to tender their regrets or issue an apology for essentially misleading the American nation and the rest of the world?

Regrettably, no. They have all taken refuge behind the banner of democracy.

Democracy, Churchill famously said, is the worst form of government, until you consider the alternatives. Many of the alternatives in the Middle East are unsavory indeed, and like many around the world, we share the hope that democracy's meandering march will also take it through that volatile region.

But the end does not justify the means. Wolfowitz and company, however, think it does. Now that the invasion of Iraq has been belatedly rationalized as the seizing of a democratic beachhead in the Middle East, the lies and mistakes that led to the war are to be filed away and forgotten.

If in the face of incontrovertible evidence, Wolfowitz cannot bring himself to admit any errors in judgment, can we expect him to continue the reform of the World Bank-a process which requires him to publicly accept mistakes? It would be out of character.We worry about his appointment then, because it might cause the return of the unyielding, we-know-what's-good-for-you arrogance of the "old" World Bank.

We also worry about his commitment to democracy, when serious money is at stake. Can Wolfowitz take the next step and lead the World Bank in the direction of debt relief?

If there is one single policy that will help struggling democracies around the world infuse new life into democratic institutions, it is debt relief. The policy will release billions of dollars into the necessary work of easing poverty, stimulating the economy, raising living standards, and investing in education. Instead of essentially working for the creditors, many of whom have already profited from the debt, developing countries around the world can finally work for their own benefit. Like democracy's rising tide, that of economic growth can lift all boats too.

But for many creditors, the real issue behind debt relief is the often-forgotten conflict between capitalism's requirements and democracy's needs. When billions of dollars are at stake, whose side will Wolfowitz be on?

There ought to be a law

There ought to be a law


Posted 00:20am (Mla time) Mar 19, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 19, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



THE FRUSTRATED escape attempt of Abu Sayyaf leaders put a damper on the handover of command in the Philippine National Police. Reactions to recent policy recommendations made by Gen. Efren Abu have also resulted in the deferment of his confirmation as chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines by the Commission on Appointments. However, both recent appointments -- of Abu as AFP chief of staff and of Arturo Lomibao as director general of the PNP -- again highlight a lingering, institutional problem crying out for congressional resolution.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has been following a revolving-door policy on appointments to top police and military posts. To satisfy the craving of officers to end their careers at the top, appointments are made on a fleeting basis, which then requires them (in the eyes of the administration) to be seconded to civilian positions of authority afterwards. The result is, generals are made commanders of their services or their organizations for very brief periods and then placed in freshly minted positions in the Cabinet, with a corresponding requirement to keep moving retired officers up the civilian chain of authority.

It is reassuring that there is a lingering sense of professionalism and institutional vision among high-ranking officers. At least, to the extent that individuals such as Abu have made it clear that they would continue reforms begun during their predecessors' tour of duty. The elimination of the graft-ridden Logistics Command is one such overdue example.

This, however, cannot hide the reality that keeping the continuation of such policies within the realm of discretion serves to keep organizations such as the military susceptible to a personalistic, instead of a professional, frame of mind.

There have been calls to fix the terms of top officers tasked with crucial responsibilities in the AFP. Originally, such calls were principally concerned with the need to give the superintendent of the Philippine Military Academy enough time to institute rational changes, and see them through. The revolving-door policy, which makes political payback easy and real reforms difficult, should finally be stopped.

Fixed terms will provide officers the opportunity not only to make changes but also to oversee them until they start to show results. It would also force the executive department to more seriously consider the repercussions of such appointments. More importantly, setting fixed terms for the top AFP and PNP officials would insulate these organizations from the most obvious forms of political deal-making and patronage, not to mention undue interference by the powers-that-be.

Incendiary

THE ARMED Forces of the Philippines has no business giving its opinion on religious matters, including whether or not victims of shootouts deserve to go to heaven.

"They are not true Muslims. They are not true believers," Lt. Col. Buenaventura Pascual, military spokesperson, has said, referring to the 24 prison inmates killed earlier this week in the Camp Bagong Diwa uprising. "That's why Allah sent them to hell." Other military officials have expressed alarm that ordinary Muslims regard the dead men as martyrs. "This is the distorted interpretation [of the Koran that is taught] by the Tabligh," a group of male preachers in the Middle East who are suspected of teaching radical Islam, added Pascual.

But nothing qualifies Pascual or his commanders to comment on such things. Questions of faith are best left to the competent authorities of a faith. Secular military authorities, most of them Christians, should be the last to pontificate on matters they aren't competent to address. There is a pressing need for non-Muslims to attempt to understand the complexities and nuances of the Islamic religion, and an equally urgent need for Muslims to enlighten non-Muslims as to the proper understanding of the tenets of their faith.

Gratuitous comments such as the ones made by Pascual are incendiary and irresponsible, coming at a time when tempers are again on the rise. Such statements only serve to stoke further the resentment of Muslim Filipinos.

A question of martyrs

A question of martyrs


Posted 11:56pm (Mla time) Mar 17, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 18, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



A FOREIGNER once held hostage by the Abu Sayyaf probably expressed what many Filipinos feel. Callie Strydom in South Africa said of Ghalib Andang, alias "Commander Robot": "He probably got the death he was seeking. I suppose in the end he got what was coming to him." Any pity for the fate of the Abu Sayyaf leaders killed in last Tuesday's storming of Camp Bagong Diwa is tempered by a recollection of their dark deeds.

This is a distinction, however, that ignores other realities that serve to overshadow the event. Those killed at Camp Bagong Diwa were buried yesterday in a manner that was intended to proclaim them as "martyrs" for Islam. Instead of being washed, the bodies of the 22 slain were left bathed in their own blood, anointed in the sanguinary proof of their martyrdom. For every "Commander Robot" or "Commander Kosovo" killed, there are cases such as that of Hadji Ahmad Opao, at 75 the oldest fatality and, by all accounts, a man overdue for release on humanitarian grounds. He was said to be afflicted with Alzheimer's disease and was bedridden, and he died because, perhaps in an instinctive reversion to the warrior traditions of his youth, he got to his feet when the shooting started.

For many Muslim Filipinos, it is not the supposed poetic justice of a "Commander Kosovo's" death that will seize their imagination, it is the far more common and far sadder realities of the fate that befalls people like Hadji Ahmad Opao. The workaday experience of many Muslims is filled with false accusations, brutal imprisonment, rough and ready persecution masquerading as the justice of the Republic. Filipino Christians can surely understand why experiences and examples such as Opao's can turn even the deaths of notorious kidnappers and bandits (such as the Abu Sayyaf) into martyrdom.

Governor Parouk Hussein of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has tried to explain as much by pointing out that not everyone killed in Tuesday's assault were members of the Abu Sayyaf. There were those who got killed in the attack because they happened to be in jail on account of false charges made by their Muslim or Christian enemies or because of the slow and inefficient workings of our justice system. It is these cases that will resound, those deaths that will be mourned, those examples that will overshadow the deaths of known members of the Abu Sayyaf.

Of greatest concern now is the increasing criticism of Muslims by their Christian brethren for not speaking out more against the Abu Sayyaf, and for giving those killed the benefit of Islamic burial rites and of being mourned by the Muslim community. No one begrudges a Christian the burial rites of his religion, whatever his crime, and no one should criticize Muslims for burying their dead according to the rites of their faith. As for calling upon Muslims to provide a united front in criticizing the Abu Sayyaf, this ignores the larger and smaller dynamics of Muslim society in our country. Larger, because the Abu Sayyaf, for all its bloodthirsty abuses, is a manifestation of Christian policies of repression, neglect and exploitation in Mindanao, and smaller, because the ties of blood and family can eclipse all other considerations.

For now, the Abu Sayyaf continues to look like a winner: it now claims martyrs, and has planted the seeds of doubt in the minds of at least some who suspect a government rubout. Its members went out in a manner of their own choosing; they have been buried in a manner that inspires romance and admiration among their followers. The government is now faced with the Herculean task of trying to change public opinion not among Christians, whose biases at least make them somewhat impervious to romanticizing the Abu Sayyaf, but among Muslims, who are torn between admiring their obviously reckless courage, and the realization that in the face of Christian guns, there is no distinction between the bad Abu Sayyaf and elderly prisoners like Opao.

The only way to seize momentum is the hardest: to slowly, but surely, eliminate all doubts that those in jail deserve to be there, and aren't imprisoned because of bad luck, poverty, the enmity of others or, worst of all, their religion.

Cleaning up

Cleaning up


Posted 11:45pm (Mla time) Mar 16, 2005
Inquirer News Service



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



PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, as expected, has ordered a thorough investigation of the failed jailbreak attempt that turned into an uprising and left 28 people dead. Her spokesman, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye, said Interior Secretary Angelo Reyes has been directed to lead the probe with the end in view of pinpointing responsibility and making sure the incident is not repeated.

Of course, that was exactly the same order given by Malacañang after Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, of the al-Qaeda affiliated international terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah, escaped from the maximum security detention center in Camp Crame in July 2003. It was the same order issued a year earlier when Pentagon kidnap gang leader Faizal Marohombsar escaped also from Camp Crame. But if any official of some consequence was held accountable for them and punished accordingly, only a few people must have heard about it. And if any reforms were put in place to make our prisons and detention centers more secure, they must be a well-kept secret. What is more certain is that such incidents have been recurring, at progressively greater cost to the government in terms of international embarrassment, heightened threats to national security and even human lives.

The violence this week at Camp Bagong Diwa was particularly a vicious blow to the Arroyo administration and to our law-enforcement agencies. It allowed the whole world to see how lax and how inefficient our jail officials can be in handling even the most dangerous criminals. For this oversight, three jail guards and a policeman had to pay with their lives. And even as the whole nation heaved a sigh of relief that the crisis has been overcome, doubts persist as to whether all the force applied by authorities and all the shooting and killing were absolutely necessary to bring the uprising to an end. The end result of all that violence has not been a lowering of tension but its heightening as the Abu Sayyaf has vowed to avenge the deaths of some of their leaders by bombing urban areas.

There's a big mess left out there by the prison uprising, but we have doubts if Reyes is the right man to lead the cleanup. In the first place, the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology is an attached agency to the Department of the Interior and Local Government. How impartial can Reyes be in his investigation? And how high will he go in assigning responsibility for everything that happened?

The BJMP director, Chief Supt. Arturo Alit, has started the washing of hands by pointing out that his bureau is woefully short of personnel, equipment and other resources. He even seems to think his bureau deserves congratulations that despite the "thin deployment of personnel, no inmate managed to escape."

But Alit glosses over the major -- and ultimately fatal -- lapses in security that allowed the Abu Sayyaf inmates to initiate their escape plan. Guns had been smuggled into prison. The most notorious terrorists were not being held in isolation but in the company of more than 100 other inmates. The few prison guards assigned to conduct a head count of inmates were allowed to bring their firearms. All of which had nothing to do with lack of resources, and everything to do with lack of common sense or training on security procedures.

Reyes should begin work on his new assignment from the President by relieving Alit of his post. After that, he can proceed to find out where the prison system and processes are weak. Then he can recommend measures to prevent similar escape attempts in the future.

It would certainly be useful to know all these, but it would be at least just as important to find out why so much blood had to be shed and so many lives had to be wasted when vastly superior government forces were pitted against caged foes. And obviously Reyes, who gave the order to begin the assault, would be the wrong man for the job, unless the administration wants to mount a farce of an investigation. But does the administration, which has been lavish in its praise of the police forces that took part in the assault, want to know if unnecessary and excessive force was employed to neutralize a handful of armed men? Or does it believe that, armed or unarmed, each of the 22 inmates killed during the assault deserved to die?

Incompetence

Incompetence


Posted 00:01am (Mla time) Mar 16, 2005
Inquirer News Service



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



THE DEATHS of Ghalib Andang, alias "Commander Robot" and Alhamzar Limbong, alias "Kosovo," who were accused of leading several of the Abu Sayyaf's kidnapping operations and the bombing of the Superferry 14 in February 2004, along with 15 others, mean more than just another publicity black eye for the government. Their deaths at the hands of government agents sent in to put an end to a 24-hour failed escape attempt that turned into a prison revolt did not only raise the death toll from the first day's five deaths. Their deaths also mean that they have escaped trial and, more importantly, put any information that they possessed irretrievably beyond the government's reach.

The escape attempt itself speaks volumes of the continuing slapdash nature of the Philippine prison system and those who run it. Department of Justice prosecutors have told the media that prison officials had been tipped off as early as December that a jailbreak was in the offing. The reaction of Bureau of Jail Management and Penology officials was to shrug it off. And the shrugging continued when other things were pointed out, such as the dangers posed by having firearm-bearing guards in close proximity to the Abu Sayyaf prisoners.

Certainly political and public pressure for the government to fire officials will be intense-and justified. The whole episode was like a bad Hollywood movie, the kind that focuses on the spectacular incompetence of prison administrators.

Simply firing people, however, avoids tackling the real problem of our overcrowded, antiquated prison system. From unprofessional managers, to ill-trained prison guards, to inadequate funding, the jail system is simply overwhelmed by the vast number of prisoners being incarcerated in too few and too congested prisons. The result is both an unhealthy and nearly impossible-to-secure overpopulated system.

Human rights activists, for one, have been battling for years against overcrowding in our jails, which puts underage offenders in close proximity to hardened criminals, and which makes it even more difficult to properly isolate dangerous inmates such as captured members of the Abu Sayyaf. The price of poverty becomes even higher when everything, from allowing the use of cell phones, improperly supervised visits, and access to outsiders who can provide luxuries as well as potentially lethal contraband items such as guns, becomes available to inmates for a price or even a smile.

Unless and until the government comes up with a realistic policy with regard to the processing and handling of prisoners, yesterday's bloody end to a jailbreak will just be one more incident in a continuing series of similar -- and more successful -- attempts. The BJMP must contend with too many competing authorities (the police and military have their own prisons), an overwhelmed justice system (which crowds the jails with people vainly awaiting speedy trials), and a lack of facilities to properly contain especially dangerous prisoners.

We must add to this the continuing bad habit of our officials of trying to deflect attention from the scandal of the hour by pointing to perceived larger threats. Amid the standoff following the botched Abu Sayyaf escape attempt, unnamed "anti-terror officials" speculated that the whole matter might have been staged to deflect attention from plans by Jemaah Islamiyah to launch attacks during the Holy Week. This may or may not be so, but announcing it to the press at the time the standoff remained unresolved only served to deflect attention from the hard questions already being asked of the police and the BJMP.

The fact is that the Abu Sayyaf won yet another round against the government. Its captured members died with guns blazing, drawing the world's attention to their cause and their refusal to let their detention circumscribe their actions. The whole sorry episode suggests that its members can still effectively function right under the noses of government authorities. And this can only gladden the hearts of their allies in the field.

What next?

What next?


Posted 11:13pm (Mla time) Mar 14, 2005
Inquirer News Service



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



TAX consumers for the use of raw water? Next they will be taxing people for breathing in air. And then tax people for daily physical activities like eating, drinking, etc.

The National Water Resources Board last week was contemplating charging a fee for the use of raw water to raise revenues to fund water resource development and to force consumers to conserve the scarce resource. The board admitted that its proposal is "socially sensitive'' and could be very controversial.

The proposed tax is very socially sensitive because water, next to air, is essential for a person to stay alive. Seventy percent of the human body is composed of water, and one can survive for only three days without water. Make water so costly and you would be practically condemning some very poor people to death.

As it is, water consumers in the cities and other urban areas are already paying water companies for the use of water. Various taxes and imposts are already included in the final rate charged to consumers. A tax on raw water would again make the water companies raise their rates; they cannot be expected to absorb the new tax themselves.

Under the proposal, even water coming from the ground would be taxed. So artesian wells would be taxed. Deep wells, from which water would be sucked up by electric motors, would be taxed. Conceivably, water scooped from shallow wells dug near water sources like rivers and brooks would also be taxed.

Water for irrigation, which is also raw water, would be taxed. This could raise the prices of rice, which is heavily dependent on water for its cultivation, and other agricultural products.

And what about the rain "that falls from gentle heaven''? Will rainwater collected in big catchment basins or small pails be also taxed? That is "raw water'' too.

As it is, a big sector of the population, particularly those in the rural areas, does not have sources of clean, potable water. This sector depends on ground water and rivers, brooks and lakes for its household water. And yet it is this sector that will bear a big part of the proposed tax.

Right now, people living below the poverty line manage to survive from day to day by eating rice or gruel (which is rice boiled in a lot of water), salt or “patis” [fish sauce] or “toyo” [soy sauce]. They finish their meal with a glass of water since they are too poor to afford soft drinks whose prices have been raised recently. Very soon, even a glass of drinking water may be a luxury for the poor if the proposed tax on raw water is approved.

Who's next?

THE KILLINGS of activists and members of leftist organizations all over the country, and the slayings of pro-worker people in Hacienda Luisita have reached alarming levels, and yet they do not seem to disturb government officials at all.

Is it perhaps true, as Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo alleged in a recent privilege speech, that the killings, abductions and disappearances of leftists are acts of terrorism, perpetrated by agents of the state? A total of 11 activists were killed and five were abducted in several provinces in the first quarter of this year.

One of the aims of the framers of the present Constitution in providing for party-list representation in the House of Representatives was to encourage leftist organizations to go above ground and wage a parliamentary and not an armed struggle. But, as Ocampo asked in his privilege speech, "Is the present government determined to illegalize Bayan, Anakpawis and the Gabriela Women's Party? Is it the government's policy to make no distinction between the underground revolutionary movement and the aboveground legal democratic mass movement?''

Will some responsible official please answer his questions?

As for the killings in the troubled Hacienda Luisita, no one in government seems to be alarmed by them. Are they perhaps turning a blind eye on these killings, hoping that the "troublemakers'' or those supporting the strikers, would all be eliminated?

The police are going through the motions of investigating the killings and going after suspects. There may be a need to change the police unit assigned to Hacienda Luisita so that a new group can look at the situation with a fresh eye. Meanwhile, the authorities should consider placing Hacienda Luisita under police control, something similar to Comelec control during elections, to prevent further killings.

Wanted: more judges

Wanted: more judges


Posted 11:35pm (Mla time) Mar 13, 2005
Inquirer News Service



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



IT WAS Joseph Estrada, then vice president of the Republic, who popularized the term "hoodlums in robes," referring to corrupt judges and an unreliable judicial process. It was also Estrada, in his inaugural address as the country's 13th President, who asserted that most of the major crimes were committed by "hoodlums in uniforms," who were then and all too often protected by corrupt lawyers, or "hoodlums in barong Tagalog."

Estrada, now on trial for plunder, was wrong about one detail. By volume, uniformed officials may be responsible for most crimes of corruption; but the really big crimes are committed by public officials who don't even wear any uniform, or by successful businessmen who may not need to wear a suit at all. But without a doubt, on the issue of corruption in the judiciary, Estrada nailed it on the head.

This is not to say that, having so clearly pinpointed a major problem in governance, Estrada set out to solve it. In the long term, his main contribution to the administration of justice may well turn out to be his becoming a defendant himself-thus proving that no man is truly above the law.

And to be sure, the Supreme Court has sometimes taken decisive action, especially in the last few years. As Sen. Francis Pangilinan, the Senate's representative in the Judicial and Bar Council, reminded Inquirer editors and reporters last week, the high court punished 56 judges for various infractions last year, and has shown no signs of stopping.

But to this day, some of the bigger regional trial courts continue to be known for their for-a-fee decisions. Many lawyers continue to complain privately about specific judges-for-rent. And much of the necessary paperwork that is coursed through the courts continues to suffer from that peculiar form of bureaucratic inertia: A document does not move until money is in close proximity.

There is no shortage of reformers among judges, and as we have noted the Supreme Court has been particularly strict in the last few years. But much more needs to be done to remove the corrupt from the judiciary.

Now here comes Pangilinan pointing out another-perhaps, even more fatal-problem. The judiciary is woefully short of judges. Out of 2,153 positions, only two-thirds, or some 1,461, are occupied. That means that one out of every three courtrooms is vacant.

On the first level of the judiciary (the metropolitan and municipal trial courts), the ratio is downright apocalyptic. Nine out of every 10 courts are vacant, Pangilinan said. As a result, "judges are made to man three to four courts."

The lack of judges adds to the problem of delay, which is perhaps, over time, the main factor that erodes public confidence in the effectiveness of the justice system. Justice delayed, we know from bitter experience, is justice denied.

But the lack also adds to the problem of corruption, which gravely undermines the people's faith in the judiciary. Money doesn't even have to be involved. A crafty lawyer knows the easiest way to "help" an overworked judge is to write his decision or, more precisely, to write a brief that, with a minimum of editing, can be released in his name. A savvy lawyer can propose a schedule that places the judge's interest ahead of the client's. In other words, a judge can be hostage to his overloaded docket, and it is helpful lawyers who pay the ransom.

Why do we lack so many judges?

For one thing, serving as a judge who calls it straight can be risky; as recent history shows, assassination is a very real threat.

For another, the judiciary takes a very long time-as much as eight months-to fill a judicial vacancy.

For a third, judges are not paid as much as their position deserves. A new law will increase their pay by as much as a hundred percent, but full implementation won't be until three years from now.

Not least, very few study law in order to become a judge. Law students and beginning lawyers are absorbed into a culture which recognizes brilliance in successfully pursuing one side of a case, rather than appreciating both sides. They learn, very early, that the aggressiveness of paid champions is much more prized over the tact and neutrality of a lowly-paid judge. Is it any wonder they keep clear of the bench?

Innocence

Innocence


Posted 00:16am (Mla time) Mar 13, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 13, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



THE NEWS from Bohol has cut us to the quick. In part, it is because the tragedy was not caused by extraordinary weather or an out-of-the-ordinary situation; it arose out of the familiar routines of daily life. A crowd of grade school students rushes out at mid-morning to enjoy a traditional snack. What can be more ordinary than that?

In part, the tragedy bears heavily on us also because of the extreme youth of the victims. More than a hundred schoolchildren, aged between 6 and 13, had been poisoned, and as of yesterday 27 had already died. The victims' parents and many others have asked: What had they done to deserve this fate?

The Department of Health has narrowed the possible causes of the mass food poisoning to either cyanide (possibly left in the cassava because of undercooking) or pesticide (possibly through the use of contaminated containers). While careful to say that we must all wait for the results of the various tests being conducted, health officials actually think the pesticide poisoning or organophosphate theory may better explain the circumstances.

Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit said the symptoms exhibited by some of the patients were "more consistent" with the theory, and that the patients "were responding to atropine sulfate, which is the antidote for organophosphate [poisoning]."

Pinpointing the actual cause will help any post-tragedy initiative. If it is proven to be pesticide poisoning, then the attempts of, say, the Department of Education to impose "stricter restrictions" on food vendors plying their trade immediately outside schools will have to be reconsidered.

But knowing the cause of death will do very little to ease the trauma of the victims' families. Similarly, the conviction of the two snack vendors, possibly on charges of gross negligence or reckless imprudence, will serve the cause of justice, but the families will find little relief in it.

For the death of the children has inflicted a deeper wound. The families will be looking not so much for cause but for meaning. What had the children done to deserve this fate? Why did it happen so near the end of the academic year, at about the time the children were looking forward to more time for play? Who, in the end, is responsible for it all?

In an uncanny way, the news from Bohol anticipates the central story of Christianity's Holy Week: the horrifying death of the innocent.


Ignorance

THERE is one thing we can say for certain about the "meaning" of the Bohol tragedy. It is not a sign, contrary to the opinion of Bohol Bishop Christian Noel, that God is displeased with the government's population management program.

A couple of days after the mass food poisoning, Bishop Noel took aim at the government's Ligtas Buntis campaign, using the lives of the schoolchildren as ammunition. "Maybe some of the [government's] health workers are trying to go beyond what they are expected by their conscience (to do). So now the Lord is giving us the sign that if we continue to go against what the Church preaches, something like this will happen to us," Noel had said.

We have no reason to doubt that Noel believes he is only offering a Christian explanation of the tragedy. We just don't agree that it is either. It does not explain the sudden death of the innocents, and it is emphatically not Christian.

The ghost of a violent God, seen most clearly in some passages of the Old Testament, was definitively laid to rest by the New. Precisely because of the redemptive suffering of Jesus Christ, the Christian understanding of God has changed, from the exacting, jealous God of the Old Testament, who punished the Egyptians with plagues and purified Job with extraordinary tests, to the suffering savior of the New Testament.

In other words, Noel is appealing to an image of God that is pre-New Testament, and thus not-yet-Christian. A truly Christian understanding of the Bohol tragedy will find Christ right there in Barangay San Jose in Mabini, among the victims.

Happy logging!

Happy logging!


Posted 11:40pm (Mla time) Mar 11, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 12, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



THREE months after the disastrous rains in Eastern Luzon that punished denuded forests and resulted in floods, landslides and loss of lives and property, the government is oh so casually lifting commercial log bans wholesale in different areas of the country. No, not in Eastern Luzon -- in Nueva Ecija, Aurora and Quezon -- but in other areas of the country, such as the Davao and Caraga regions in Mindanao. Plus the Cordilleras, most likely.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo betrayed the wisdom -- or lack thereof -- of the lifting when she surmised that the ban on the Cordilleras might be lifted because "we may need one area in Luzon, and Cordillera looks like the most logical." She didn't even bother to explain whether the Cordilleras (Abra, Kalinga, Apayao, Benguet, Ifugao and Mountain Province) could absorb the commercial operations despite the tenuousness of the environmental conditions there. The pure consideration here is commerce and market.

And most probably, politics, too. Some of those who welcomed the lifting of the logging ban in Caraga are lawmakers from Surigao and the rest of the region. The fact that they readily applauded the lifting of the ban indicates that they lobbied for the logging operations to resume.

Continued logging operations, of course, may benefit forest workers and their families who depend on the forests for their livelihood. They certainly are a consideration in any decision to lift the ban. But without doubt, the paramount consideration is the protection of the environment and the sustainability of the commercial operations in the midst of indications of a very fragile ecology. The small people themselves are part of that ecology, and it is deceptive that the logging ban is being lifted in their name when in fact it is their very lives and livelihood that are endangered.

Which leads us to the manner in which the government seems to have gone about throwing all caution to the wind in lifting the logging ban in forested regions. There seems hardly a token effort on its part to assure the public and the stakeholders that the lifting is a deliberate move, one in which all aspects and interests have been considered with the view to preventing a repeat of last year's disasters.

If there's any effort at reassurance, it's merely photos of Environment Secretary Michael Defensor making the rounds of logging areas, inspecting the timber, checking the concessions, and generally looking serious and businesslike -- in barong Tagalog yet. Defensor has not even conducted a modicum of inquiry into last year's flooding. He may have named names (some of them wrong, as when he accused Sen. Jamby Madrigal's family of logging greed), but he has not exactly put anyone behind bars. Nor has he started to prosecute anyone.

Perhaps most important, Defensor has not really reassured the public that his department is on top of the situation. While he has been quick to put on preventive suspension the provincial directors of Aurora, Quezon and Nueva Ecija (one of whom had long ago warned that untrammeled logging would lead to disaster), he has not exactly given us cause to be reassured that environment officials in Davao, Caraga and the Cordilleras have done their jobs religiously of monitoring the operations of loggers and seeing that they don't go beyond their concessions and that they reforest the areas they've exploited. Many communities in these regions have called for a stop to logging for fear of a disaster.

Three months after the calamity, Defensor has not provided any information as to what his department has done to stem another ecological debacle. Save for the officials he has suspended, he has not prosecuted any logger or provided any explanation on what went wrong last year. Questions are crying out to be answered but if he is forthcoming in anything, it is in lifting the logging ban elsewhere, as if saying that since disasters have taken place in Eastern Luzon, they may as well happen to the other regions so as to spread the disasters equably around.

The December landslides were unprecedented in the annals of a nation otherwise called the most disaster-prone in the world during the last century. At least a thousand people died and tens of thousands were rendered homeless and displaced. All of these stark statistics have been made insignificant by the casual manner in which the government is lifting the logging ban everywhere.

Starving the corrupt

Starving the corrupt


Posted 00:06am (Mla time) Mar 11, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 11, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



SAN JUAN Mayor JV Ejercito is furious that the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) rated the Philippines second only to Indonesia for corruption in the region. His competitive instincts must have pushed him to proclaim that our country should really be No. 1. Or perhaps he remembers how very hard his father, then President Joseph Estrada, tried to put us at the top of the dung heap.

The survey itself concludes, rather more soberly, that "corruption is clearly less today" than during the time of Ferdinand Marcos, although determining if the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration "is any cleaner or dirtier" is a bit harder to determine. The reason for this lies in the very nature of the survey, which was based on the perceptions of foreign businessmen and not on anything more quantifiable than their opinions. The World Bank and US-based investment bank Morgan Stanley are explicit about the costs of corruption. The World Bank estimates that about $48 billion was lost to corruption over a 20-year period, while Morgan Stanley placed the loss at $204 billion between 1965 and 2001.

Interestingly, the survey indicates that the Philippines stands virtually shoulder-to-shoulder with some other Asian countries. The Philippines got a score of 8.8 (on a scale that has 0 as the least corrupt and 10 absolutely corrupt); India got 8.63, Vietnam 8.65, while Indonesia got 9.10. These fractional differences indicate virtually indistinguishable, and quite high, levels of corruption afflicting all these countries. To make it even clearer, the best performing country, Singapore, with a score of .065, was three orders of magnitude better than Japan (3.46) and Hong Kong (3.50). But Malaysia (6.8), Thailand (7.2) and China (7.68) are within spitting distance of the Philippines. Which only goes to show that the entire region is profoundly, and seriously, afflicted with corruption in Western eyes.

But we don't need surveys to tell us corruption is bad. Everyone knows this, and has known it since time immemorial. The equally age-old question in the light of this perennial observation is, why aren't inroads being made in the fight against corruption? Tony Kwok, former deputy commissioner of the Hong Kong Commission Against Corruption, has come forward with the clearest reason. Speaking during a recent anti-corruption workshop, Kwok said, "I am confident that given the effective enforcement and successful prosecution by the [Office of the Ombudsman] and the partnership approach in this corruption prevention project, it is possible that this three-year project will see a marked improvement in the eradication of corruption in this country."

The key word in his statement is not a call for political will -- which is indeed required, but not enough -- but the concept of partnership.

Business leaders have seized on the concept of partnership by creating watchdog groups, a move that seems to ignore a basic bulwark of corruption, which is big business itself. The most poisonous fruits of corruption are ripened by the big money in the hands of big business, eager to cut corners to reduce taxes and fees levied by government. The profit motive taken to extremes entrenches corruption because of the vast sums that change hands, convincing civil servants that they have willing and eager co-conspirators to defraud the country. All the petty mulcting in the world-the small extortions endured by the population at the hands of civil servants -- is nothing compared to the big bounties made available by big business eager -- or forced -- to play ball with corrupt officials.

Observers, puzzled by the often anti-business mentality of much of the working population and the press, fail to see the genuine basis for this contemptuous attitude toward big business, even when it preaches honesty as part of its civic functions. The reason is, Filipinos get to see corruption up close and personal practiced by their bosses: the CFOs who push for greater profits and less taxes, the CEOs and COOs who happily mix with corrupt politicians to get ahead of the competition or avoid the full scrutiny of the law, and so on.

What the country needs is fewer watchdog groups and a greater determination on the part of businessmen to sacrifice profits to obtain honesty in government. This is the best, long-term business attitude of all: to starve the corrupt even if it entails tightening the belt for the present. The problem is, the profit motive, again, is so inexorable that short-term profits almost always outweigh potential future anti-corruption gains.

In the same fix

In the same fix


Posted 11:44pm (Mla time) Mar 09, 2005
Inquirer News Service



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



THE FIRST quarter of the year isn't over yet, and already there have been two big increases in gasoline prices and three in diesel prices, bringing them to record levels. It certainly looks like we're in for a repeat of the fix in which we found ourselves during the last two years when a seemingly endless stream of oil price increases sent gasoline prices higher by P9.61 per liter and diesel prices by P8.73 per liter by the end of 2004. Not only that, the new round of oil price hikes are sure to have a ripple effect on the prices of essential goods and services -- such as, electricity, water, transportation and, of course, food -- which have been also soaring to all-time highs. The outlook is almost discouraging. The man on the street cannot be faulted if he feels helpless these days.

Just as infuriating is the suggestion by some quarters that Filipinos should just roll with the punches since the Philippines still has one of the lowest pump prices in the region. Energy Undersecretary Peter Anthony Abaya, for example, noting that this year's increases have been triggered by "genuine market forces," unlike the previous years' which were driven by geopolitical developments, asked the local oil industry and the public to accept these new price levels. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has also said that her administration would hold on to its policy of allowing market forces to dictate the prices of oil, food and other commodities.

Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye sounded more reassuring when he said, "The government is looking at all possible options." The President has given the green light for a committee to review the oil deregulation law. She has ordered the Department of Energy to closely monitor pump prices and she has appealed to the "good sense" of the oil companies. On the other hand, Senate President Frank Drilon has proposed that the government buy back control of Petron Corp., in which it now has a 40-percent stake. But such measures only impress the public as obsolete, impractical or long overdue rather than encouraging. They are clearly shortsighted approaches, focusing on the effect and not on the cause of the problem itself: the country's dependence on imported oil. And yet, it has been government policy, dating back to the Marcos era, to get away from this dependence. But the lip service goes on. Shall we just resign ourselves to this outrageous fortune of escalating high prices until we all drop dead?

Of course, we have serious limitations. Money, for one thing, is scarce, especially with a fiscal crisis threatening. That's why Drilon's proposed buy-back of Petron is not that simple. The review of the deregulation law has yet to take off, and at this point the committee seems to be moving like it had all the time in the world. And since it is part of its functions, we would like to presume that the DOE has been faithfully monitoring petroleum pump prices, although we are beginning to wonder why we seem to be always caught flat-footed by global oil price adjustments.

As to the "good sense" of the oil companies, there is no evidence to suspect that it exists after all these years. As Drilon put it, "They [oil companies] can deny this until they turn blue but no, they cannot convince anymore that there is no cartel."

The government may be doing something about the problem. But we do not see it going in a big way into developing and promoting fuel-saving measures and alternative sources of energy. For example, there are new technologies -- some of them Filipino inventions -- that could drastically reduce fuel consumption by 20 percent, if we go by the testimonies of those using them. Solar energy has proven its vast potentials. But these technologies don't seem to be getting the necessary government support to propel them beyond the pilot stage.

In contrast, Malacañang and Congress exhibited some impressive "creativity" in identifying possible sources of funds should the administration decide to preserve its shares of stock in San Miguel Corp. They have also shown uncharacteristic "political will" in legislating new tax measures. And they have gone with boundless "passion" after the Marcos Swiss deposits, the coco levy fund and, not to forget, the pork barrel.

But will the people ever see the government working half as hard to try to rein in the galloping prices of oil products? As we have pointed out earlier, it is not always the lack of money that prevents us from addressing our problems effectively. Sometimes, it is only lack of imagination.

Ignorance and insecurity

Ignorance and insecurity


Posted 11:46pm (Mla time) Mar 08, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 9, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



WHEN Lt. Gen. Edilberto Adan, deputy chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, proposed to restrict media interviews with groups engaged in fighting the government, saying that broadcasting by radio, television, or disseminating by print aids terrorism, he caused a ruckus. Politicians were divided on the issue, and so were the media. The administration is pushing the punishment line, while officials who disagree oppose it. Media groups such as the National Union of Journalists have denounced the proposal, while the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas, whose officers recently took their oaths before the President in Malacañang, has come out in support of the proposal.

In the immediate aftermath of the Valentine's Day bombings, it was certainly chilling to hear an Abu Sayyaf spokesman not only taking credit for the carnage, but also gloating about how they had carried them out. Those who wished to inflict harm on innocent civilians to further their political and religious ends certainly took heart from the gloating. However, it is is equally certain that the majority of decent, peace-loving people, regardless of their current opinion of the government, found the Abu Sayyaf statements cruel, disgusting and condemnable.

But if it were up to the military, the reporters who found and interviewed Abu Solayman would have been locked up. And this is precisely why such things should not be left to the military.

If it weren't for the media, the public would not have known, beyond a shadow of a doubt, who perpetrated the bombings. Neither would the public have known the reasons behind the bombings. Fear and panic as a result would not only have continued unabated, but that most corrosive and poisonous state to a society -- ignorance and suspicion -- would have been fostered as well. To our mind, there is no greater threat to national security than the insecurity bred by ignorance. Seeing that the military and police, whether by commission or omission, obviously failed in ensuring public safety by the mere fact that the bombings took place, it would be quite reasonable to hold any military statements on the incidents under suspicion.

This stems from the unfortunate tendency of the military and police, particularly in the past, to camouflage their incompetence by lashing out at the easiest targets available. Or by generally lashing out in general, to soothe their wounded pride by bearing down heavily on the population. The country cannot help suffering from a traumatic suspicion of military rhetoric and conclusions, which is why the media must serve as an independent verifier of facts. It is a sign of the shortsightedness of some military officials and allied civilian politicians that their reaction to a threat is to shoot the messenger.

The majority of Filipinos, regardless of their political leanings, profession, or circumstance in life, know right from wrong, and are loyal, law-abiding citizens of this country. They can be trusted to know right from wrong, and certainly, to at the very least know terrorism when they read or hear about it. Our public officials must adopt an attitude of trust for the citizens rather than actively distrusting them, even if the citizenry actively distrusts our officials and officers. As we've said, the distrust felt by the public (and media are part of this) stems from decades of bad experiences at the hands of officials and officers.

This is not to say that all media are saints, that all media people are absolutely loyal to the Constitution, to democracy, or to the republic. But we do claim for all our brethren in the profession, and for the citizenry at large, the right to information, which is the bulwark of all our liberties. It is for those liberties, first and foremost, and not for something as shadowy and ill defined as "national security," that all officials, from the President down to the humblest private or corporal, ultimately serve. The media are ultimately responsible not to the state, which may impose or attempt to regulate standards of conduct. The media, like government officials, are responsible to the public. It is the public that must ultimately judge the fitness of officials, the trustworthiness of members of media and even the continued validity and existence of the state.

The military is committing a big mistake when it doesn't recognize that the strongest weapon in the fight against terrorism is information that is free, unlimited, uncontrolled.

A world of their own

A world of their own


Posted 11:33pm (Mla time) Mar 01, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 2, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



PERHAPS because she used to be a senator, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has always approached legislative liaison work with a light touch. On more than one occasion, she has downplayed the administration's difficulties in mustering the necessary votes in the houses of Congress, especially in the Senate, by pointing to the bottom line: At the end of the proverbial day, she gets the bills she needs passed anyway.

Now she is not as blithe. On Monday, she used the occasion of a sparsely attended lunch she hosted in Malacañang marking the centenary of the Rotary Club of Manila to rebuke both Houses of Congress. Their offense: a continuing failure to pass the national budget.

The last time Congress passed a national budget, the President noted, was in 2003. But reenactment in 2005 is no longer an option. Another reenacted budget would only court disaster, principally because of the successive downgrades by international credit-rating agencies in the last two years. Reenactment, which automatically takes place when the proposed budget does not meet legislative deadlines, would mean operating this year's programs with two-year-old assumptions: the surest sign that the government is running as fast as it can merely to stay in place.

The President said, pointedly, that she was "fighting for this budget to be passed this March because it will send a signal to our people and to investors that we're in control of our own future."

Congress, in implied contrast, was sending the wrong signal. "Those who oppose the national budget and the VAT [the proposed 20-percent increase in the value-added tax] will set this nation back and put us on a collision course with fiscal and economic responsibility," she said, drawing a graphic picture in black and white. "They will hold this nation hostage to a future devoid of hope by putting petty politics ahead of the national good."

Hyperbole informs much of political rhetoric, and the President's second statement makes generous use of this characteristic figure of speech. Petty politics? A future devoid of hope? We detect a hint of panic creeping into the President's language. But this much at least is true: the Houses of Congress, especially the Senate, have been unmoved by urgency.

The two chambers have dutifully laid the blame for the delay at each other's doorsteps. But a revealing speech by opposition maverick Sen. Panfilo Lacson last Monday reinforces our conviction that the Senate bears more of the blame.

Speaking before the Makati Business Club, Lacson disclosed that senators had "succeeded in removing P1.3 billion in intelligence funds from the executive branch ... [only to] channel the slashed funds to their pork barrel allocations."

There is no direct correlation between this legislative sleight of hand and the delay in the budget, but just the same it tells us all we need to know.

We have joined other advocates who have called for the scrapping of the pork barrel. We believe this is one of the most efficient ways to cut down on the national budget. Defenders have argued that, at about P20 billion, the pork barrel funds do not amount to much. They are wrong, of course; every single peso counts. They are also obtuse: If legislators give up their pork barrel allocations, the message of self-sacrifice gains power, becomes compelling.

Various senators have rejected the appeal to scrap the pork barrel for various reasons, but if we were to venture a summary of their arguments, we would say what is common is precisely the lack of a sense of self-sacrifice.

The tone of budget deliberations in the Senate was set by the famously acerbic Sen. Joker Arroyo, who asked his fellow senators to pretend that agencies like Moody's Investor Service do not exist. We can sympathize with Senator Arroyo, who is visibly nettled at the prospect of following (or worse, being seen to follow) the conditions of an international agency. But to pretend that independent risk evaluators do not exist, because they encroach on the privileges of the gentlemen of the upper chamber? Senators must be living in a world of their own.

Lacson's disclosure gives us additional proof that this is so. In spite of all the talk about the urgent need to trim the budget and get the economy going, our honorable senators have been caught playing games, of the pork barrel kind.

Corruption watch

Corruption watch


Posted 11:43pm (Mla time) Mar 06, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 7, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.



IT IS a sign of how the promises of Edsa remain unrealized that in the last celebration of the 1986 revolution, there were calls for checking corruption and fostering accountability and transparency. The positive thing here is the recognition that the many-headed monster remains unvanquished. That a critical mass exists to fulfill the revolution's ideals, despite the disappointments and heartaches, shows the power of the historical memory that Edsa has engendered.

What is also positive is that even in the run-up to the 19th anniversary of the revolution, there had been efforts to systematize anti-corruption efforts. For example, the National Movement for Free Elections is working with the Department of Health to monitor the delivery and inventory of medicines to 75 DOH hospitals and 15 health centers. The program aims to prevent "ghost" delivery, under-delivery and overpricing of medicines.

The program repeats the formula that was applied in the Department of Education, in which the G-Watch of the Ateneo School of Government, Transparency and Accountability Network (TAN), Namfrel, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts monitor and report the delivery of textbooks to public schools nationwide.

At the defense department, the Bishops-Businessmen's Conference, Procurement Watch and Makati Business Club (MBC) have banded together on the recruitment and training of volunteers who will act as observers in bidding and awards committees, to discourage corruption.

Meanwhile, the Center for Contextualized Theology and Applied Ethics of the University of Santo Tomas is training volunteers to monitor government procurements. UST has been asked by the Civil Society Observers, a group of NGOs and professional and academic organizations formed with some prodding from the Government Procurement Policy Board-Technical Support Office, to facilitate the formation of a procurement watch system. UST will train and form a pool of anti-corruption watchers through "values engineering," "empowering" them so that they would stay committed and alert despite the temptations posed by kickbacks and other inordinate offers.

All of these initiatives show that different sectors are coming together creatively in order to check corruption. If it is true that in 2001 the nation lost P95 billion through graft, then corruption is the most important cause of our poverty, and it is only right that all sectors deal with the monster single-mindedly and forcefully.


Challenge to business

BUT the "anti-corruptionists" can do something forcefully right at this moment without going through the tedious and risk-fraught conduct of monitoring-with lynx eyes-government procurement and bidding. Since many of the anti-graft initiatives are business-propelled, perhaps the businessmen could teach us a thing or two on stopping corruption. Perhaps, they themselves could stop corruption right at their doorstep.

A Social Weather Stations survey of 700 managers across the country shows most companies set aside 22 percent of the cost of a government contract for paying bribes. Only 21 percent of the companies surveyed keep one set of accounts. The rest, of course, keep two: one set of accounts for regulators, and the other for underground-or underworld-purposes.

Considering business' propensity to bribe its way through, then business' participation in anti-corruption drives is problematic. For example, the MBC is helping the Bureau of Internal Revenue to raise revenues by improving collections and the agency's internal system. Ditto with the Bureau of Customs, where the MBC and the TAN are helping stop smuggling and improving collection. Business' participation in both agencies is worrisome because businessmen don't pay the right taxes and tariffs, if they bother to pay at all.

Thus, the first determined move in any anti-corruption campaign is for business to make the resolve not to choose the easy way out. Perhaps, if the MBC and chambers of commerce would do so single-mindedly, then there would be no more need for watchdog systems. This might be wishful thinking, but it would be valid according to the Taoist philosophy of non-interference and letting things flow, of course, without artificial distortions. It would work also because of the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, in which everyone is expected to do his part according to his competence. Thus, if businessmen really want to get rid of corruption, they should do their part competently: pay the correct taxes and dues, refusing bribery and extortion.

Suicide notes

Suicide notes


Posted 00:03am (Mla time) Mar 06, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 6, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



THE CONTROVERSIAL passage of the 2005 national budget is an object-lesson in politics as practiced in the Philippines. The details paint a vivid portrait of the two houses of Congress as they actually conduct their business: paying lip service to motherhood principles, for instance, and then using the resources of the legislative process itself to pursue their self-interest. Or maneuvering against each other to minimize a perceived disadvantage, and then launching a preemptive war of perceptions.

As we pointed out yesterday, the suggestion from Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago that legislators commit mass suicide as a form of public service is redundant; our lawmakers have done a masterful job of shooting themselves fatally in the foot. But there are at least two vital lessons to be learned from this orgy of self-destruction.

Legislative veterans know that the real action is in the "third chamber." We have known this for years; a legislative measure takes final shape in the bicameral conference committee, when differences between Senate and House versions are reconciled. What all too few of us knew-before the budget controversy erupted-was that the entire, elaborate machinery for approving a bill in one house, from first to third readings, from committee hearings to plenary debates, had become a mere first step, an initial negotiating gambit, for the horse-trading that takes place in the bicam. In other words, for legislative veterans, the "action" in the respective chambers is almost irrelevant.

That is why the House can pass its version of the General Appropriations Act, which was essentially the same as the one submitted by Malacañang, and which, among many other details, pared congressional pork barrel allocations down from P70 million to P40 million each. Why? Because the House leadership promised to restore the original amounts during the bicam.

Some congressmen, like Cavite Rep. Gilbert Remulla, have said as much. "It will be a big headache for the House leadership. What happens now to its commitments to the membership that their concerns would be addressed at the bicameral conference committee?" Other congressmen have implied it by their intemperate reaction. House Majority Leader Prospero Nograles, for instance, rashly called for the Senate's abolition, only because the Senate's adoption of the House version of the budget, in toto, had upset the House leaders' political calculus. And at least one congressman, Taguig-Pateros Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano, asked the House leadership to admit that it had miscalculated, for forcing the passage of the Malacañang version in the first place.

All these prove that when the House passed its version last year, congressmen had no intention of honoring the reduction in the pork barrel they had promised with much fanfare. Their plan was to restore the original amounts in the bicam, or to stall until a reenactment of the 2003 budget, with the old allotments, became inevitable.

The "dignity of the chamber" covers a multitude of sins. The whole hoary notion of "institutional dignity" may be at the root of the Senate's extraordinary decision to recall the approval of its version of the budget, and then to adopt that of the House. Opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson's untimely disclosure of the Senate's attempt to "reclassify" P1.3 billion in non-military intelligence funds, aired on the same day President Macapagal-Arroyo rebuked both houses of Congress for the budget impasse, presented the Senate with a public relations nightmare.

Some commentators believe that Lacson was merely confused. Even granting that on the one issue the former presidential candidate has followed most closely, he had jumped to an unwarranted conclusion, the damage was still all too real. And "institutional dignity" required that the Senate move to contain it-even at the cost of undoing all the work done in the last two months.

"Just because they were caught by one of their members, the only way they can divert attention from their own shame is to slap us with dirt that should properly cling to their faces," publisher-congressman Teodoro Locsin Jr. thundered on the floor of the House. But because Locsin, too was defending the dignity of his chamber, his remarks naturally become suspect.

That is what happens when-to extend Bismarck's metaphor-lawmakers bring the entire sausage factory crashing down on themselves.

In harm's way

In harm's way


Posted 11:26pm (Mla time) Mar 03, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 4, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



MALAYSIA'S Home Minister Azmi Khalid has said: "Compared to Guantanamo Bay, we are a five-star hotel. We do not do things that are inhumane. This is our guarantee."

He was referring to the massive crackdown recently launched by the Malaysian government against illegal foreign workers. While the raids have mostly been aimed against Indonesian workers, more than 200 Filipinos have also been rounded up.

The crackdown, coming after a well-publicized four-month amnesty period, would be less controversial if it didn't involve punishment dating to the British colonial period: caning. It is punishment by caning, in particular, that has sparked an international outcry against the Malaysian government. The concern felt by international human rights groups has been echoed by foreign governments.

Indonesia and the Philippines, in particular, have had diplomatic tussles with Malaysia over the subject of workers' migration. Malaysia's crackdown in Sabah, in particular, threatened to revive decades-old animosities between Manila and Kuala Lumpur over that contested territory. Jakarta, too, has had repeated high-level ministerial meetings with its counterparts in Malaysia to discuss this difficult issue.

The truth is, Malaysia needs foreign workers badly, as many Malaysians refuse to take on low-paying jobs. Neighboring countries, from the Philippines and Indonesia to Burma and Bangladesh and even India, have millions of unemployed workers willing to do those jobs.

The Malaysian government, however, has a longstanding policy of stringently applying its laws. It never hesitates to apply its police power to the fullest. As Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said, illegal workers who remained in Malaysia have had their last chance. "We do not need to hear pleas, it doesn't matter anymore. They chose to remain defiant, they have to face the music."

The Malaysian government can argue that it has postponed the recent round of expulsions four times, and that it has every right to impose what it calls its revolving door policy: limited contractual periods for workers who must return to their countries of origin in between stints. For workers from places like Indonesia and the Philippines, expulsion, while harsh, probably doesn't mean death. For workers from Burma, however, there is the chance that workers sent back may face harsh punishment from their own government.

The strength of the Malaysian position is that for every illegal worker expelled, there are probably dozens, if not hundreds willing to take their place, according to the strict regulations imposed by Malaysian authorities. The best that the countries of aggrieved illegal workers can do is what they are now doing: call on the Malaysian government to treat illegal workers humanely.

Since the retirement of the feisty former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia has shown itself far more willing to dialogue with its neighbors. It has been responding reasonably to foreign criticisms. However, old habits die hard, and there is no older habit than the relish with which Malaysian officials wield their police powers.

Aside from Singapore, no other Asean country condones caning as an acceptable form of punishment. This indicates that Asean can push for a consensus when it comes to the treatment of foreign nationals. Under no circumstance can caning be deemed acceptable for citizens of nations that themselves reject caning as a punishment for their own citizens. The least Malaysia can do is to give way in this regard.

The Philippine government, on the other hand, has to cooperate with Malaysia in policing migrants so that Filipinos bound for Malaysia do so with legitimate work permits and papers. Opportunities remain in that country, and no earthly power can stop desperate Filipinos from seeking employment there. What the country has an obligation to do is to ensure that no Filipino puts himself in harm's way. Failure to do so ensures, in the end, that what is a Malaysian problem becomes a Philippine problem.

A world of their own

A world of their own


Posted 11:33pm (Mla time) Mar 01, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 2, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



PERHAPS because she used to be a senator, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has always approached legislative liaison work with a light touch. On more than one occasion, she has downplayed the administration's difficulties in mustering the necessary votes in the houses of Congress, especially in the Senate, by pointing to the bottom line: At the end of the proverbial day, she gets the bills she needs passed anyway.

Now she is not as blithe. On Monday, she used the occasion of a sparsely attended lunch she hosted in Malacañang marking the centenary of the Rotary Club of Manila to rebuke both Houses of Congress. Their offense: a continuing failure to pass the national budget.

The last time Congress passed a national budget, the President noted, was in 2003. But reenactment in 2005 is no longer an option. Another reenacted budget would only court disaster, principally because of the successive downgrades by international credit-rating agencies in the last two years. Reenactment, which automatically takes place when the proposed budget does not meet legislative deadlines, would mean operating this year's programs with two-year-old assumptions: the surest sign that the government is running as fast as it can merely to stay in place.

The President said, pointedly, that she was "fighting for this budget to be passed this March because it will send a signal to our people and to investors that we're in control of our own future."

Congress, in implied contrast, was sending the wrong signal. "Those who oppose the national budget and the VAT [the proposed 20-percent increase in the value-added tax] will set this nation back and put us on a collision course with fiscal and economic responsibility," she said, drawing a graphic picture in black and white. "They will hold this nation hostage to a future devoid of hope by putting petty politics ahead of the national good."

Hyperbole informs much of political rhetoric, and the President's second statement makes generous use of this characteristic figure of speech. Petty politics? A future devoid of hope? We detect a hint of panic creeping into the President's language. But this much at least is true: the Houses of Congress, especially the Senate, have been unmoved by urgency.

The two chambers have dutifully laid the blame for the delay at each other's doorsteps. But a revealing speech by opposition maverick Sen. Panfilo Lacson last Monday reinforces our conviction that the Senate bears more of the blame.

Speaking before the Makati Business Club, Lacson disclosed that senators had "succeeded in removing P1.3 billion in intelligence funds from the executive branch ... [only to] channel the slashed funds to their pork barrel allocations."

There is no direct correlation between this legislative sleight of hand and the delay in the budget, but just the same it tells us all we need to know.

We have joined other advocates who have called for the scrapping of the pork barrel. We believe this is one of the most efficient ways to cut down on the national budget. Defenders have argued that, at about P20 billion, the pork barrel funds do not amount to much. They are wrong, of course; every single peso counts. They are also obtuse: If legislators give up their pork barrel allocations, the message of self-sacrifice gains power, becomes compelling.

Various senators have rejected the appeal to scrap the pork barrel for various reasons, but if we were to venture a summary of their arguments, we would say what is common is precisely the lack of a sense of self-sacrifice.

The tone of budget deliberations in the Senate was set by the famously acerbic Sen. Joker Arroyo, who asked his fellow senators to pretend that agencies like Moody's Investor Service do not exist. We can sympathize with Senator Arroyo, who is visibly nettled at the prospect of following (or worse, being seen to follow) the conditions of an international agency. But to pretend that independent risk evaluators do not exist, because they encroach on the privileges of the gentlemen of the upper chamber? Senators must be living in a world of their own.

Lacson's disclosure gives us additional proof that this is so. In spite of all the talk about the urgent need to trim the budget and get the economy going, our honorable senators have been caught playing games, of the pork barrel kind.