As I See It

Manny Pacquiao has nothing to be ashamed of

2005-03-23T11:00:00.000-08:00

Manny Pacquiao has nothing to be ashamed of

Posted 01:03am (Mla time) Mar 23, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

THIS may sound like heresy to diehard Manny Pacquiao fans, but Erik Morales won that fight fair and square. Manny may have the speed and power, but Morales is the better boxer. It was like a bullfight, pitting a fast, furious and powerful bull against a skillful matador. Morales had the experience, guile, good tactics, effective defense. Manny didn't land a solid punch on him. Even if Manny didn't get that cut from an accidental head butt, he would have had a difficult time turning the tables on Morales.

But although he lost, Manny need not be ashamed of anything. He put up a good fight. He has a fighting heart. As the ring announcer said repeatedly, he is a warrior. He lost only by a very slim margin, 2 points, 115-113. With a little luck, it could have gone the other way.

What Team Pacquiao won was the propaganda war. Manny's handlers were better propagandists than fight tacticians. The hype was so much that when Manny lost, the shock and disappointment were much more. Manny and his handlers may have believed their own propaganda and became over-confident. But boxing bouts are not won by propaganda but by the fists of the boxers.

Nevertheless, the Morales-Pacquiao bout was a good fight. It will be one of the classics that will be watched again and again. There should be a return match. That would draw even a bigger crowd.

* * *

I received a quick reply from councilor Ariel E. Inton, majority leader of the Quezon City Council, to our column last Friday on the ordinance raising real estate taxes in Quezon City.

The column cited four reasons why raising taxes in Quezon City at this time is not justified:

1. The city does not need the extra money, as it is the richest city in the country with a P5.8-billion income last year.

2. With the prices of everything going up, this is the worst time to raise taxes. Government should be the first to help the people cope with diminishing incomes, not add to the people's burden.

3. The taxes homeowners and businessmen pay are not spent to help them against squatters. On the contrary, the money is spent to coddle squatters who steal their property and don't pay taxes.

4. Although the Local Government Code puts the maximum realty tax at 20 percent, that is not mandatory. That is the limit precisely to prevent local government units from abusing their taxing powers. Local officials are expected to use their common sense.

But Inton has his own reason for raising taxes. "It is not true," he wrote, "that the City Council did not conduct proper hearings on the proposed increases. The council conducted a series of hearings for which notices were issued and private sector representatives were invited. The hearings were well attended and the opinions of the private sector representatives were heard and recorded.

"They were allowed sufficient time to submit their position papers. It was precisely after the public hearings that the City Council approved an increase of only 3 percent for real estate property and only 5 percent instead of 10 for commercial and industrial areas.

"While almost all the cities of Metro Manila have imposed the maximum tax rates of 20 percent for residential and 50 percent for commercial and industrial real estate properties, it is only this time that Quezon City is increasing the rates which will take effect only next year. Marikina City imposed the maximum rates as early as 1994, San Juan in 1997, and Manila last year.

"Even if Quezon City imposes the allowable maximum rates, it will still be collecting the lowest real estate taxes compared to other cities in the National Capital Region mainly because it has one of the lowest market value assessments in real estate properties. The last general revision of tax rates for real estate properties was conducted in 1996. Yet, under the Local Government Code, this general revision is to be conducted every three years.

"This means that in Quezon City, the market value of real estate properties has not been revised and adjusted since 1996 or for the past nine years.

"Quezon City has to impose a modest increase in tax rates to meet its increasing budgetary requirements. If the income of Quezon City remains the same in the next three years, the city treasury would again be in the red, something Mayor Belmonte wants to avoid or prevent. Remember that in 2001, when he first assumed office, the city treasury had a cash deficit of over P10 million, outstanding debts and loans amounting to over P2.5 billion and a budget deficit of nearly P1 billion.

"For the last three years, Quezon City has been enjoying a surplus budget. But its income will not increase; it will reach a plateau in two years and may have to experience another budget deficit thereafter.

"Private roads, under the law, are taxable. Whenever turned over to the city, they become tax-free. Many subdivisions now want to turn over their private roads to the city as they see numerous city streets long neglected now being improved and concreted.

"Mayor Belmonte has always attended to the concerns and needs of both subdivision owners and the informal settlers. His office, particularly on Mondays, is always open to callers. He has never been absent, even once, on any Monday which is known in Quezon City as Peoples' Day."

* * *

TODAY'S JOKE: Manny Pacquiao's fans are grumbling that their idol lost because there were too many congressmen during the fight at Las Vegas. They said while fans were cheering him "Manny, Manny, Manny!" the congressmen were shouting "Money, Money, Money!"

Original sin on oil prices

2005-03-16T16:45:00.000-08:00

Original sin on oil prices

Posted 00:38am (Mla time) Mar 16, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

FUEL prices are being raised by the oil companies every week, and this has a domino effect on the prices of everything else, since commerce and people depend on transportation to get from factories to consumers, and transportation, in turn, depends on oil to be able to move. Since Congress passed the Oil Deregulation Law that removed government control on the oil industry, prices have risen steadily without letup. It was like chaining the guard dogs and then opening the sheep pen's door to let the wolves in and attack the helpless sheep.

I think the Oil Deregulation Law and the Urban Land Reform Law are two of the most stupid laws ever passed by Congress. The motives behind them are commendable, but Congress failed to provide safeguards to prevent abuses, largely because it succumbed to lobbying by vested interests. These errors are now evident in the inexorable oil price increases and the increasing anarchy by squatters.

The motive of the Oil Deregulation Law is to encourage other oil players to compete with the three big oil companies already here -- Petron, Shell and Caltex -- so that competition and market forces will force prices down. But instead of prices going down, they went up. What went wrong?

Because of shortsightedness, lobbying and perhaps corruption, Congress left gaping loopholes in the law that allowed the oil cartel to continue dictating prices at will. Worse, it deprived government of any power to control prices.

First, no real competition materialized between the Big 3 and the new oil players. Many of the new players bought finished products from the Big 3 and resold them to the consumers. So how can they compete with the prices of the Big 3? On the contrary, they just followed the pricing of the cartel. In short, while there may be a hundred or so oil companies in the Philippines, it continued to be in the grip of the cartel.

What should have been done was to deregulate gradually to allow new players to become strong enough to really compete with the Big 3, during which time the government retained control of pricing to prevent opportunism. But the first thing our government did was to lift price controls, which was what the cartel wanted.

Other countries that deregulated their oil industries had long, open-ended and indefinite transition periods before full deregulation, during which time partial price controls remained. Only when there was real competition among the oil companies was full decontrol imposed.

If I'm not mistaken, South Korea has had oil deregulation for more than 10 years already, but it is still in partial decontrol mode, with price controls still in effect. Other Asian countries that also deregulated their oil industries followed the same procedure.

In contrast, our Congress provided for only a six- or three-month transition period. Worse, then-President Fidel V. Ramos shortened it to a farcical one month or so (if I remember right) when he signed the bill into law. In short, the original sins were committed by Congress and President Ramos, serpents in barong and suits, and our Paradise started its descent into Hell.

In sum, in spite of the Oil Deregulation Law, or because of it, we are still in the clutches of the oil cartel -- in fact, two oil cartels, one composed of the oil producers, the Organization of Oil Exporting Countries, and the other composed of the refiners and producers of the finished products, the cartel in the downstream oil industry right here.

Our Constitution clearly says that it is the duty of the state to dismantle monopolies, cartels and restraints in trade. Based on this provision, then-congressman (now Bataan governor) Enrique Garcia filed a petition with the Supreme Court to declare the Oil Deregulation Law unconstitutional. The Court decided in his favor and the law was sent back to Congress and amended.

Garcia argued that the law was still unconstitutional because the transition period, which would make sure that the intent of deregulation would be fulfilled before full deregulation, was unrealistically short. The Court replied that that is "a judgment call" of Congress, but until know, 10 years later, it has not made a definite decision on the case brought to it by Garcia. While the Court tarries and delays justice, the people are suffering from the lack of wisdom of that law.

Before Garcia's term as congressman expired, he had filed a bill to repeal or amend the Oil Deregulation Law to make it conform to its original purpose, but Congress adjourned without acting on it, largely because, Garcia suspects, of the influence of the cartel. Although he is no longer a congressman but a provincial governor, Garcia continues his fight against the oil cartel. His son replaced him as congressman, and Rep. Antonio Roman represents the other congressional district of Bataan. Together, they are continuing the fight in Congress. At the last Kapihan sa Manila forum on oil prices and the Oil Deregulation Law, Roman bewailed the lack of action of the present Congress and the slowness of the Supreme Court in deciding the case brought to it by Garcia, while the consuming public continues to suffer at the hands of the cartel.

What's taking the honorable justices so long? Do they need 10 years to decide what is right and what is wrong? In case of doubt, the tradition is to resolve it in favor of the people, not of big business. But has big business been able to reach the honorable justices of the Supreme Court, just like they have the members of Congress?

'Golden parachutes'

2005-03-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

'Golden parachutes'

Posted 11:41pm (Mla time) Mar 13, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

IT looks like many people, including officials in the Arroyo administration, do not believe that her government is going to last long. This early, they are already providing for their future, like rats deserting a sinking ship but with balls of cheese in their mouths. So many shady deals are being discovered, with tens of millions of pesos for kickbacks to the smart ones who cooked up the deals. The P593-million Minimi deal in the Department of National Defense is just one of these. The latest is the privatization of one of the functions of the Bureau of Treasury, which will provide golden parachutes to retiring government and private officials.

The administration wants to transfer the Registry of Scripless Securities from the Bureau of Treasury to a private corporation called the Philippine Depository and Trust Corp. (PDTC). The registry is a record of the loans and debt documents of the government. A private corporation will henceforth do the recording, as though the officials of the Bureau of Treasury do not know how to do such a simple thing. The corporation will collect a fee based on the amount of debt. The Philippines has a peso debt amounting to P3 trillion, so you can imagine how much the PDTC will rake in. The PDTC admitted that it would net at least half a billion a year (but I think this is a very conservative estimate), this only for registering the debt papers.

Even as it will make the shareholders of the PDTC very rich, the transfer will discourage investments in government securities and raise the country's debt burden. It will raise the cost of investing in government securities. Instead of the interest earnings going to the investors, a large part of it will go to the PDTC; instead of the government getting all that it borrowed, part of it will also go to the PDTC; thus the government will have to borrow more to finance its needs. And PDTC officials will go sailing merrily in their golden parachutes just by recording government debts.

The Constitution and pertinent laws are very clear on the functions of the Bureau of Treasury. One of them is to keep the record of government securities. But the Department of Finance and the Bangko Sentral are so hot about the transfer of the Registry of Scripless Securities to the PDTC that they fired the national treasurer, Norma Lasala, a respected banker, just four weeks after being appointed into the position for refusing to endorse the transfer. Appointed to replace her is one Omar Cruz (who he?) whose marching order is to implement the transfer.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. will give more details on this deal in a privilege speech today, and he will ask Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima and Bangko Sentral Governor Rafael Buenaventura to reconsider this questionable proposal that favors a private entity at the expense of the people.

By the way, there is a common thread running through the shareholders of the PDTC: they are all alumni of the American Citibank.

* * *

Methinks the administration is going overboard with this privatization mania. Like a drug addict, alcoholic or black sheep of a family, it is selling all the family's assets to satisfy his money needs.

Before the PDTC, the government wanted to privatize the Bureau of Internal Revenue, an idea also cooked up by American lackeys. Imagine the tax collection and part of the Bureau of Treasury, whose job is to keep the funds and keep track of government money, in the hands of private corporations whose primary motive is profit. The government also is in the process of privatizing the National Power Corp., whose job is to provide the people with a basic service, electricity. It has already privatized another basic service, the distribution of water. Next, it will privatize the Bureau of Customs.

This has been proven to be wrong, as shown by the fiasco that is Maynilad Water. The privatization of transportation in Metro Manila has also been proven to be wrong, as witness the traffic nightmare, the colorums, and the corruption. All the cities in the world with efficient transportation have systems run by the government. Not in the Philippines.

After selling Fort Bonifacio, the government now wants to sell the National Mental Hospital and Welfareville compounds, the Veterans Memorial Medical Center, and the Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa. It also wants to privatize the Social Security System and the Government Service Insurance System. It has already sold the Tutuban Railroad Station which it now needs for the planned North Rail and the South Rail.

It almost sold Fort Aguinaldo until they were told that they cannot because the deed of donation by the Ortigas family has a provision saying that if the government doesn't need the camp anymore, the property will revert back to the Ortigases.

It sold control of Petron and now we are reaping the whirlwind of that folly. Had Petron remained in the control of the government, it could have countered the greed and opportunism of the other oil companies. But in private hands, it is now a member of the oligopoly raising their prices at will and the government and the people are helpless to do anything.

The privatization rush is not only because the government is bankrupt and needs money. I think the other reason is that administration officials are providing themselves with golden parachutes-through generous commissions from the privatization sales-for the future, when President Macapagal-Arroyo is no longer in power and they are out of their jobs.

The never-ending search for happiness

2005-03-11T01:51:00.001-08:00

The never-ending search for happiness

Posted 01:51am (Mla time) Mar 11, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

THE PHILIPPINES is becoming famous all over the world-but for all the wrong reasons. Its latest achievement is being the second most corrupt nation in Asia, according to a survey of foreign businessmen conducted by a Hong Kong consultancy group, Political and Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd. (PERC).

There will surely be protests from the administration, but Filipinos recognize not only that the survey is correct but also the Philippines should perhaps be No. 1 on the list.

Filipinos love to be record holders, whether it is for the biggest shoe or the longest “longganisa” [native sausage], but the Philippines already holds many records. It has the highest birth rate; the slowest judicial system; the longest red tape; it is among the poorest countries in the world; it has the widest gap between the rich and the poor; it has the most number of citizens who have to work in other countries to support their families at home; it has the second highest electricity rates in Asia; it is the kidnap and “carnap” [car theft] capital of the world; it has one of the highest crime rates and, not surprisingly, the most inefficient police force; it has the most congested streets and the most unruly drivers; it has the most number of squatters and the greediest legislators who steal the biggest tax money in the form of pork barrel; it probably has the biggest number of citizens who want to leave their country and live elsewhere. Being the second most corrupt nation in Asia is only the latest crown.

In spite of all these, the Philippines ranks as the 6th happiest nation in the world, a fact that we should be happy about. Many people found the result of this particular survey surprising. How can the poorest people in the world be among the happiest? Perhaps, they said, they surveyed public officials, which explains why they are happy.

But no, I think the survey is accurate: Despite the grinding poverty, or because of it, there are more Filipinos who are happy than those who are unhappy. Because it doesn't take much to make the poor happy. Give them a meal and that will make them very happy. If a scavenger finds several kilos of scrap metal or a big bag of leftover food in the garbage, that will make him very happy. Give a jobless man a job and he will jump for joy.

On the other hand, rich people are very hard to please. A rich businessman who already has millions of pesos in the bank will be unhappy, even though he is still making several millions in profit, if what he is gaining today is less than what he was netting yesterday. A multi-billionaire, among the richest in the world, will be unhappy if a famous magazine ranks him lower than his rival on its list of the world's richest. A rich society matron will be very unhappy if her rival gets a bigger picture in the newspapers.

I once worked for a very rich publisher. He was very powerful and influential; government officials paid obeisance to him; he had a number of profitable businesses; when he held his birthday parties, champagne literally flowed from a fountain.

Yet every evening I saw this rich and powerful man pacing his office, a worried look on his face, and his fingers nervously plucking at the stubble on his chin. What could such a rich man be worried about? Perhaps he was worried he could not pay his debts. Or that one of his businesses would fail. Perhaps a rival was doing better than him. Or perhaps he was worried that one of his children would be kidnapped.

No such worries bother the poor. Nobody will bother to kidnap any of their kids. Their only worry is where to get the next meal. When they get it, they are very happy.

As for the rich, you serve them the best food cooked by the best chef but they can't eat; they have no appetite. Give the poor a little rice and two pieces of “tuyo” [dried fish] -- food the rich won't even look at -- and you make them happy. Could it be that the Philippines is a happy nation because there are so many poor people in it?

What I'm driving at is that happiness is relative. Different things make different people happy. What makes one person happy will not necessarily make the next one also happy. What a person lacks most will make him happy if he gets it.

Most people think that wealth will make them happy. But when they already have it, they are still not happy. Others think fame will make them happy, but we see so many famous people shunning the limelight, going through all sorts of disguises so they won't be recognized by the public that adores them. Some think it is high office, but that's not it either.

Sickly people will be happiest when they get their health back; and a couple who quarrel will be happiest when they kiss and make up. Sometimes, a simple thing like a baby's smile will make a mother or father very happy. Or a child who has been neglected by his or her father will be gladdened by just one kind word from him. Love and family are big sources of happiness but not completely. And as Peanuts has said so often, "Happiness is a warm puppy."

Yes, the search for happiness is a never-ending one. You chase a goal you think would make you happy but when you finally get to it, you are not completely happy. So you chase the next goal and when you find it, it's the same thing -- something is still lacking. What is it? True happiness is elusive.

Ask a Born Again Christian and he has the answer.

* * *

KAPIHAN NOTES: Monday's topic at the Kapihan sa Manila forum is the rising oil prices and the Oil Deregulation Law. Guests are Energy Secretary Vince Perez, Bataan Gov. Enrique Garcia who has the answer to the problem, Raul Concepcion of Oil Price Watch and a representative each from the oil companies, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, and a jeepney drivers' association.

Environment dept has contradictory functions

2005-03-09T00:22:00.000-08:00

Environment dept has contradictory functions

Posted 00:22am (Mla time) Mar 09, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

THE FEW filthy rich loggers have won over the rest of the Filipino nation who want to save the remaining forests in the Philippines. Environment Secretary Michael Defensor has lifted the total log ban imposed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo last Dec. 8 after the floods and landslides that wiped off the face of the earth villages in Quezon, Aurora and Nueva Ecija and killed hundreds of people and rendered tens of thousands more homeless. The disasters were caused by rampant logging on the mountains, as did the flood that also buried Ormoc earlier. But the dead have been buried and the disasters are no longer on the front pages, so it is now safe for Defensor to allow logging again, with nary a whimper from the President who had imposed the total ban.

Besides, Defensor has no choice. The loggers and wood producers have been waging a campaign for the resumption of logging, and among their most ardent defenders and boosters is Surigao Rep. Prospero Pichay.

Who is Pichay? Why, he is the chair of the Commission on Appointments. And Defensor has not yet been confirmed by the CA. In fact, the two of them went together to the Caraga Region in Mindanao to lift the suspension of logging there and in Regions 9 (Davao provinces) and Region 11 (Zamboanga Peninsula). Some of the country's biggest loggers are in Surigao, Pichay's home province.

Defensor said he chose to allow logging in the three regions because "they enjoyed constant rainfall, which helps in the natural growth of forests." That is the environment secretary speaking. But any student will tell him that there is plenty of rainfall in tropical rainforests precisely because the forests are there. The trees give off plenty of oxygen, which rises to the sky and forms the clouds that condense into rain. Cut the trees and the rains will stop. So when logging is allowed in the three regions, there won't be "constant rainfall to help in the natural growth of forests." That is why denuded areas become semi-deserts. That is basic science.

There's another thing Defensor should know. In a photograph accompanying Monday's story on the lifting of the log ban, Defensor and reforestation czar Victor Corpus were shown loading seeds on a dispenser fitted on a Philippine Air Force helicopter in preparation for aerial seeding at the Angat watershed. What's wrong with that?

Well, it's the beginning of summer, which means this is the wrong time for seeding. The right time would be in late May, just before the rainy season. Every student also knows that, and therefore the environment secretary and reforestation czar also should. The rains will water the seeds and make them grow so that when the next dry season comes around, they will be big enough to withstand the heat and lack of water. Plant the seeds or seedling in summer and you only waste time, money and effort.

Defensor and Pichay, by the way, were invited to last Monday's Kapihan sa Manila media forum along with Rep. Juan Miguel Zubiri and Blas Tabaranza Jr. of Haribon, precisely to discuss the pros and cons of the log ban, but as I said, the two had to go to Mindanao to lift the log ban. The loggers were more important to them than explaining to the people why the suspension of logging is being lifted. Besides, it is difficult to defend that lifting against environmentalists Zubiri and Haribon.

Zubiri warned that because of the resumption of logging, more disasters would visit the Philippines. "Mark my words," he said, "when the heavy monsoon rains come in June and July, more villages will be devastated. Nature is already punishing us."

Tabaranza said that scientists all over the world consider the Philippines to be "on the verge of environmental collapse." In every international conference on the environment, delegates talk about the Philippines as a "hot spot," with about 190 species of birds on the verge of extinction. "We are in the top five disaster areas in the world," he added.

Tabaranza said Mindanao could no longer afford to lose its remaining forests. We have barely six million hectares of forests remaining all over the Philippines, which is long past the threshold of sustainability. "Regardless of their geographic or regional location, our remaining forests are in critical condition -- any further reduction can trigger major catastrophes," he said.

He said that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) failed to consider that these three regions "have many disaster prone areas." They also "hold 14 biodiversity areas (and) serve as the last frontiers of the Philippine eagle."

Instead of region-based logging, Haribon proposed:

1. A total ban on commercial logging nationwide.

2. Establishment of tree plantations to supply our domestic wood needs.

2. Vigorous reforestation to rehabilitate degraded watersheds.

3. Pursue a comprehensive land use program to determine possible timber production areas outside of the natural forests.

4. That the DENR stops being a mere regulatory agency and become a developmental one by catalyzing stakeholders, including LGUs, in forest conservation.

I think the original sin was combining "environment" and "natural resources" in one agency. The two have contradictory purposes: one protects the environment while the other exploits natural resources. The DENR has a split personality, a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality. Like the United States, we should have an Environment Protection Agency under the Office of the President whose main duty is to protect and preserve the environment.

Don't just cut pork barrel; totally abolish it

2005-03-07T22:29:00.000-08:00

Don't just cut pork barrel; totally abolish it

Posted 11:25pm (Mla time) Mar 06, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

I HEARTILY endorse the suggestion of Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago that all congressmen and senators commit mass suicide "as a service to the people." Yes, why not? After all, that's what they always say when campaigning for elective positions: they only want to serve. What better service can they give than to say goodbye to the people permanently? Santiago should immediately set the example. I propose, however, that three senators be exempted: Panfilo Lacson, Alfredo Lim and Franklin Drilon, who just saved the taxpayers P360 million by rejecting their pork barrel. We need more officials like them.

The exchange of accusations between the congressmen and senators over the recent passage of the 2005 national budget has exposed the trickery and deceit that legislators employ to steal money from the people. Several persons, still blissfully unaware of the knaves that their representatives are, have asked me what the quarrel is all about. In two dirty words, it's about "pork barrel."

For those who are still confused, this is what happened: Malacañang had submitted a proposed budget with the pork barrel reduced from P200 million to P120 million for each senator, and from P70 million to P40 million for each congressman. The House of Representatives passed this budget and sent it to the Senate. The Senate passed it in toto a few days ago. This infuriated the congressmen.

Why are they angry when the Senate passed the budget that they themselves approved? Because they had planned to restore the pork barrel to its original amount during the bicameral committee conference. Then, they'd pin the blame on the senators by claiming that the bill they passed had a reduced pork barrel budget. The alternate plan was to boycott the bicam committee meeting so that no new budget would be passed before the March 16 deadline. Under the law, when no new budget is passed after that date, the previous year's budget is automatically adopted-as what happened last year when the 2003 budget was adopted for the year 2004. That budget contains a higher allocation for pork barrel.

The senators got wise to this trick and hastily passed the budget earlier approved by the House, foiling the clever plot of the congressmen. The latter thought they were being smart but the senators outsmarted them. That's what made the congressmen furious.

In retaliation, they accused the senators of secretly restoring their own pork by realigning the intelligence funds of different agencies.

False, said Senate President Drilon last Saturday. What they did, he explained, was to identify which and where specific slices of the intelligence funds would be going-e.g., the witness protection program-so that auditing would be more accurate. If all were lumped together, any expense could be labeled "for intelligence" and that would be the end of it, he said. That makes graft, corruption and abuse easier to commit. In short, no part of the intelligence funds will go to their pork, Drilon said.

What the Senate should have done was to totally abolish the pork barrel, not just reduce it.

"I have no objection to that," Drilon said, reminding the journalists that he and two other senators (Lacson and Lim) have already rejected their pork and have told the budget department not to release them. Which means the three of them together have saved P360 million for the government. It is not likely that the representatives will do the same thing (they have less moral scruples), but in case any of them does, I suggest that we erect a statue for him or her at the Luneta.

Next year, Malacañang should have the guts to submit a proposed budget that has no allocation for pork. How can it ask the people to pay more in taxes when it allows members of Congress to waste tax money on such a corrupt expense as the pork barrel? Despite denials, everybody now knows that legislators cannot let go of the pork because part of it goes into their private pockets.

In the first place, it is not the job of legislators to usurp the functions of the Department of Public Works and Highways. Their job is to make laws, not to be another DPWH. Legislators legislate laws; the executive units-national and local-implement these laws. The Constitution is very clear on this.

Legislators claim they only identify projects for their districts and that none of the money passes through their hands. The money doesn't pass through their hands but parts of it end there-after (the contractors are paid and sometimes even before) and pass on the kickbacks.

Besides, if the legislators really want to, they can name their projects at the city, municipal, provincial and regional development councils of which they are members.

Let's face it, the legislators cling to the pork because it is a source of kickbacks and a source of votes. They say that their constituents go to them for projects and that if they don't endorse those projects, the credit and votes will go to the mayors and governors. But if they make it clear that their job is to make laws, not to usurp the job of the DPWH, the people will stop bothering them. They won't have to be tempted with kickbacks and they won't have to violate the Constitution by usurping executive functions. If Lacson, Lim and Drilon can do without their pork, why can't they?

* * *

Starting today and every Monday hereafter, the Front Page piano bar will feature celebrity cooks to whip up dishes for lunch for journalists and their guests. The first such cook is Rep. Imee Marcos. She will cook today popular Ilocano dishes, what else.

It's fall, spring and summer in Philippines all at once

2005-03-04T00:20:00.000-08:00

It's fall, spring and summer in Philippines all at once

Posted 00:20am (Mla time) Mar 04, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

IT IS early spring in the temperate regions, but in tropical Philippines it is spring, summer and fall all at the same time. Aren't we blessed for that?

Look around you. The big, broad, rounded, shiny leaves of the talisay trees are turning yellow, orange, red, purple and rust, then fall off like trees do in autumn. Some santol leaves, also big and broad, also turn red, but the tree doesn't shed all its leaves like the talisay. On the other hand, the mahogany sheds all its leaves, littering the ground below with brown leaves that are blown about by the wind. To a lesser extent, the narra and acacia trees also drop their leaves. Afterwards, the trees all stand naked with their bare branches pointing to the sky, exposing the birds' nests and the nests of the big red ants called hantik in the higher branches, as though it is wintertime.

After several days, the bare branches and twigs will burst with tiny buds as trees do in spring. Those of the mahogany are purplish-brown, all the others are light green. As the buds unfurl into tiny leaves, waving merrily in the wind like so many tiny buntings, the trees attain a light green tinge and, as the days wear on, progressively turn darker green. The tamarind trees also unfurl light green leaves that June bugs find irresistible, just like the humans who gather them for “sinigang” and “sinampalukang manok.” In May and June, the light green color is dotted with black shapes. They are called June bugs, though they are not really bugs but beetles.

Often you will see trees standing side by side doing all these at the same time. One tree would have all its leaves intact while beside it another starts shedding leaves. Still another would be fully bare, with the dead leaves surrounding the ground around it, while a fourth would be sprouting buds and a fifth beside them spreading out light green leaves.

Next time you pass Quezon Avenue in Quezon City, take the opportunity to watch nature changing seasons as the mahogany trees, all in a row beside the street, shedding, sprouting and growing leaves at the same time beside one another, as though they cannot decide whether it's fall, winter or spring.

At the same time, some trees, shrubs and vines burst out with blossoms ahead of the others. The first to bloom is the lowly kakawati, which is already in full bloom with profuse pink blossoms that rival the more famous cherry blossoms of Japan. Next are the hot-hued bougainvilleas that adorn fences, hedges and trees with their red, orange, purple and white flowers, single-petaled or multi-petaled, signaling that summer is really here, what with the heat beginning to soar and Holy Week only a couple of weeks away.

The kalachuchi hangs out not only red, pink, yellow and white blossoms, but also spreads its perfume in the air. Walk under a kalachuchi tree and you can smell its fragrant breath.

Soon, as the heat of summer reaches its peak, it will be the turn of the regal fire tree to take center stage with its red orange blossoms putting its wide-spreading crown on fire. Those passing through Quezon City, especially in and around the Diliman campus of the University of the Philippines, and the two nearby parks, Quezon Memorial and the Ninoy Aquino Park, will soon see this red-hot summer show.

If you happen to drive by Laguna Lake on the Rizal side, look out for an island on fire in the middle of the lake. This is Cielito Lindo, the love island of the late Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Bello who owned it. The couple planted many fire trees on it and in summer, when they bloom, the island is a red spot, looking even from afar as though it is on fire.

* * *

In the last two columns, I argued that instead of cutting down our forests, we should preserve them for tourism as other countries like America, Canada and Japan do.

Decades ago, the New Englanders planted deciduous trees on their hills and mountains and farms. The leaves of these trees turn into a riot of colors before falling in autumn. Now these trees attract hordes of tourists every autumn who tramp all over the New England states just to gawk at the colorful foliage and leave a lot of money to the hotels, inns, cottages, restaurants, gift shops, resorts and their employees.

Since we can't have many trees with leaves that turn into many colors in autumn, what if we plant trees that bear colorful blossoms instead on denuded mountains? After several years, they would be tourist attractions, and instead of foliage tours, we would have our own flower tours.

The trouble with our present reforestation efforts is that we plant fruit trees like mango and cashew or hardwood trees with high-priced timber like narra and mahogany. But they don't grow to harvestable size until 20 years or more. For 20 years or more, the tree farmer has no income from his trees. So why don't we intersperse with them softwood trees that grow faster and can be harvested earlier and at the same time bear colorful blossoms? The leguminous trees like acacia, fire tree, giant ipil-ipil and kakawati are fast-growing softwood that can be harvested after five years. They are good enough for woodcraft, furniture, charcoal and firewood. The farmer, therefore, will have a steady income while waiting for the high-priced hardwoods to mature. What's more, their leaves are rich in nitrogen and make good fertilizer, and they are self-propagating.

Imagine if we had whole mountainsides and hills full of blooming kakawati and fire trees. Won't they attract eco-tourists?

Don't lift total logging ban!

2005-02-25T19:10:00.000-08:00

Don't lift total logging ban!

Posted 00:55am (Mla time) Feb 25, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the February 25, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is reportedly reviewing the logging ban she had imposed immediately after floods and landslides killed hundreds of people and destroyed the homes of thousands of others in Aurora, Quezon and Nueva Ecija. The disaster was caused by rampant logging, legal and illegal, on the mountains above the towns and villages. In fact, it was the deluge of cut logs washed down the mountainsides that caused the most fatalities and damage. Now the President is reportedly thinking of lifting the ban at the insistence of loggers and wood processors, members of the Philippine Wood Producers Association (PWPA).

Here we go again. After the corpses have been buried and the disaster is no longer in the news, public officials change their minds about the remedial measures they have imposed to prevent a repetition of the disaster. Vested interests had time to work on the officials, especially the President, to change their minds and go back to the old ways. Anyway the people have forgot the tragedy. So happy days may be here again for the loggers. And for the public officials, big and small, high and low, with whom they share their profits from the blood of the people.

It is Ormoc all over again. After floods and landslides and an avalanche of cut logs from the mountains rained down and decimated the people below, there was a lot of sorrow and wringing of hands and remedial measures and speeches from public officials. After the corpses were buried, the fatalities, the tragedy, the remedial measures, the promises were forgotten. If Ormoc had not been forgotten, what happened there would not have been repeated in Aurora and Quezon.

Even legislators have forgotten what they have said after the Aurora-Quezon tragedies when almost all of them proposed a total log ban. Now they are largely quiet, no doubt because some of them are loggers themselves. It is now the turn of the loggers to be noisy. They have had time to work on the legislators. It is only Sen. Jamby Madrigal who is steadfastly protecting the environment.

Veteran politician Nene Pimentel has been impressed by the neophyte senator. "I thought Jamby was just a rich spoiled brat," he told me last Saturday. "But it turns out she is a very intelligent person."

Pimentel narrated her performance at the Senate when she interpellated Environment Secretary Mike Defensor. She was well prepared, she knew her subject, she had studied it very well. Her questions made mincemeat of Defensor. "Nagkalat si Mike," he said.

Which is why I invited Madrigal to the Kapihan sa Manila media forum last Monday. I was convinced that she knows by heart the problems of the environment. (More on this later.)

* * *

A justice of the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court, Raoul J. Victorino, retired the other day but his retirement was different. Justices and judges retire all the time, so what made Victorino's retirement different?

Well, most members of the bench retire with many of their cases unfinished, leaving it to their overburdened replacement the job of finishing them. I remember the case of former Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Francis Garchitorena who applied for retirement. The Supreme Court ordered him to first clear his backlog of cases, some of which had been submitted for decision for many years. Still, the justice was unable to finish all of them and left many of them behind for his replacement.

Passing cases to new judges causes difficulties and can even cause miscarriage of justice. The replacement judge has to depend entirely on the transcript and records of the case. He has not watched the demeanor of the witnesses during direct and cross examinations. It is basic that an observant judge can determine if a witness is lying or not by his demeanor in court. The new judge is deprived of that chance, and therefore the chances that he would make a wrong decision are higher. And this is one reason we have the slowest administration of justice in the world. Cases take decades to finish.

Victorino was pleasantly different. He left the court without any backlog of cases.

But that is not the only reason he is respected by his peers. He is known not only as a hard worker but also as an incorruptible jurist with integrity. Too bad he has retired. We need more jurists like him.

* * *

Speaking of miscarriage of justice, all the members of the Commission on Elections are facing graft charges before the Ombudsman for the contract to purchase counting machines intended for use in the May 10, 2004 elections. The Supreme Court declared the contract null and void. All the commissioners have been charged: Chair Benjamin Abalos, Luzviminda Tancangco, Ralph Lantion, Mehol Sadiin, Resurreccion Borra, Rufino Javier and Florentino Tuazon Jr.

But in the Comelec resolution awarding the contract, which is a part of the complaint, Commissioner Javier has no signature. Instead of his signature, the initials "O.B." is written over his name and beside it the signature of Abalos. "O.B." means "Official Business." This means that Javier was out on official business at the time the resolution was discussed and passed.

Clearly Javier was not present at the meeting when the decision was made to award the contract for the supply of counting machines. He did not participate in that decision. So why is he included in the complaint?

Pinoys have had bad experiences with IDs

2005-02-23T16:50:00.000-08:00

Pinoys have had bad experiences with IDs

Posted 00:48am (Mla time) Feb 23, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the February 23, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE PROPOSED National Identification Card System has once more violently divided public officials and the public the same way the value-added tax (VAT) has divided them. The Valentine's Day terrorist bombings has terrorized public officials into proposing the ID system, but the public is in bigger terror of an ID system than of bombs. The ID, which will contain basic information about the holder, will invade the privacy of the individual, a right guaranteed by the Constitution, say those who are opposed to it.

Curiously, Filipinos really like ID cards. The average Filipino has a few of them: a voter's ID, an SSS or GSIS ID, a driver's license, a company or school ID, a numbered vehicle sticker which identifies the owner of the vehicle, a credit card, a passport, a residence certificate, etc. These are all identification cards containing information about the individual, Senate President Franklin Drilon told the Kapihan sa Manila last Monday. The national ID will only combine in one card all the information already contained in all these different ID cards.

"What right to privacy is being violated by merely putting in one card the information the individual has already voluntarily put in the other cards?" Drilon asked. "Instead of having a wallet full of cards, he will have only one card."

Practically every civilized country in the world, including the United States which is the champion of democracy and privacy, has an ID system, Drilon noted. The Philippines is one of the very few that still doesn't have one.

Unfortunately, logic doesn't explain why Filipinos are allergic to a national ID system. The explanation is more psychological. Filipinos have had unpleasant experiences with IDs in the past.

During the Spanish regime, Filipinos were required to carry cedulas, which is the counterpart of today's residence certificate. It was a badge of servitude. Indios were required to show them to Guardia Civil sentries. So hated was the cedula that Andres Bonifacio and his Katipuneros tore up their cedulas in Balintawak as a gesture of their revolution against Spain.

During the Japanese Occupation, Filipinos were also required to show their residence certificates to Japanese sentries. If they didn't have any, they were slapped and taken to jail.

Filipinos are afraid the same thing will happen with a national ID system: people being accosted by cops and soldiers and told to produce their IDs and if they don't have any or they find something suspicious with the IDs, they would be jailed the same way the martial law regime of Marcos did. Can you blame Filipinos for being suspicious of IDs?

But the most practical reason against an ID system is the uselessness of it all. The system is the government's antidote to terrorism. But it is hard to understand how a piece of card or plastic will do it. Perhaps the theory is that it will identify a terrorist. How, I don't know. Perhaps the police will have a list of known terrorists and compare the names and photos on the list with those on the ID cards.

But as Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago said, will a terrorist be foolish enough to put his own name on an ID? No, he will have a new identity. He will even try to alter his appearance.

And won't we just give more business to the Recto forgers? The Recto entrepreneurs (who by the way continue to ply their illegal trade openly without the police trying to stop them) are so good that they can produce almost any document one needs: passport, Torrens title, driver's license, bankbook, marriage certificate, school records, even FPJ's birth certificate showing that he was not a Filipino. Name it, they can produce it with such surprising accuracy that foreign embassies no longer accept Philippine documents as proof of anything.

Now if they can produce these documents convincingly, won't they try to produce IDs, too? Considering that there would be 80 million Filipinos who would need IDs, that would indeed be big business. Which means the whole exercise to flush out terrorists would be a waste of scarce money and an exercise in futility.

The government's answer to that is technology. The ID will not be the ordinary card but will be made of hard-to-duplicate plastic or some other material that will make a fake easy to detect. That remains to be proven. But even assuming it can be done, that means the ID will be frightfully expensive. And considering the millions of Filipinos who will ask for them, the whole exercise is going to cost tens of billions of pesos, money a bankrupt government cannot afford.

Which means, in turn, that this is not the time to do it. Even now, Congress is having a hard time passing a measure to increase the VAT because people strongly oppose it. How can the government ask the people to pay more taxes when it is not even trying to cut expenses but, on the contrary, is thinking of new ways to spend more money it doesn't even have yet?

Worse, the government is going to use part of that money to invade their privacy and even spy on them. If the government insists on implementing a national ID system, I think the next revolution will be preceded by the Cry of Mendiola when people will gather at this now famous street and cut up their plastic IDs.

But I have my own proposal to make Filipinos accept the ID system and even scramble to get one. Considering how many Filipinos crave for the green card, let's make our ID card green.

Of cops and 'counterfeit' medicines

2005-02-21T04:31:00.000-08:00

Of cops and 'counterfeit' medicines

Posted 10:44pm (Mla time) Feb 20, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

A SUSPECTED dealer in fake medicines was arrested in a buy-bust operation in San Fernando, Pampanga before the weekend, while the Department of Health revealed that 80 percent of medicines sold in drugstores and pharmacies in the Ilocos region are fake. Around P5 million worth of medicines were confiscated in San Fernando. The capsules were filled with corn starch; others were expired medicines, their expiration dates altered. Samples obtained from Ilocos drugstores contained ash and flour.

The manufacturers and distributors of fake medicines should be given long prison sentences because they put the lives and health of patients at risk. Fake medicines have long been a problem here; one reason for this is the high cost of medicines sold by multinational pharmaceutical companies. Many years ago, a notorious manufacturer of fake medicines could not be nailed by the police because he was very influential and had plenty of money to bribe officials. He had many friends in at least one morning daily and he even tried to tempt me. I was then the managing editor of the Daily Express; he came to the newsroom and introduced to me his girlfriend, a very pretty woman. One night this girlfriend came to the newsroom alone and after some small talk hinted that if I wanted a date with her I was welcome. Of course, I did not bite the bait.

That was how the guy operated and the police could not do anything with him. Until one night our police reporter called in to say that he had been killed during a high-speed car chase near Roxas Boulevard with a police team led by then Manila police chief Alfredo Lim. His case was somewhat similar to that of Don Pepe Oyson who, despite his notoriety, could not be nailed by the police. He had so many friends in the right places. Until one night he was fetched from a billiard hall by Robert Barbers, then a police detective. On the way to the Manila Police Department, inside a closed van, he allegedly grabbed a pistol and tried to escape. He was shot dead; end of the problem.

Barbers later became congressman and then senator and his chief, Lim, is now also a popular senator, proof that good cops who really fight criminality the best they can are rewarded with high office.

Why am I telling this? Because the policemen now are so different, and I miss the old days. Most policemen then were feared by criminals. When a policeman got killed, the order to every cop was: "Leave everything else; get the killer!" The cop-killer usually had less than 24 hours to live. He is often buried before the funeral of the slain cop.

These days, policemen get assassinated, but no suspects to the killings are arrested. Cops are not feared anymore-not by criminals or by drivers. As little as P50 will usually settle any traffic violation, a kindly behavior quickly learned by the traffic enforcers of the Metro Manila Development Authority. The last policeman feared, after Lim and Barbers, was Panfilo Lacson, when he was still the chief of the Philippine National Police. He is now also a senator, one more proof that good cops go places. Compare them to the present crop of policemen.

* * *

But going back to fake medicines, I notice that the word being used in the press releases and news reports is "counterfeit." By legal definition of the World Health Organization, imported genuine medicine of the same content and quality as medicines manufactured here are included in the label "counterfeit." Therefore, the word embraces the less expensive medicines imported by the Philippine government itself to give Filipinos an alternative to the high-priced medicines manufactured here by multinational companies. Filipinos are thus being frightened from buying this cheaper government imports by the propaganda campaign of the Coalition Against Fake Medicines.

I am all for informing the people about fake medicines, and the coalition should be complimented for its campaign. But its information drive is incomplete. It does not clarify that the cheaper medicines being imported and sold by the government's own Philippine International Trading Center are not fake medicines. I have written about this in two previous columns, but I have yet to read a press release or clarification on this from the coalition.

And it is not true that the DOH, supported by the Department of Trade and Industry, is the lead agency in the propaganda campaign of the coalition. The PITC is a subsidiary of the DTI. The propaganda is an initiative of multinational companies-one sells medicines, and the other manufactures all the medicines of all the foreign-owned pharmaceuticals here-and a giant drugstore chain. The DOH and DTI and the others were just invited to join the coalition. A professional public relations agency is doing the propaganda work.

Some people suspect that the sudden campaign against "counterfeit" medicines was prompted by the PITC's parallel importations of medicines which could cut into the multinationals' 80-percent hold on the Philippine drug market. The imported medicines are very much cheaper, many of them less than half of the prices of those made here. If the imported medicines are not the target of the coalition's propaganda, why is there no clarification to make everything clear, as all information campaigns should?

We should all fight fake medicines (and there is no doubt that there are many of them), but please avoid collateral damage to legitimate government imports that are meant to give Filipinos access to cheaper medicines.

One more story of life and death in World War II

2005-02-18T02:25:00.000-08:00

One more story of life and death in World War II

Posted 02:25am (Mla time) Feb 18, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

A FEW weeks ago, I visited an aunt, whom I had not seen in a long time, in the tiny one-story apartment she rents in Malabon. She lives alone there, except for a great-granddaughter in grade school she takes care of during school days (the father fetches her to spend the weekend with her parents). My aunt is 95 years old.

She is a small woman, less than five feet tall, and she has become smaller because she is now stooped with age. But she still does all the housework, cooks, cleans the house and hand-washes her laundry. She is a little hard of hearing, but she can still read, sew and knit without using eyeglasses. She is the younger sister of my mother who died at age 30, when I was just starting to go to school, leaving us six children orphans. My aunt became our surrogate mother.

It is nothing short of a miracle that she has lived to be this old because she almost died during the Battle for Manila. In fact, her husband and crippled younger brother died at Fort Santiago, within sight of the American forces on the other side of the river. She and her little son almost died at San Agustin Church, where the Japanese had herded the women and children of Intramuros and tried to kill them.

February is the anniversary of the Liberation of Manila and the massacre of residents of Intramuros and Malate by the Japanese rear guard, which is why I am writing about my aunt. Her story is as moving as those of the casualties and survivors that the Inquirer published in a series the last several days.

My aunt's name is Eugenia Villanueva-Sanchez. Her husband was Pedro Sanchez Sr., and her brother was Paquito Villanueva, who was crippled by polio. Survivors of Intramuros and Fort Santiago who came across them may remember them or their names.

The family would not have been trapped had they heeded warnings to leave Intramuros as the Americans were already coming. We had a family compound on an island in the middle of fishponds in Malabon, but we also had a shoe store in Intramuros, one of a long line of shoe stores and tailoring shops on Calle Real. Our store's name was Real Shoe Store.

My uncle Paquito was the manager, my aunt was the housekeeper, and Pedro was one of the expert shoemakers working for them. The workers made the shoes and boots at the back of the store; living quarters were on the mezzanine.

My father kept telling them to come back to Malabon but business was good in Intramuros. So many Japanese officers were ordering boots and my uncles were loath to close the store and leave all that opportunity.

When they woke up to the danger because of the more frequent air raids and the sound of artillery in the distance, it was already too late. When they tried to leave, the streets out of Intramuros were closed. Japanese sentries told them to go back. Later, they heard several loud explosions. The bridges across the Pasig River had been blown up by the Japanese.

Still later, Japanese soldiers went from door to door telling residents to come out. They were herded to the San Agustin Church. There the men were separated from the women and children. A doctor tried to protest the separation of the family members. The Japanese shot him dead.

The men were ordered to walk to Fort Santiago, while the women and children were locked inside the San Agustin Church. As the cannon blasts came closer (the American forces were already on the other side of the river and coming up from the south), the Japanese opened the church doors a little, poured gasoline in and then hurled a grenade inside. Those in front were immediately killed by the blast and fire, but my aunt and her son and others who were behind immediately dived under the church pews and were saved.

At Fort Santiago, meanwhile, the men were locked up inside the dungeons. (This information now comes from survivors of Fort Santiago.) Little by little, they were able to dig through the adobe wall to an adjoining small cell, then punched a hole through the top of the wall beside the river. The hole was only big enough for one person to squeeze through at a time. From there, it was just a short dash to the edge of the wall to the river, and then a long swim to the other side and freedom.

As the Americans came closer, the Japanese also poured gasoline into the dungeons and threw grenades. As the dungeon burned, the prisoners squeezed through the hole one by one, ran to the edge of the wall and jumped into the river. Some were too weak to swim across and drowned.

My uncle-in-law Pedro was already out when he heard my uncle Paquito calling him. Being a cripple, he couldn't reach the hole in the ceiling. Pedro went back to help him. But even had Paquito been able to get out, it was unlikely for the cripple to be able to swim to the other side. Pedro stayed with his brother-in-law up to the end. They were never able to get out. We were never able to find their remains.

Years later, the small hole was still there. When I was working in the Manila Chronicle nearby and we used to walk to Fort Santiago some afternoons, I would point it out to my fellow journalists and tell them the story of my two uncles who died there together. That hole has now been patched by workers who probably didn't know its story, no doubt because some hapless tourist might step into it and break a leg.

Meanwhile, my aunt wants to see the dungeon, San Agustin Church and Calle Real one more time before she dies, although she hopes to live to be a hundred and promises to throw a big birthday bash.

Bombs and love songs for Valentine's

2005-02-16T00:50:00.000-08:00

Bombs and love songs for Valentine's

Posted 00:50am (Mla time) Feb 16, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

THERE were many Valentine's Day shows last Monday, but I'm glad I chose "Love Songs at the Front Page" at the 21-day-old piano bar that is the new watering hole for journalists. There, a combination of veteran and relatively new singers took turns entertaining the crowd with old favorites on the joys and pain of love.

The veterans were pop icon Nonoy Zuñiga, M.D., the doctor who reportedly sings to his patients to hasten healing; Girl Valencia, the favorite singer of National Artist Nick Joaquin when he was still alive; and Edgar Orpida, the "Elvis Presley of Asia." The relative newcomers are Juan Rodrigo, a pioneer of telenovelas long before imported “telenovelas” [TV soaps] flooded the country, who has now turned singer, and, in the most pleasant surprise of all, Marri Nallos, a beautiful 20-year-old from London who is a contestant in "European Idol," which has been imitated by the United States as "American Idol." Well, she is not really a newcomer because Marri just had an album of love songs released by Universal Records, "Ikaw Pa Rin Ang Mamahalin." She was the featured singer of Front Page while the others were guests.

You may have heard of Marri only recently, but she is really a veteran and very accomplished singer. So you would know more about her, let me cite her pedigree:

Although she was born in Rome and grew up in London, Marri is a full-blooded Filipino. And although still very young, she already has had a long experience in music and theater. She was a scholar of the Sylvia Young Theatre School in Marlybone, London, and a graduate of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, with a bronze medal to her name. She started singing when she was only 9 years old at their own restaurant in Central London after winning the grand prize in an amateur contest in Le Palais, London. At age 12, she was picked from over 20,000 children in Great Britain to be the "Most Talented Child," a nationwide talent search in Great Britain.

While studying in London, she had memorable appearances in the theater like Young Stars in Sadler's Wells Theatre and the musical "Oliver" in London's Palladium. She also did television shows over BBC-London.

Here, in the Philippines, she finished her first album tour, which included 10 malls and five bars/music lounges last April. She started her music lounge act at the Calesa Bar and had gigs with her own band, Friends Inc., in other five-star hotels.

Marri, dressed in a green low-necked see-through with sequins, opened the show with a series of love songs, ending with "The Way You Look Tonight." Then she introduced Juan Rodrigo who sang the Spanish song "Amor, Amor, Amor" and followed it up with a medley of Broadway musicals. Then he and Marri sang a duet, "You Are My Destiny."

Girl Valencia, the girl with the svelte voice, sang a series of three interconnected love songs: "I'm In the Mood for Love," "The Nearness of You," and the Pilita Corrales standard, "Saan Ka Man Naroroon."

In a well-applauded number, Girl sang a duet with Marri, "I Will Always Love You" that almost brought the house down.

Elvis Presley has many imitators, both here and abroad, and there are always contests for Elvis Presley look-alikes. Recently, there was another such contest in Tokyo and our very own Edgar Orpida won over the other contestants from the region as the "Elvis Presley of Asia." (Chito Bertol of the Manila Seedling Bank Foundation is the first "Elvis Presley of the Philippines.")

In the signature Elvis costume of white tight-fitting, high-collared togs with sequin embroidery open in front down to the navel, sunglasses, complete with pasted sideburns and many big-stoned rings on his fingers, Edgar sang three Presley favorites that made the audience yell for more. For an encore, he sang a duet with Marri, "When I Fall In Love," a rare occurrence as Elvis rarely sang a duet with anybody.

After that, the audience practically went crazily in love with Marri again when she sang "Crazy." Mark my word, this girl will be tomorrow's super singer.

Then came the pop icon himself all in black, Nonoy Zuñiga, the doctor with the cool baritone that sends females swooning. He sang two songs from his newest album, released on Valentine's Day by Viva Records, one of which is the sentimental favorite, "Moon River."

For a finale, the group together sang "The Greatest Love of All" with hardly any rehearsal beforehand. This is the trademark of professional singers: they can sing duets, trios and in big groups with hardly any rehearsal.

The show was put together on short notice by talent managers Nelia Lim and Peter Sing, to whom I am grateful. Many journalists called, asking that the show be delayed so they could catch it as they were still busy changing their own front pages to report the series of bomb explosions that killed seven and injured scores of others in Makati, Davao and General Santos, the Valentine's Day gift of terrorists to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

But we couldn't delay it too much, as the audience had been waiting since 8 p.m. So, we decided to make it a regular show of Front Page with different outstanding talents performing and to have it televised so more people can see it.

Make it a habit to drop by the Front Page. You never know whom you'll see there.

No such thing as Valentine's Day bonus in budget

2005-02-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

No such thing as Valentine's Day bonus in budget

Posted 11:19pm (Mla time) Feb 13, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

FILIPINOS are in near-rebellion over the increases in taxes and government fees, most particularly, in the value-added tax. The government's excuse for the increase is the budget deficit and the foreign debt. The government needs funds to pay for them. Where else to source them but from the taxpayers?

But at the same time that the Arroyo government is squeezing the taxpayers, it throws away P3.6 billion in a so-called Valentine's Day bonus to the 1.2 million government employees. How much of hard-earned money will each worker have to part to fund the P3.6 billion?

The unkindest cut of all is that the money is going to a particularly ungrateful bunch of leeches. Instead of being grateful for the bonus (which private employees will not get), the government employees derided the bonus because it was "too small." President Macapagal-Arroyo had initially announced that the government can afford to give only a P1,000 bonus for each state employee. The beneficiaries made fun of it. And the President, who suffers from an acute feeling of being unloved and is deathly afraid of being unpopular, immediately raised the amount to P3,000 apiece. Not unlike a sugar daddy eager to please his mistress. The President is buying popularity with bribes. But that's still not good enough to the leeches. They want P5,000 each because that's what they received last year.

Last year we didn't have the fiscal crisis. This year we are scraping the bottom of the barrel. This year, the salaries in many government offices are delayed, contractors are not getting paid, infrastructure projects have been halted-because of lack of funds. This year, the President is pushing Congress to pass a number of tax measures to squeeze more money out of the people. But the government employees, those with cushy jobs, security of tenure, fat allowances and sidelines, want more, more, more-not unlike the giant squeezing the goose for more golden eggs until it died.

Malacanang says the bonus will come from the "savings" of government offices. If they have savings, that can only mean that their appropriations were more than enough and that Congress should now reduce their budget to cut costs and give the taxpayers a break. And the savings should go back to the Treasury, instead of being spent. It is no secret that the departments bloat their budgets so that when Congress cuts them, more than enough would be left. It is also no secret that when the fiscal year draws to an end, state offices spend their remaining budgets on such useless and wasteful expenses as seminars in faraway places so that Congress will not cut their proposed budgets for the next year.

I would like to know where the President got the authority to spend P3.6 billion for a Valentine's Day bonus. The President and the government cannot spend any money unless it is appropriated by Congress. I combed last year's General Appropriations Act and I could not find any allotment for a "Valentine's Day bonus." We, the taxpayers, cannot let this pass unchallenged. Today it is a Valentine's Day bonus, tomorrow it could be an All Saints' Day bonus, or a Holy Week bonus, or even a birthday bonus for each and every state employee. The possibilities are endless-for as long as congressmen have the imagination to invent names for the appropriations, in the same way that they have invented various names for the pork barrel.

Already, the President is brazen enough to spend government funds not authorized by congressional appropriation. The Constitution is clear: "No money shall be paid out of the Treasury except in pursuance of an appropriation by law" [Article VI, Section 29(1)]. But there is no appropriation for a Valentine's Day bonus.

This is a culpable violation of the Constitution (Article XI, Section 2), for which the President can be impeached.

But, of course, President Macapagal-Arroyo is used to violating the Constitution and not being made to account for it. Sen. Nene Pimentel Jr. enumerated some of these in his speech before the Philconsa last Feb. 8, Constitution Day, for which reason he called for her impeachment.

"During the last presidential election," Pimentel said, "the President illegally used the trust funds raised through the Road Users' Tax and of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) for her own purposes. P1.4 billion of the Road Users' Tax was transferred to fund her partisan political project Kalsada Natin, Alagaan Natin." She also transferred P4 billion of OWWA funds to PhilHealth supposedly "to enable the poor to have access to public health services."

"While the objectives might have been good, it was still wrong for the President to have done so," Pimentel said, considering that the OWWA and Road Users' funds are trust funds that cannot be used for any purpose other than that specified in the law that created them.

Worse, the obvious reason for these illegal disbursements was to buy votes.

Pimentel also charged the President with illegally authorizing the payment-without congressional authority-of some $68 million, or P3.762 billion, for the purchase of six search-and-rescue vessels. Now she is going to violate the Constitution again with the Valentine's Day bonus.

* * *

Don't forget, make your valentine happy tonight by taking her to the after-dinner concert at the Front Page on T.M. Kalaw Street, in the Tourist Belt in Manila. Nonoy Zu?iga, Eugene Villaluz, Girl Valencia, Marri Nallos, and Juan Rodrigo, plus other surprise guests, will serenade you with love songs.

Best of all, admission is free, especially for journalists and Samahang Plaridel members.

Love songs at Front Page on V Day

2005-02-11T00:00:00.000-08:00

Love songs at Front Page on V Day

Posted 11:37pm (Mla time) Feb 10, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

LAST Feb. 2, this column asked questions on the controversial bidding for the Masinloc power plant of National Power Corp. (Napocor). The winning bidder was YNN, whose capitalization has been confirmed to be only P1 million. Its winning bid was P564 million.

This week, my good friend Elpi Cuna, vice president for corporate communications of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), faxed answers to those questions point by point. In fairness to Meralco, I am quoting those answers.

Elpi denied insinuations that Meralco is close to the bidders for the Masinloc plant, particularly YNN. He said:

"1. Meralco has no business relationship with YNN. You mentioned YNN owner Sunny Sun as a retired Meralco executive and a close associate of our president. For the record, Mr. Sun was never an employee much less an executive of Meralco. His company (Duracom Corp.) used to bid for our annual electric wires needs, representing an established manufacturer, Columbia Wires and Cables. Based on our records, the last award (P1,392,000) to him was in July 2000. In 1993, he was the president of a small genco, Duracom Mobile Power Corp., which signed an agreement with Meralco as a dispatchable independent power producer (IPP). Naturally, Mr. Sun is known to our executives. This company has since been acquired and is now a subsidiary of East Asia Power Resources Corp. Its new president and CEO is Mr. Anthony Shibley."

2. Elpi also stated that there are no ongoing negotiations with YNN insofar as a power supply contract is concerned. "To link Meralco with the government getting a better price had it bid for Masinloc with a long-term power sales agreement, which Meralco refused to enter with Napocor, is unfair and totally false. There is no legal point to stand on and I also do not see the connection between the bidding of government's power plants with Meralco power supply contracts. Our power supply agreements with our suppliers are based solely on the best price we obtain, which will eventually redound to the benefit of our customers. That is our primordial consideration."

"3. You also asked if YNN and Great Pacific would have bid such a higher price if they were not assured of landing a power supply contract with Meralco and [added] that there is no assurance that the public will not be charged a higher generation rate when Meralco and YNN negotiate for a power supply contract.

"For the record, Meralco had absolutely nothing to do with the bidding for Masinloc. Again let me emphasize that to drag Meralco into this controversy is totally unfair ... Let me reiterate for the record that we have no ongoing negotiations with YNN and Great Pacific so to assume that YNN and Great Pacific are going to land a power supply contract with Meralco is totally false.

"4. You said that Meralco should start showing a heart for the consuming public as a public utility company should. You averred that Meralco negotiated a bloated P5 per kilowatt-hour rate with Quezon Power coal plant similar to Masinloc at the time they could buy power from Napocor at only P3 per kilowatt-hour.

"We have time and again stated that comparing the cost of Napocor's rate with Quezon Power or our other IPPs is unfair. The rate of Napocor is 'artificially low.' Further, as we have repeatedly emphasized, our IPPs have not been dispatched at contract levels resulting in a higher rate per kWh. It is the consumer as taxpayer who ultimately pays for the difference between the artificial Napocor rate and the true cost of power. The latest Napocor increase of 98 centavos per kWh nationwide and P1.28 per kWh in the Luzon grid validates this fact. In fact, they have a pending petition to hike their rates again this year. On the other hand, if our IPPs have been dispatched at contract levels, it would have resulted in 42 centavos per kWh savings to Meralco consumers.

"5. Lastly, it is also not true that we have a negotiated power supply contract with a 1200 MW natural gas power project in Bataan.

"It is very unfortunate that some sectors are really intent on sowing disinformation about Meralco. These may be sectors that are intent on seeing the Masinloc privatization fail in order to advance their own interests. It is so sad that they have to resort to this type of propaganda to achieve their ends."

Now that we have read Meralco's side, I would like to ask one last question: There are only two bidders, YNN and First Gas. The latter's bid is P288 million, below the minimum bid price of P380 million. Therefore, there is only one qualified bidder, YNN. If so, is it not a failed bidding?

* * *

This Monday, the Valentine's Day offering of Front Page piano bar is an after-dinner concert of love songs by singing stars Girl Valencia, Marri Nallos, Juan Rodrigo, the telenovela pioneer-turned singer, and the surprise special participation of a pop icon. Front Page is on T.M. Kalaw Street, Manila, opposite the National Library.

Admission is free. Pay only for your drinks.

The painting and sculpture exhibits of Malang and Julie Lluch, respectively, are still ongoing at Samahang Plaridel's art gallery and clubhouse on the third floor. Journalist-members can now play billiards and have free coffee at the clubhouse, listen to fine music, watch TV, write their stories on computers, read the quality newspapers and magazines in Metro Manila, shoot darts, and play chess, cards, liars' dice, dominoes, checkers, scrabble, etc.

* * *

Kapihan Notes: Monday being Valentine's Day when most people will be preoccupied with making their valentines happy, there will be no Kapihan sa Manila (Hotel). The next Kapihan media forum will be on Feb. 21.

PR drive vs 'counterfeit' medicines confirmed

2005-02-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

PR drive vs 'counterfeit' medicines confirmed

Posted 11:15pm (Mla time) Feb 08, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

TWO weeks after this column dwelt on a propaganda drive against government importations of medicines to provide Filipinos with cheaper medicines ("Medicines imported by RP gov't are not fake," As I See It, 1-24-05), I received a faxed letter from Bong Osorio, communication consultant of the Coalition Against Counterfeit Medicines, which confirmed that there really was a drive by various entities against "counterfeit" medicines. He denied, however, that it was against the parallel importations by the Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC) headed by Secretary Roberto Pagdanganan. He said the objective “is to raise awareness on the part of the public on the dangers of the 'counterfeit' medicines [and] does not intend in any way to allude that the medicines being imported by the PITC are counterfeit. In fact, this is precisely the issue raised by the DOH [Department of Health] and DTI [Department of Trade and Industry] even before they agreed to be a part of the coalition and support its initiatives. Hence, this issue was thoroughly threshed out by the coalition before it launched its campaign so as the same would not be seen as a program against government's parallel imports."

Osorio said the campaign's primary goal is "to arm the public with information against medicines that do not pass trough the regulatory processes of the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD). It aims to educate unsuspecting Filipinos on how to detect a counterfeit from a genuine medicine, and directs them to a hotline so they can report incidences of counterfeiting.

"By World Health Organization (WHO) definition, counterfeiting can apply to both branded and generic products. Thus, counterfeit medicines may include:

" l. products with the correct ingredients but fake packaging;

" 2. products with the wrong ingredients;

" 3. products without active ingredients;

" 4. products with insufficient ingredients.

"Please understand that the coalition's efforts are not against medicines that meet regulatory requirements set by the BFAD, but are against the potentially dangerous counterfeit medicines that deliberately avoid regulatory scrutiny (italics ours) for whatever reasons. Obviously, this is the target of the coalition because they pose serious and grave danger to our countrymen's health, safety and well-being."

The coalition's communications consultant concludes: "We hope this clarifies some of the points raised in your column."

No, it does not, as far as the consuming public is concerned. The confusion is created by the unfortunate use by the coalition of the word "counterfeit." By WHO definition (WHO has often been accused of being a "tool" of US big business), "counterfeit" precisely includes the parallel imports of the PITC that, as No. 1 of the definitions describes, are "products with the correct ingredients but fake packaging." The PITC imports are genuine medicines manufactured abroad by subsidiaries of the mother multinational pharmaceutical companies (in other words, sister companies of the multinationals here) but brought here because they are cheaper. Their packaging and labels may be different from those manufactured here. Therefore, they fall under the WHO definition of "counterfeit."

But as the Feb. 24 column pointed out, in the Philippines, "counterfeit" is confused with "fake." In fact, it is the word "fake" that is often used in news reports in media because it is much shorter than "counterfeit," which is too long for headline purposes. I have not read in the newspapers or heard on TV and radio any explanation from the coalition about the difference between "counterfeit" and "fake" in the case of medicines. As far as the public is concerned, which is not privy to the discussion of the coalition, "counterfeit" is the same as "fake" and that includes the cheaper government imports. Therefore, they are scared into buying only the more expensive medicines made here by the multinationals.

Why not use "substandard" instead of "counterfeit," so the meaning becomes clearer? The PITC imports are not substandard because they are really "genuine" and have the correct ingredients and as potent as those made here by the multinationals. But I think the multinationals like to use "counterfeit" because the PITC imports fall into its definition. I suspect that the real reason for the propaganda campaign is the fear of the multinationals that the government's parallel imports will eat up into their huge market share. I think the DOH and DTI were just suckered in to make it legitimate and credible.

If the coalition is really after the welfare, health and well-being of the Filipinos, why does it not concentrate on lowering the prices of medicines? That will make imports unnecessary.

And speaking of substandard medicines, why not inquire into the efficacy of so many "medicines" claiming so many benefits in their advertisements-packaged herbs, leaves and fruits claiming to be good against diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer and a lot of other diseases, just like the snake oil of old-but which escape "regulatory scrutiny" by the BFAD because they are classified as "food supplements"? I have not heard the DOH explain that there are no clear scientific proofs that these "food supplements" really do what they claim to do. Instead, some doctors and even media personalities are advertised as endorsing this or that product, and they don't even get a slap on the wrist.

Misleading the public with statistics

2005-02-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

Misleading the public with statistics

Posted 10:48pm (Mla time) Feb 06, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

THERE are a number of reasons why the people no longer trust this administration. Among them: the administration has not been forthright with information and has in fact been caught many times deliberately confusing and even misinforming the people.

For example, the government recently patted itself on the back for the gain in the exchange rate of the peso against the US dollar, making people believe that this is due to a stronger economy, the result of the measures that the administration has adopted. False.

The peso has indeed gained against the dollar in the exchange rate, but this is not because the peso has become stronger but because the dollar has become weaker. All the currencies in Asia, as well as the Euro, have appreciated in value against the dollar. Of these, the Philippine peso gained the least. While the other currencies have double-digit increases, the peso went up by a measly 3 percent. The Indonesian currency increased by 49 percent, the Euro by 59 percent, and the other currencies by a little less. In effect, the peso even lost in relation to other currencies.

But all these the Arroyo administration hid from the people, praising itself, instead, for the peso's gain on the dollar. How can you trust an administration on such an important matter?

Another example is the alleged 6.1 percent increase in the gross domestic product (GDP). Again, the administration praised itself for this alleged "feat."

But what do we really have? Only numbers on pieces of paper. Do these numbers lay more food on the tables of the poor? Does the alleged growth in GDP create more job opportunities for more people? What good is "growth" if it does not improve the people's standard of living, too?

Even assuming the statistics are correct (the Philippine government has already been caught fudging statistics in the past), the growth in GDP (this is the totality of the goods and services produced in the country) is only among the rich, but not among the poor. The growth is in the business sector-such as the telecommunications and transportation sectors that are non-productive-but not in the productive sector such as agriculture. This alleged "growth" has not benefited the common man. There has been no trickle-down effect. In other words, the rich are getting richer but the poor are getting poorer.

But the government did not impart this information to the people. It just said that the GDP has grown, as though the information would make the people feel less hungry.

Another area where the government is misleading the people is in the employment/unemployment rate. According to statistics foisted by the administration, the unemployment rate is going down. But the government is cheating in counting those who are employed and those who are not.

It categorized a person who was able to work for a few days as "employed," even if he was jobless for 360 days of the year. And it considered only those who are looking for jobs but could not find any as "unemployed." If you are not looking for a job because you have given up or have no more money for transportation, you are not included in the "unemployed" list, even if you have been jobless for the last several years.

This is how the government has increased the employment rate and reduced the hordes of jobless people. But the people do not know this hocus pocus in statistics because their government is not telling them the whole truth.

Another area where the government is deliberately misleading the people is in the value added tax (VAT). Government propagandists assure the people that basic commodities, such as rice, fish, vegetables, cooking oil, will be exempt from the VAT. But if you cook rice and vegetables or buy sardines in cans, you actually also pay VAT on them. Besides, transportation is "VATable," so anything that is transported, such as rice and fish, gets to be covered in a way by the VAT. In short, there is nothing you can eat that is not subject to VAT. So the propaganda that basic commodities are VAT-exempt is a lie.

What are really VAT-exempt are travel expenses, cosmetic surgery (breast implants, liposuction, facelifts in ordinary lingo), jewelry, among others. All these are expenses incurred by the rich, usually only to inflate their ego, to make the beautiful people even more beautiful. These unnecessary, luxurious and frivolous expenses are exempt from the VAT but the food that the poor need to keep themselves alive are not.

One reason the people are so vehemently opposed to the VAT is that the government is not showing any signs that it is cutting costs, plugging the leakages in tax collection and taxing those who can afford to pay the most. The government only wants to tax and tax.

The government propaganda to push the VAT is that it needs the tax money to balance the budget and pay for our debts. We either have to sacrifice now or we face a worse future, so goes the threat. But at the same time that it wants to squeeze the poor taxpayers of more taxes, it is not doing anything to reduce its expenses. Reducing all government allowances-intelligence, confidential, representational, travel, transportation, etc.-just by 10 percent can save enough money that already approximates the additional collection to be derived from a higher VAT.

The congressional pork barrel is clearly and admittedly a waste of tax funds and a source of corruption. Legally and morally it should be abolished, but there is no sign that the Arroyo administration will even reduce it, much less abolish it.

Cancel franchises of striking buses, jeepneys

2005-02-04T15:23:00.000-08:00

Cancel franchises of striking buses, jeepneys

Posted 01:13am (Mla time) Feb 04, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

THE PHILIPPINES is the only country in the world where law violators demand the resignation of those who enforce the law. Associations of jeepney and bus drivers, who are the most notorious violators of traffic rules and regulations and are responsible for the anarchy, chaos and traffic congestion in our streets, are demanding the resignation of Chair Bayani Fernando of the Metro Manila Development Authority who has been doing his best to enforce traffic rules and restore order in the streets.

And it is only Fernando, among all the public officials-police officers, mayors, Cabinet members, bureau directors, etc.-who has been able to impose some sort of discipline among drivers, pedestrians and sidewalk vendors even though he is getting little or no help from the police and some mayors. In fact, three or four mayors are openly fighting him for some strange reasons, considering that they are supposed to be on the same side of law and order.

Perhaps, among these reasons is a desire to grandstand and curry favor with the drivers and sidewalk vendors who, after all, are voters, considering that the next local elections is only two years away. Another could be just plain envy. Fernando gets a lot of publicity and favorable press for his efforts. In fact, he is the one Cabinet secretary who has achieved the most to impose discipline in the streets, despite all the obstacles thrown -- and still being thrown -- his way. Instead of making him resign, we should have more officials like him.

Another reason could be that some local officials and their lieutenants are feeling the pinch of reduced income. For example, it is no secret that the sidewalk vendors of Baclaran were paying tong to some relatives and ward leaders of a previous mayor. That is why they have taken over the area around the Baclaran church and could not be removed. Until Fernando came.

Now the same vendors could be pressuring the incumbent mayor to get rid of Fernando so they could return to their hunting grounds. And as we have seen, this mayor is the most vocal against Fernando's "wet flag" and "no contact" policies. If I am not mistaken, he is also among the mayors who threatened to arrest MMDA traffic aides who attempt to enforce these two policies in their jurisdictions.

Why do the drivers and vendors hate Fernando so much? Because he is making them obey the laws and rules. They have been so used to other namby-pamby public officials, who would rather look the other way than make the effort to enforce the law, so that they now feel constricted by a different official who does the duty that he has taken an oath to do. For they do not want to obey the law. They think they're above the law. They want to do their own thing in the streets, and to hell with the law. And because they are voters, some officials would rather coddle them than enforce the law.

The drivers are threatening to punish the riding public by declaring still another strike if Fernando does not resign. Their franchises mandate that they serve the riding public. But they are going to violate their franchises by denying rides to the public because one man is forcing them to obey the law.

This is a golden opportunity for the Department of Transportation, now headed by a law enforcer, a former chief of the Philippine National Police no less, to finally clamp down on anarchy in the streets. The main reason for the traffic congestion is that there are too many vehicles in the streets, including the jeepneys and buses.

The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) went overboard in granting too many franchises to buses and jeepneys. Anybody who could pay the fees and pay a fixer could get a franchise. (And anybody who can bribe a fixer at the Land Transportation Office can get a professional driver's license.) Now we have a surfeit of buses and jeepneys in the streets. The buses crawling on Edsa bumper-to-bumper with only a sprinkling of passengers, even during rush hours, is proof of that. The hordes of jeepneys waiting for long hours at jeepney terminals to get their turn to load passengers are proof of that.

This excess of vehicles fighting for the few passengers is what causes traffic jams. They creep along the streets and dawdle at intersections and beside waiting sheds to wait for passengers. They stop in the middle of the streets to load passengers. The drivers are forced to violate traffic rules -- and bribe traffic enforcers-because of the competition. There are too many of them fighting for too few passengers.

The answer, therefore, is to reduce the number of PU vehicles. But the LTFRB cannot cancel franchises without cause. Violating provisions of the franchise, such as refusing to give rides to the public, is one such cause. Therefore, stopping public service without justifiable cause, such as in an unjustified strike, is sufficient reason to cancel franchises. Striking to force a public official to resign because he is enforcing the law is not a justifiable reason to declare a strike. It is coercion.

With fewer PU vehicles in the streets, only enough to service all the passengers, competition will be less and anarchy will stop. Buses can have regular schedules, with scheduled stops like they have in other cities of the world.

The Department of Transportation and Communication should welcome the next transport strike so that it can finally solve the traffic problem.

More betrayals in Arroyo administration

2005-01-31T00:00:00.000-08:00

More betrayals in Arroyo administration

Posted 10:47pm (Mla time) Jan 30, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

ILOCOS SUR Gov. Chavit Singson was hopping mad last Saturday after he read a story in one newspaper that President Macapagal-Arroyo had reached a deal with former President Estrada to stop the latter from attacking her administration. The deal was allegedly for GMA (Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) to drop Singson in exchange for Erap going slow in his attacks on GMA and her policies. The story said it was Presidential Chief of Staff Norberto Gonzales who struck the arrangement during a one-hour talk with Erap at the latter's rest house in Tanay, Rizal.

True or false? Singson suspects it is true because a day after Gonzales' visit, GMA issued a statement that she plans a change in the Poro Point Management Corp. (PPMC), the agency implementing projects in the La Union port. Singson's former employees-Carmelita Itchon and Emma Lim-are members of the PPMC board. The two had testified against Erap. A relative of Singson, Filodelfo Roxas, heads the PPMC.

At the time GMA made the statement, Erap announced the formation of a citizen's committee that, he said, would help solve the country's economic problems.

The next day, Malacañang said, "The President welcomed the opposition's move not to destabilize her administration and its offer to help."

If you were Singson, what would you think? No wonder he was very angry. This is ingratitude and a betrayal of the worst kind, he said. It is all right to woo your enemies, he added, but not at the expense of your allies.

Circumstantial evidence really points that way, but let's wait for what Malacañang has to say and for further developments.

I hope it is not true; but if it is, it just proves GMA is true to her character: she cannot be trusted. It is just the latest chapter in a career full of betrayals and false promises.

* * *

The increase in the Value Added Tax is one more such betrayal of the people. The increase will hit the poor where it hurts most: in their pockets and their stomachs.

Malacañang's statement that basic commodities will be exempted from the increase is a lie. There is no provision in the bill passed by the House exempting basic goods from the VAT. Congressmen said the exemption would be passed later or inserted by the Senate-House bicameral conference committee.

But what happens if the exemption is not passed? As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This is not the first time that a bill with good intentions is lost in the wheeling and dealing in Congress. It would be just one more betrayal, nothing new in the Arroyo administration.

The increase in many government fees, the increase in power and water rates, the continuing rise in the prices of fuel and medicine are more betrayals. Maybe the administration cannot stop the rise in power and fuel prices, but it certainly could have stopped the increase in government fees out of consideration for the people already being squeezed dry. The fact that many government agencies rushed to increase fees means they had the tacit consent of the President. To paraphrase Hamlet: Betrayer, thy name is woman.

* * *

What's happening to our policemen? After a policeman ran amuck and killed six persons in Aklan, another policeman shot in the head, in cold blood, a helpless and defenseless dog. In the premises of the Senate, pa. The latter policeman is no ordinary cop. He is a member of the elite Special Action Force (SAF), whose members are carefully selected and specially trained. That is why they were the ones chosen to secure the Senate.

So what happened to this particular cop that he cold-bloodedly shot the dog "Butchoy" in the head? His excuse was that his unit had orders to keep dogs away from the Senate premises (if it was the House, I would say it is because crocodiles hate dogs). But surely, the senators didn't order them to shoot dogs, did they?

Many people were angered by the merciless shooting of Butchoy, a pet of the employees of the Senate motor pool. Fortunately, the dog did not die, though the .22-caliber bullet is still lodged in its head. It may still die. It is now frail and sickly.

The Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) (bless its soul) has offered to nurse Butchoy back to health and adopt it. But even if the dog survives, the future is not so bright for it. In the future, it may have epileptic fits, or worse than that. No animal harbors a bullet in its brain and remains normal.

The strange thing is why our distinguished senators and the officers of the Philippine National Police are unusually quiet. Not even a slap on the wrist of the erring cop. It is said that the Senate SAF members had earlier shot another dog and ate its meat as pulutan in a drinking spree.

Obviously, they liked the taste of asocena and so they tried to make out of Butchoy another asocena.

A law, the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), penalizes the killing, butchering, selling and eating of dog meat. The duty of policemen is to enforce laws and arrest those who violate it. The day after Butchoy's sad tale came out in the media, the police arrested several persons in Tondo for butchering dogs and selling their meat. What about the policeman who shot Butchoy?

I hope the Senate and PNP leadership punish the erring cop to show the rest of the population that-in the words of Sen. Alfredo Lim-"the law applies to all, or not at all."

Today, a dog was shot in cold blood by a cop; tomorrow, it could be a person.

Pasig ferry may help ease land traffic

2005-01-28T01:06:00.000-08:00

Pasig ferry may help ease land traffic

Posted 01:06am (Mla time) Jan 28, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

A LITTLE bit of good news in an otherwise bleak situation, like a ray of sunshine during a cloudy day, is the announcement that the government will revive the ferry service in the Pasig River, something that this column has long been urging. The ferry will greatly contribute to decongesting the streets of Metro Manila and shorten travel time from Manila to points east.

The Pasig River, as well as its tributaries and “esteros” [creeks], was a water highway for both passenger and cargo long before we were seduced by the land vehicles powered by the internal combustion engine. It is still a useful highway in the same way that Thailand and Australia are using their waterways (the floating markets of Thailand is a tourist attraction) for transportation.

A ferry service was attempted twice or thrice but all failed for a number of reasons: the water vessels fielded were small and low in the water so that passengers were scared to board them and, once aboard, they couldn't help but smell the stinking water. Besides, the view from the boat was depressing and revolting: the backyards of factories, long lines of squatter shanties along the banks with people defecating into the water, and piles of trash everywhere.

Because of the shallowness of the river, the low bridges spanning it, and the stink of the water, the ferryboats should be of shallow draft and should have air-conditioning to keep the smell out. The ferryboats of Disney World in Orlando, Florida, (not the double-deckers of the Hong Kong ferry) would make a good model. They are of shallow draft, just right for the shallow waters of the Pasig, and are air-conditioned with the front and back decks open for smokers.

But even with first-class boats, a ferry service might still fail if the passengers see the same depressing sights along the banks. Along with the ferry, the national government and the local government units should develop the right-of-way along the banks as roads, the same way Mayor Lito Atienza is developing the Manila riverbanks into river walks.

Our officials have traveled around the world enough to see how other countries have made use of their rivers. In Sydney, Australia, there is a ferry service from downtown along the river to the sea. Both banks have been transformed into streets. The most expensive houses line the river. You can watch a concert at the Sydney Opera House, take the ferry home at midnight, and be home in a few minutes.

In the United States, notably in San Antonio, Texas, and New Orleans, the riverbanks have been developed into entertainment and leisure spots. And in Europe, all the major rivers are tourist attractions with ferryboats taking tourists on river cruises. Any other country with a major river cutting through its main metropolis, like the Pasig bisecting Metro Manila, will not hesitate to develop it for tourism.

But the banks of our Pasig River can hardly be attractive to tourists. They are the ugly backyards of factories that dump their garbage and keep the equipment they want to hide there. Squatter shanties also line the banks like a festering sore.

We should develop the banks into streets all the way to Laguna Lake. The owners of lots along the river may even agree to donate part of their backyards to widen the streets. After all, the value of their properties will rise. Instead of just being their backyards, these properties will have another frontage.

And oh, the governments should also clear the undersides of bridges of squatters, otherwise ferryboats passing under will emerge with their roofs festooned with garbage, the same way railroad trains become like a garbage dump when they pass through a squatter colony.

Traveling by boat across the metropolis is much more relaxing and cooler than bearing the heat and dust cooped up in a jeepney or bus, inching through traffic. Before the Coastal Road to Cavite was constructed, there was a ferry service from Luneta to Cavite City that took workers to and from their homes and jobs. We used to take this ferry on late afternoons from Manila to Cavite and back just to relax, sipping cold beer on deck during the trip. The ferry was discontinued when the road was finished, but it is now so choked with traffic that the ferry service should be revived.

In fact, the Pasig River ferry should later be extended to Laguna Lake (and a boulevard built around the lake) to service the lakeshore towns.

Another project that I have repeatedly been urging is the use of both banks of the Tullahan-Tenejeros River from Manila Bay, through Malabon, to Valenzuela as streets. A flood control dike is planned for the whole stretch of the river. It is logical to turn the concrete tops of the dikes into roads to provide commuters with another highway besides the congested MacArthur Highway. That should stop squatters from building their shanties on the banks of the river, the factories from emptying their effluents into it, and people from throwing their garbage into the river and making it their own private cesspool. With roads lining the banks, the value of adjoining lots would appreciate as they would have another street frontage, and the local governments can collect more in real estate taxes.

Then another ferry service can connect Valenzuela and Malabon to Manila and the Pasig River and Cavite ferry services.

Warning to traffic violators: You are being 'shot'

2005-01-26T17:15:00.000-08:00

Warning to traffic violators: You are being 'shot'

Posted 11:25pm (Mla time) Jan 25, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

HERE'S a warning to jaywalkers and undisciplined drivers: You think you are getting away scot-free when those aging, shabby-looking traffic aides of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority don't arrest you for violating traffic rules? You don't. In a few days or weeks, you will receive a letter from the MMDA telling you that you have just been "shot" (meaning, photographed) violating a traffic rule and you have to pay the fine at the nearest bank.

Yes, the traffic aides directing traffic act as though they are blind, oblivious to the traffic violations right and left, but you are not really getting off easily. Other traffic aides are surreptitiously taking pictures of you and your vehicle, undeniable proof of your violations, and you have to pay the fine, or else....

What if the driver or jaywalker disregards the letter and does not pay the fine? Again, you will think you are getting away with it. Nothing will happen for weeks and months. You may even commit more violations with no apparent repercussions. But wait until you try to renew your driver's license at the Land Transportation Office. Your name will appear in the computers as a delinquent driver and your license will not be renewed. You may even go to jail.

The penalty for traffic violations, including jaywalking, is a mere warning for the first offense, a fine for the second offense, and a jail term for the third.

MMDA Chair Bayani Fernando explained at the Kapihan sa Manila last Monday other aspects of his campaign to impose traffic order in the metropolis, including his tiff (he calls it "misunderstanding") with a few mayors over the "wet-flag scheme."

"There are only three or four mayors (opposing the 'wet flag')," said Fernando, "but there are 17 Metro Manila mayors. And these three probably thought that the 'wet-flag' scheme will douse pedestrians with water like they do in San Juan during the feast of St. John the Baptist. No, the 'wet flag' will only wet them to remind them to get off the street."

And here's another warning from Fernando: You think that after the trucks with the "wet flags" pass, you can safely step back into the street to wait for your ride? Don't. There are prison buses following those trucks. If you go back to the street, you will be arrested, thrown into these prison buses and taken to police headquarters where you will be booked and made to pay hefty fines, or jailed if you are a recidivist. The "wet flag" is just a warning of more dire consequences coming behind.

Why don't they just arrest the jaywalkers outright without resorting to the "wet flag''?

"We don't really want to arrest people," replied Fernando. "It's embarrassing to them, is a waste of time, and is hard on their pockets. Arrest is only the last resort. The 'wet flag' is just a fair warning. But if they persist in violating traffic rules, we have no choice but to arrest them."

As for the alleged violation of human rights, what right is being violated? Fernando asked. What gives the jaywalkers the right to wait for rides on the street and disrupt the smooth flow of traffic? Isn't getting slightly wet so much better than being arrested and fined?

The trouble is that when others see violators not being arrested by the traffic aides visible nearby, they think those traffic aides are inutile or are afraid of the drivers and jaywalkers and follow suit, Fernando was told.

"That's their mistake. Sooner or later, the long arm of the law will catch up with them. And then they will learn their lesson," the MMDA chief replied.

Why don't you make a show of arresting the violators so that others will obey the rules? When people know that erring drivers and jaywalkers are being arrested, they suddenly become law-abiding.

"The trouble with that is that they get into the habit of obeying the law only when they see law enforcers. But they should get into the habit of obeying the law at all times, even when there is no policeman around," Fernando said. "When they learn that they are being photographed by somebody they cannot see and that the summons to pay the fine will come soon enough, they will also learn that 'big brother is watching' them and they will be careful."

"Besides," Fernando continued, "when there is contact between the violator and the traffic aide, that's where the temptation for bribery comes in. The 'no-contact' rule removes that temptation."

Pedestrians are forced to walk in the streets because the sidewalks are full of parked vehicles, if not sidewalk vendors, Fernando was told.

The vendors were allowed to go back to the sidewalks by some mayors during the Christmas season but this privilege should be removed now that the holidays are over, he said. As for the parked vehicles, there really is a shortage of parking spaces in Metro Manila. It is the responsibility of local government units to provide those parking spaces, either by constructing parking buildings themselves, or by giving private business incentives such as tax holidays or loans to construct them. They also should not give commercial establishments business permits unless they can show that they have ample parking space nearby and will not use the sidewalks for parking. Parking buildings earn a lot of money with a minimum of effort and investment.

Medicines imported by RP gov't are not fake

2005-01-24T22:16:00.000-08:00

Medicines imported by RP gov't are not fake

Posted 11:31pm (Mla time) Jan 23, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

MULTINATIONAL pharmaceutical companies are currently on a propaganda drive to scare Filipino consumers into buying only their own branded medicines. This is a reaction to the efforts of the Philippine government, through the Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC), to provide Filipinos with cheaper medicines from other countries, notably India. The propaganda line of the multinationals is that the PITC imports are fake. False.

In legal parlance, drugs coming from other countries but of the same brand as those manufactured here, are called "counterfeit." They are made of the same ingredients and the same formulation as those made here. They are even manufactured by sister companies (in India and Europe) of the multinationals here. Technically, they are made by the same company, but by its different branches. Yet they are called "counterfeit" when they are imported by countries where they are not manufactured. They are the same medicines, genuine products, only they are made in another country. They are legally termed "counterfeit."

But they are not "fake" in the sense that they are made of different materials as the real ones or are harmful to health. Unfortunately, in the Philippines, "counterfeit" is often mistaken for "fake," as in "spurious" or "fraudulent." But that is what the multinationals are trying to plant in the minds of Filipino consumers: that all imported medicines, even those made by their sister companies, are "fake."

No, they are not. They are the same medicines as those made by the multinationals here. The only difference is that they are very much cheaper than those manufactured here.

The multinationals are not making clear the difference between "counterfeit" and "fake" for obvious reasons. The strange thing is why the PITC is not explaining the difference to protect its own imports.

Even Sen. Pia Cayetano has been taken in by this false propaganda. At a hearing of the Senate committee on health, it was obvious that she also confuses "counterfeit" drugs with "fake" drugs, as did the other committee members. Cayetano said the Department of Health, Bureau of Customs, PITC and the Drug Stores Association of the Philippines (DSAP) should "disseminate information necessary to combat the illegal trade."

One necessary information to enlighten the public is precisely to differentiate between "counterfeit" and "fake drugs." And in the second place, the drugs being imported by the PITC are not "illegal." The PITC was tasked precisely to import medicines because those manufactured here by the multinationals are so expensive they are beyond the reach of the poor. Secretary Roberto Pagdanganan, chief of the PITC, was at the hearing, but he did not take the opportunity to explain that the medicines his agency are importing are not "fake." Neither did the representatives of the DOH, who should know better.

Why have the multinationals embarked on this false propaganda? Because they are afraid of the competition they may face from the cheap drugs the PITC is importing from India, Pakistan and Europe. The multinationals have nothing to be afraid of because they control 80 percent of the Philippine drug market. Filipino pharmaceutical companies, of which Unilab is the biggest, have the remaining 20 percent.

The multinationals compose an oligopoly. Only one company manufactures the different medicines of the different drug companies. And they are marketed by one big drugstore chain, Mercury Drug, that has hundreds of branches all over the country. Many of the small family owned boticas and farmacias have been killed off by this chain.

And that is why the multinational drug companies can dictate their high prices. They have no real competition, like the Big 3 oil companies.

And that is why then Trade Secretary Mar Roxas thought of importing medicines from India, where they are priced a fraction of what they command here. The present PITC is continuing the importations and distributing them through government hospitals and clinics and health centers. These are not enough, however, so the PITC is distributing the cheaper drugs through the small boticas and sari-sari stores to make them accessible to as many people as possible. And that is why Cayetano told the committee hearing that most of the fake drugs "are sold in sari-sari stores and small drugstores," and urged the public to "buy only from reputable drugstores (meaning Mercury) and pharmaceutical companies" (meaning the multinationals). The target of the propaganda is obviously the cheap imports of the government.

Of course, there are really fake drugs manufactured here by illegal, small backyard companies but the multinationals are not afraid of them. What they are really afraid of are the legitimate government imports. And there may really be some medicines smuggled here. But that is because local prices are so high that it makes smuggling profitable.

Let me repeat: the medicines being imported by the PITC from India and Europe are much cheaper but they are not fake. The Philippine government will not import fake medicines.

Why can India make the same medicines much cheaper? Because it does not have to pay for the patent rights by using a different process but using the same ingredients. We should change our patent laws so we can do the same thing and remove our people from the greedy clutches of the multinationals.

* * *

REMINDER: This evening, at 6:30, is the inauguration of the Front Page piano bar and Plaridel's clubhouse and art gallery on T.M. Kalaw Street, near the Rizal Park in Manila. Journalists and their friends are invited.

People want to know who their president is

2005-01-21T02:27:00.000-08:00

People want to know who their president is

Posted 02:27am (Mla time) Jan 21, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

WITH FERNANDO Poe Jr. dead, should his election protest against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo be continued? There are legal experts who believe that the poll protest died with FPJ, but there are also those who say it can, and should be, continued. In fact, there are precedents wherein the Supreme Court allowed the running mate of a protesting loser to take over the poll protest when the principal died before the case was finished.

This was the topic of the Kapihan sa Manila last Monday where Ilocos Norte Rep. Imee Marcos and lawyer Romulo Macalintal took opposing sides. Macalintal, who is President Arroyo's counsel, said the case should be dismissed outright and buried with FPJ. Marcos, on the other hand, said that on the contrary, there is now a more urgent need to determine who really won the election. She said the tens of thousands of people who flocked to FPJ's wake and funeral and the thousands more who signed the petition urging his widow Susan Roces to take his place in the protest, show how great is the following of FPJ and who believe that their idol won the presidency but was cheated.

I personally believe that President Arroyo's popularity rating is on a crash dive because of this belief-not only of FPJ fans but of a majority of the population-aside of course from the fact that the living conditions of most Filipinos are getting worse and that President Arroyo's promised reforms are not getting off the ground.

If President Arroyo is to recover her approval rating, she has to prove that she did not cheat and that she won fair and square. The only way to do that is to go ahead and hear FPJ's protest.

Indeed, if I were President Arroyo and I know I did not cheat, I would like nothing better than to prove my detractors wrong by pushing for the recount. For that is the only way I can remove any doubt in the minds of the people of my legitimacy.

On the other hand, if I know I cheated, I will do everything in my power to stop the recount because I will be found out.

So if she blocks the protest before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (her counsel has already filed a motion to dismiss), the people will think President Arroyo is afraid the truth will come out. And if the PET votes to dismiss the protest, the people will believe that it is part of the conspiracy. Tragically, collateral damage will affect the Supreme Court and the whole judicial system, now already rocked by a number of scandals.

Looking back, it is clear that President Arroyo is deathly afraid of the popularity of the movie idol from the very beginning. Instead of facing him squarely before the electorate, she tried to have FPJ disqualified by producing falsified records tending to show that he was not a Filipino citizen. In the counting of votes for president and vice president, her allies in Congress successfully blocked every attempt by the opposition to look at the statement of votes to determine conclusively the number of votes that the candidates garnered.

When FPJ died, President Arroyo showed that she was more afraid of him dead than alive. She barricaded herself in Malacañang on the day of his funeral, as if expecting an invasion, and pitifully pleaded with the military "to stand by" her and not to desert her as it did to President Joseph Estrada during Edsa 2. In Shakespeare's play, Macbeth is terrified by the ghost of Banquo because he knows he is guilty. He had had Banquo murdered by his hired assassins. Is the same feeling of guilt behind President Arroyo's fear of her dead rival?

FPJ is dead; he cannot take over the presidency anymore. Why bother to go through with the recount? Because the people want to know with certainty who won the election. Leave them in doubt and President Arroyo will be saddled with a handicap. People will doubt she is the legitimate president. The notion that she stole the presidency from Estrada and then stole it again from his friend FPJ will gain credibility.

As Marcos said, it is no longer just FPJ and his followers who want to know. It is the people. Susan won't take over the presidency if FPJ wins in the recount. The people just want to know.

The PET should not hide behind technicalities. For the sake of the stability of the nation, it should exercise "judicial statesmanship" and satisfy the craving of the people to know with certainty who is their president.

* * *

Don't forget the formal inauguration of the Front Page piano bar and Plaridel's art gallery and clubhouse on T.M. Kalaw Street (opposite the National Library), Manila, this coming Monday, Jan. 24, at 6:30 in the evening. All journalists and their friends from the government, business, public relations and the diplomatic corps are invited.

An exhibit by two artists, paintings by Malang and sculptures by Julie Lluch on a common theme, "Women," will open at the third floor gallery on the same day. Malang and Lluch are two of the foremost interpreters of a popular subject in Philippine art, the Filipino woman.

Famous impersonator Willie Nepomuceno and a new President Arroyo look-alike (down to her size) plus celebrity singers will entertain the guests during the cocktails.

Manila Mayor Lito Atienza will head the guests of honor and induct into office the new officers of the Samahang Kartunista ng Pilipinas.

* * *

KAPIHAN NOTES: Guests at the Kapihan sa Manila this coming Monday are MMDA Chair Bayani Fernando and PNP Director General Edgar Aglipay. Topic: You guessed it, MMDA's controversial "wet flag scheme," the traffic anarchy and Aglipay's "misunderstanding" with Sen. Jinggoy Estrada.

Instead of 'wet flag,' enforce traffic rules

2005-01-19T00:00:00.000-08:00

Instead of 'wet flag,' enforce traffic rules

Updated 10:06pm (Mla time) Jan 18, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 19, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

CHAIR Bayani Fernando of the Metro Manila Development Authority is right: pedestrians and drivers (and sidewalk vendors) are undisciplined and something should be done about them. For want of anything better, that "something" is the present "wet flag scheme" that is now raising temperatures among the MMDA chair, some Metro Manila mayors and the commuting public.

Briefly, the problem is this: Commuters waiting for rides get off the sidewalks and wait on the streets, oftentimes up to the middle of the street, to be the first to board arriving jeepneys or buses. Thus, they constrict the space for vehicles, creating traffic jams.

The MMDA and local governments have put up signs ("Strictly No Loading/Unloading," "Huwag mag abang dito; doon ka sa bangketa," etc.), constructed waiting sheds, put up barricades and fences along the sidewalks and on the street islands (making Metro Manila look like Laguna Lake with its myriad fishpens) to force pedestrians off the streets, but to no avail. Commuters continue to ignore them.

Even with the sidewalk barriers, commuters get off the sidewalk through the gaps where they are supposed to board jeepneys and walk back to where the jeepneys are coming from so they would be among the first to get rides, filling up the streets with people instead of vehicles.

Thus, the MMDA thought of the "wet flag scheme." A dripping wet flag hanging from a pole slung on the roof of a vehicle slowly moves beside the sidewalks, thus wetting pedestrians who are on the streets. This will force them to go back on the sidewalk, goes the MMDA logic.

The trouble is, people get off the streets when they see the "wet flag" coming but go back as soon as it passes. In a few minutes, the situation is back to where it was.

Why not just arrest the pedestrians for jaywalking and the drivers for loading passengers outside the loading/unloading zones as the law mandates?

The MMDA counters that it does not have enough manpower to arrest all the traffic violators. Maybe so, but when the people see that at least some of the jaywalkers are being arrested, some of them will take the hint and wait where they are supposed to.

Lack of manpower is not the real reason. The real reason is that the MMDA's traffic enforcers are afraid to confront violators. Being former street sweepers promoted to traffic enforcers, they have inferiority complexes. They feel inadequate when arresting violators (are they even authorized to do that?). They prefer to stand in the middle of the street where they can be seen by their superiors waving their arms at oncoming vehicles. Even when all hell is breaking loose at the nearby intersection, they won't bother to go there to straighten up the jam. That's too complicated and stressful.

The situation was worsened by the cowardly act of the Philippine National Police to withdraw all its traffic policemen and leave traffic enforcement to the MMDA. The reason of PNP Director General Edgar Aglipay is to put the "kotong cops" out of business. Instead of controlling and disciplining his policemen (as then PNP chief Panfilo Lacson was able to do), Aglipay would rather take the easy way out. No cops, no kotong, so he and the PNP cannot be blamed for mulcting cops. Aglipay abdicated and adandoned the PNP duty of enforcing traffic regulations.

Result: anarchy. Pedestrians and drivers do their own thing, regardless of traffic rules. They're not afraid of the traffic enforcers who, on the contrary, are the ones afraid of them. Or worse, they are as corrupt as the "kotong cops" they replaced. The MMDA's traffic enforcers are next to useless. The salaries the taxpayers are paying them are a waste of money. Aglipay and Fernando are as much to blame for the breakdown in traffic order as the undisciplined drivers and pedestrians.

If the MMDA will arrest and fine only a third of all traffic violators, it would have enough funds to run itself without depending on the money contributed by local government units. Better still, it will finally impose discipline and restore order.

Instead of the "wet flag scheme" and other harebrained gimmicks, why doesn't the MMDA enforce traffic rules strictly, the same way it successfully cleared most sidewalks of sidewalk vendors (although they're coming back with a vengeance, thanks to mayors coddling them)? The "wet flag" is as harebrained as the petroleum sprinkled on the vegetables and fruits being sold by sidewalk vendors to get them off the sidewalks.

The MMDA spent a lot of taxpayers' money constructing the pink waiting sheds, but which few commuters bother to use. They prefer to wait on the the street corners where buses and jeepneys stop to pick them up. Why doesn't the MMDA arrest drivers who load/unload passengers away from the waiting sheds? Why doesn't it put up steel railings or ropes to the waiting sheds so commuters will be forced to fall in line while waiting for rides? If all PU vehicles would only line up to load/unload beside the waiting sheds, the process would be faster and there would be order. Commuters won't have to wait in the middle of streets and fight to get aboard PU vehicles.

Commuters fall in line to ride buses and jeepneys outside some malls in Makati. They fall in line at Megamall. Why can't we do this in other places as well? The MMDA should be concentrating on this instead of continuing the crazy "wet flag scheme."

To catch a thief

2005-01-17T00:00:00.000-08:00

To catch a thief

Updated 11:37pm (Mla time) Jan 16, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

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

YEARS after Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack made it a box-office hit, "Ocean's Eleven," is still raking in money at the tills. A modernized remake and a sequel have been made, both of which have, like the original, an all-star cast. The newer versions have a lot of technological gizmos-laser fields, underground vaults and all that-to protect the millions of dollars earned by the Las Vegas casinos. But, somehow, I like the original better, not only because of Old Blue Eyes himself, but also because the plot was simpler.

The original "Ocean's Eleven" started out as a lark by the Rat Pack, who never thought that besides giving them something to do to relieve boredom, the movie would rake in a lot of money.

It so happened that Sinatra and the members of his Rat Pack (Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, etc.) were performing at shows in different casinos in Las Vegas (this was how Sinatra is believed to have gotten hooked up with the Mafia).

Since the shows were at night, the gang was left with nothing to do during the day except twiddle their thumbs. To occupy themselves, Sinatra thought of making a movie at daytime, with the Rat Pack as members of the cast. The story had to be about Las Vegas casinos. So "Ocean's Eleven" was born.

The original movie was about a group of World War II veterans on vacation in Las Vegas. For want of anything to do (just like the Rat Pack), they thought of robbing several casinos simultaneously. Their former commanding officer, Danny Ocean (played by Sinatra) was the brains. The other members of the group take on jobs in the casinos, so they wouldn't have a hard time executing their plan, which they successfully did while electricity was cut off briefly after they blew up a transmission tower.

The hard part was how to take the loot out of Las Vegas, which was immediately sealed off by the police with roadblocks and checkpoints. Danny thought of hiding the money in the coffin of a gang member who had dropped dead of a heart attack and was to be buried in his hometown in California.

But the Movie Production Code then in force mandated that no movie should show that crime pays. So the gang must not be allowed to get away with the fruits of its crime. (That was the same reason the gold dust so painstakingly gathered by Humphrey Bogart and his cohorts in the classic "Treasure of Sierra Madre," was blown away by a dust storm.) So while they were waiting in the chapel for the coffin to be taken away, the widow of the deceased-without their knowing it-gave permission to have the corpse cremated right there. The loot was cremated along with the corpse.

The remake (with George Clooney as Danny Ocean) did not have this ironic and humorous ending. Ocean's eleven got away with the loot. It was a box-office hit anyway, largely because of the technological gizmos they had to overcome. So it was inevitable that a sequel would be made. That sequel is "Ocean's Twelve," now showing in movie houses.

The makers of the sequel must have realized that among the appeals of the original were its tongue-in-cheek humor and the lighthearted banter among the cast. So they did the same thing with the new version. The cast obviously was on a lark while making the movie, same as the Rat Pack when they made the original (which was so successful Sinatra made several other movies using the Rat Pack).

Also like the original, the producers packed the cast with stars (besides Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta-Jones, etc.). Bruce Willis appeared in a cameo role-although his name does not appear in the credits-as did Shirley Maclaine and George Raft in the original. (Sinatra should have cast Humphrey Bogart, original founder of the Rat Pack, in the original, with Lauren Bacall as his gun moll-but was he already dead when the movie was made?)

And like the original, the sequel also ended with a twist, except that the twist was forced and appeared like a cop-out. After piling up problems for the gang early in the movie, it seemed that the writers did not know how to provide the solutions and to end the movie. So they resorted to a simple cliché.

To illustrate this point, I am sorry I have to reveal a part of the plot, but it is not important anyway for the enjoyment of the movie. To begin with, Danny's gang had to do another job because the Andy Garcia character, the casino owner they robbed in the remake, demanded that they return the loot, with interest, or else....

For a change of scenery, the locale was moved to Europe. And the caper was complicated by an experienced French detective hot on their heels and a crafty thief who challenged Danny to see who of them was the better thief.

Toward the end, all the gang members were arrested by the French police, largely through the efforts of Zeta-Jones. The other master thief told Clooney and Roberts how he stole the prize himself, proving he was the better thief. And here is the twist that made the ending look like a cop-out.

In a flashback, Danny was shown telling his rival that what the latter had stolen was a mere replica; and that he, Danny, had stolen the genuine prize by the simple and hackneyed expedient of switching backpacks with the courier, while his cohorts created a diversion by creating a rumble inside a train coach. Besides, Danny's gang had an informer in the person of Zeta-Jones' long-lost father. Compared to Danny's gang of twelve, the other thief was all alone, and yet he was able to steal the replica. So he was still the better thief.

Don't waste those runaway logs

2005-01-10T22:53:00.000-08:00

Don't waste those runaway logs

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

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

THE LOGS that were washed down the mountainsides during the last typhoon, killing hundreds of people and flattening entire villages in Infanta, (Quezon), and in Real and Nakar (Aurora), could cause more deaths if the government wouldn't do something about them immediately. A war is about to break out between the residents of the three towns and the workers of a sawmill over these logs littering the seashores and floating on the sea and river.

The residents are making them into charcoal while the workers of the sawmill are gathering them to be sawn into lumber. For the residents, who have lost their means of livelihood after their farms were covered with mud and their fishing boats carried away by the floods, charcoal-making is their only way to earn a living. The sawmill, they say, should not take away the logs as these were the same logs that killed their loved ones and neighbors and destroyed their homes. They also insist that the logs, whose ownership can no longer be traced, don't belong to the sawmill.

After causing so much death and destruction, the logs should now be public property. The loggers should not only apologize to the residents; they should be charged in court for the damage that they have wrought.

But the greedy sawmill wants the logs for its own use.

The government should step in before the war erupts. It should confiscate all the logs, set up its own sawmill near the beach, saw the logs into lumber, give the lumber to the residents for them to use in rebuilding their homes; the remnants to be made into charcoal. The government should employ as many jobless residents as possible to gather the logs and to work in the sawmill.

Making whole logs into charcoal-which is what the residents are doing-is wasting a finite natural resource. Sawing them into lumber (only what is left should be made into charcoal) is the better alternative. Even the sawdust can be processed into charcoal bricks. Some of the lumber can be sold to fill the needs of the construction industry so that no new trees will have to be cut down.

But the lumber-sawing should not be done by the private sawmill. They no longer have any right to these logs. It would be an insult to the residents to deprive them of the use of the wood from these logs, after the logs have destroyed their homes and killed their loved ones.

The government should be the one to exercise ownership over the logs. And it should file charges against the loggers. But the government is not even moving in that direction. What is Environment Secretary Mike Defensor doing?

There's smoke day and night rising from the hundreds of charcoal kilns on the beaches of Infanta, Real and Nakar. Sacks of charcoal line the roads; they are being sold at bargain prices. Charcoal-making is the only means of livelihood of the people there. They need the help of the administration of President Macapagal-Arroyo-help that comes not only in the form of press releases, speeches, visits to the disaster areas or relief goods distribution; but real help in action, help that enables the people to rebuild their lives.

First, they have to have homes. And the building materials are there, scattered all over the place. They just have to be sawn into lumber.

Next, the people need jobs. Most of the people are farmers and fishermen. But they cannot for now farm because their fields are covered with mud, and they cannot go fishing because they have lost their boats.

So the people have turned to charcoal-making (polluting their own air), wasting precious wood that can be put to better use for the construction of their homes.

The Bureau of Agricultural Extension should teach and help the farmers to rehabilitate their fields and the Bureau of Fisheries should lend the fishermen funds with which to buy new boats. Meanwhile the Department of Environment and Natural Resources should give them jobs in the sawmill, in the gathering of logs and in the construction of new homes. GMA should not only pay lip service to helping the poor. She should do something concrete to help them.

She went to Indonesia to hobnob with world leaders and had her picture taken with them as they discussed ways of helping the victims of the tsunamis. But our President has forgotten her countrymen who were also victims of a natural disaster that was just as deadly.

* * *

The Metro Manila Development Authority will set up "loading bays" for buses along Edsa in another attempt to ease the traffic on this thoroughfare. "Loading bay" is just another name for "bus terminal," where buses will wait while they are not needed. They will be dispatched as passengers need them. That way they will not clog the whole Edsa as they wait for and pick up a few passengers.

Our problem in Metro Manila is that there is an overpopulation of vehicles, and the big lumbering buses that are not needed take up most of the street space. The Department of Transportation and Communication went overboard in encouraging operators to buy and field more buses-even giving out loans for the purpose-back when there was a shortage of public utility vehicles plying Edsa. But the DOTC did not know when to say "Stop." Now there are too many buses and there are not enough passengers to fill them. If DOTC officials will only get out of their air-conditioned offices, they will see the hordes of buses, with hardly any passengers, lined up bumper-to-bumper, wasting precious fuel and dollars that we pay to buy the oil. It is time to cull the excess buses.

(To be continued)

Philippines' double standard of justice

2005-01-07T16:45:00.000-08:00

Philippines' double standard of justice

Updated 03:06am (Mla time) Jan 07, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 7, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

IF President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo pardons former Rep. Romeo Jalosjos, it will only show that there is indeed a double standard of justice in the Philippines, one for the poor and the other for the rich, powerful and influential. In the first place, he is not yet eligible for a pardon. The law says a prisoner must first serve his minimum prison term before he can be eligible for parole or a pardon. Jalosjos has not served his. Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez himself admits this.

But members of Congress, an Old Boys Club whose members protect one another, want to make an exception of Jalosjos. Their justification: "humanitarian reasons," since Jalosjos is reportedly ailing. He had a stroke. For this reason, the congressmen, two of whom are Jalosjos' brother and sister, said the convicted rapist should be pardoned.

A "medical abstract" issued by a doctor of the Makati Medical Center said only that Jalosjos has been "advised to be compliant on intake of medications and avoid risk factors which may lead to probable strokes in the future." The risk factors are "hypertension, high cholesterol, emotional and physical stress." The abstract didn't say anything about a presidential pardon.

What the abstract meant was that Jalosjos should take his medications regularly and should watch what he eats and exercise to avoid high blood pressure and high cholesterol. He can do that in prison as well as outside. There are probably thousands of prisoners with hypertension and high cholesterol, as well as emotional and physical stress, but they are not being recommended for pardon.

Jalosjos can be treated for his cardiovascular problem as well inside prison as outside. If he is a good patient and follows his doctor's orders faithfully, he can expect to live a long life and finish his term. There is no urgent need now for him to be pardoned. If there is really justice in this administration, Jalosjos, the astute politician, should be treated like the other prisoners.

But Jalosjos is an exceptional case. He has an influential family and friends. He is a former congressman. And most important, his political machine in Zamboanga made Ms Arroyo win over Fernando Poe Jr. by 100,000 votes in the last presidential election. It's payback time. So the administration is floating a pardon as a trial balloon to see if there would be opposition to it. If there is not much opposition, Jalosjos is as good as a free man.

Gonzalez cited as a precedent the case of actor Robin Padilla who was also pardoned before he had served his prison sentence. There are other precedents: Bingbong Crisologo, Baby Asistio and Roquito Ablan, who were all pardoned and freed and are now incumbent congressmen. Not to disparage the three, but they seemed to be thoroughly reformed gentlemen who couldn't hurt a fly when they were interviewed together on television recently.

Jalosjos is different. He raped an 11-year-old girl. He has not expressed repentance for it. He has not asked the forgiveness of his victim. He has not served his minimum prison term. What gives him the privilege to be pardoned?

Answer: Because he made Ms Arroyo win in his bailiwick.

* * *

The Metro Manila Development Authority is planning to extend the number coding for vehicles until Sunday. The MMDA is trying everything to ease the traffic congestion in Metro Manila but with little success. There are two reasons why, and they are so simple anybody with two eyes can see them. Anybody, that is, except MMDA officials.

These two reasons are: 1) Traffic rules are not being enforced strictly, and 2) there are too many vehicles in Metro Manila.

No Metro Manila driver today fears being arrested for traffic violation. The MMDA's traffic aides, being former street sweepers, have an inferiority complex and are afraid to arrest unruly drivers. Philippine National Police Director General Edgar Aglipay has pulled out all his policemen from traffic duty, allegedly because many of them were "kotong cops" [mulcting cops]. Traffic enforcement is left to the traffic aides. Alas, they're either as crooked as the regular "kotong cops" or just plain inept.

The MMDA painted yellow lanes on the Edsa highway where buses are supposed to stay on pain of being arrested if they stray out. But watch Edsa any time of the day. Buses stray out of the yellow lanes and nobody arrests them even if they are in plain sight of traffic aides. Buses and jeepneys rush through pedestrian lanes without heed for the pedestrians crossing the street.

Below the flyover at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Tandang Sora Avenue in Quezon City, jeepneys stop to load and unload passengers on top of the pedestrian lane itself, right in front of a traffic aide directing traffic beside a big sign that says: "Strictly No Loading/Unloading-SB" (for Quezon City Mayor Sonny Belmonte). Oftentimes, a barker stands beside the traffic aide calling passengers for the jeepneys.

On the opposite side of the street, they have put up barricades with another "Strictly No Loading/Unloading" sign to prevent passengers from waiting for rides at the street corner.

But passengers wait for rides exactly beside this big sign, making the mayor's SB initials on the sign a laughingstock.

What is strange is that all these blatant violations are in plain view of the Police Community Precinct only five steps away (I measured it) under the flyover. But the policemen there behave as if they were blind.

Footbridges near high-tension wires

2005-01-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

Footbridges near high-tension wires

Updated 09:28pm (Mla time) Jan 04, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 5, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE METRO Manila Development Authority has bared its plans for the new year to ease the traffic gridlock that is the bane of the metropolis. The plans include the extension of the number-coding to Saturday and the construction of more footbridges as well as elevated U-turn roads. The latter would be like miniature flyovers and would therefore cost a lot of money.

Complementing the footbridges are steel fences on the median islands to prevent pedestrians from crossing the street below the footbridges, thus making Metro Manila look like Laguna Lake with all its fish pens.

The MMDA's new pink-and-blue steel footbridges are attractive compared to the old solid, heavy concrete pedestrian overpasses that, alas, have become a haven for sidewalk vendors and holdup artists. Because the concrete sidings cover them from below, vendors have practically appropriated for themselves some pedestrian overpasses. And because the roof of the overpass protects them from sun and rain, they made some overpasses their living quarters. What's more, because streamers of politicians and commercial billboards cover the "windows" of the overpasses, they have become some sort of private enclave for vendors, squatters, snatchers and holdup men. Visit the Philcoa overpass in Quezon City and you will see what I mean.

My own granddaughter, coming home from school, was held up there before Christmas and her cell phone was taken. There were many people on the overpass, mostly vendors, but nobody helped her. The felon must have many friends among them.

That is why many pedestrians avoid going up the overpass at night and thus risk life and limb crossing at street level. Some overpasses are dimly lighted or not lighted at all. Either the MMDA's maintenance people are negligent or the vendors and derelicts who sleep on the overpasses deliberately steal the bulbs to keep the place dark.

Thus, the new steel footbridges are better. You can see the people up there from below and they are lighted by the street lamps. And because they have no roofs, they're no good for vendors and squatters. The danger is when politicians put too many streamers and billboards on them so that the people cannot see what is going on up there.

But the other side of the coin is this: The new footbridges are dangerous. Some of them are situated very near high-tension wires of Meralco. Pedestrians using them can get electrocuted if the wires are not relocated. Steel is a very good conductor of electricity. Look at the new footbridges on Commonwealth and Quezon Avenues, a number of them are only a few feet below high-tension wires carrying thousands of volts of electricity. The one being constructed (very slowly) at the corner of Commonwealth and Tandang Sora is even situated below two transformers.

Remember the transformer that exploded in Tondo and poured boiling oil on schoolchildren below?

There are no high-tensions wires around the Quezon Memorial Park opposite the Quezon City Hall, but the city government does not want footbridges there. This is a very wide rotunda, with 12 lanes and no median island. Pedestrians crossing over to the park have to hurdle hundreds of vehicles speeding around the Circle. There are no traffic lights to stop oncoming traffic while pedestrians are crossing. A traffic aide directs traffic near City Hall but nowhere else. Footbridges are urgently needed here, but I understand Mayor Feliciano Belmonte prefers an underpass instead so as not to spoil the skyline with footbridges.

But an underpass soon becomes a haven for vendors, squatters and derelicts, as what happened to the underpasses in Quiapo and Plaza Lawton. Until Mayor Lito Atienza decided to cleanse and reopen them, they were largely unused because people were afraid to go down there.

I think Belmonte should dwell on this. Lighting up the underpasses and posting policemen in them 24 hours a day will rack up a hefty maintenance bill, not to count the cost of digging up the street with the resulting traffic chaos. I think the footbridge is the lesser evil.

* * *

Let's go now to the U-turn slots. Isn't the MMDA overdoing this?

All the intersections are blocked and motorists have to drive a few blocks in search of a U-turn slot. Because half of the street is blocked to protect U-turning vehicles from accidents, the system has only increased bottlenecks. A four-lane street becomes a two-lane one every few blocks and traffic piles up.

Undoubtedly, the U-turn slots have improved traffic in some places, but I think doing the same thing under the flyovers is overacting already.

Look at the Quezon Avenue-Edsa and Kamuning flyovers. Vehicles going north and south use the flyover; vehicles going east and west use the underpass. The ground level therefore should be used by left-turning vehicles. But big concrete blocks bar the way of vehicles that want to turn left or drive straight through. Instead they have to make a U-turn under the flyover. In the process, the center lane is also blocked and only two lanes are left on each side. Hence, more bottlenecks. I think this needs a second look, too.

This is obviously the reason for the MMDA's plan to build for elevated U-turn passages, to avoid the bottlenecks below. But as stated earlier, they will cost a lot of money. That is in addition to the cost of extra fuel to be used by hordes of vehicles looking for a U-turn flyover kilometers away from where they want to go.

One firecracker victim is one too many

2005-01-03T05:15:00.000-08:00

One firecracker victim is one too many

Updated 05:15am (Mla time) Jan 03, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A10 of the January 3, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

AS this column predicted last Dec. 29, a strip of firecracker stalls in Bocaue, Bulacan, caught fire when sparks ignited a stack of firecrackers, killing seven persons. Almost every year, houses-usually converted into firecracker factories-explode and catch fire because of carelessness. Always, there are casualties. This time, it is a row of roadside stalls selling pyrotechnic products.

And yet, government authorities-Malacañang, the Department of Interior and Local Government, the police as well as the provincial and municipal governments-do nothing to prevent a repetition of the tragedies. The Friday fire was the seventh involving firecracker factories and stalls in Bulacan this year. Only last September, a firecracker factory exploded in Sta. Maria town, killing two workers.

Obviously, it is imperative that we adopt stricter rules and monitor more closely the manufacture, quality and storage of pyrotechnic products. So why are government agencies not doing these? Some officials could be liable for multiple homicide through negligence. People keep dying in firecracker incidents so regularly it is almost as if this is the administration's way of controlling population. Stop the population explosion with firecracker explosions? Ha, ha!

For sure, the government has rules on the manufacture of pyrotechnics to make them safe, but nobody pays attention to them, including the public officials and employees who are supposed to enforce them. For example, no firecracker is supposed to have more than 0.2 gm of explosive. But those firecrackers that blasted scores of limbs last New Year's Eve obviously have much more than that. What were the government inspectors of firecracker factories doing?

Obviously, too, the firecracker factories in Bulacan and elsewhere are unsafe. So is the manufacturing process. Else, why do they keep blowing up?

Also obviously, the storing and selling of the products are faulty. Else, why do houses and stalls where they are kept explode?

The usual alibi is that the powerful firecrackers come from illegal manufacturers. A convenient excuse. But it is no secret that even licensed manufacturers are making the illegal firecrackers because they think customers want more powerful firecrackers. For example, the product that started last Friday's fire was a "bomb shell." As the name implies, it was a powerful one, with more than 0.2 gm of explosive, and therefore illegal.

These powerful (pla-pla, whistle-bomb, thunder, etc.) and illegal explosives are being sold openly, in plain view of policemen. But do the cops stop them? Are you kidding?

Sometimes, the police conduct well-publicized raids and seizures of illegal firecrackers, but more often than not, the policemen themselves sell the seized firecrackers and keep the proceeds.

And let's not kid ourselves. Some manufactures, licensed and unlicensed, bribe policemen and government inspectors-perhaps including higher officials-to look the other way.

Under the principle of command responsibility, mayors, governors, the interior secretary and police officers may be held liable for criminal negligence everytime somebody dies in an incident involving firecrackers.

An aftermath of a firecracker accident that can easily be prevented by inspectors is the incidence of tetanus. Tetanus is almost always a fatal disease. Victims of firecracker explosions get into a very high risk of contracting tetanus.

The reason is that carabao or cattle manure is mixed with the explosive substances to make the firecracker more powerful. Manure is a fertile breeding ground for the tetanus bacillus. It enters the body through a break in the skin, such as a wound caused by a firecracker blast. Even a slight injury can lead to a tetanus infection.

Rules should prohibit the putting of animal dung in firecrackers. And it should be quite easy for inspectors to see if manure is being mixed with the explosives.

A "safe" firecracker doesn't just mean a "less powerful" firecracker. It also means a firecracker that does not carry a health-threatening disease.

* * *

The police and other government officials are now patting themselves on the back because there were less firecracker victims in the last New Year's Eve celebrations than there were in the previous years. I say, one firecracker victim is one too many. Nobody should be injured by a firecracker. If the government is doing its job, firecrackers should be so safe that even if one accidentally explodes them in his hand, it would not cause injury.

The cigarette-sized firecracker manufactured in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China won't injure you even if it explodes while you're holding it. But our triangulo, supposedly our smallest firecracker, can harm you if you don't throw it away quickly enough after lighting it. The fuse is so short and burns so quickly, premature explosions are very common.

Local manufacturers complain of the entry of imported firecrackers; it gives them competition. Instead of complaining, they should copy the imported ones. They are of better quality. And safe!

What's more, they would be able to sell more if our firecrackers are strung together like the imported ones. Instead of exploding the firecrackers one by one, Filipinos could light them by the pack so that they would explode like machine guns. With the string of firecrackers progressively longer, they would be able to sell more. And because they are safe, parents will allow their children to buy them. Hence, more sales.

Save your fingers tonight

2004-12-31T04:46:00.000-08:00

Save your fingers tonight

Updated 04:46am (Mla time) Dec 31, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the December 31, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

HAPPY New Year to everybody. May all your fingers remain intact after the revelry.

On the eve of the New Year, when the whole Philippines erupts in a paroxysm of explosions and most Filipinos lose their common sense (and some their fingers), the Philippine National Police again issued a press release, as it always does at this time of the year, warning that those who manufacture, sell and explode illegal firecrackers would not escape prosecution. Another press release said the PNP would set up "pyrotechnic zones" in Metro Manila to prevent injuries and death and fires during the revelry. Residents are supposed to fire and explode their pyrotechnic devices only inside these "pyrotechnic zones" and not in front of their homes or anywhere else.

As with most PNP warnings before New Year's Eve, nobody will pay attention to them, and people will continue to buy and explode illegal firecrackers in front of their homes. Nobody will bother to use the "pyrotechnic zones," but the PNP will not be able to arrest and prosecute persons who violate the rules. Moreover, many guntoters, including policemen and soldiers, will fire their guns into the air (and put innocent people in danger; a few will actually be hit and injured and even die) but almost nobody will be arrested, prosecuted and jailed. Tomorrow, everything will be forgotten-until next New Year's Eve.

A third press release, this time from the pyrotechnics manufacturers of Bulacan, complained that imported firecrackers were killing the Philippine pyrotechnic industry. All these are inter-related.

All the casualties, and all the PNP warnings (which are never enforced anyway) would be unnecessary if the police and the local government units (specifically, of the municipality of Bocaue and of the province of Bulacan) would monitor the manufacture of pyrotechnics to make sure only the legal and safe ones are made. If the manufacturers would only limit themselves to the smaller and safe devices, they could manufacture all the firecrackers they want, even export them, and nobody would be hurt.

But the makers think that if they produce the powerful pla-pla, super lolo, thunder and other miniature bombs, they would be able to sell more. So they defy the law and put their customers in danger because of greed. And customers will foolishly continue to buy them as long as they are available.

The key, therefore, is to watch the manufacturers while they are still manufacturing their pyrotechnics, not later when they are already finished and are being sold. When the illegal firecrackers are already finished, the makers will try to sell them, even on the sly, because they will lose money if they don't.

And local manufacturers are losing out to the importers because imported firecrackers are safer. Our process of making pyrotechnics is still primitive compared to those of other countries such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. If we would only send our own workers to these countries to study how they make theirs, we would be able to compete with them and develop our own industry.

It is to their own benefit if the manufacturers obey the law and limit their business to the making of safe firecrackers. But they are greedy and stubborn and don't see the light. It is the duty of the government to see to it that they do.

* * *

The Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) will greet the New Year with a free service for pet owners and to curb the population explosion of dogs and cats.

PAWS will hold its first "Spay-Day at PARC," a monthly free neutering program for dogs and cats. Pet owners who wish to avoid unwanted kittens or puppies are invited to bring their pets on Jan. 30, Sunday, to the PARC shelter on Aurora Boulevard, near Barangka, Marikina. For more information, call PARC at 475-1688. A PARC location map can be found in www.paws.org.ph

On March 20, Sunday, PAWS will join the Philippine Canine Club Inc. and other groups, in the biggest "Dog Walk for a Cause." The main objective of the activity is to protest the indiscriminate killing of dogs. The event, which will be participated in by various groups holding simultaneous walks in different parts of the country, will attempt to break the record in the Guinness Book of Records for the largest number of participating dogs and their humans, and the longest walk (approximately 5 km). Interested parties may call 475-1688, for additional information on the dog walk and how to join. Free rabies vaccinations will be given to all dog-participants joining the PAWS group, on Jan. 8, 2005.

Let's all help make a statement in defense of man's best friend and be part of Guinness history.

Finally, a reminder for tonight's revelry. Dogs are terrified by firecracker explosions. Their hearing is 10 times more sensitive than that of humans. So what sounds like ordinary explosions to us are terrifying to dogs. Put wads of cotton in their ears to deaden the sounds and take them inside the house, stay with them, pat and stroke them to reassure them at the height of the revelry.

* * *

TODAY'S JOKE: FPJ's electoral protest before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal will take very long to resolve and cost a lot of money. But there is a faster and cheaper way. To determine once and for all who really won, GMA should have her own funeral to see who between the two of them, FPJ or GMA, will have the bigger number of mourners and marchers.

Don't blame us, says former logger

2004-12-27T13:13:00.000-08:00

Don't blame us, says former logger

Updated 11:42pm (Mla time) Dec 26, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 27, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

LAST Dec. 8, in the wake of the floods and landslides that wiped out entire villages and killed hundreds of people in Aurora, Quezon and Nueva Ecija, I wrote a column advocating a total log ban. In the course of the discussion, I mentioned some prominent logging families in Mindanao who are now among the super-rich with family members in Congress, who, in the last analysis, will be the ones to craft and pass a total log ban bill. Among the families mentioned were the Plazas of Agusan.

Before Christmas, we received a letter from a member of the Plaza family, Rodolfo G. Plaza, reacting to that column. In brief, he was washing the hands of the Plaza family for the denudation of Mindanao's forests.

"The loggers of the '50s and '60s," (to which the Plaza family belonged) "is different from today's loggers," he said. Meaning to say, "Don't blame us, the old loggers. Blame the new loggers." He said they cut only mature trees and hired forest guards to protect the forests-what's left of them anyway.

It's the old song and dance and game of "finger-pointing." "Who, me? I didn't do nothing. They did." Loggers, old and new, point to the kaingineros, the latter point to the charcoal-makers, and the last point to Mother Nature.

But in the interest of fair play, let us read Mr. Plaza's letter in toto. Here's his letter, after which I have a few more comments:

"I read with interest Neal Cruz's column titled 'Stop the debate, ban all logging' (PDI, 12/8/04) and as a member of one of the logging families he identified, I felt it my duty to the public to disclose circumstances that Cruz apparently is not aware of, but would be able to share with other unenlightened individuals-for a clearer, more accurate perspective.

"Let the axe fall where it may but for the information of Cruz and the reading public, logging as an economic activity in the '50s and '60s was a totally different business from what it has become in the last two decades. Back then, logging was a major source of RP's dollar earnings. The Plaza family was engaged only in the exportation of timber to foreign markets which dictated certain standards for the same. This means that we only cut trees of really huge diameters. In fact, we had these forest lands guarded to discourage indiscriminate logging and incursions by rural folk who troop to the forest for their immediate needs.

"The Philippine government during that time did not and never required loggers to reforest. There was no law to that effect. Instead, under Forest Administration Order No. 64, we were required to pay the government certain amounts so that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources of old will have the funds to reforest or replant trees; and we did pay our dues. Plus, we also replanted and allowed to grow trees that are not of export quality.

"When the Plaza family sold its logging concession in 1976, it was a well-known fact in the province that the forest lands we harvested timber from were not bald. We should not be held accountable if, because of the absence of forest guards, 'kaingineros' or indiscriminate loggers and nomadic forest dwellers suddenly had a field day after we left the logging business.

"Loggers in the '50s and '60s are much like the OFWs of today who are hailed as heroes for keeping our dollar reserves well-stashed. While it is not our intent to be remembered as one-time heroes of the Philippine economy, we do believe some perspective by well-meaning individuals as
Cruz is due us.

"At a time in our history when Mindanao was neglected by the central government, we, Mindanaoans, showed self-reliance and even contributed to the national economy. Now, we are being blamed for our industry, out of which the whole population benefited.

"I am not ashamed to be a member of a logging family-because our old business operated under a legal and transparent framework, in compliance with all existing laws then. Thus, I appeal to the sense of fairness and wisdom of all. If we are to truly hunt down the enemies of the environment, let us be prudent in this mission. Let us probe the status of those reforestation funds paid to the environment/forestry officials in the '60s and '70s. The accumulated amount overtime has amounted to hundreds of millions and even today, the amount can be considered staggering. Let us send inspection teams to areas held by the few remaining timber license holders and check how these forested areas are doing; and let us compare these with areas under canceled Timber License Agreements which should be well-preserved. Rather than finger-pointing the 'usual suspects' who are visible, we may be able to find relief in considering 'invisible forces' for a change."

As the saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. If the loggers of the '50s and '60s were really that good, why are the mountains of Mindanao bald? Not only of Mindanao but every mountain that had been subject of a logging concession?

The concessionaires blame the kaingineros who come after them. But isn't it the loggers who cut roads through the forest, through which the kaingineros gain access to the logged-over areas that they burn and cultivate? No roads, no kaingineros, right?

Don't provoke mourners at FPJ funeral

2004-12-22T00:41:00.000-08:00

Don't provoke mourners at FPJ funeral

Updated 00:41am (Mla time) Dec 22, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 22, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

Good night, sweet prince, (princess),

May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

-Hamlet by Shakespeare

AT SUNRISE today will begin the funeral march that will take Fernando Poe Jr. to his final resting place at the North Cemetery. By coincidence, the funeral for Ma. Kristina Casimira or "KC," beloved l6-year-old daughter of Speaker Jose and Gina de Venecia, will also take place a little later this morning.

High-ranking administration officials, the elite, will attend KC's funeral but the more numerous masa will be at the last rites for FPJ. Two persons, both beloved by their families and friends, struck down by tragedies the reasons for which only God can explain. A man and a young woman, belonging to feuding factions, called by God at the same time, a coincidence that reminds us of another Shakespearean tragedy.

Many people are skittish about the FPJ funeral. Although his family wants it to be solemn and dignified, and wishes that it not be used by anybody for politics, it could break out into violence. The police has prepared for groups which want to destabilize the administration. And opposition leaders have appealed to their followers not to use FPJ's funeral for political purposes. At last Monday's Kapihan sa Manila, opposition Senators Nene Pimentel Jr. and Alfredo Lim and former Rep. Mike Romero repeatedly called on FPJ's supporters to refrain from violence as he would not have wanted it that way.

Not that FPJ's supporters are planning to do just that. Still violence can break out spontaneously, without anybody planning it, if the police don't handle it right. The PNP has fielded 1,400 policemen for any eventuality. The danger is that with thousands upon thousands of mourners jostling to get a last glimpse of their idol, there is bound to be some pushing and shoving and the police will certainly try to keep order. If a policeman so much as pushes somebody back in line, it could provoke a crowd--already angry at the death of their hero, made worse by the impression that his death was caused by his depression at being cheated in the elections, and whose patience is worn thin by the long walk under the hot sun from the Sto. Domingo Church and by the crush of people--to retaliate.

The first impulse of the police is to push a crowd back and, when it becomes unruly, to hose it with water cannons or use tear gas. If that happens, all hell can break loose. Once a riot starts, it is hard to control. Hotheads can provoke the crowd, and groups can rampage and even try to storm Malacañang as they tried to do during Erap's presidency.

So it would be well for policemen not to lose their tempers. Keep cool, don't be provoked, use maximum tolerance. And FPJ's supporters should watch out for provocateurs in their ranks.

In his movies, FPJ played many characters with different names and different backgrounds, but they were all basically the same peaceful men. They reacted only toward the end to right a wrong and when they were pushed back against the wall by the villains. FPJ was such a peaceful man in real life. Don't sully his memory by fomenting violence on his last day on earth.

* * *

The talk now is what will happen to FPJ's electoral protest now that he is dead. There are two schools of thought. Pimentel told the Kapihan that he believes it died with FPJ. But Lim and Romero said the protest can, and should be, pushed to its logical conclusion. The people want to know who really won the election, Romero said. And it was the people who were cheated, not FPJ alone, Lim added. They were cheated out of their president.

As for its legality, some lawyers say there is a precedent. A losing mayoralty candidate and his teammate had filed an election protest against the winners. The protesting candidate died before the case was finished. Can his vice mayoralty candidate continue with the protest and take over the mayor's seat? Yes, said the Supreme Court, provided both of them won in the recount.

That is exactly the situation with FPJ and his vice-presidential team mate, Loren Legarda. FPJ is dead but Legarda can continue with the poll protest. If the recount shows that both FPJ and Legarda had won, the latter will become president.

But what if FPJ wins but not Legarda? In that case, Vice President Noli de Castro takes over as president.

Pimentel texted me as this column was being written to say that the sentiment in the opposition camp is to continue with the protest. The problem is now financial, he said.

* * *

Myther Bunag is reminding members of the Thursday Club that its Christmas party will be held tomorrow.

Meanwhile, there will be no Kapihan sa Manila on Dec. 27, 2004 and Jan. 3, 2005. The first Kapihan of 2005 will be on Jan. 10.

The Kapihan sa Manila's 20th anniversary show starring Willie Nepomuceno and his troupe will be held in February 2005. Tickets for the hilarious show at the Manila Hotel's Fiesta Pavilion will be on sale soon.

* * *

Today's jokes:

Vice President Noli de Castro is praying: "Dear Lord, ang dasal ko po sa inyo ay kunin nyo na ang nanalong presidente. Bakit si FPJ ang kinuha nyo? Bakit Lord, sino ba talaga ang nanalo?" [Dear Lord, my prayer to you is please take the winning president. Why did you take FPJ? Why Lord? Who really won?]

* * *

A friend sees Sen. Ping Lacson banging his head against the wall.

"Bakit? [Why] What is he doing?" the friend asks Lacson's aide who is standing by.

"He has been like that since FPJ died," replies the aide. "If he had accepted the offer to be FPJ's running mate, he would be president now."

People's hope may have died with FPJ

2004-12-20T20:01:00.000-08:00

People's hope may have died with FPJ

Updated 11:53pm (Mla time) Dec 19, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 20, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

LIKE Macbeth who was terrified by the ghost of Banquo, the administration of President Macapagal-Arroyo is terrified by the dead Fernando Poe Jr. So terrified that it is contradicting itself by dangling so many consuelos de bobo to appease his grieving, angry family and supporters. First, it offered to make Poe a National Artist for the movies. Then it offered to bury him in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, which is reserved only for national heroes. When the offers were not accepted, it proposed flying the Philippine flag at half-mast, and when told that this cannot be done legally, it proposed giving Poe a Presidential Medal of Merit to make it legal.

The administration is contradicting itself. The National Artist award is limited only to true-blue Filipinos, that is why the award is called "National." Likewise, the Libingan ng mga Bayani is reserved only for Filipino heroes. But has the administration forgotten that it claims FPJ is not a Filipino?

That was its argument in the disqualification case against FPJ, and that was also its argument against FPJ's poll protest in the Presidential Electoral Tribunal.

Which leads us to repeat the question of FPJ's widow, Susan Roces: What happened to the bureau director who falsified FPJ's birth papers to make it appear that he was not a Filipino? The fellow has been charged with perjury and falsification of public documents a long time ago, but what happened to these cases? Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño says he doesn't have them, and nobody else in the Department of Justice knows where they are. The accused himself cannot be located. Is it any wonder that Susan is angry?

An indication of the anger of FPJ's fans is when they tore to pieces the wreaths sent by the President and by Speaker Jose de Venecia to Sto. Domingo Church. The President has also sent feelers to the family that she would like to pay her last respects to her fallen presidential rival, but they were rebuffed. Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye was earlier sent to the Arlington funeral parlor in Pasig to feel the pulse of the family and crowd, and he was disappointed. I felt so sorry for him as I watched him on television bravely walking through the hostile crowd, face set in a grim smile, knowing he was in enemy territory.

Everybody expects emotions and tempers to flare up during the funeral on Dec. 22. The parallelism between the assassination of Ninoy Aquino and the sudden death of Poe is not lost on the administration. It was the death of Ninoy that sparked Edsa I, that led to the people chasing the Marcoses out of Malacañang. It is possible that FPJ's funeral, if not handled right, could lead to the same end. Maybe not immediately, but it could fuel a smoldering anger that could explode like a volcano in a popular uprising later against the already very unpopular President Arroyo.

The parallelism does not end there. Although not yet proven, the people suspected that the Marcos administration was behind Ninoy's assassination. This time, people believe that FPJ was cheated out of the presidency, although that still has to be proven in the PET.

Indeed, judging from the millions of people flocking to FPJ's wake, and the national outpouring of grief and sorrow at his sudden death, one wonders how he could have lost the elections. The antics of the pro-administration members of Congress blocking all attempts to look deeper into the certificates of canvass, and the extreme slowness of the PET in acting on FPJ's electoral protest, only strengthened the belief that he was cheated.

Pour one hurt after another on an already suffering people and it is like playing with fire beside a pile of dynamite sticks.

It is said that the Filipinos are a patient people. Because they always cling to hope-even the poorest of the poor and the desperate among them-to pull them through. FPJ was a beacon of hope. Just as he was hope personified in the movies where he was the hero who always came to the rescue and triumphed in the end against villains. And he was a hero to them not only in the movies but also in real life. With his death, the people's hope of deliverance from oppression, injustice and poverty also died. Without hope, people resort to reckless and dangerous means, like the amoks who try to take with them to hell as many of their perceived tormentors as they can.

All these cannot be lost on the administration. I am sure they are discussing this in Malacañang. Which explains all the efforts at appeasement.

The FPJ crowds know the government is trying to appease them but they are not biting. Appeasement is not the same as sincerity. In the same way that a sinner cannot be forgiven unless he confesses his sins and sincerely repents. A prisoner cannot be given amnesty unless he admits his crime. People want sincerity from the administration.

* * *

If you still have not finished your Christmas shopping, here is a fast and easy way to do it. You still have a few days to do it.

Give the "gift of life" to your friends by donating, in their names, to the Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS). By donating a minimum of P100 to PAWS, it will send a "Gift of Life" card to your friend announcing that you have donated, in his name, that amount to care for abandoned dogs, cats, and other animals, which will be kept in animal shelters. You can visit PAWS' Animal Rehabilitation Center (PARC) on Aurora Blvd., Katipunan Valley, Loyola Heights, Quezon City, at the foot of the flyover going to Marikina.

For inquiries on this unique Christmas gift, you can call PARC at 475-1688.

Mercy missions without fanfare

2004-12-17T11:26:00.000-08:00

Mercy missions without fanfare

Updated 01:11am (Mla time) Dec 17, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 17, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

(Continued from last Wednesday)

IN THE PREVIOUS column, I wrote that even with a total log ban, illegal cutting of trees from public forests would continue if demand for forest products doesn't ease and people are provided with other means of livelihood. In the villages in Real, Infanta, Nakar and Dingalan, for example, the residents, hardest hit by the landslides and floods admitted that they had illegally cut trees for lumber, firewood and charcoal because that was "their only means of livelihood."

I said the Philippine construction industry is very wasteful in the use of wood and that the government should have a policy like those of other countries, such as the United States, now already using wood substitutes that are cheaper and more durable.

As for the big demand for charcoal and firewood, this can be satisfied with tree farming. But the trouble with government policy on tree farming is that it encourages the planting only of fruit trees and the more expensive hardwood trees, such as narra and mahogany, which take decades to mature. So why not plant, in between, the hardwoods and fruit trees, fast-growing and easy-to-grow trees like giant ipil-ipil and kakawati for firewood and charcoal? They will be big enough to harvest within one year. The farmers will earn some income while waiting for the fruit trees and hardwoods to mature.

Cut only the branches in summer and the trunks will sprout new branches when the rains fall. What's more, these two trees are self-propagating. Leave a few branches to bear pods; when ripe, these pods will pop open and scatter their seeds to grow with the first drops of rain. Even better, these trees are legumes whose fallen leaves fix nitrogen in the soil, fertilizing it for the hardwoods and fruit trees.

Tree farming for firewood is already being done in some villages of Laguna. You see bundles of ipil-ipil firewood for sale stacked along the highways.

As for charcoal, we now have the technology and machines to make charcoal out of farm wastes such as rice hull, coconut coir, twigs and leaves. They are compressed into charcoal bricks that are now being sold, even exported, though still in a very small volume. Right now, the rice hulls, coconut coir, twigs and leaves are just burned in the farms. That's like burning money. The government should help and encourage farmers and hill people to make charcoal bricks.

The coconut plantations are a rich source of charcoal and firewood. Coconut shells make very good charcoal; coconut coir can be compressed into charcoal bricks along with other farm wastes; and palm fronds, when chopped into two-foot-long pieces and dried in the sun, make good firewood.

Strangely, these are already known to farm folk but they don't do it in commercial volumes because nobody encourages them to do so. The government should encourage them by lending farmers money to buy the machines to compress farm wastes into charcoal bricks that hundreds of thousands of sidewalk barbecue and “lechon manok” [roasted chicken] stands and “ihaw-ihaw” [grilled food] restaurants can use.

The Ilocos hills and mountains, as well as the backyards, are now bereft of trees because of the big demand for firewood to feed the Virginia tobacco flue-curing barns. Even fruit-bearing trees were cut down because the owners were tempted with big sums of money for the firewood.

The same thing will happen to the hills and mountains near poverty-stricken villages if the government doesn't do something.

* * *

Several kind-hearted groups are getting widespread publicity for relief missions to flood-ravaged areas, but I would like to congratulate another group that has been helping flood victims quietly and without fanfare. This is the SM Foundation, which has been distributing relief goods and bringing volunteer doctors and medicines to provinces affected by tropical depression “Winnie” and typhoon “Yoyong.”

Using the private helicopter of the Sy family and an Air Force Huey chopper, the foundation has been sending relief goods and medical missions to Camarines Sur, Quezon, Nueva Ecija and parts of Bulacan. Five bridges have collapsed in Quezon, making the stricken barangays inaccessible by land. Supplies can be brought in only by helicopter. Weeks after the typhoons, hungry residents are still fearful when the next supplies would come as the collapsed bridges have isolated them.

So far, 10,000 families have been benefited and P1.85 million spent to purchase relief goods and medicines. The relief goods, contained in plastic pails, consist of rice, noodles, cans of sardines, laundry soap and blankets. Medicines for cough, fever, diarrhea, hypertension, parasitism, typhoid fever and topical ointments for skin diseases are also included.

In all its relief missions, the governors of the affected provinces are actively involved, as well as the Department of Social Welfare and Development, the National Disaster Coordinating Council and the Army Reserve Command.

That's not the only thing the foundation is doing. Through its Health and Medical Programs under former Quezon City Vice Mayor Connie Angeles, it will start the renovation of and donate equipment to the pediatric ward of the Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital where the Cervantes twins died due to the lack of equipment and facilities.

* * *

Although not yet formally inaugurated, the Front Page piano bar on Teodoro M. Kalaw Street in Manila is now open for business. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has been invited to be the guest of honor during its inauguration as well as of the clubhouse of Samahang Plaridel, the association of veteran journalists. The lounge is their watering hole but it is open to the public.

Angara defends self, total log ban

2004-12-15T06:37:00.000-08:00

Angara defends self, total log ban

Updated 06:37am (Mla time) Dec 15, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 15, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

I BELIEVE there is a concerted effort to put down Sen. Edgardo Angara by his enemies, and the recent floods and landslides in his home province of Aurora and neighboring Quezon presented an opportunity to do that. Every day I receive text messages from unknown sources attacking Angara, blaming him for the tragedy that befell the two provinces because his family, so the messages said, is either into logging or coddling loggers. My media colleagues received similar messages.

Angara, who was the lone guest in last Monday's Kapihan sa Manila (Hotel), said he knew who his attackers were but declined, out of “delicadeza,” to name them. He denied being a logger or sponsoring any logging company. He admitted that he knew one of the logging concessionaires in Aurora but that was because they were fraternity brothers in the University of the Philippines. But he never sponsored nor coddled the logger, he said.

Neither did a priest say Angara was benefiting from the logging business nor did Ka Roger say that he was behind the logging operations in Aurora, he said. He related how the stories to that effect came out in the media.

He said the priest wrote him a letter denying the things attributed to him by the media. A reporter had asked the priest if he thought somebody was benefiting from the illegal logging operations in Aurora, and the priest's answer was, "It's possible."

This was interpreted in media that the Angara family, because it is the political kingpin in Aurora, was benefiting from the logging operations. As for Ka Roger, he said he only got his information from what that priest said.

That part of the misunderstanding has been clarified several times, but why do the text messages repeating the wrong accusations continue?

Angara told the Kapihan that 70 percent of Aurora and Quezon are still covered with forests. The landslides occurred in only one town in Aurora (Dingalan) and three in adjacent Quezon (Real, Infanta and Nakar). It was the extremely huge amount of rainfall that soaked the mountainsides and loosened the soil which triggered the floods and landslides. Many of those who perished had erected their houses on a dry riverbed. When torrents filled the river, the homes and the people sleeping in them were washed away.

Contrary to what the propaganda against him claims, Angara said, he is not a logger coddler. He is in favor of a total log ban. Records will show that during the two times that a total log ban was voted upon in the Senate, he voted for it. Had the House of Representatives not reject its own log ban bill, we would have had a total log ban now, he said. He would again vote for a total ban when a new bill comes along.

The opposition senator said he had not asked the administration for a Cabinet position. While admitting that he and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo indeed had a meeting, he denied accepting membership in her Cabinet. He said he would rather stay in the Senate. He wants to finish his third term and be the longest-serving senator.

* * *

Angara criticized government forest policies. Private tree plantations are good, he said, but placing them beside public forests is bad. The plantation owners illegally poach on the public forests so they have an income while waiting for their own trees to mature.

Another faulty forest policy is the so-called "community-based forest management," which leaves it to the community to manage the forest near it, on the theory that it knows best what to do with its forest. This has been proven disastrous in Real, Infanta, Nakar and Dingalan. Their residents admitted that they had illegally cut trees for lumber, for firewood and charcoal, and for selling to gardeners for landscaping purposes. That is their only means of livelihood, they said. But many of them and their neighbors lost their lives because of it. They should have known better but did not.

Even with a total log ban, the illegal cutting of trees will continue as long as there is a big demand for the forest products. Like I said in a previous column, the Philippine construction industry is very wasteful in the use of wood. A policy that would wean the industry away from wood should be put in place. Many other countries, like the United States, are already doing that, using substitutes that are cheaper and more durable in place of wood.

With the rising cost of liquefied petroleum gas, many people are going back to firewood even in the urban areas. And the hundreds of thousands of barbecue stands and “ihaw-ihaw” restaurants all over the country have created a big demand for charcoal.

All these demands can be satisfied without denuding our forests, however. In the first place, we will earn more money if we preserve our forests rather than cut them. Because of dwindling wild places in the world, tourists troop to countries that still have them.

The provinces of Quezon and Aurora, although named after the first president of the Philippine Commonwealth and his first lady, are among the most undeveloped in the country because of their remoteness. But they are also among the most beautiful, with a narrow plain sandwiched between the Sierra Madre Mountains and wide sand beaches and the sea. There are many waterfalls and lakes in the mountains and islets and magnificent coral reefs in the blue sea. These are what tourists are looking for, since there are pitifully few of them left in the world.

Instead of cutting the forests for livelihood, the residents will get jobs from tourists attracted by the standing forests.

(To be continued)

Use pork barrel for rehab, forest protection

2004-12-10T14:31:00.000-08:00

Use pork barrel for rehab, forest protection

Updated 10:41pm (Mla time) Dec 09, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 10, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THERE were three significant stories the other day: 1. the Pulse Asia survey showing 84 percent of Filipinos in favor of either cutting or abolishing the pork barrel; 2. the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has run out of funds for relief operations; and 3. the continuing debate on a logging ban and forest protection.

The survey also showed that "79 percent of respondents believe more than half or more of the budget of a project (funded by the pork barrel) goes to corruption." In short, you can't fool the people. They know where the money is going. Each congressman will get P70 million in pork next year, and each senator will get P200 million.

Malacañang had submitted a budget proposal with the pork funds cut by 40 percent (to only P40 million per congressman) to save P10 billion because of the fiscal crisis, but the lawmakers defied the President and restored the full P70 million. In contrast, the House of Representatives appropriated only P69 million for forest protection for one year. Repeat: the annual budget to protect millions of hectares of forests throughout the Philippines is even less than the pork of one congressman. Isn't that a crying shame? Meanwhile, the DSWD can no longer provide enough relief goods to the storm victims because it has run out of funds.

The Inquirer headline said: "Poll shames solons on pork." But Davao del Sur Rep. Douglas Cagas said the "pork barrel was nothing to be ashamed of."

Congressmen are already too thick-skinned to be ashamed of anything. But isn't it timely, because of the tragedy that the storms have wrought and the lack of funds to help and rehabilitate the victims, to totally abolish the pork barrel now and use the money for forest protection and for rehabilitation of the people and places hit hard by the floods and landslides?

Anyway, congressmen claim that the pork is for the people, so let's use the funds intended for the pork barrel to really help the people and protect the forests so the tragedy that befell Real, Nakar and Infanta won't happen again. The lawmakers can't object to that (unless they're selfish), and the people will applaud that.

The Senate can still realign the appropriations, and if it doesn't, the President can veto the allocation for the pork. That will show who is the boss.

Come to think of it, who really is the boss? President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has ordered the suspension of all logging operations, but two of her Cabinet members are defying her. Environment Secretary Michael Defensor is defending the loggers and Trade and Industry Secretary Cesar Purisima is opposing a total log ban, saying it would be bad for the economy. If Cabinet members don't agree with the President and can't obey her orders, shouldn't they resign?

Defensor even relaxed, on his own, the presidential ban by allowing the mass cutting and transport of timber from "private plantations." These are different from public lands: private firms planted the trees there and it seems only fair that they should be allowed to harvest them. But the trouble with this arrangement is that it leaves the door open for private plantation operators to poach on public forests and then claim that the timber came from their own plantations.

This was what the licensed loggers (whom Defensor is defending) have been doing. They hired poachers to cut timber from public forests and then claimed that these came from their concessions.

For his part, Purisima said that with a total log ban, we would have to import lumber for our needs. But do you know that we still export logs and lumber even if we are already running out of forests to cut?

And what's wrong with importing? We are importing almost everything else anyway. Other countries like Japan import most of their wood needs while preserving their own forests. Even the wood for their chopsticks is imported.

Besides, our construction industry is very wasteful in the use of wood. Builders should learn to use less wood. The wood used for scaffolding of any one project, for example, is enough to lay to waste one whole forest. After the construction is finished, this wood is not good for anything else but firewood. At this rate of wastage, even our coconut plantations, now that coco lumber is being used for scaffolding, will be gone soon.

Modern construction methods use steel for scaffolding. They can be used again and again. But many contractors still use wood because it is still relatively cheap. If wood is expensive because of scarcity, they will learn to use steel instead.

In the United States, tropical hardwoods are so expensive that they are used only as accents in furniture. They are never used for flooring or walls or posts like we do here.

In fact, our builders should study the new technology in construction in the United States. Instead of wood, they use substitutes made of plastics, vinyl and other petrochemical products.

Homes with clapboard walls in the New England states use plastic. They look like wood, complete with grains and whorls, but they're not. Indoor walling can look like wood, marble, granite, brick, or tiles, but they're really plastic. Whole bathrooms come in one piece, complete with toilets, bathtubs, washbowl, floor and walls.

These construction materials would be ideal for the Philippines. They're cheap, light, don't rot like wood does, termite and fungus-proof, plus you don't have to paint them. They come in different colors.

What's more, it will help save our forests. And, Secretary Purisima, saving our forests is more important than our balance of payments. Once the forests are gone, they're gone. But the economy rises and falls regularly.

End the debate, ban all logging

2004-12-08T17:51:00.000-08:00

End the debate, ban all logging

Updated 00:53am (Mla time) Dec 08, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 8, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE DEBATE has started again: to ban or not to ban all logging, both legal and illegal. As usual the debaters are divided between those who argue for a total log ban to save what remains of the fast dwindling forests, and those who argue that licensed loggers are good because they protect the forests from illegal loggers who would otherwise denude them. Curiously, among the latter are Michael Defensor, the new chief of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), whose primary concern should be to preserve the environment.

The legal loggers, so goes the latter argument parroted by the DENR, cut only mature trees, employ forest rangers who guard the residual forests and replant the denuded areas. Without them guarding the forests, illegal loggers would cut everything and leave the forests destroyed. After them would come the charcoal-makers who would cut whatever is left, including the seedlings which are easier to turn into charcoal, and after them would come the slash-and-burn farmers, the “kaingineros.”

The trouble with this argument is that we have had licensed loggers and concessionaires and the so-called "sustainable development" for decades, but our virgin forests keep getting raped at an alarming rate. If licensed concessionaires are protecting the forests, where are they? How come the forests they are supposed to protect keep dwindling? And if they are replanting and reforesting, where are these reforested areas? How come denuded forest areas are spreading?

The only "sustainable development" people see is the continued growth of the wealth of logging families. The well-known names in Mindanao are the Almendrases, Antoninos and Plazas, all of whom have members of the younger generation elected to Congress. But the mountains of Mindanao are as bald as the head of Pugo. What did they do when they still had the logging concessions? Did they do any reforestation? Where are these reforested areas?

In short, the theory of "sustainable development" is just that, a theory, and not a practical solution. I suspect that it was an idea thought up and fed by the loggers to the DENR. The government likes the idea because it relieves them of the job of guarding and reforesting the mountains.

In fact, I think that is one reason Defensor is defending the legal loggers: He knows his department alone cannot do the job it is supposed to do. There is never enough money or personnel for that. And there are always loggers to use as convenient scapegoats whenever anything goes wrong, such as the recent landslides and floods that killed hundreds of people and destroyed hundreds of millions of pesos worth of crops and property.

The DENR is among the most coveted Cabinet positions in the government. So many officials, environmentalists and non-environmentalists alike, have taken turns running it, but nobody has been able to make a difference. Forest denudation continues at an alarming rate.

If they cannot do anything to save the forests, why do they covet the job? Is it because the loggers who make a lot of money from the forests are generous to those who cooperate with them? And not only loggers but also miners, quarry operators, commercial fishermen and land-grabbers?

Should we have a total or selective ban on logging? The answer seems simple: we have had selective logging for decades and it is obviously a failure. Isn't it time we tried the other method?

With a total log ban, we would know that any log or lumber we see is illegal. Right now, we cannot tell the difference between a legally cut log and one that has been illegally cut. We have to take the word of the owner that it was legally acquired.

In fact, it is common practice now for logging concessionaires to cut timber illegally outside their concessions and then claim they came from their own concessions. The DENR's forest rangers cannot prove otherwise. And anyway they are so poorly paid that it is easy for the loggers to convince them that they have not done anything wrong. With a total log ban, this ploy will no longer work. A log is illegally cut wherever it comes from.

But where will we get wood for construction and furniture-making? Do what other countries without virgin forests do: import from countries foolish enough to cut their own forests. Japan imported most of our logs during the heyday of the logging tycoons.

Or go into tree farming. The conventional wisdom in tree farming in the Philippines is to plant either fruit trees or the higher-priced hardwood trees for their wood, such as narra, kamagong, mahogany, or molave. But these are slow-growing trees and take decades to grow big enough to be harvested. Before that, the farmer's family starves.

But why not plant fast-growing trees along with the hardwoods so they can be harvested earlier for the farmer to live on while waiting for the more costly hardwood to mature? The acacia and giant ipil-ipil can be harvested in five years. What's more, they are self-propagating. The pods pop when ripe and spread their seeds, which germinate quickly.

The same is true with the lowly kakawati, or madre cacao, which is so easy to propagate. Stick a twig into the soil and it grows. That is why we see kakawati trees growing in rows along property lines. Their branches were used as posts for fencing and then grew into trees. Leave a kakawati tree alone in a forest for a few years and there would soon be a whole forest of them. What's more, the kakawati bears in great profusion beautiful pink blossoms that can compare to the more famous cherry blossoms of Japan.

Nobody listened

2004-12-06T15:15:00.000-08:00

Nobody listened

Updated 11:04pm (Mla time) Dec 05, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 6, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

WHAT the people of Rodriguez (Montalban) feared and warned about has become a reality. For more than six years, they have repeatedly been warning of flash floods and landslides because of rampant quarrying in their municipality and in the neighboring town of San Mateo. But nobody listened to them. Now they have been proven correct. But at what cost? A number of people died, hundreds of homes were destroyed, swamped by the floods brought by the storms.

While the floods and landslides in Aurora, Quezon, and Nueva Ecija were caused by illegal logging, those in Rodriguez and Marikina were caused by quarrying.

The people of Rodriguez, led by Dr. Pastor Cruz, have been urging for years to stop the quarrying. They were guests a few times at the Kapihan sa Manila where they repeated their urgent calls. But national and local officials, from the President down, didn't listen.

In the Aug. 16, 1998 issue of the Inquirer, this column commented that while President Estrada sent Environment Secretary Antonio Cerilles to far-off Siquijor in the Visayas to investigate complaints of quarrying there, his administration was not doing anything to stop the quarrying in Rodriguez and San Mateo, both of which are only an hour's drive from the central office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in Metro Manila.

I wrote then: "Experts have reported that the quarrying of gravel from the foot of the mountains has triggered soil erosion and that during heavy rains, the communities below them would be swamped with mud and water.

"A report by the Bureau of Soils and Water Management (BSWM) said: 'When the rainy season comes, massive siltation of rivers and other tributaries are expected. Worst, these ensuing phenomena are expected to create a damming effect on the upstream areas which will eventually lead to flash floods that will devastate lives and properties in the low-lying areas.' The report specifically pointed to residents of Montalban, Marikina and Pasig as potential casualties.

"The residents of Montalban have complained against the quarrying for years to many government officials and agencies, but it is as if they (the officials) are deaf and blind. According to documents I got, they sought the attention of then President Corazon C. Aquino during her incumbency. 'They have gone through the proper channels, that is: from the office of Gov. Yto Ynares. They have sought the intercession of Sen. Orlando Mercado in his capacity as chair of the Senate committee on environment. They have touched base with practically all of those who served as environment secretary, all the way to the incumbent.'...

"All for naught; no definitive action has been taken."

President Macapagal-Arroyo, reacting to the recent tragedy that left hundreds of people dead and millions of pesos worth of crops and properties lost, has now suspended all logging operations in the country. What about quarrying? It is doing as much harm to the environment as logging.

This is what happens because of quarrying: Rocks and whole hillsides are blasted and ground into gravel which are sold for use in construction projects in Metro Manila. During the blasting, soil, stones and rocks are loosened. The rock-crushing sends soil and dust into the streams and rivers. The ensuing siltation makes these waterways shallower and narrower, reducing their holding capacity for water. Thus, during heavy rains, they overflow and inundate the surrounding areas. Worse, siltation has a "damming" effect on the water. When that "dam" breaks, a wall of water rushes down and swamps the communities below. That was what happened during the storms.

When will our officials open their eyes? Are they waiting for another Ormoc-type tragedy-where thousands perished-to happen?

Ironically, the local officials of the towns of Rodriguez and San Mateo, and of Rizal province, as well as of the DENR and Malacañang, are not sympathetic to the pleas of Dr. Cruz and his group. The LGUs collect fees from the quarry operators. Even their neighbors do not appreciate what Dr. Cruz's group is espousing. Many of them work for the quarry operators. Now, perhaps, they will finally listen.

* * *

In a sense, the people of Aurora, Quezon and Nueva Ecija-who were the worst hit by the landslides and floods-were in the same boat as the residents of Rodriguez and San Mateo. In interviews with media people who managed to reach their stricken barangays, many residents there admitted that they worked for the illegal loggers. Several even admitted they did their own cutting, justifying their actions as "the only way they can feed their families." So it is, as if they are being punished by nature for their sins.

Indeed, the photographs and video footage of millions of cut logs littering the beaches, rivers and plains of the three provinces, with the bald Sierra Madre Mountains in the background, prove that the people went on a massive tree-cutting spree. As if an "open season" had been declared against any standing tree there.

Even young tree seedlings, no stouter than a man's arm, are cut; and their roots, which hold the soil and water together, are dug up. They are sold to landscape architects and garden suppliers in Metro Manila. Television showed stacks of them beside the damaged houses.

The TV footage also showed children putting charcoal into sacks. For charcoal-making-which is even more harmful to the forests-is a common occupation in the hilly areas to supply the needs of sidewalk barbecue vendors, lechon-manok-liempo stands, and ihaw-ihaw restaurants in urban areas.

Illegal loggers are mass murderers

2004-12-03T19:54:00.000-08:00

Illegal loggers are mass murderers

Updated 10:56pm (Mla time) Dec 02, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 3, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

AS still photographs and video footage of flood-ravaged areas clearly show, illegal logging is the culprit behind the landslides and flash floods. The pictures show millions of cut logs everywhere -- on the beaches, in the rivers, in the fields and villages -- deposited there by rampaging floodwaters from the mountains where they had been cut. Logging is supposed to be totally banned in Aurora, which was among the worst hit by the landslides and had a lot of fatalities. So where did all those logs that now litter it come from?

It is clear that nobody paid attention to the logging ban and that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has been remiss in enforcing forest laws. As usual, the excuse is that there are not enough forest rangers and funds. But even if there were enough of both, if the quality of forest rangers remained the same, illegal logging would continue. For some rangers are in cahoots with the loggers. Some local government officials are into illegal logging themselves and even have their own sawmills. And some soldiers finance and sell the charcoal made by forest poachers.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has formed an "anti-illegal logging unit" -- after many “barangay” [villages] have been wiped off the map by landslides and more than 500 persons perished. Big deal. That is like closing the barn after the horses have escaped.

There was the same reaction after the Ormoc flood and landslide where 5,000 people died. There were the same gnashing of teeth and finger-pointing after similar tragedies caused by storms. But after the dead were buried and the waters receded, everything was forgotten.

Until we make illegal logging a capital offense punishable by lethal injection, we will never be able to stop it. For there is so much money in logging, so much corruption and very little risk (have you ever heard of an illegal logger sent to jail?) that they serve as incentives to the greedy. Considering the number of fatalities caused by illegal loggers, their crime is mass murder and they should therefore be punished as mass murderers.

* * *

(Continued from last Wednesday)

With all the sorrow around us, we need some good news. Here's one: The Philippine National Railways (PNR) announced that its South Line, the 480-kilometer railroad from Makati to Legazpi, Albay, will be rehabilitated beginning next year at a cost of $1 billion. The money will come from a $50-million loan from the South Korean Export-Import Bank and another $900 million from the Chinese government.

Now for the bad news: Squatters living along the railroad tracks in Bulacan and Pampanga have formed a "caravan" to block the government from ejecting them to give way to the NorthRail, to whom the rail tracks belong in the first place. The NorthRail will revive railroad service from Caloocan to Malolos, then to Clark and Subic, and eventually to San Fernando, La Union. The squatters want the government to abandon the project so they won't be disturbed from the railroad tracks that they have appropriated for themselves.

Only in the Philippines will you find lawbreakers telling the government what to do. Only in the Philippines will you find the government paying a fortune to squatters who don't pay any taxes at all. And only in the Philippines will you find politicians who coddle lawbreakers.

What these squatters don't realize is that the NorthRail -- as well as the South Line -- is the best thing that can happen to them. For the railroad will provide them fast and cheap transportation to and from where they will be relocated to wherever they want to go. Even if they are relocated in Pampanga or Bulacan, they can go to Metro Manila or to wherever in Luzon in a matter of minutes, at a fraction of what they would pay in bus and jeepney fares.

They can live in well-planned housing projects in the countryside where there is plenty of space and fresh air and still commute quickly to their places of work. No more "home along the riles" where they live in squalor and are exposed to danger at all times. In the relocation sites, they will own their lots and homes and nobody can drive them away from there.

These squatters also don't realize that under existing laws, they don't have to be relocated or given P50,000 each as disturbance fee. The law mandates that squatters in the right of way of government infrastructure projects, such as streets and railroads, are not entitled to relocation. The government can throw them out anytime. So the government is really bending over backward by offering to relocate them.

* * *

Politicians opposing the NorthRail say it is too expensive, that it would cost P1 billion per kilometer.

Wrong. Since the total project cost is $503.04 million, the distance from Caloocan to Malolos is 32.2 km, and the exchange rate is P56 to $1, they took out their calculators and came out with a cost of P875 million (almost P1 billion) per kilometer.

Wrong again. This is a double-track railroad, so the rail length is actually double -- 64.4 km -- and thus its cost is really only P248.39 million per kilometer of track.

Besides, the total cost includes the rolling stock (the locomotives and coaches: $87.79 million for 21 units), whereas highway projects do not include the cost of the vehicles that use them. Highway construction also does not include maintenance facilities for the vehicles, whereas a railways system requires a depot and maintenance yard ($14.53 million). Also, the capacity of a highway in terms of moving people and goods is very much less than that of a railroad.

Full speed ahead for railroad, north and south

2004-12-01T16:35:00.000-08:00

Full speed ahead for railroad, north and south

Updated 01:56am (Mla time) Dec 01, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 1, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

SOME opposition senators have got their priorities screwed up. They are opposing the NorthRail because the project, they say, would displace the squatters along the railroad tracks. They give more importance to law violators than to the railroad that will benefit the whole country by making the transport of cargo and passengers faster and cheaper while decongesting the highways and roads of Luzon. The reason for their strange behavior, of course, is politics. By pretending to fight for the squatters, they are already courting their votes even if the next election is still more than two years away.

In the first place, the squatters will not just be ejected. On the contrary, they will be relocated to several housing projects from the squalid, congested and dangerous squatter colonies where they live only inches away from the railroad tracks and death. This, even if there is a law that says squatters on the right of way of government infrastructure projects (such as railroads) are not entitled to relocation or assistance. But the squatters along the tracks of the NorthRail can choose from relocation sites in Towerville, San Jose del Monte, Barangay Bignay, Valenzuela, both in Bulacan, or Rodriguez in Rizal.

The latter is just next door to Metro Manila and much bigger. It is a 2,500-hectare site for a mass housing project only 15 percent of which is occupied. It can accommodate 20,000 more families. And unlike other municipalities that don't want to be relocation sites for squatters, Rodriguez Mayor Pedro Cuerpo is inviting them to settle there.

Those who would like to go back to their provinces will each be given a P50,000 financial assistance under the "Balik-Probinsiya" program. They can use the money for transportation home, to buy a home lot, build a modest house, or as capital for a livelihood project.

Relocation is always the best choice for squatters. Those who were relocated to Pagasa in Quezon City, Sapang Palay in Bulacan, and other relocation sites are now glad they were relocated although they resisted it initially. These squatters are now modestly wealthy as the lots awarded to them are now worth many times what they paid for them. Many of them have flourishing businesses there.

On the other hand, those who resisted relocation are still living in the same squalid and unhealthy conditions. So if politicians try to prevent the relocation of squatters, they are not really after the welfare of the squatters. They are only after the votes of the squatters.

* * *

I think reviving and improving the railroad in the whole island of Luzon, along with the "nautical highway" to link the islands of the Philippines from Luzon to Mindanao, is the best project of President Macapagal-Arroyo. They have very high social and economic returns. They will drastically reduce the cost of transporting goods and people all over the archipelago. For instance, the rail fare from Caloocan to Malolos is P43 as against P70 in bus fare, not including the additional fee for the toll on the expressway. For the first year of full operation, it is projected that there will be 164,745 passengers using the NorthRail daily. On the 10th year of operation, the projection is that the system will transport 363,193 passengers daily, plus thousands of tons of cargo.

All the world's progressive countries, developed and Third World (Europe, the United States, Russia, Japan, Australia, China, India, the Indo-Chinese countries, etc.), do not only have good railroads but are still improving them. We used to have a good enough railroad from Damortis, La Union, to Legazpi, Albay, until the administration of President Diosdado Macapagal. GMA's father used to take the train from Tutuban to Damortis when going to Baguio, so he had enough time and elbow room to work on official papers. The night train to Legazpi, the Bicol Express, was a relaxing way to travel such a long distance, what with air-conditioned, first-class coaches and dining cars. You could sleep comfortably on board and wake up refreshed the next morning in Legazpi.

After Macapagal, however, the Philippine National Railways was allowed to deteriorate, some say because of the lobby by American automotive makers promoting the use of buses, trucks and cars. After 35 years of neglect, the rail service to Damortis is no more, the tracks invaded by squatters. Tutuban, the main depot, was leased and converted into a shopping mall. The south line to Legazpi, while still running, has so deteriorated that derailment has become common, the latest of which happened in Quezon where scores were killed.

Since the NorthRail is already being funded by China, I think we should negotiate with another country like Japan, which has one of the most advanced technologies on railroads, to improve and finance the SouthRail. In fact, I think the NorthRail should be extended not only to San Fernando, La Union, (the fourth phase) but all the way to Laoag, Ilocos Norte, and eventually around the tip of Luzon to Aparri, Cagayan, down to Cagayan Valley and back to Pangasinan.

The SouthRail, on the other hand, should be extended to Sorsogon, from where the nautical highway to the Visayas can begin. The New People's Army is strong in Sorsogon because it is largely undeveloped and the people feel they are neglected. The railroad will help in the development of the province and banish poverty and subversion there. For one, it would make it easy for trainloads of dollar-laden tourists who want to watch whale sharks and sun themselves on remote beaches to go to Sorsogon.

(To be continued)

GMA 'off the record' at the Inquirer

2004-11-29T00:00:00.000-08:00

GMA 'off the record' at the Inquirer

Updated 11:10pm (Mla time) Nov 28, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 29, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

AFTER ARRIVING Friday morning from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, then going to the typhoon-ravaged provinces in the Bicol Region, and receiving Angelito Nayan at Malacañang, President Macapagal-Arroyo still managed to go to the Inquirer offices in Makati the same evening for a late dinner with the newspaper's senior editors, executives, columnists and reporters. She stayed for three hours, chatting until 1 a.m.

Alas, most of what she said was "off the record," so we can't report the more interesting part of her talkathon.

"When I start sipping wine, what I say is usually off the record," the President said. Since she started sipping red wine quite early, you can imagine how much of what she said you are going to miss. Whenever somebody started scribbling, the President would call him or her by name and say "off the record." What she said "on the record," you've already read in the three front-page stories written by Malacañang reporter Juliet Labog-Javellana and in the column of Belinda Olivares-Cunanan in Saturday's Inquirer.

"Off the record" interviews are very useful to journalists as background information. Because of them, journalists get a fuller understanding of facts and information when they write other stories later on. So even if nothing is written about these "off the record" sessions, they are not wasted.

Another benefit of "off the record" interviews is that the subject becomes more frank, less guarded and less inhibited. When a subject is speaking "on the record," he thinks twice before opening his mouth, and he chooses his words carefully lest he gets to say the wrong thing or gets to be misunderstood. Even so, subjects sometimes do say the wrong things or are misunderstood and have to issue denials or statements clarifying what they had said earlier-as what happened to presidential son Rep. Mikey Arroyo two days ago on his statement supporting a bill legalizing marijuana.

But when it is understood that what he is going to say is "off the record," a subject can blurt out confidential information, even secrets, and he can be sure that these secrets will stay as such.

It is during these sessions that the discerning journalist gets an insight into the character of his subject and understands him and what he says better and in the right context.

The image of public figures is usually impressed on the public by the glare of media. Sometimes, this image is false, often the result of expert manipulation by their publicity handlers. The words, the speeches they utter are not theirs but those of ghost writers. Sometimes, even the ideas are not theirs but those of many advisers, writers and spin masters.

This falsity and manipulation continue in press conferences and interviews. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish the real person from the artificial public figure.

Even "authorized" biographies are sometimes manipulated. Since the biography is "authorized" by the subject, you can be sure that what the biographer writes is what the subject wants the public to read about him-and naturally, that is what is complimentary to him. Not so with "unauthorized" biographies that are hated by their subjects, some of whom even try to stop their publication. Examples are the "unauthorized" biographies of celebrities written by Kitty Kelley, the latest of which is on the Bush family. The public image of the family of the two American presidents is very different from the Bush family that Ms Kelley wrote about.

But back to President Arroyo and her "off the record" chat with the Inquirer, I have revised some of my impressions of her because of that chat. Contrary to my earlier impression that she is overdoing her handshaking routine in the provinces in a desperate effort to remain popular, I think she has now accepted the fact that she cannot make everybody happy. She has now resigned herself to being unpopular.

In emphasizing that she would push her unpopular tax measures through Congress, she blurted out, "I'm already unpopular anyway."

However, she does not want to be unpopular with the members of Congress because they may block her tax measures. She was very evasive when asked about the restoration of the pork barrel in full by the congressmen. It may be recalled that she had earlier asked them to cut it by 40 percent.

I also got the impression that she is a cockeyed optimist. She is confident that Congress will pass four tax measures before year-end, that these measures will yield an additional P80 billion in taxes, and that the pork barrel will stay cut. Does she really have that much faith in our legislators, or was she just pretending?

But how determined is she? She seems to be very strong-willed, as if she can do anything through sheer will power.

* * *

Winners in this year's NVM Gonzalez Awards for the Short Story category will get their prizes at ceremonies to be held starting 4 p.m. tomorrow at the Executive House, University of the Philippines, Diliman campus, Quezon City.

First prize winner is Angelo R. Lacuesta for his short story "Rest Stop."

Second prize winner is Arvin Aejo Magohig for "Megastar."

Third prize goes to U.Z. Eliserio for "The Proper Use of Elbows."

Another story by Lacuesta, "Leather," was also a finalist.

* * *

Also tomorrow is the reunion of the alumni of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters (Philets) and Faculty of Arts and Letters (Artlets) of the University of Sto. Tomas at the Manila Hotel starting at 7 p.m.

* * *

No Kapihan sa Manila at the Manila Hotel this morning to allow people to enjoy the holiday.

What, congressmen want more pork?

2004-11-26T13:49:00.000-08:00

What, congressmen want more pork?

Updated 01:23am (Mla time) Nov 26, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 26, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

NOT content with restoring in full their pork barrel allocations (at P70 million per congressman and P200 million per senator), 20 members of the House of Representatives have signed a resolution asking the Speaker and the appropriations committee chair to increase their pork allocations. And they're not ashamed of it, they admitted.

Their greed knows no bounds. Like the greedy ogre who kept squeezing the goose that laid the golden eggs for more eggs, shouting "More! More! More!" until the poor goose died, the greedy congressmen are squeezing the taxpayers, shouting "More! More! More!" when the taxpayers have nothing more to give.

These 20 congressmen claim they need more pork because they represent the 20 "poorest provinces." They may indeed be "poor" but they hardly need additional pork. Most of them are island provinces with small areas and even smaller populations.

To give you one example, let's take the province of Batanes. The whole province has a population smaller than that of one “barangay” [neighborhood district] in Quezon City. Yet its congressman gets P70 million in pork year after year, the same as the congressman for Malabon City and Navotas town, which share one representative in the House. All the streets of Batanes are now concreted, including the one leading to the house of its congressman, so where will the additional pork go? He cannot build more waiting sheds because there is hardly any public transportation there and the main island of Batan is so small one can walk from one end to the other. So where will the additional pork go?

Besides, haven't they heard that the national government is bankrupt and can't balance its budget and pay its foreign debt? And that the government is squeezing its citizens-already hard pressed by the rising prices of everything -- of more taxes? And that Congress itself is in the process of passing more tax measures? How can our lawmakers have the temerity to impose more taxes when they themselves will spend much of that money? They have no moral right to do that. But they are not ashamed to do that. Really shameless!

So what can the people do if Congress goes through with this shameless betrayal, and if the President gets cold feet and does not veto the pork allocations? In such a case, I think the people are justified in waging a tax boycott. They can't afford to pay any more in the first place. They don't even have enough for their daily needs.

So Mrs. President, "honorable" congressmen, “maawa naman kayo. Mahiya naman kayo.”

* * *

Remember the Smokey Mountain reclamation scandal exposed by former solicitor general Frank Chavez and Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago? They said it was unconstitutional and made several government financial institutions lose billions of pesos. Well, it is turning out that the expos‚s were only the smoke from a fire smoldering in, of all places, the sea, if we are to believe Parañaque City Representative Ed Zialcita. He blames the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) for igniting the fire.

You see, the flash point is the competition between an established monopoly in port operations and a newcomer with better facilities and cheaper rates. On one side are the International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI), the Asian Terminals Inc. (ATI), and the North Harbor and South Harbor; on the other side is the new Harbour Centre, owned by R-II Builders. These four ports compete with one another in attracting ships and cargo to their respective service areas.

R-II Builders! Isn't that the firm that reclaimed and developed the Smokey Mountain housing project? Exactly. As payment for developing the project and reclaiming the land, R-II was allowed the use of 2.79 hectares out of the 79 hectares of reclaimed land. R-II developed the 2.79 hectares into Harbour Centre.

Harbour Centre got the PPA permit to handle all kinds of domestic cargo and foreign bulk and break-bulk cargo. The port now handles 80 percent of all bulk and break-bulk cargo coming into Manila ports because of greater efficiency and lower rates. The half-price service rate offered by Harbour Centre can be seen as the fruits of competition. Zialcita adds that this could be an indication "that the rates of existing port operators -- ICTSI and ATI -- are grossly overpriced."

In the competition, the PPA is the referee, vested with regulatory powers. Not only the referee, and a biased one at that, but also the judge, jury and executioner.

To date, the PPA has not given Harbour Centre a permit to handle foreign containerized cargo. Why? To protect the monopoly of ICTSI and ATI on the lucrative container traffic, says Zialcita. What's more, the monopoly was extended without public bidding and the contracts increased the scope of services that were not in the original contract.

Zialcita asked a number of questions in a privilege speech in the House:

1. Is the PPA regulating against competition to protect its own interest (it owns some ports) even at the expense of public interest?

2. Will the PPA, ICTSI and ATI lose from the competition from Harbour Centre?

3. Is it true that the same members of the so-called "consortium" that wanted to monopolize the entire port system in the country under the controversial Executive Order 59 (one operator nationwide, no bidding formula) are the same parties the PPA is protecting?

4. Has EO 308, rescinding EO 59 to promote competition and transparency in the privatization of North Harbor, been implemented?

5. Whatever happened to the Phividec container port in Cagayan de Oro City? What is happening in the ports of Cebu, Batangas, General Santos City, and Subic?

6. How much has the government lost and will continue to lose from the favor extended by the PPA to members of the "consortium"?

GMA can still veto restored pork barrel

2004-11-22T23:03:00.000-08:00

GMA can still veto restored pork barrel

Updated 03:59am (Mla time) Nov 22, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 22, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

PERHAPS, the story was too good to be true: Malacañang would cut the congressional pork barrel by at least 40 percent, and Congress would revert back to line-item budgeting to prevent half of the budgeted funds from going to kickbacks and being wasted in substandard public works projects. Perhaps, the public was being too gullible in believing the words of the President, the Speaker of the House and the congressmen that they were reducing the pork budget because of the fiscal crisis.

As all rotten things eventually stink, the truth is out: legislators will get their pork barrel in full-not a centavo less. Happy days are here again (for the members of Congress, but sad days for taxpayers). After all, the President herself has declared that the fiscal crisis is over. That was the signal to dive for the treasury like predators tearing into the carcass of their victim, or like swine digging their snouts into slop. If the President can spend tens of millions of scarce dollars traipsing all over the Americas, why should the legislators control their own greed and refrain from getting their share of the loot?

Well then, if the fiscal crisis is over and the government doesn't have to tighten its belt anymore, then there is no more need to increase taxes and to impose new ones. Why burden the people when it is not called for? Why ask the people to contribute to the Bayanihan Fund when there is no more crisis?

Even Budget Secretary Emilia Boncodin, who had submitted the budget with 40 percent of the pork barrel slashed, has now changed her tune. She now has good words for the much-maligned pork.

"I think the root cause of that (allegations that the fund has been abused and a major source of corruption) is the assumption that all pork barrel funds are lost to corruption which I think is a very unfair assumption," Boncodin said.

The President and her spokespersons have chosen not to comment.

But this will test the mettle of the President to push for reforms, reduce the budget deficit and the foreign debt, and nurse the economy back to health. But all indications point to the fact that she is a quack doctor, a fake who will lead her patient to his death. It looks like she will just lean back and do nothing so as not to displease the lawmakers. Why is she so scared of them when they are more rotten than her?

But if she is really sincere to push fiscal reforms, she can still do something even if Congress passes a budget bill with the pork barrel intact. She can still resort to line-item veto of pork hidden in specific appropriations. Congress cannot increase the total national budget submitted by the budget department, so the House must have taken the funds to restore the pork barrel in full from the appropriations of some other departments. What those departments are, nobody except the congressmen know yet.

Fortunately, the budget will still pass through the Senate which, hopefully, will restore sanity to it. The people have a little more respect for the senators in general (with some noteworthy exceptions, of course). But will the Senate live up to the people's expectations?

* * *

That was fast. On the same day that our column-about the plight of a disabled retiree being given the runaround at the Government Service Insurance System-came out, I got a faxed reply from Alex M. Valencerina, GSIS senior vice president for field operations.

Thank you very much for calling our attention to the plight of GSIS pensioner Mrs. Nenita U. Socrates, he wrote. "Immediately after reading it, we conducted a thorough background check to determine what we can do to help her.

"Based on our inquiries here at the home office, we learned that, indeed, Ms Socrates sent GSIS president Winston Garcia a handwritten letter last Nov. 1 asking for help. We received the letter, postmarked Nov. 4, last Nov. 10 (almost one week later; how slow) before it was forwarded to the concerned unit (the Pension Accounts Department) for proper action.

"Unfortunately, we were still preparing our reply when your column came up. We offer no excuses for the delay. It is just that, in an agency managing 1.5 million members with multiple accounts and transactions, things sometimes get out of hand, especially in the midst of an ongoing reform program which we are currently undertaking.

"Part of this program is to update the membership profile of all our individual members, pensioners and retirees and to feed these valuable data into our computerized database, a very basic process that unfortunately was never put in place during the past GSIS administrations.

"The systems-generated letter we sent Ms Socrates informing her that her pension would be suspended if she failed to update her records is simply part of our procedures to improve our database because, in the process of updating our records, we found out that the GSIS has been paying out pensions to members and retirees who have long passed away as we had no effective way of checking the actual physical conditions of our pensioners all over the country. Thus, we now require them to physically report to our offices at least once a year to secure or renew their identification cards.

"For pensioners who are unable to physically go to our offices, as in the case of Ms Socrates, we have a home visit program. As of this writing, GSIS personnel from the Quezon City branch are on the way to visit her and facilitate the issuance or renewal of her ID to avoid any disruption to her pension benefits.

"We have also called Ms Socrates to offer our apologies and to assure her that she will continue to receive her pension checks regularly."

Disabled GSIS pensioner pleads for help

2004-11-19T03:21:00.000-08:00

Disabled GSIS pensioner pleads for help

Updated 03:21am (Mla time) Nov 19, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 19, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

IS there a jinx haunting former President Corazon Aquino? Barely 11 months into her term as the country's president, 12 farmers picketing Malacañang were killed in the infamous "Mendiola Massacre." Four days ago, seven farmer-strikers were killed in what is now being billed as the "Hacienda Luisita Massacre." (The casualty number has gone up to 14 as of yesterday.) Neither of them is her fault; the fault lies with trigger-happy soldiers and policemen. But alas, her name and that of her family will always be associated with these tragedies.

Who sent the soldiers to Hacienda Luisita? Who gave the order to shoot? Who among them actually shot at the crowd? Were there infiltrators among the strikers?

These and a thousand and one other questions have to be answered satisfactorily by those assigned to investigate the incident.

* * *

When people lose faith in government institutions, when public officials don't listen to them and give them the runaround, they run for help to the media. But the media have no authority to force public officials to do their jobs. All they can do is to let the public know about the problem, the complaint, and hope something will be done about it.

Like other journalists, I get plenty of such appeals for help, and I write about those that I find meritorious as much as space permits. Still, some don't get the publicity. There's just not enough space for all of them.

But I think our public officials should attend to this SOS from an 81-year-old widow. She has suffered a stroke, is partially paralyzed and is confined to a wheelchair. She used to be a professor of the University of the Philippines. She is now retired and survives on her pension from the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS).

Her plea for help has a certain urgency because her pension would be stopped next month if she fails to submit certain documents to the GSIS before Nov. 30. Her name is Mrs. Nenita U. Socrates, in case this rings a bell to certain GSIS employees or to General Manager Winston Garcia himself. She said she has written a letter to Garcia but, until now, she has not received any response, not even an acknowledgement; no help either, "not even just an advice on what to do," despite numerous follow-up phone calls.

She sent me a copy of the letter she sent to Garcia. In it, she acknowledged receipt of a letter from the GSIS main office telling her that she has no pensioner's identification card or that she has not renewed it if she already has one. "Enumerated in the letter were papers I had to accomplish and secure and personally take to the main office" at the reclamation area off Roxas Boulevad in Pasay City. Mrs. Socrates lives in Quezon City. She has until Nov. 30 to do all these; otherwise her pension would be stopped.

"I was flabbergasted," she wrote, "because I have been receiving my pension for the last 35 years without these requirements. Furthermore, this was the first time I heard of such requirements."

Because she was disabled, she said she called the main office to ask to be allowed to submit the required documents to the GSIS branch in Quezon City. She was given permission to do so.

She had to "move heaven and earth" to procure the needed documents and satisfy the GSIS requirements. "There is no one to help me," she said, "except my 55-year-old caregiver without whose help living is difficult for me, even dangerous. It is impossible for me to even feed myself.

"When all the requirements were met, I sent my caregiver to the GSIS, QC branch. She came home after spending more than four hours in that office, trying to submit those damn requirements to no avail. She was informed by one employee that she has to go to the main office; another [told her] that papers of pensioners were not being processed yet (but could not tell when it could be done). Still another guard advised her to join the kilometric line; many of those in the line said they had been there since three hours after midnight. Not one guard or personnel she approached could tell her what the line was for. Those in line gave different reasons for lining up, most to get an E-card, but none were trying to apply for a pensioner's ID. I tried personally phoning the main office but which is next to impossible."

She added: "I am aware many government offices are belatedly trying to initiate reforms which is commendable. But look at the confusion, displacement, disarray, loss of income, wasted hours, effort and money resulting in anger on the part of persons affected by such disorder. Why is it not possible for the office concerned, especially its head, to sit down and involve brilliant and efficient organizers to map out a plan that would make the execution of these reforms client-friendly and comfortable?"

What does the GSIS want her to do now? "Sit down at the curb of a street and ask for alms when my pension ceases?" she asked. "I cannot survive without my monthly pension especially because it will be withheld starting December, Christmastime. Please help me."

Let me summarize the problem: Mrs. Socrates has completed the documents the GSIS is asking from her. Since she is disabled and the main office is very far from her residence, she asked the GSIS if she may submit them to the Quezon City branch and was told she may. But when she sent her helper to the Quezon City branch to submit the documents, she was given the runaround. She wrote to Mr. Winston Garcia but has not gotten any reply.

She is now rather frantic because the GSIS has threatened to stop her pension starting next month if she does not submit the papers before Nov. 30. What should she do? Can anybody help her?

Bad news for abducted Filipinos

2004-11-17T15:53:00.000-08:00

Bad news for abducted Filipinos?

Updated 01:48am (Mla time) Nov 17, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 17, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE MUCH ballyhooed phone call of President George W. Bush to President Gloria Mapacagal-Arroyo may be good news for Malacañang, but it could be very bad news for abducted Filipinos Angelito Nayan and Roberto Tarongoy. The phone call and the selection of the Philippines to lead the anti-terror task force of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation may prompt President Arroyo to sacrifice them to prove a hardline stance against terrorists.

Angelo de la Cruz was a lucky victim. President Arroyo pulled the Filipino troops out of Iraq to save him before Bush could cold-shoulder her. Since then, she has been trying hard to get back into his good graces. Nayan and Tarongoy may not get the same compassionate treatment.

President Arroyo is so scared her plummeting popularity would hit rock bottom that she is courting everybody, when all she needs to do to be loved by the people is to do her job properly and get the ship of state back on keel.

* * *

Quezon City Treasurer Victor Endriga sent a letter commenting on my three columns regarding a lot sold by his office at public auction without the knowledge of the owners.

In his letter, Endriga said the "Del Rosarios should have endeavored to have the Tax Declaration transferred in their name. It is certainly not the fault of the city government that they failed to do this. How can the Del Rosarios be informed when they were not yet officially registered as the owner of the property concerned?"

(The Transfer Certificate of Title was already in their name, the transfer tax and other fees paid, said the Del Rosarios. For such a serious matter that would deprive a family of its property, the Quezon City treasurer should have exercised more prudence by verifying the ownership of the property through other documents -- which are literally at his fingertips -- before selling it, the couple say. Besides, Endriga didn't follow the rules, thus denying them due process, they added.)

"The auctioned property is specifically identified as Lot 29, Block 3, located at No. 19, and not at No. 10 as written in your column, Arzobispo Street, New Intramuros Village, Quezon City as per Tax Declaration No. D-67-1849," continued Endriga.

(The lot was sold long before the column was written. The address in the column didn't matter.)

"Our office complied with all the requirements and processes before the said property was sold at public auction."

(The owners don't think so. Anyway, the requirements and processes are intended to prevent mistakes and a miscarriage of justice. Endriga's actions resulted in a monumental error and miscarriage of justice that should be rectified.)

"We do not wish to make further comments on this since this case is now pending before the Court.

"Your suggestions on what the city administration should do about the problems of squatters are well-taken. They are exactly what Mayor Feliciano Belmonte has been doing since he was elected mayor in 2001. In fact, the city government has created a corporation, the Housing and Urban Renewal Administration (HURA) -- perhaps the first local government to do so -- tasked solely with building medium-rise and affordable housing units for urban poor families, particularly the informal settlers or squatters. I am aware of this program since I am the corporate secretary of HURA.

"The first such project at Escopa III is now almost ready for occupancy. Similar projects will soon be undertaken all over the city. Mayor Belmonte is also exerting efforts to acquire ideal relocation sites for the city's informal settlers."

(Another thing that the mayor should do is to prevent the entry of new squatters, otherwise there would be no end to the squatter problem and Quezon City would just exhaust all its resources without solving it. Also, prevent councilors and “barangay” [neighborhood district council] officials from coddling squatters and encouraging them to squat in Quezon City in exchange for their votes.)

"It is unfair to say that Quezon City became rich because it raised real estate property taxes. It still has one of the lowest rates of real estate taxes in Metro Manila. May we also point out that most of the income of the city government comes from business taxes. The city gained financial stability through efficient collection and the cooperation of the business community."

(But what is the government doing in exchange for the taxes paid? Is it helping the taxpaying owners to eject squatters from their properties? Is it protecting their properties from new squatters? Auctioning a property by mistake can hardly be called "efficient.")

"We are not unforgiving in our tax collection efforts. In fact, we offer substantial discounts for those who pay promptly their tax obligations. We also allow delinquent taxpayers to settle their obligations in easy installments after paying at least 30 percent of their delinquency."

(Why were the Del Rosarios not given such treatment? After the discovery of the error, why is the city government playing hardball instead of rectifying it?)

"The case of the Del Rosarios is clearly an isolated case. We exert all efforts to notify real estate owners on their overdue obligations. We have not been arbitrary nor capricious in selling at public auction delinquent real estate properties."

(Really? What effort? The Del Rosarios were living on the property that you sold. How come they could not be located before the auction but were easily found after the sale?

I am not heaping the blame on Mr. Endriga; He could not have foreseen everything that could go wrong. But his subordinates were clearly negligent and should be punished to prevent a repetition of this snafu.)

Arafat and how the Mideast conflict started

2004-11-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

Arafat and how the Mideast conflict started

Updated 11:12pm (Mla time) Nov 14, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 15, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

YASSER Arafat was a paradox, a man of contradictions: denounced as a terrorist but a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, along with his Israeli enemies, then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres; despised by the Israelis but loved by the Palestinians; a villain to much of the Western world but a hero to the Arabs; a fighter who, by his own admission, carried an olive branch in one hand and a gun in the other.

Even in death, he personifies contradictions. Half of the world mourns his demise, while the other half rejoices. Israelis believe his death will at last bring peace to the Middle East. But others fear it could spark a new wave of violence.

Arafat called himself a "freedom fighter," but he was widely known as a "terrorist." As leader of the Al Fatah movement that became the core of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, he sent gunmen to hijack airliners, machine-gun airports and, at one time, to seize and kill Israeli athletes bound for the 1972 Summer Olympics.

But the early leaders of the Jewish Zionist movement were "terrorists" themselves although they also called themselves "freedom fighters." Many of them became prime ministers of Israel. Without terrorism, Israel probably would not have been born. Without Arafat-who probably learned from the Zionist movement-there would be no Palestine nation now. Like the Israeli leaders, Arafat, the Arab terrorist, became the president of his people. Ironically, the early leaders of the two bitterly warring nations, Israel and Palestine, were birds of the same feather, brothers under the skin.

Arafat died before his dream of a separate, independent Palestinian state became a reality. But when an independent Palestine is born, Arafat will surely be hailed as its founder.

When the history of the Middle East is written, the Western world and the Arab world would have different versions. Arafat would be a villain in one but a hero in the other. History, after all, is written by the victors. Had Germany and Japan won World War II, Adolf Hitler and Hideki Tojo would have been hailed as heroes, and Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill would have been reviled as war criminals. And it would have been Gen. Douglas MacArthur who would have been hanged by Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, and not the other way around.

The Middle East conflict has been going on for a long time. When you think about it, it goes back to the biblical times, back to the time Moses parted the Red Sea as he led the Hebrews out of Egypt and out of bondage; and to the time Joshua brought them to the Promised Land-now the site of the present Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip (the latter two are occupied by the Palestinians).

The Hebrews said this land of milk and honey was promised to them by God. Unfortunately, there were already tribes living there. They were the ancestors of the Palestinians who claim they have more right to the land (earlier called Palestine) than the Hebrews, or Jews, or Israelis, who came later. In modern times, the Hebrews would be called "squatters" or "informal settlers."

But the Hebrews waged war on the tribes and founded their own kingdom of Israel that flowered during the reigns of King Solomon and King David. Israel later divided into two kingdoms, Israel and Judah. Divided, they were successively conquered by invading armies and the Jewish people dispersed and ceased to be a nation.

But the dispersed Jews never ceased to dream of going back to the homeland. The Zionist movement to establish the state of Israel was born. The League of Nations was sympathetic to the idea, but World War II interfered. The Holocaust, during which Jews in Europe were gassed to death in Hitler's concentration camps, gave the movement urgency.

After the war, the United Nations carved the state of Israel in the Middle East. The Arab world opposed this and when the Israeli state was born, armies from the surrounding Arab countries attacked it. That was the famous Six-Day War that Israel won decisively. The Arabs waged succeeding wars but were always defeated. This resulted in Israel occupying border territories that they refuse to return on the ground that they serve as a buffer zone against the hostile raids by Palestinian guerrillas.

Arafat and the PLO were able to win some form of autonomy for the Palestinians, but they insist on an independent state. In return, Israel wants to be accepted as an independent state with a right to be there. Both sides refuse to give in. And there the matter stands. Many people on both sides have already died-and more will surely die-because of this stubbornness.

It is said that the enmity between the Jews and the Arabs goes farther back than Moses and Joshua, back to Abraham. According to the Bible, Abraham had a wife, Sarah, who couldn't beget a child, so Abraham took his maid and had a son by her. Later, however, Sarah gave birth to her own son. As most wives usually do, she nagged Abraham to get rid of the maid and her son. And like most husbands, Abraham caved in to the wife's nagging and cast the poor maid and her son into the desert.

In the desert, as the boy lay dying of thirst, the maid prayed to God to save her son. An angel appeared to her and said they would be saved. Water flowed from under the boy. It became a spring from where they drank, and they were saved. It is said that the Arabs descended from this boy and that the Jews descended from the son of Sarah.

* * *

TODAY'S JOKE: Lady outside phone booth to man on phone: "Excuse me, sir, you've had the phone for the past 30 minutes but you haven't said a word."

Man: "Puwede ba, I'm talking to my wife."

Plug tax leaks first before raising taxes

2004-11-12T13:35:00.000-08:00

Plug tax leaks first before raising taxes

Updated 03:27am (Mla time) Nov 12, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 12, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE HOUSE of Representatives has passed the bill increasing the "sin taxes," but the sins were not treated equally. Tobacco was taxed much higher than alcohol. For which reason Sen. Ralph Recto said the tax bill "should not prescribe unequal acts of contrition by the two sinners. The wages of sin should be equal."

Compare the tax load on the two sin products:

For every P1 cigarette sale, almost 40 centavos goes to tax. Last year, out of gross tobacco sales of P49.6 billion, P19.4 billion went to the Treasury as excise tax, Recto said.

But for every peso paid for gin, rum, brandy and whisky, only 14 centavos goes to tax. Last year, out of gross sales of P34.77 billion of distilled spirits, only P4.78 billion was paid in taxes.

And in the case of cigarettes, shouldn't we plug the tax leaks first before raising taxes again? Because of the high prices of cigarettes due to high taxes, smuggling is rampant. Increase the taxes some more and smuggling will also increase.

Last year, we lost P2.9 billion in revenues through smuggling, according to Rep. Joey Salceda. He said cigarettes are able to escape taxes through Section 131 of the tax code that exempts cigarettes and liquor from excise taxes if these are transacted in Subic or Clark. In short, this is one form of "legalized smuggling."

Salceda said that if the idea of excise taxes is to penalize consumption of products with high social and health costs, it must apply to the products wherever they are sold. Imported cigarettes brought in through Clark, Subic and the Southern backdoor also cause lung cancer like those made and sold in the Philippines.

* * *

The Christmas season is also the season for reunions, and journalists, although most of their waking hours are spent chasing stories, are not spared this human yearning to see old friends and relive joyful times together. Although competition among reporters is very keen during working hours, camaraderie takes over after deadline. Bonding is exceptionally strong among journalists. When journalists happen to work together, they usually remain friends for life. And because many journalists work for different newspapers in the course of their careers, their friends are spread out not only in the industry but also in other fields, as many of them move on to politics and government, to business, law, advertising, public relations, etc.

By coincidence, veterans of different newspapers that have been closed by martial law are holding reunions this month and next. Most of them now work for other newspapers, but the call of old times together still pull them.

This Sunday, Nov. 14, alumni of the old Manila Chronicle (not to be confused with the new Manila Chronicle in the same way that the old Manila Times should not be confused with the new Manila Times) will reunite for lunch at Casa Armas, off Tomas Morato Avenue, Quezon City. The host is Mayor Feliciano Belmonte, who was a young police reporter of the Chronicle back when I.P. Soliongco, Armando Malay and Celso Cabrera were its top columnists.

On Nov. 20, it will be the turn of the veterans of the Daily Globe to get together for dinner at the Sanville, Quezon City residence of Rolando Estabillo, who was its managing editor before he joined Philippine Airlines as vice president for corporate communications.

And on Dec. 9, the alumni of The Evening News, which used to be the No. 1 newspaper back in the 1950s until a labor strike closed it (martial law closed the later Evening News that replaced it), will have their dinner-reunion at the Sunrise Terrace in Legaspi Village, Makati. Melody Santos-Drexler, who was one of its deskgirls when I was its managing editor and slot man, surrounded by the most beautiful, shapely and bright young girls in Philippine journalism then (among them, Julie Yap, Bobbie Malay, Carmen Hernandez, Minnie Montemayor, Mona Cabili), is hosting the dinner. Carmen, who is now residing in the United States, is coming home just for the reunion.

On Nov. 30, the biggest reunion will be held at the Manila Hotel for the alumni of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters (Philets) and the Faculty of Arts and Letters (Artlets) of the University of Sto. Tomas. Most of the present newspaper organizations are staffed with graduates of Philets and Artlets. The two colleges were combined into one Artlets years ago.

And on Nov. 25, Samahang Plaridel, the new press club composed of the top journalists in the country, will inaugurate its piano bar and clubhouse on the first and third floors of the Traveler's Life building at the corner of two Manila streets named after outstanding Filipino journalists and heroes, Marcelo H. del Pilar and Teodoro M. Kalaw. President Macapagal-Arroyo has been invited as the guest of honor.

Journalists are invited to all the above-mentioned reunions.

The Plaridel clubhouse and piano bar, named The Front Page, are designed to be the watering hole of journalists, a place to unwind after deadlines. Music, dancing, drinks, fine food and convivial company on the first floor, and a lounge with a reading room, piped-in mood music, a billiard room, its own kitchen and another bar, television sets, chess sets and an office with computers on the third floor.

Plaridel is also erecting a seven-foot statue of Del Pilar, a joint project with Manila Mayor Lito Atienza, at the Children's Park on F.B. Harrison Street in Malate. The bronze statue is being sculpted by well-known sculptor Julie Lluch. Plaridel is now conducting a fund drive for the monument. Wouldn't it be a nice gesture this Christmas to gift Del Pilar with a donation for his monument?

Justice vs miscarriage of justice

2004-11-10T10:06:00.000-08:00

Justice vs miscarriage of justice

Updated 00:44am (Mla time) Nov 10, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 10, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

A FINAL note on the case of spouses Martin and Melody del Rosario whose lot was sold at public auction by the Quezon City government without their knowledge to pay for their delinquent real estate taxes amounting to P3,102.75 (read my last three columns). The spouses have filed a petition with the Quezon City regional trial court to nullify the sale for lack of due process.

This is an example of the common conflict between substance and technicality, between true justice and a miscarriage of justice. Nullifying the sale won't do any harm to the buyer nor to City Hall. The P200,000 that the buyer paid for the property would be returned to him. And City Hall has already been paid by the Del Rosarios the back taxes, plus interest. But if it is not nullified, the couple would lose their home worth several millions of pesos. All because the Quezon City Treasurer's Office was careless and too much in a hurry to sell. It is very clear here where justice lies.

* * *

In reaction to the first part of the three-part series about squatters and the unfinished Congressional Avenue Extension, district engineer Oscar P. Cammayo of the Quezon City First Engineering District sent a letter on the progress of the construction of the street. He wrote:

"Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte had on several occasions gone out of his way to help our office in resolving right-of-way problems, particularly on squatter relocation.

"We had for instance solicited his assistance last Aug. 4, 2004 in the removal of 16 squatter families who were members of the Pioneer Residents Association of Congressional Avenue (PRACA). Mayor Belmonte was able to convince the 16 families to vacate the space occupied, enabling our office to proceed with the earth moving and eventual concrete paving of two lanes from T.M. Kalaw Street up to a distance of about 453 linear meters toward Salinglahi Area. This activity is still ongoing.

"Outside of the ongoing project, a stretch of about 342 meters remains to be constructed in order to reach Luzon Avenue. To construct a two-lane road will involve the removal of 37 families at Salinglahi Purok 4, 119 families at Luzonville and 50 families at the MWSS [Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System] aqueduct.

"Mayor Belmonte likewise held a meeting with Director Patric Gatan, DPWH [Department of Public Works and Highways] officer in charge of squatter relocation, in the later part of September 2004 to advise him on the need to immediately occupy the area along Congressional Avenue Extension between Violago Subdivision and Tandang Sora Avenue that was vacated by squatters who were relocated by the city government when their houses were burned.

"Director Gatan informed Mayor Belmonte during the meeting that apart from the squatter families, the parcel of land vacated were privately owned lots and there is a need to provide funds for the payment of the road right-of-way.

"DPWH Secretary Florante Soriquez has already recommended to the Department of Budget and Management the allocation of at least P30 million in order to partially pay for the land of the affected property owners. Secretary Soriquez also advised Director Emil Sadain from the DPWH President's Bridge Program Office to immediately proceed with the construction of the bridge across the Pasong Tamo River tributary.

"Mayor Belmonte and Pasong Tamo Barangay Captain Marivic Co-Pilar have likewise identified a relocation site within the vicinity for Pasong Tamo squatter families affected by this road construction. The relocation will start as soon as the site is ready for occupancy....

"More funds, particularly for payment of private lots, are needed and about 1.2 kilometers of road remains to be constructed. Nevertheless, we would like to express our profound gratitude for your continued concern and your unequivocal support in seeing through the completion of this project."

* * *

I bumped into the President’s son, Rep. Mikey Arroyo, and I jokingly asked him if he, like other children of top government officials, is also a member of the "committee on silence" in Congress.

The congressman replied that he may be silent but he has been working and that he takes his job seriously. "I am aware of my responsibilities and I take them seriously," he said. "I am still in the learning stage. I have to admit that I am still hesitant to participate in debates. But I attend sessions and committee hearings to observe and to learn."

He admits that being the son of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the grandson of President Diosdado Macapagal has made his election as congressman of Pampanga province fairly easy. However, it has made his job difficult because he would be walking in their shadow.

"I don't think I would ever come close to the achievements of my mother and my grandfather," he said, "but you can be sure that I will try my best."

Mikey is a member of the cooperative development committee, the committee on energy, and the public works and highways committee. He has sponsored and co-sponsored three House bills:

• HB 02068, which would create the Department of Housing, Planning and Urban Development to coordinate the activities of the many housing and urban development agencies and to rationalize the housing policies.

• HB 02388, which seeks to encourage the public to give information and evidence against public officials and employees who violate the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.

• HB 022896, which seeks to give a 20 percent discount on food purchases to members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the Philippine National Police, the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology and the Bureau of Fire Protection.

Couple to be deprived of lot without due process

2004-11-08T00:00:00.000-08:00

Couple to be deprived of lot without due process

Updated 11:49pm (Mla time) Nov 07, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 8, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

(Last of three parts)

SPOUSES Martin and Melody del Rosario, absolute owners of a house and lot in New Intramuros Village, Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City, are going to lose their property without their knowledge and without due process, despite the constitutional guarantee that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process." They were never informed that a warrant of levy on their property had been issued, that the lot would be and had indeed been sold at public auction, and that the one-year period for redeeming the property had already expired. The appropriate notices were all sent to the wrong person.

To determine ownership of the property, the QC treasurer relied solely on the tax declaration (which has not been transferred to the Del Rosarios despite the payment of the transfer tax). It would have been prudent and easy for the treasurer to verify with the QC Register of Deeds, whose office is located in the same building and only one phone call away. But he did no such thing.

Besides, there are other documents to determine ownership, such as the deed of absolute sale, the certificate authorizing registration and the transfer tax receipt. All these are at the fingertips of the city treasurer.

The spouses wonder: "It is strange that City Hall could not find us (they reside on the property itself) and never thought of us when they were auctioning our property. But they miraculously did after they had awarded our property to a party that paid a paltry sum of P200,000 in relation to the true worth of the property."

City Hall claims that it used the tax declaration to ascertain the property's owner and where he lived.

But where does it say in the law that where a property is up for auction, the tax declaration would suffice to determine true ownership? Conversely, where does it say in the law that City Hall is inhibited from cross-checking other relevant documents, the most important of which is the title? In fact, justice and prudence demand that City Hall should do this if only to make sure it would not be transgressing on the property rights of a citizen.

3. The city treasurer is obliged by law to remit that part of the sale proceeds in excess of the tax delinquency (including interest), and sale expenses. The property was sold for P200,000 to satisfy a tax delinquency of P3,102.75. With the interest and sale expenses, the total liability added up to P9,553.47. Therefore, there was an excess of P190,446.53 which the city treasurer was duty-bound to remit to the Del Rosarios. Had he done this, the couple would have learned of the sale and would have had an opportunity to contest the sale and redeem the property within the grace period. But the treasurer did no such thing. It was gross negligence.

In the civil suit seeking payment for damages from city treasurer Victor B. Endriga and the buyer, Agasee Properties and Holding Corp. (APHC), the Del Rosarios wondered if the sale was "a willful intention to defraud the petitioners of their hard-earned property."

4. The Del Rosarios also charged APHC with apparent "bad faith" and negligence. Prospective participants in auction sales are enjoined by existing rules to first ascertain for themselves the existence of the title to the property they intend to buy before making any bid. Considering the amount of its bid, APHC should have verified property ownership, including an ocular inspection. This would have led APHC to discover that TCT 125655 in the name of spouses Maling was already cancelled and replaced by TCT 203106 in the name of spouses Del Rosario. Did APHC not know this fact or, knowing, "chose to conceal this fact to deprive the (real owners) of the chance to be notified of the auction sale and redeem it"? Article 19 of the Civil Code says that "every person must, in the exercise of his rights and in the performance of his duties, act with justice, give everyone his due and observe honesty and good faith."

5. The law says that the city treasurer may auction a delinquent property (after the owner has been properly notified and he ignores the notification) "if the delinquency covers many years and the tax involved has run into a considerable sum."

But the delinquency did not cover "many years" and did not involve "a considerable sum." The period was less than three years and the amount involved was only P3,102.75.

The owners may have been negligent in not paying the tax promptly, but isn't depriving them of the property too harsh and constitutes an injustice?

6. Another question: City Hall sold only the lot where the house of the Del Rosarios stand because it is the lot that has a tax delinquency. What happens now to the house?

The auction rule and procedures City Hall has prescribed say that the lot and house should be auctioned off one after the other to avert a situation of conflicting ownerships.

The Del Rosarios wrote: "Possibly, the winning bidder made an ocular inspection of our property, saw a house worth millions of pesos on the lot being auctioned and forthwith offered to buy it at P200,000. So on a technicality that we failed to redeem the property within one year (which was due to bureaucratic inefficiency), he is asking the court to take the property from us and give it to him."

Let's face it: City Hall violated due process in selling the Del Rosario lot. Due process is a sacred right guaranteed by our Constitution. Even squatters are given formal notice of eviction. What about the law-abiding, tax-paying citizens like the Del Rosarios? The lot where they live was arbitrarily sold by City Hall without warning and without due process. Can anything be more vile?

Quezon City violated rules in auction of lot

2004-11-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

Quezon City violated rules in auction of lot

Updated 06:43am (Mla time) Nov 06, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 5, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

HERE is a paradox: In Quezon City, it is very difficult to eject law-breaking, non-taxpaying squatters from one's property but a law-abiding, tax-paying property owner can easily lose his lot if he is late in paying his real estate tax. In fact, the city government is reluctant to help lot owners eject squatters or just prevent them from squatting on legitimately owned lots, but it is very quick in selling at public auction -- even resorting to shortcuts and denying the owners due process-properties whose realty taxes are delinquent.

It is because of this too-quick-on-the-draw auctions that the city has amassed billions of excess funds. Quezon City is now the richest city in the Philippines. But what good are those billions of pesos if they are not used to serve its constituents and instead are used to dispossess law-abiding owners of their properties?

Taxpayers are supposed to be rewarded and lawbreakers like squatters punished. Not in Quezon City. It is the other way around. Lot owners live under a "reign of terror." If squatters take a liking for your lot and choose to live there, say goodbye to it. Don't expect the government to help you reclaim your lot. It won't. It wants only to collect the taxes on it. And if you are not prompt in paying them, you may lose it completely with the government itself, in an ironic twist of fate, stealing it from you. Listen to this true story.

Spouses Martin and Melody del Rosario are the absolute owners of a house and lot located at 10 Arzobispo Street, New Intramuros Village, Quezon City (bought on Aug. 28, 1998, from Edward and Cynthia Maling), with Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT) No. 202106. They have been living there since 1998.

Imagine their shock when some time in August 2004, a copy of an order of the regional trial court of Quezon City, Branch 98, was posted on their property. It was a notice of hearing on a petition seeking to cancel the TCT covering their property and to issue a new title in the name of Agasee Properties and Holding Corp. (APHC).

What happened? The property was fully paid for as were all the required taxes and fees for the cancellation of the seller's torrens title over the property and the issuance of a new one in favor of the buyers. Why are the Del Rosarios now being dispossessed of their home?

A hurried check with City Hall showed that the pertinent tax declaration had not yet been transferred under their names despite the payment of the transfer taxes. As a result, they forgot to pay the real estate taxes from 1999 to 2002 and the Quezon City Treasurer's Office sold the lot (but not the house) in a public auction. The buyer was APHC, a trading and holding corporation. The market price of the 150 sq m lot in a tony subdivision along Commonwealth Avenue is in the millions of pesos, but it was sold to APHC for only P200,000. The total amount of unpaid realty taxes was only P3,102.75, which the Del Rosarios immediately paid after discovery of the snafu. The Quezon City Treasurer accepted the payment. Like the lost nail that resulted in the loss of a horseshoe that in turn resulted in the loss of a battle, the Del Rosarios were going to lose their home for a measly P3,102.75.

The Bill of Rights provides that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process." Yet, the Del Rosarios are being deprived of their property without due process. They were never informed that they were delinquent in the payment of realty tax, that their property was going to be sold by the Quezon City government at public auction, or that it was in fact sold to APHC, until that order of the court was posted on the property.

The Local Government Code clearly sets the procedures to be taken by a local government unit in the collection of real estate taxes by summary remedies. Most of these were violated in the rush to sell. Witness:

1. A warrant of levy must first be issued by the city treasurer, accompanied by a certificate stating the delinquent owner's name and liability. The warrant is either mailed or served on the owner or, in case he cannot be located, to the administrator or occupant of the property. The levying officer shall make a report on the levy to the “sanggunian” [city council] within 10 days after receipt by the owner of the warrant.

An examination of the action taken by the Quezon City Treasurer's Office showed that the procedures were not followed. The warrant of levy was addressed to Edward Maling who no longer owned the property and had no obligation to pay the tax or else be considered as a delinquent taxpayer. Maling was no longer living in that address for a number of years. The warrant should have been served on the occupants, the Del Rosarios. The signature of the recipient is not even recognizable. Moreover, the server of the warrant did not make a report to the “sanggunian” within 10 days as required by the Code.

2. The procedure in auction sales for tax delinquency, being a derogation of property rights, is also strictly prescribed. Strict adherence is imperative not only to protect the taxpayers but also to allay any suspicion of collusion between the buyer and the public officials enforcing such laws. The courts have consistently ruled that a notice of sale to the delinquent property owner is an essential requirement of law, the non-fulfillment of which vitiates the auction sale.

The Del Rosarios were never informed that their property was going to be sold. Hence, their rights were violated. Therefore, the sale to APHC cannot bind the true owners, the Del Rosarios, since the property was owned by the latter and not by Edward Maling at the time of sale.

More on this later.

Lot owners victimized by squatters and city gov't

2004-11-03T10:34:00.000-08:00

Lot owners victimized by squatters and city gov't

Updated 11:19pm (Mla time) Nov 02, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on Page A14 of the November 3, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

WHAT'S happening to Quezon City? Under Mayor Feliciano Belmonte, it has become the richest city in the Philippines, with billions of pesos in excess funds deposited in banks. But Quezon City also has the biggest number of squatters, so that it is called "the squatter capital of the Philippines." That means it also has the most number of lot owners victimized by squatters.

Ironically, Quezon City is now the richest city because of these property owners paying increasingly higher real estate taxes, and they include the lot owners whose lots have been taken over by squatters. Yes, the victimized owners have to continue paying realty taxes even if squatters are the ones using and benefiting from the properties. To add insult to injury, the property taxes keep rising as the city assessor keeps increasing their assessed value at the same rate as lots free from squatters. And in the unkindest cut of all, the city government refuses to help the lot owners eject the squatters from their properties even as it forces the owners to pay the higher taxes.

With so much money in the banks, the city government can afford to buy vacant lots at fair market prices, construct medium-rise homes, and relocate the squatters. The true owners can then build their own homes on their lots and pay more and higher taxes and the city's coffers will be even richer. At the same time, it would be serving all its constituents, taxpayers and non-taxpayers alike.

But Quezon City does no such thing. It would rather serve the non-taxpayers, the squatters, at the expense of the taxpayers, the property owners. While it does not help the owners to reclaim their properties, its congressmen, councilors and “barangay” [neighborhood district] council officials coddle the squatters.

Using taxpayers' money, they build basketball courts for the squatters-on areas set aside for public streets. They build concrete streets for the squatters through private lots, complete with waiting sheds, and the city council passes ordinances authorizing tricycles carrying squatters to pass through private streets in private subdivisions maintained with private funds. At the same time, they refuse to allocate funds for legitimate streets long scheduled for construction. The congressmen, quick to allocate pork barrel funds for basketball courts and waiting sheds, paradoxically refuse to contribute part of their pork barrel to help fund these streets.

A good example is the unfinished Congressional Avenue Extension. This avenue runs from the EDSA highway, across from Roosevelt Avenue, and, when finished, will connect to Luzon Avenue. It runs parallel to Commonwealth and Quezon Avenues and would greatly ease the heavy traffic in these two streets. The longer portion, from EDSA to Tandang Sora Avenue, with eight lanes, has been finished and in use for many years. But the remaining 1.5-kilometer portion to Luzon Avenue remains unfinished until now. The reason? Squatters!

The right of way is there, but it has been invaded by squatters, no doubt encouraged by local officials courting votes.

Taxpaying residents of more than a dozen subdivisions lining this unfinished portion, who have to pass through other subdivisions and pay several vehicle sticker fees to go home, have formed a confederation that has long been lobbying the government to finish the street. A number of public works secretaries have come and gone but they all pleaded "no budget." The House of Representatives appropriations committee forgets to appropriate the funds every year.

To his credit, former congressman Chuck Mathay used some of his pork barrel for the paving of part of one lane, but it is like a drop in the bucket. Vice President Noli de Castro, Senator Juan Flavier and at least four congressmen living in one of the subdivisions along Congressional Avenue would be benefited by its completion but none of them contributed even a peso of their pork.

Mathay was also negotiating for a relocation site for the squatters but he was defeated in the last elections, and I don't know what his replacement is doing about it.

There is a big vacant lot at the corner of Congressional and Luzon Avenues that is big enough for two or three medium-rise buildings for the squatters. With its billions, the city government can easily buy the lot from the Development Bank of the Philippines and construct such buildings. Local governments, after all, are mandated to provide homes or relocation sites for their squatters. But nobody is moving, nobody except the residents of the subdivisions beating their heads against a blank bureaucratic wall to have the street finished. National and local officials would rather coddle non-taxpaying squatters than serve the law-abiding citizens paying the taxes used for their salaries.

Much of the billions Quezon City has come from real estate taxes paid by the property owners who are threatened with losing their properties if they don't pay on time. The city has an unforgiving tax collection effort. You are delinquent in your realty tax payment, your property gets auctioned off. While it is very difficult to eject squatters, it is very easy for legitimate owners to lose their properties through public auction.

But is Quezon City overdoing it? Is it too quick in selling properties at public auction? Worse, have slick operators and land-grabbing syndicates infiltrated the auction proceedings to grab land from unsuspecting owners through what we may call "legal robbery"? Believe it or not, some people have already been victimized this way.

That will be discussed in the next column.

Mythological monsters for All Saints' Day

2004-11-01T21:55:00.000-08:00

Mythological monsters for All Saints' Day

Updated 03:10am (Mla time) Nov 01, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 1, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

I DON'T know why we have to borrow the Halloween and its pumpkins, witches and black cats from the West. After all, we have our own home-grown mythological monsters that in the old days scared-believe it or not, in this modern 2lst century, they still do-millions of youngsters. In fact, the 'aswangs' and 'manananggals' still scare many gullible adults, thanks to the competing televisions newscasts, the so-called "tabloids of the air" that, because of the ratings war, dignify stories of these monsters haunting squatter colonies. That and the frequent stories on TV of "miraculous" appearances of the image of the Virgin Mary, of statues crying bloody tears, of young visionaries, of spiritual healing, and of snakes born as twins of human babies, "idiotize" the Filipino masses.

Thanks to our penchant for imitating other cultures, our own tradition of "pangangaluluwa" during All Saints' Day-when groups of young men and women serenade their neighbors while others steal chicken under the house, all in good fun-is fast being replaced by the westernized "trick or treat" rituals in the exclusive villages. In a few more decades, our own traditions and mythological monsters will be erased.

When I was growing up in Malabon, I and my generation were scared no end of these mythological monsters. Although Malabon is now a city and a part of Metro Manila, it was then a rural town with fishponds, rivers, rice fields, commercial vegetable gardens-and a gullible population. What's more, the elders were good storytellers who scared the youngsters with tales of these and other monsters not only on All Saints' Day but also on moonlit nights.

At that time, we lived in a family compound in the middle of fishponds. Its only connection to the street was a long fishpond dike. Sanciangco Street ran for about a kilometer from Tonsuya (where you got rides to and from Divisoria, across the wooden bridge to barrio Catmon) to Tenejeros on the other end. If you lived in Catmon or Tenejeros, you had to walk the whole kilometer. At night, the stretch through the river and fishponds was very dark; but the people taking that route had nothing to fear about robbers and drug addicts. What they were afraid of were the monsters that they imagined were lurking in the dark.

At the street corner was a street lamp, beside a big tamarind tree at the edge of the pond. At night we would gather under its light to play patintero or batong preso. When we got tired of playing, the storytelling would begin.

The stories became believable because they involved our neighbors, people we knew. There was this woman heavy with child who was victimized by an aswang. We were told that an 'aswang' was a human who took the form of an animal, a big pig or dog, that would go under any house where a pregnant woman lived to eat the baby in the womb! The defense was a buntot-page, the dried barbed tail of a sting ray or the sword of a swordfish; so these weapons were prized by families that had them.

In those days, of course, many pigs and dogs were rooting under houses for food. Mistaken for 'aswangs', they were chased by the menfolk.

Another form of 'aswang' climbed house roofs-which in those days were mostly made of nipa shingles. Atop the house, the aswang would lower a piece of string to the mouth of anybody sleeping there and put him into a deep sleep, never to wake up.

These stories kept us awake most nights or made us sleep on our abdomen because we did not want the strings from the aswangs to reach our lips. Little did we know then that the storytellers were only pulling our legs.

Then there were the 'kapre', a giant that sat on top of a tree smoking a big cigar; the 'tikbalang', half-horse and half-man; and the 'manananggal', a woman whose upper torso separated from the rest of her body and flew off to hunt for victims at night, returning before daylight to attach itself again to the lower half. The way to fight the 'manananggal' was to look for this lower half before daylight, spread salt on it so that the upper half could not reattach to it, and the 'manananggal' itself would die.

The 'tiyanak' misled travelers by imitating the cries of a baby. The traveler followed the baby's cries and before he realized it, he had lost his way and could not find his way back out of the woods or forest. To break the spell, the victim had to take off his or her shirt and put it back on inside out.

The 'dwende' was, of course, the tiny dwarf that lived in mounds of earth and sheltered under toadstools. The 'dwende' should not be mistaken for the 'nuno sa punso', an old dwarf also living in those mounds of earth (actually, termite hills), casting a spell to anybody who stepped on those hills or even just brushed against their invisible selves. In those days, we could not walk over a woodland or a meadow without muttering over and over: "Tabi-tabi po ingkong, di ko po kayo nakikita. (Please may I pass, old man, I cannot see you)."

When my younger brother fell from a santol tree, the old folks said he was pushed by a nuno sa punso because the latter lived in that tree. In fact, whenever somebody got sick, the nuno sa punso was always blamed. Na matanda, they said.

The hardest part of the storytelling sessions was when they were over and it was time to go home through dark paths. The way home for me was through the dark fishpond dike. Where the dike made a dogleg, there was a huge tree where a 'kapre', so the storytellers said, sometimes sat waiting for passersby. I dreaded that tree but there was no other way to go home. So I just closed my eyes and ran past it as fast as I could. It was no small miracle that I never fell into the pond.

Down with irresponsible pet owners!

2004-10-27T00:58:00.000-07:00

Down with irresponsible pet owners!

Updated 00:58am (Mla time) Oct 27, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 27, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

WE routinely call the dog "man's best friend," but do you know that in Metro Manila, supposedly the most civilized in the country, thousands of dogs are put to death every day by -- and this is shocking -- city and municipal governments? In Makati City alone, the nation's business capital where the superrich live, 1,800 dogs are euthanized every year. Perhaps as many are brutally killed and eaten in just one week in Baguio City, the favorite vacation spot of the beautiful people. In Boracay, another favorite tourist spot, dogs were being shot dead on the beaches and the roads until the tourists protested.

Man's best friends are also being routinely shot by government employees in other towns and cities in other parts of the country. Even in cities governed by model mayors, like Marikina, dogs are caught with nooses, kept in the city pound for a few days, and then gassed.

Many more suffer an even worse fate. They are sold by “barangay” [neighborhood district] council officials to drunkards who kill them by clubbing them on the head, then butchering, cooking and eating them as “pulutan” [bar chow] during drinking sprees. In some cases, children have watched horrified as their elders gleefully stabbed or clubbed stray dogs to death then roasted the animals over a wood fire. Others are stolen from their owners and sold in the illegal dog black market, shipped, all trussed up or cramped together in wire cages, to the provinces where they are bludgeoned to death, butchered and cooked and sold openly and even advertised in restaurants and wet markets. That's how we treat "man's best friend."

And yet we have a law, Republic Act 8485 or the Animal Welfare Act of 1998 (AWA), that prohibits the maltreatment, killing and eating of dogs and other pets and animals not specifically raised for food. Penalty is imprisonment of not less than six months or more than two years or a fine of not less than P1,000 or more than P5,000, or both.

The maltreatment and killing of dogs and cats are being perpetrated openly everywhere, but have you heard of anybody being arrested and jailed for doing that? In fact, CARA Philippines, an NGO -- CARA stands for Compassion and Responsibility for Animals -- has documented cases where policemen and “barangay” watchmen were the perpetrators of these heinous acts.

Ironically, the bond between man and dog go back 12,000 years. Since humans domesticated dogs, they are most happy when they are in our company. Their loyalty, love and trust are their gifts to us. There are many stories of dogs saving their masters' lives. The animals have been used as war dogs, working dogs, seeing-eye dogs, bomb- and drug-sniffing dogs, search dogs, etc. As pets, scientific studies have proven that they reduce loneliness, depression and stress. Medically, they have been introduced as companions to patients in hospital wards and in homes for the elderly all over the world.

So why are we being cruel to them and killing them? Because of ignorance and lack of compassion, primarily. And in the worst irony of all, because governments think they are doing a good deed in rounding them up and killing them. It is to prevent the spread of rabies, an almost always fatal disease from the bite of a dog or other mammals. The risk of rabies in the Philippines is the fourth highest in the world. And because the number of stray dogs is increasing due to many irresponsible owners, local governments believe they are reducing the risk of rabies by killing stray dogs.

This is wrong on two counts. First, a study made in 1998 showed that 95 percent of dog bites did not come from street dogs but from those that had owners. Dogs are territorial and street dogs have no territories. It is the pet dogs that protect their territories by aggressive behavior.

Second, killing dogs (and cats) will not reduce the stray population if we do not reduce the number of irresponsible pet owners. These owners allow their pets to breed indiscriminately and then give away the puppies and kittens in staggering numbers. More often, kittens are simply abandoned on sidewalks or vacant lots. These have hazardous lives, and are sometimes squashed by vehicles. Those that survive grow up by scavenging for food in garbage cans, wracked by disease and starvation, and breed more strays that, in turn, breed more.

Two unaltered dogs and their offspring can produce 67,000 dogs in six years. For cats, the number is much higher. There should be a law that punishes throwing away or abandoning kittens.

Filipinos usually take home puppies and kittens because they are cute. But once they grow up and cease to be cute and, worse, show signs of illness, they are turned out on the streets where they unwittingly compromise the health of the whole neighborhood. As CARA Philippines said, "In our country dogs provide an important sense of security. However, here we find the paradox of people who don't really like dogs and yet will keep them to guard their homes. As a rule, these people are neither caring nor responsible owners. It is these owners' dogs that are usually allowed to scavenge on the streets for food and routinely let out to urinate and defecate on public property. As a result, this human irresponsibility leads to these dogs creating a public health hazard."

For many in our country, the dog is viewed not as a companion but as a necessary evil, so that neither time nor money is invested in ensuring good health.

Since dogs and cats are treated as dispensable and replaceable commodities, the abandoning of sick or unwanted dogs and cats is done with impunity. Invariably a neighbor's dog or cat will also have puppies and kittens and these will be given away. So the cycle of irresponsible ownership continues.

How Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo creates many new jobs

2004-10-25T10:01:00.000-07:00

How Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo creates many new jobs

Updated 10:54pm (Mla time) Oct 24, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 25, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

WHO says President Macapagal-Arroyo isn't providing jobs to Filipinos? Isn't she handing out jobs right and left?

And not just ordinary jobs, but jobs in Malacañang-as presidential advisers with Cabinet rank. What advice they will give, nobody (not even the advisers) knows. But we do know that as Cabinet secretaries, they will take home not only fat salaries but also fat allowances, and free service cars, free gasoline, free chauffers, vans full of bodyguards, two or more motorcycle escorts, and the right to appoint relatives as confidential secretaries and chiefs of staff, all paid for by the taxpayers. And the right to be called "Mr. Secretary" and to be saluted by the Palace guards.

I heard another wing is being added to Malacañang Palace because, during Cabinet meetings, the Cabinet members and presidential advisers of Cabinet rank can no longer be accommodated in one place. Also, there is talk that Malacañang wants to reclaim part of the Pasig River and convert it into a parking lot because there is no more parking space for all the luxury vehicles with red plate numbers that converge on Malacañang on the days the Cabinet meet. There are so many of these luxury vehicles with the number "6" that the superstitious in the neighborhood become agitated because the number "666" is said to be the Devil's number and therefore could bring bad luck.

When the Cabinet meet, the Palace guards are placed on high alert not only because of the concentration of "6s" but also because so many top officials gathered in one place become a tempting target for terrorists.

There is also talk that hungry politicians are reluctant to take the position of national treasurer, afraid that they'd have difficulty looking for money to pay for Malacañang's growing payroll.

But what can one do, the President promised to create one million jobs and if private companies won't provide those jobs, why, the government will. Her promise to create jobs must not make a liar out of the President-again. She has promised so often that whenever she promises something, people expect the opposite. That's bad, so I think she has the right to change the people's wrong attitude by surprising them: once in a while, she should fulfill her promises.

But having one million presidential advisers may be a little too much, even for the likes of GMA. So she is creating whole new offices. Then she can hire people not only singly but in batches. The "superbody" Office of External Affairs (OEA) is only one of these. There will be others, don't worry. The President's one-million-job promise will soon be fulfilled.

But where will the government get the money to pay all the new hires? From the Filipinos, where else? There are 80 million of them. If each of them pays a few hundred pesos in taxes, that will make billions of pesos. Anyway, they will pay, whether they like it or not; Congress will see to that-by passing the necessary tax laws.

Besides, many of these taxes they will not recognize at all. They will be hidden in the prices of necessities that people buy every day. People can't eat or go anywhere or do anything without having to pay taxes. You want to relax by smoking a stick of cigarette? You pay tax. You want to forget your woes by getting drunk? You pay tax. You want a can of sardines for your hungry children? You pay tax. Yes sir, like death, taxes are unavoidable.

In fact, even when you die, you have to pay taxes. And your children, whom you will leave behind without a breadwinner and saddled with your debts, will have to pay an inheritance tax.

So don't worry about where to get the payroll money. And if the Treasury goes bust, the President can always order the layoff of hundreds of thousands of rank-and-file government employees so that their pay allocations can be rechanneled to the salaries of the presidential advisers. If worst comes to worst, we can always borrow, as GMA did during her first term. She sailed through that term without anybody getting any wiser, didn't she?

But how will she pay for all the loans? Again, don't worry. That's not her problem. That's the problem of the next president.

* * *

It has become clear why the paratroopers are the elite soldiers in any armed force. We know now why being a paratrooper is coveted by almost every soldier. In fact, it has turned out that every AFP chief of staff is a paratrooper, regardless of whether he comes from the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines. Each of them is provided with a "golden parachute" upon retirement from the AFP.

The parachute is very expensive. It might as well be literally coated with gold, for it costs as much as P300 million each.

Where does the money to pay for them come from? Where else but from the taxpayers!

* * *

Isn't it eerie that the unfolding "corruption in the military" seems so like the corruption in the civilian government? It is history repeating itself.

The son of an aide of former AFP chief of staff Angelo Reyes has come out to claim that he owns the cock farm on Reyes' lot in Parañaque. This sounds so much like presidential brother-in-law (now congressman) Ignacio "Iggy" Arroyo claiming the Jose Pidal bank deposits as his own, thus taking the heat away from his brother.

Iggy has become a role model of sorts, it seems. Maj. Gen. Carlos F. Garcia's mantra- his right against self-incrimination-before the House committees on defense and banks is an echo of Iggy's own mantra before the Senate-his right to privacy.

Poor Filipinos reduced to eating garbage

2004-10-22T14:25:00.000-07:00

Poor Filipinos reduced to eating garbage

Updated 01:19am (Mla time) Oct 22, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on Page A14 of the October 22, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

TWO young children died the other day because they ate rotten food recovered from a garbage can and brought home by their father. Did you get that? Poor Filipinos have been reduced to eating garbage -- literally -- and are dying because of it.

As the cliché goes, they're caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. They'll die of starvation if they don't eat, but they'll die anyway if they eat the garbage that they are able to scrounge from the trashcans.

Can you see the irony? Officials of government financial institutions take home millions of pesos in salaries and politicians travel in style around the world and eat the most expensive steaks while their constituents eat garbage! Generals amass wealth and squirrel them away in other countries while the people whom they are sworn to serve wallow in poverty! Our own President travels all around the country and the world with a retinue, shakes hands and delivers speeches and cuts ceremonial ribbons, while her constituents living in appalling conditions not very far from Malacañan Palace are dying because they are forced to eat garbage!

Poor Filipinos being reduced to eating garbage is nothing new. That has been going on for quite some time, but our officials treat it as nothing more than a bad dream that will go away when they wake up. But it is only in the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration that some of them actually died because of it.

The administration was shocked awake by a recent survey that hunger stalks the land. Its knee-jerk reaction was to distribute food coupons. In other words, Filipinos will queue up in long food lines to wait for their daily food coupons like beggars. Is it not yet enough that we are known around the world as "the begging bowl of Asia"? That our President and diplomats travel the globe with begging bowl in hand to beg for aid and loans? Now we want to rub it in by having photographs and TV footage of long lines of Filipinos begging for food coupons.

The food coupons will initially cost the cash-starved government P67 billion. After that is gone, the people will still be hungry for the next meal. But there probably will be no next meal because the government can't afford it anymore. By then the food coupons will have already bolstered our culture of mendicancy, a bad habit that our government, judging from the billboards prohibiting begging and the giving of alms, is trying to discourage. But how can the government discourage something that it is propagating?

Instead of spending that P67 billion on free food coupons, why not use that to give jobs to those who need them? Give the people dignity. Let them work for their food instead of giving them handouts. Instead of begging, they would be working. They don't want to beg; they want to work. But there are no jobs. The President promised "10 million jobs" but instead of creating new jobs, she is going to throw thousands who already have government jobs out of work.

Meanwhile, thousands of kilometers of feeder roads and irrigation ditches need to be built to boost food production, but there is no money for them. Thousands of schoolhouses are needed to prepare young minds for the challenges ahead, but there is no money for more schoolhouses. Millions of homes need to be provided for the homeless but there is no money left for them after paying our foreign debt.

There are millions of Filipinos who are willing to work, and in fact are asking for jobs to be able to feed their families, but the government is not giving them jobs. Instead, it plans to distribute food coupons, which is like putting Band-aid on a festering ulcer.

The coupons will be distributed through the “barangay” [village or neighborhood district] councils and local government units, which means that ward leaders and followers of the local politicians will get them first. In fact, the politicians may get the lion's share of the coupons, in the same way that relief goods supposed to be distributed to victims of calamities often end up in the bodegas of the affluent and influential citizens. That is political patronage that will come in handy for the 2007 elections.

President Arroyo's own father, President Diosdado Macapagal, gave emergency jobs to those who were willing to work early in his term. He created the Emergency Employment Administration under the Department of Labor. Workers were hired to repair roads and build new ones. It brought food to the tables of the hungry. And they didn't have to beg for it; they earned it.

That was adopted from the post-Depression policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt of giving emergency jobs to jobless Americans. And it helped America recover from the Depression.

As an economic tool, emergency employment makes a lot of sense. By giving jobs to people, you give them money to spend. They spend the money to buy food, clothes and other necessities. This in turn makes the factories produce more of them and hire additional workers. The additional workers spend more money to buy what they need and the cycle goes on and on and the economy grows.

But using billions of government money on non-productive things like food coupons produces nothing and promotes nothing. There is no chain-effect. After eating his daily ration, the man of the house sits back and fondles his fighting cock and waits for the next queue to get his next coupon. He doesn't have to look for a job. He and his family will eat anyway even if he has no job. He has the administration to thank for that.

* * *

TODAY'S JOKE: Senator Lito Lapid: Ano ba ang ibig sabihin ng "fiscal crisis"?

Senator Bong Revilla: Ah, ang ibig sabihin n'yan may shortage ng mga fiscal.

Generals handling funds now under suspicion

2004-10-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

Generals handling funds now under suspicion

Updated 10:41pm (Mla time) Oct 19, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 20, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

THE TESTIMONY of Major General Carlos F. Garcia before a committee of the House of Representatives, during which he repeatedly invoked his right against self-incrimination, sounded so much like the testimony of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s brother-in-law, now a congressman, Iggy Arroyo on the Jose Pidal bank deposits, during which he also repeatedly refused to answer questions by invoking his right to privacy. In both hearings, the legislators threw up their hands in exasperation and failed to get any information from their witnesses.

But actions speak louder than words. Why would a witness be afraid to talk and incriminate himself if he isn't guilty of something? An innocent person would only be glad to tell everything he knows to prove his innocence, wouldn’t he? But silence is the refuge of the guilty, like the Mafia mobsters.

Alas, the House investigation of the former comptroller of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has turned into a comedy, with the general and his lawyers outwitting the congressmen. The congressmen have to find other sources of evidence; they can't get any from the mouth of the accused himself. I think the strategy should be to charge him with unexplained wealth. Make him explain how he acquired all his bank deposits and real estate properties. That would be interesting to hear.

* * *

Because of the Garcia scandal, all AFP generals are now under suspicion, especially those who handle funds. One of them is retired Brigadier General Jose S. Ramiscal, who is in trouble simply because he is the president of the formerly cash-rich AFP Retirement and Separation Benefits System (AFP-RSBS). But unlike Garcia who obviously doesn't want to be subjected to any investigation, Ramiscal wants the charges against him to be heard as quickly as possible. It is the prosecution that is dragging its feet. The case has been percolating in the offices of the Ombudsman and the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court for several years.

The case against Ramiscal is simplicity itself. The AFP-RSBS bought 148 separate parcels of land in Laguna province for real estate development back when the market was robust, before the Asian economic crisis. The total area purchased was 964,494 square meters. The total amount paid by the AFP-RSBS was P195,852,513, or an average price of P203 per square meter. The total amount registered at the register of deeds was P28,226,090, or an average price of only P30 per square meter. What happened to the difference of P167,626,423? Conclusion: Ramiscal pocketed it. And because of this, Ramiscal is facing at least 148 cases of “estafa” [swindling], which, judging by the number, gives the impression that the general must be a hardened criminal.

It is not that simple, Ramiscal told me. I interviewed the general over dinner at our neighborhood coffee shop one night last week, and he gave me the facts and explained what happened. There is no missing P167 million, he said, and he has not pocketed a single centavo.

The 148 parcels of farmland, he explained, were bought through a "consolidator" or broker. The AFP-RSBS did not negotiate directly with the farmers. This was necessary because if it were known that the AFP-RSBS was buying their properties and negotiating separately with each farmer, the asking price would rise progressively higher. It was the job of the consolidator to haggle for as low a price as possible, consolidate all the purchased parcels and then turn them over to the RSBS as one parcel.

The AFP-RSBS board of trustees approved an acquisition cost of P225 per square meter, but the consolidator was free to bargain with the owners for a lower price. The difference between the amount paid by the AFP-RSBS and the amount actually received by the owners was the fee, or commission of the consolidator. From this, the consolidator would pay the capital gains tax and other taxes due, as well as sundry expenses. What is left after this is his profit.

The law allows the consolidator to unilaterally report to the register of deeds the purchase price. The deeds of sale were signed only by the sellers. Neither Ramiscal nor the AFP-RSBS had any part in this.

Based on the findings of Special Prosecutor Dennis Villa-Ignacio in his June 15, 2004 memorandum to the Ombudsman, the average amount actually received by the sellers from the consolidator was P150 per square meter. But the consolidator registered an average price of only P30 per square meter for a total price of P28,226,090 obviously to lower the capital gains tax. This is falsification of public documents for which the consolidator is liable, but not the RSBS or Ramiscal, the latter said.

The acquisition price approved by the board of trustees was P225 per square meter but the RSBS paid only an average price of P203 per square meter, so Ramiscal saved it P22 per square meter or a total of P21,218,868.

Since the amount acknowledged to have been received by the sellers from the consolidator was P150 per square meter (not only P30 per square meter as reported to the register of deeds) and the total area bought was 964,494 square meters, it logically follows that the amount received by the sellers from the consolidator was P144,674,100.

If the amount paid by the AFP-RSBS to the sellers through the consolidator was P195,852,513 and the amount acknowledged by the sellers to have been actually received from the consolidator was P144,674,100, we are looking at a difference of P51,178,413 which possibly went to pay for the capital gains tax, documentary stamp tax, tenants' disturbance fee and consolidator's fee as stipulated in the memorandum of understanding between the AFP-RSBS and the consolidator.

There is no "missing" P167 million.

As for the 148 estafa cases against Ramiscal, there are so many because each deed of sale was counted as one case. Technically, there are 148 counts of only one case.

Requiem for a great artist

2004-10-18T13:24:00.000-07:00

Requiem for a great artist

Updated 11:35pm (Mla time) Oct 17, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 18, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

THE DEATH anniversary of painter Hugo Yonzon Jr. passed yesterday, Oct. 17, without any fanfare, not even a whimper, from the local art community. Yonzon was one of the best, most prolific, most versatile, fastest-working Filipino painters-and I've seen a lot of them. In fact, he should have been honored as a National Artist, but he had no clique, no lobbyists, no drumbeaters in the award-giving bodies.

Not that Yonzon didn't have any friends. He had plenty of them (and I'm proud to be one of them): journalists, fellow painters, cartoonists, illustrators, art collectors, gallery owners, etc. But unlike some artists who park themselves for hours at the desks of cultural editors of newspapers gossiping and wasting time, Yonzon had no time for that. He was too busy providing for a huge family.

For unlike other painters, who usually had regular 8-5 jobs as principal means of livelihood (as art teachers, or as newspaper, magazine or advertising agency artists, etc.) while doing
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some painting on the sideline or as a hobby, Yonzon, for the most part of his career, lived entirely from his paintings. During his early days, he was the art director of Adcraft, a pioneering advertising agency, but he soon left the job to draw editorial cartoons, comic strips and illustrations for newspapers and magazines-and yes, to paint.

He was a member of the triumvirate Malang-Larry Alcala-Yonzon, versatile cartoonist-painters who were not only contemporaries but were very close family friends, compadres, gambling buddies, billiard addicts, barkada, partners in sexcapades, etc. Until Alcala got married to a beautiful salesgirl of Aguinaldo's Department Store-whom Alcala courted almost daily with his two partners behind him as morale support-the triumvirate enjoyed the bohemian night life together.

Together with other cartoonists, they set up the Bughouse art gallery in Mabini. That was back in the '50s, when the Philippine Art Gallery on Arquiza was the center of the Philippine world of modern art. The cartoonists envisioned the Bughouse as the gallery for cartoons as PAG was for serious art.

The PAG it was that popularized most of the present icons of neo-realist art: Vicente Manansala, Hernando R. Ocampo, Cesar F. Legaspi, Arturo Luz, Fernando Zobel, Ramon Estella, etc.-and a young cartoonist who dared branch into serious painting, Malang.

The PAG, run by writer Lyd Arguilla, had a "feature wall" for young artists, and during one exhibition of the latest neo-realist paintings, several of Malang's first tentative attempts at serious art were featured there. There were only about two dozen pieces, and all of them were tiny, measured in few square inches. Malang aptly called them "miniature paintings." But they were beautiful pieces, in bright decorative primary colors, even if their subjects were mostly barong-barongs, squatters, sidewalk vendors-all visible from the second-floor windows of the newsroom of the Manila Chronicle on Aduana Street, Intramuros, where Malang worked as an artist.

Malang was then drawing his Kosme the Cop comic strip in the daily and the spot cartoon Chaingang Charlie in the weekly This Week Magazine; and painting his "miniatures" while waiting for the editors to assign him art work for the evening.

At this time, Yonzon was already into serious painting, but he was also drawing cartoons and comic strips (Sakay and Moy) for the Manila Times and comic magazines after his work at Adcraft. Every afternoon, he would walk from Adcraft on Dasmarinas, across the Jones Bridge, to the Chronicle in Intramuros to have merienda with Malang and us in the This Week staff for ideas for their cartoons. Alcala, who was drawing Kalabog en Bosyo, Siopawman, Tipin, etc. for the comic books, was also into some serious painting, mostly watercolors, at that time, but he soon gave that up to devote all his time to comic strips.

During these sessions, the cartoonists picked our brains for ideas for cartoons, and usually they left in the evenings with the next day's cartoon output already clear in their minds.

When we all left the Chronicle during a labor dispute and dispersed to different newspaper publications, Malang concentrated on painting-very successfully (all his exhibits were sold out). When I went to The Evening News and later the Daily Express, Yonzon followed as editorial cartoonist and illustrator. Alcala stuck to his comic strips but at the Express, I assigned him to make the full-page "Slice of Life" on the back page of the Weekend Magazine.

It was at this time, meanwhile, that Yonzon produced his best and most numerous paintings. While waiting for work at the Evening News and Express art departments, he would use the time to paint his oils on canvases, exchanging stories and banter with the other artists all the time. Before anyone noticed, the painting was finished, which was immediately bought by collectors. At home, he painted in his garage, which he converted into a studio. The paintings were bought even before they were finished. During his lifetime, Yonzon held very few one-man exhibits because he could not accumulate enough paintings for such a show. They were all snatched up by buyers before the paint could even dry on the canvas.

All three-Malang, Yonzon and Alcala- have been nominated separately for National Artist. They all deserve it. The question is who should get it first; the latter two are dead. My suggestion is to give it to all three of them at the same time. Or to give it to them as a triumvirate, for together they combined the arts of cartooning and painting to their greatest glory.

Philippine medical profession in crisis

2004-10-15T10:16:00.000-07:00

Philippine medical profession in crisis

Updated 01:04am (Mla time) Oct 15, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 15, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

IN THE OLD days, churches were the sanctuary of people trying to escape arrest by the men of feudal lords. Now hospitals have replaced churches as the refuge of people trying to escape the long arm of the law. Whether the person is trying to stay out of prison, like convicted rapist Romeo Jalosjos, or a general trying to dodge questions regarding his wealth, like Major General Carlos F. Garcia, they pretend to be so sick they need to be confined in a hospital. And law enforcement authorities are often only too willing to accept the word of their doctors who are, for their part, only too willing to lend the weight of their reputations to convince the authorities that their patients indeed need to stay in the hospital.

And so, if Mohammed cannot go to the mountain, the mountain will go to him. Members of Congress are going to the Santo Tomas University Hospital to question Garcia instead of forcing him to go to them. Authorities respect the expert opinion of physicians so much that many scoundrels stay out of jail for long periods on the say-so of their doctors.

How dangerous is sleep apnea to the life of Garcia if he goes to Congress to answer questions? Sleep apnea is a condition where the patient sometimes stops breathing while asleep. But the general is not going to sleep in Congress. On the contrary, he would have to stay wide-awake and on his toes as the legislators pepper him with questions.

On second thought, his doctor also said the general has arrythmia, an irregular heartbeat which can trigger a heart attack when he is under stress. But this can easily be verified with an electrocardiogram that can be done in minutes by any cardiologist. So it wouldn't be difficult to determine whether Garcia is really in a life-threatening situation or just malingering.

In view of the penchant of some scoundrels to use hospitals as a refuge, Congress and the Philippine Medical Association should formulate rules to regulate this practice.

* * *

Speaking of doctors, members of the Philippine College of Physicians (PCP) signed last Tuesday a covenant pledging (1) "to practice and be based in the Philippines for the next three years" and (2) "to spend a portion of their time for charity work... at least one day in a month for charity, or to give free consultations for their poor patients." The PCP has 6,000 doctor-members and 11 chapters nationwide, and is the umbrella organization of 13 component and affiliate societies.

The PCP leadership was prompted to ask its members to sign the covenant because of the exodus of doctors because of better opportunities abroad. In fact, several hospitals in Mindanao and the province of Negros Oriental face closure due to lack of doctors and nurses.

Not only that, full-fledged doctors are going back to school to become nurses because there is a big demand for nurses abroad. A PCP flyer said that in 2002, 2,000 doctors enrolled to become nurses and in 2003, this increased to 3,000. This year, an estimated 4,000 doctors will shift to nursing. Medicine has now ironically become a pre-nursing course.

The reason for all these? The low morale and low income here of doctors, especially the younger ones. Ironically, it is the young doctors who know the latest cures and techniques that they learned abroad. These doctors leave their flourishing practices in hospitals abroad to come home and serve their countrymen, only to be disappointed.

Sad to say, the media contribute to the poor image of the medical profession and therefore to the low morale and exodus of doctors. For it sometimes unfairly portray doctors as greedy and incompetent. How often do we see patients denouncing in the media doctors and hospitals for making them wait, giving them the runaround, not giving them prompt medical attention, not realizing that the overworked doctors are attending to many other patients and giving the more seriously sick ones priority?

Add to this the Medical Malpractice Bill and the Patients' Rights Bill now pending in Congress, which will make medical practice here more hazardous and expensive for doctors. Physicians will have to buy malpractice insurance to protect themselves from ambulance chasers. If they have to do that, doctors say, they might as well practice in the United States. Doctors there all have malpractice insurance but at least they earn more than the doctors here. Add to that the fact that Filipinos are a litigious lot and that we have an excess of lawyers willing to chase ambulances. And that we have legislators who are all too ready to espouse populist but wrong causes because it would win them votes.

The truth is that all hospitals, big and small, have charity wards that attend to the poor and that many doctors give free services to poor patients, go on medical missions in the provinces and even look for funds and dig into their own pockets to save patients' lives. This happens often in many hospitals, but they hardly get reported by media. What gets reported are often the non-paying relatives of patients complaining because they were not given attention by the overworked doctors fast enough.

Doctors risk their lives every day caring for high-risk patients, such as those with drug-resistant tuberculosis, AIDS, hepatitis, etc. Sometime ago, the young doctor-daughter of cartoonist Larry Alcala was bitten by a patient who had the virulent fulminant hepatitis. She got infected and almost died, hovering between life and death for weeks at the intensive care unit of the Makati Medical Center.

Yet many doctors will continue caring for their countrymen in times of crises and calamities and, as the PCP covenant shows, they will stick it out in the Philippines in good times and bad.

Why not limit session time of Congress?

2004-10-13T22:11:00.000-07:00

Why not limit session time of Congress?

Updated 06:43am (Mla time) Oct 13, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 13, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

I HAVE only one objection to lawyer Romulo Makalintal's proposal to abolish Congress and save P67 billion. His proposal is not to have any elections for all congressmen and for half of the 24-member Senate when their terms expire in 2007. The other 12 senators, whose terms won't expire until 2010, will stay on to enact the laws that are necessary and repeal those that are not needed anymore. Then we will have a unicameral legislature. That will save the nation P67 billion which we sorely need to balance the budget and pay our debts, he said.

Makalintal was one of the two guests at last Monday's Kapihan sa Manila media forum; the other was Interior and Local Government Secretary Angelo Reyes.

I have earlier also proposed the abolition of Congress but my principal objection to Makalintal's version is that among the 12 senators who would be left behind to do the mopping up are Lito Lapid, Bong Revilla and Jinggoy Estrada, plus five neophytes: Jamby Madrigal, Pia Cayetano, Dick Gordon, Alfredo Lim and Mar Roxas. There would be only four veterans left: Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Juan Ponce Enrile, Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Rodolfo Biazon. What is happening to us?

My original proposal was to abolish the whole Congress, period, and save even more money. The most peaceful time we had was after President Ferdinand Marcos abolished Congress. Things became “magulo” [chaotic] again, and graft ridden, when the Batasang Pambansa [National Legislature] was established. (Note that the Batasan was a unicameral legislature, with which Makalintal and certain congressmen want to replace our Congress.) Without a legislature, the government would be a dictatorship, some say. But with the Batasan, the government was still a dictatorship, and the legislature only added to the taxpayers' burden.

Anyway we have too many laws already so that many of them are not being enforced. These laws are so many that law enforcers, judges and justices, lawyers and even the legislators themselves can't remember them all. That is why court cases take years and years to finish, and fiscals and courts often make mistakes, resulting in miscarriages of justice. Even the Supreme Court sometimes contradicts itself because of too many contradictory laws.

And if the members of the legal profession can't remember them all, how can we expect ordinary citizens to remember and obey them all? That is why there are many law violators; they don't realize they are violating laws. Ergo, too many laws make too many criminals. Our lives were much simpler, more peaceful and orderly when we had very few laws promulgated by the village chieftains.

With fewer laws, we would need fewer courts, judges and justices, fiscals, clerks of court, stenographers, interpreters and lawyers and save even more money.

This is not a joke. Many countries have no legislatures for much of the year. They are called to sessions only when the proposed laws to be enacted have been gathered for discussions. As soon as they are passed, the legislature adjourns.

Needless to say, the legislators are paid only when they are in session. Which is only fair, 'di ba? So, a lot of taxpayers' money is saved, and legislators don't make a career and a family business of politics.

The Philippine system is very wasteful. Congress holds sessions for most of the year, during which the legislators, members of their staff, drivers, advisers and consultants are paid salaries, not to mention the bills for light, water, telephone, gasoline, snacks, office supplies and a thousand and one other things. In fact, they are paid even when they don't attend sessions, or they are in recess, or traveling abroad (which is often), with the taxpayers paying for their travel and representational expenses. Include the notorious multibillion-peso pork barrel, a big chunk of which goes into private pockets, and you will see why the government is going bankrupt.

Since Filipino politicians want to copy legislatures of other countries anyway (after copying the American presidential-bicameral system, they now want to copy the parliamentary, unicameral system), why don't we copy that system wherein the legislature holds sessions only when needed and the chief executive calls them? When Congress holds sessions the whole year, it does mostly nothing but investigate, investigate and investigate every little thing that would give its members publicity and end up finding nothing. Or they file innocuous and useless bills such as changing the names of streets and schools.

We don't have to abolish the Senate. If one of the houses of Congress has to be abolished, I think it should be the House of Representatives. With limited session time, we would save enough money even with a bicameral Congress. And movie actors like Bong Revilla can go back to acting when Congress is not in session.

* * *

Former Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief of staff and former defense secretary Angelo Reyes had no inkling of the AFP scandals that exploded recently, he told the Kapihan sa Manila last Monday. For which reason he has not yet formed any opinion as to whether former AFP comptroller Carlos F. Garcia should be tried in a civilian court or face a military court martial. Reyes is now the secretary of interior and local government and fortunately above the AFP scandals -- as of the moment.

* * *

TODAY'S JOKE: Senator Lito Lapid: Ano ba ang ibig sabihin ng Bank Secrecy Law?

Senator Bong Revilla: Ibig sabihin n'yon ang mga deposito sa bangko ay sekreto.

Senator Jinggoy Estrada: "Di totoo 'yon. Bakit ang Jose Velarde deposit sa bangko ng erpat ko, nabisto?

Senator Lapid: Bakit hindi mabibisto eh ang dami ng mga tellers sa bangko.

Ad valorem better than specific tax on cigarettes

2004-10-11T12:20:00.000-07:00

Ad valorem better than specific tax on cigarettes

Updated 00:24am (Mla time) Oct 11, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 11, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

THE LEAST opposed tax measure is the proposed increase in the "sin" taxes (on cigarettes, liquor and the like). But the legislators can't agree on how to go about it. One group of congressmen wants to stick to the fixed specific tax; another wants the ad valorem tax, and a third, a combination of both.

For the past 20 years, Congress has been changing the tax system on "sin" products. From 1984 to 1986, it was specific tax plus ad valorem; from 1986 to 1996, it was ad valorem; and from 1996 to the present, it has been specific tax.

Why do members of Congress keep changing tax systems? Perhaps because whenever a new tax scheme is proposed in Congress, lobbyists with conflicting interests on the tax in question are very active in Congress, and you know what that means. And there are no more generous lobbyists than those representing the manufacturers of cigarettes and liquor.

What are these taxes? The specific tax is a fixed tax on every pack of cigarettes, regardless of retail cost. The proposed increase is a uniform P1 for the pack retailing at P13.44 and for the pack selling at 40 centavos. Thus, the high-priced cigarettes will be sold from the old P13.44 a pack to the new P14.44 per pack, an increase of 7 percent. The low-priced cigarette, on the other hand, will be sold from the original 40 centavos to P1.40 a pack, an increase of 250 percent.

If the increase is P2 per pack, the premium brand will sell at P15.44, an increase of only 15 percent. But the low-priced brand will sell at P2.40 a pack, or a whopping 500 percent increase. There are several tiers of prices for cigarettes, set in consideration of the smokers' different class levels and tastes. From 40 centavos a pack, the prices go up gradually to P1.12, P5.60, P8.96, to P13.44. But the percentage of increases go down proportionately from 250 percent, to 89 percent, to 18 percent, to 11 percent and to only 7 percent for the premium brand, respectively. If the increase is doubled to P2 per pack, the percentages are also doubled, from a high of 500 percent for the low-priced brand to a low of only 15 percent for the premium brand.

As you can see, an across-the-board increase, which is the specific tax, imposes disproportionate burdens on the different brands and their smokers.

The ad valorem tax, on the other hand, is a fixed percentage added to the price per pack. The higher the price, the bigger the tax, although the percentage remains the same for both the premium and the low-priced brands.

Not surprisingly, the competing manufacturers favor the tax most favorable to them. Philip Morris and La Suerte, which manufacture the premium foreign brands, favor the specific tax, while Fortune Tobacco, which manufactures the lower-priced local brands, favors the ad valorem.

Philip Morris and La Suerte say that under the ad valorem tax manufacturers can deflate their selling price to retailers so that they would pay less taxes. In the new ad valorem tax, however, the tax would be based on the retail prices per pack of each brand in selected outlets.

Fortune, on the other hand, says that the specific tax system results in the unequal sharing of the tax burden among the various brands of cigarettes. To illustrate, compare the tax imposed on two brands, Philip Morris and Hope, Fortune's highest-priced brand. The retail price of a pack of Philip Morris in 2003 was P22.31; it was taxed at P8.96 a pack. On the other hand, Hope cost only P17.81 and was taxed at the same rate-P8.96 a pack. The tax burden of Philip Morris, therefore, was only 40 percent while Hope was 50 percent.

Increasing the tax rate by P1 a pack will increase the tax burden of Hope to 56 percent while that of Philip Morris will rise to only 45 percent.

But if the tax burden is equalized by the ad valorem tax to 50 percent of the actual retail price, the tax on Philip Morris would be P11.22. The combined taxes of Hope and Philip Morris would be P20.18 or P2.26 (12.63 percent) more than their combined taxes under a specific tax scheme. For these two brands alone, had they been taxed in 2003 in proportion to their retail prices, the government could have collected P609 million more.

For the top 11 brands, (all are taxed under Republic Act 8240 at P8.96 per pack), the tax lost in 2003-had they been taxed in proportion to their retail prices-amounted to P1.74 billion!

Besides, Fortune says, that the ad valorem system is consistent with Sec. 28, paragraph 1 of Article VI of the Constitution, to wit: "The rule of taxation shall be uniform and equitable. The Congress shall evolve a progressive system of taxation."

Fortune maintains that the ad valorem system is a progressive tax measure where all products pay proportionately according to their actual retail prices.

For example, applying the 1996 ad valorem tax rates to the 2003 retail prices and volume sold by the 11 major brands, tax collection should have been P14.594 billion, or P2.670 billion more than what was actually collected. Including other brands, the industry's tax payments would have totaled P25.087 billion, or P5.615 billion more than the tax actually collected.

By the way, in 2003, Fortune Tobacco paid the biggest share in the industry total, more than P11 billion in taxes, or more than 56 percent of the total revenues collected by the government from the whole tobacco industry. The second biggest was paid by Philip Morris, more than P7.6 billion, or 38.8 percent of the total, while La Suerte paid only P630.1 million, or 3.20 percent.

The total tax collection in 2003 was P69.31 billion. Almost one-third or 28.42 percent of that came from the tobacco industry.

Foreign drug firms killing RP patients softly

2004-10-08T14:32:00.000-07:00

Foreign drug firms killing RP patients softly

Updated 01:05am (Mla time) Oct 08, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 8, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE GOVERNMENT has finally accepted the fact that in the Philippines, the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. In fact, hunger already stalks the land. So the government will start giving out food coupons to the poor, and there are already lugaw lines at the Quiapo church, the counterpart of the bread lines during the American Depression.

That probably takes care of the food problem, at least in its very limited scope. But what about the "medicine problem," which is oftentimes more desperate and life-threatening than the "food problem"? The prices of medicines are so high that many patients die needlessly because they cannot afford to buy them.

The government has tried to alleviate the problem by passing the "Generic Drugs Law" which requires doctors to write the generic names, instead of the brand names, of the drugs they prescribe so that their patients can choose the cheapest available. And the Department of Trade is importing limited quantities of medicine from India that manufactures them cheaply.

But the results of these efforts are like a drop in the bucket in the supply of medicines consumed by sick Filipinos daily. Only a few drugs have generic, inexpensive equivalents here. And the drugs from India are very limited, both in quantity and in the diseases that they cure.

Four multinational pharmaceutical companies control almost 80 percent of the Philippine market. Filipino companies, of which Unilab is the biggest, have only a 20 percent share. As in our downstream oil industry, the foreigners have monopolistic control of the Filipino consuming public, so that they can dictate any price they want. That is why the prices of branded medicines are beyond the reach of the poor and often even of the middle class.

Not only that, they use unwarranted patent exploitation at the expense of Filipino patients. One case in point concerns a drug that affects millions of hypertensive patients who have to take blood pressure-lowering drugs for the rest of their lives.

In 1987, the multinational pharmaceutical company, Dupont, filed an application for a patent for its anti-hypertensive drug (generic name: Losartan; brand name: Cozaar). After abandoning the application for more than 13 years, it now wants to revive the application. Obviously, Dupont wants to continue the monopoly of the product and consequently retain its exorbitant pricing and profits.

The anti-hypertensive market is a P7.3 billion market, of which P201 million goes to Losartan. Dupont's Cozaar monopolized the Losartan market until June 2004 when a local pharmaceutical company introduced a competing product.

The retail price of the 50 mg Cozaar is P39; the Philippine product is P20.20, or a difference of P18.80. The 100 mg Cozaar retails for P55, the competing brand for only P26, or a difference of P28. With that big difference in prices, Cozaar will naturally lose a sizable chunk of the market and Dupont wants to prevent that by trying to revive its patent application that the old Bureau of Patents, Trademarks and Technology Transfer (BPTTT) had already declared as abandoned way back on Sept. 20, 1988.

There is another probable reason why the foreign company wants to revive the application now. During those 13 years, it was operating as if it already had a patent since it had a monopoly of the Losartan market. But now there is a competitor, so it wants protection.

The life of a patent under the present Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines is 20 years from the date of filing of the application. The patent application Dupont is pursuing was filed in 1987 when the applicable law was RA 165 which provides that the term of patent shall begin on the date the patent was issued and expire 17 years later.

If it gets the patent only this year, it would therefore continue to have a monopoly for another 17 years--after already enjoying such a monopoly for the last 13 years. That has the effect of extending patent protection for 30 years!

Cozaar was issued US patents in 1992 and 1994. It is absurd that a product that has been in the market that long should still be given patent protection.

Dupont alleged in its petition for revival of the abandoned patent application that the Notice of Abandonment sent by the BPTTT did not reach its office in 1988 and that its lawyer never notified it of the abandonment. BPTTT rules allow a petition for revival to be filed within four months from abandonment. Dupont filed its petition after 13 years.

The BPTTT and IPO affirmed the denial on the grounds that Dupont is bound by the mistake or negligence of its former counsel and that the period for filing a petition for revival had long lapsed.

Dupont filed with the Court of Appeals a petition for review. The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) argued that the period for revival prescribed in the BPTTT's rules on patent is mandatory and that Dupont is bound by the negligence of its counsel.

But in its decision, the CA said that despite the lapse of 16 years, there is sufficient justification to relax the application of the doctrine that a party is bound by the mistake of its counsel. This decision contradicts the ruling of the Supreme Court in Schuartz vs. Court of Appeals where it held that "where an unreasonable period of time had lapsed prior to the filing of a petition for revival of a patent application due to negligence of the applicant's counsel, such action would result in the forfeiture of the right to revive the patent application."

The OSG has filed a motion for reconsideration.

Recto: Senate won't pass tax measures

2004-10-06T00:00:00.000-07:00

Recto: Senate won't pass tax measures

Updated 09:45pm (Mla time) Oct 05, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 6, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

HERE is good news for Filipino taxpayers. According to Sen. Ralph Recto, who was a guest at the Kapihan sa Manila forum last Monday, the eight proposed tax measures, even if passed by Congress, will not improve the economic situation of the Philippines. Neither will they provide jobs to Filipinos nor improve their lives. Collections from these tax measures will only be used to pay our foreign debts. Therefore, they will benefit foreigners, not Filipinos, whose take-home pay will be less because of the tax bite.

So why is that good news? Because the tax measures will not improve the economic situation anyway, Recto said, he doesn't think the Senate will pass any of them, not even the increase in the sin taxes, and especially not the increase in the oil tariff because it is regressive. Recto is the chair of the Senate ways and means committee, so his words regarding taxes have a lot of weight.

So, without new taxes, where does he propose the government get the money to pay our foreign debt?

From better tax administration, he said. There are hundreds of billions of pesos in taxes out there waiting to be collected, he pointed out.

Not only does the government not collect the correct taxes but also refunds taxes to ghost companies that never paid any taxes at all, somebody commented.

Yes, the tax credit scam, Recto agreed.

And in spite of the scam, do you know that the government is still giving out tax credit certificates?

Giving tax credit certificates is not bad per se, Recto said. We have to honor commitments to investors. The mistake was in allowing the certificates to be sold to third parties. That gave smart operators an idea how to make a killing. If they were non-transferable, there would have been no tax credit scam.

What about the plan to remove the tax incentives given to investors in free trade zones like the locators in Subic?

The incentives should continue, he replied. We should honor our commitments. We can remove the incentives to incoming investors if we want, but not from those who are already here. We cannot change policies after the investors are already in, otherwise nobody would believe us anymore. Nobody would invest here anymore.

* * *

Not only will new investors not come in, but those that are already here are threatening to pull out, particularly many of those in the Subic Special Economic Zone because of alleged "high-handed moves" of government against them. Recently, the Bureau of Internal Revenue bared moves to impose new taxes on locators in Subic and disallow several of their incentives. That will put business viability in the area under peril, the locators protested.

Ichiro Tsuji, president of the Subic Techno Park, said recently that Japanese investors are "very disappointed" with the proposed changes, fearing that these will result in the "contraction of business activities inside the Freeport zone." Taiwanese investors are also "agitated" over the plan.

Under the Bases Conversion Law (RA 7227), investors in the special economic zones pay only 5 percent tax on gross income in lieu of all other taxes. They are also entitled to tax breaks on direct costs incurred in the conduct of their operations. But the BIR, really desperate for tax collections, revealed recently its intention to scrap the tax breaks on all administrative, selling and operating expenses even if these are incurred directly and exclusively in registered business activities.

"Foul!" cried the investors. You can't change the rules in the middle of the game. The changes would make the investors less competitive.

A large number of investors have made Subic the hub of their businesses because of several considerations: its location, the set-up, and the investment incentives. But while the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority is working hard to lure investors through tax incentives, the BIR is working just as hard to restrict the beneficial effects of these incentives to generate the needed revenues--a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

They are not seeking tax exemptions, the investors said. But they deserve respect, fairness and consistency in the application of rules that directly affect them.

But the government desperately needs more money to pay its debts, 'di ba? Yes, but crisis or not, fairness and consistency are the values by which government can command the respect of investors and the public.

* * *

Still on the subject of fair play in the rules affecting business, the government has changed its mind on a rule in the bidding, scheduled late this month, for the sale of Napocor's coal-fired Masinloc power plant in Zambales. Foreign investors have denounced a provision which states that any winning bid by a foreign company may be matched by a Filipino-owned company, which will then be proclaimed the winner.

"Foul again!" howled the foreign investors. This is unfair, discriminatory and grossly disadvantageous to them who spend a lot of money to conduct studies and due diligence on the facility to be sold so that they can determine the right price, they said.

Among the foreign bidders are Marubeni of Japan, Kepco of Korea, YNN of Australia, YTL of Malaysia and the Atlanta-based Mirant. The lone Filipino bidder is First Generation Holdings of the Lopez Group.

I reported all these in my Sept. 27 column. Two days later, the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp., the government agency tasked with disposing of Napocor's assets, removed that controversial provision.

Rivers and riverbanks as transport highways

2004-10-04T02:25:00.000-07:00

Rivers and riverbanks as transport highways

Updated 02:25am (Mla time) Oct 04, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 4, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

(Continued from last Wednesday)

DO you realize that we have so many problems because our policies are topsy-turvy? We have monopolies and oligopolies where there should be free enterprise: in the cement, oil, power, pharmaceutical and steel industries. And we have free enterprise where there should be government control: in land transportation, especially in Metro Manila.

There is anarchy in the streets of the metropolis because any Tom, Dick and Harry can buy a jeepney, bus, FX van or tricycle, bribe somebody at the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board or city hall to get a franchise, and let the vehicle loose on the roads. Anybody can buy a vehicle, park it on the street and nobody gives a s--t even if it contributes to traffic congestion. In Tokyo, you cannot buy a vehicle unless you can show a title to a garage or parking slot. In New York, you cannot park your car just anywhere.

You can erect your shanty on railroad tracks, or occupy train stations and make them your home and even convert them into commercial establishments (e.g, billiard halls), and the government will even sell the rail tracks right of way to you.

There are too many vehicles on the streets because foreign-owned car and motorcycle assemblers pour thousands of units out to the streets every year, but practically none is phased out.

Too many vehicles and too few streets, that's the big problem.

Yet there are alternatives to roadways staring us in the face but nobody sees them. In an earlier column, I mentioned the railroad which the Arroyo administration wants to phase out in Metro Manila. Yet we need effective mass transit systems to transport people.

And then there are the rivers and the seas that used to be our highways before we fell in love with the motor vehicle. It is surprising that the Philippines, an archipelago surrounded by water, pays so little attention to water transportation.

Not so long ago, commerce moved along the coasts and on the rivers on board barges, sailboats and bancas. Passenger ferries of the Magsaysay Lines were operating along the Pasig River, but they did not become popular because they were too small and too low in the water, and the passengers could smell the polluted water and did not feel safe in them.

The Pasig River is still a good highway. It is still used to transport oil and other products upriver on board barges. So why not try the passenger ferry system on the river again with better boats? Ferries used to transport guests at Disney World in Florida. They are just right for the Pasig River. They have a shallow draft so they won't run aground. They need only to be air conditioned so their passengers won't smell the stinky water. They will help immensely in relieving land traffic in Metro Manila.

All the world's great rivers in the biggest cities are being used as water highways. The Rhine, the Seine and the Volga in Europe, the Mississippi (United States), the Nile (Egypt) and the Amazon (South America) are not only highways but great tourist attractions. Thailand uses its rivers as much as its streets.

As a boy I remember watching, from the banks of the Tullahan-Tenejeros River, cascos loaded with vinegar, salt, nipa shingles and other products from Bulacan being poled downriver to the markets of Malabon, Navotas, Caloocan and Manila. We swam and played in this river in the old days. It used to feed the fishponds of Malabon and Bulacan with fresh seawater from Manila Bay. It is now an open cesspool because of the pollutants from the factories and squatters that line its banks. This is the same river that floods Malabon, Navotas and Valenzuela during high tide.

I understand that a dike will be constructed along the riverbanks to keep the high tide out. The top of the dikes on both banks of the river might as well be constructed to also serve as new roads from Bulacan to Manila Bay. There are very few roads-and very narrow ones, at that-in Malabon. The dikes will give the people a new route to Bulacan. The MacArthur Highway is already too congested.

And if the river traffic is revived, people can travel to and from Bulacan on ferries, instead of on crowded buses and jeepneys, and arrive at their destinations relaxed, cool and fresh. The same ferries can go up the Pasig River and to the isolated coastal towns of Laguna Lake. And on Manila Bay, passengers can transfer to ferries bound for Cavite and Bataan. Thus, the coastal road, the Aguinaldo Highway and the highway to Bataan will be relieved of much traffic.

The easements on both banks of the Pasig River can also be turned into one-way streets from Manila Bay to Laguna de Bay, thus adding two more streets in Metro Manila. This will give street frontage to the lots along the river, thus increasing their value. Right now, the lots are just the backyards of the factories and lined with squatter shanties.

In Sydney, Australia, the banks of the river, from downtown Sydney to the sea, are lined with streets. The most expensive residences can be found along these streets.

And there are ferries coming from downtown to take residents home. You can watch a concert at the Opera House, board the ferry at midnight and arrive home in half an hour.

The development of river highways will have many other advantages: factories can no longer throw their garbage and liquid effluents into the river; squatters can no longer build their shanties on riverbanks; the rivers will be clean again; property values will rise, and local government units can collect more real estate taxes.

Selling metro rail tracks is a stupid idea

2004-09-29T00:00:00.000-07:00

Selling metro rail tracks is a stupid idea

Updated 10:20pm (Mla time) Sept 28, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the September 29, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

PRESIDENT Macapagal-Arroyo has ordered the sale of the Philippine National Railways railroad tracks in Metro Manila. She said that with the elevated Light Rail Transit and Metrorail there, the ground level railroad tracks are no longer needed.

This is the kind of mindless, knee-jerk and stupid decision-making that characterizes this administration.

Coming back from her visit to China, the President trumpeted the revival of the Northrail Line up to Malolos, Bulacan, to be funded by the Chinese government. The Southrail Line to Calamba, Laguna, will also be constructed. Eventually, the two lines will stretch to their original terminals in Damortis, La Union, in the north and Legazpi, Albay, in the south. But pray tell, how are you going to connect the two rail lines if the tracks running through Metro Manila have already been sold to squatters? How will the cargos and passengers from North and Central Luzon be transported to Southern Luzon, and vice versa? Will the cargos be unloaded from the train at the outskirts of Metro Manila and trucked to the other side of the metropolis, from where they will continue their train trip to their final destinations? Will passengers get off outside Metro Manila, take a bus to the other side, and then board the train again? Stupid, 'di ba?

Besides, even with the LRT and Metrorail, we still need a commuter train. You cannot load fish from Pangasinan and vegetables from Baguio on these elevated rail lines. And you cannot load vegetables and coconuts from the south on them. There's not enough room even for passengers in Metro Manila, what more for cargos? Brainless, "talaga."

This administration must be really desperate for money. It wants to sell everything, even assets that are literally nailed to the ground. And it is so afraid of squatters it doesn't even want to touch them.

It is now becoming clear why we are a poor, begging Third World country that is getting poorer every year. We do everything that is the opposite of what prosperous, progressive countries are doing. While countries like Japan, the United States, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom are developing and expanding their railroads, we are phasing out our own railroad by selling the tracks and right-of-way.

Japan, Europe and even China now have the fastest and most modern trains in the world. For even with the initial love affair with the motor vehicle, trains are still the most economical way of transporting the most cargos and passengers.

Fast trains to and from the inner cities to the open countryside are the surest way to decongest the urban areas. Millions can work in the cities during the day and still go home to the fresh air and open space of the countryside in the evening. They don't have to live in festering slums in the cities. Japanese who work in Tokyo can have dinner at 7 or 8 p.m. at home--as far away from Tokyo as Tarlac or Pangasinan is from Manila--because of the bullet train.

I am not saying that we should have the bullet train now. We cannot afford it yet. But we should have not only the national railroad from north to south but also a commuter rail to take passengers around Metro Manila and suburbs. Even with the LRT, Metrorail and the bus and jeepney lines, we still need them. Tokyo, New York and other modern cities have the subway, the train, the commuter rail and the highways at the same time. In addition, San Francisco has the elevated Bay Area Rapid Transit System. Besides these, Germany and California have high-speed autobahns and freeways. The United Kingdom has the tunnel under the English Channel to France, and Hong Kong has its own underwater tunnel to Kowloon.

We need not only the trains and commuter rails but we also have to increase the number of trains on the existing elevated rail lines. There are so many passengers who want to ride them because they are fast, but there is no longer space for them. It was expected that the elevated rails would lead to the demise of the buses and jeepneys and make car owners leave their vehicles at home; they are the causes of the traffic chaos in the streets below. But that is not happening because there are not enough trains. The passengers are there but not the trains.

The operators can earn more by buying more trains, but they do not want to invest any more money because they are content with their profits. The government has guaranteed their minimum income and pays for the difference between this minimum and their actual earnings, so why bother to invest more? That is why the government is losing so much money subsidizing them. They could earn profits from their operations by bringing in more trains but the government doesn't bother to force them.

There is a PNR rail right-of-way along Recto to Tutuban to the North and South Harbors. Ms Arroyo may think they are no longer needed, but that line can considerably ease traffic in downtown Manila by taking the container vans to and from the piers on board cargo trains instead of truck-trailers.

Why did the government allow the PNR to deteriorate to its present wretched state in the first place? Up to the time of President Diosdado Macapagal, trains with first-class coaches ran from Damortis to Legazpi. You could take the night Bicol Express at Tutuban, sleep comfortably on board and wake up refreshed the next morning already in Legazpi.

When will that time come back again?

The chocolate contract and the Masinloc bidding

2004-09-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

The chocolate contract and the Masinloc bidding

Updated 11:43pm (Mla time) Sept 26, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the September 27, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

IF you have a sweet tooth, and you are not diabetic, not overweight, and does not easily break out with pimples, eating chocolate is one of the most delightful indulgences, 'di ba? So why is chocolate bringing a lot of trouble to some public officials and businessmen? Because of one cardinal sin: greed. Not for chocolate but for money.

Last Sept. 17, this column dwelt on the conflict over a contract to supply Duty Free Philippines with chocolate snacks and candies. DFP had awarded the contract to Eastern Duty Free (EDF). Another supplier, Winning Touch, made a higher offer. EDF matched this higher offer and clinched the contract. Winning Touch and the DFP Employees Union protested and filed charges of graft against then Tourism Secretary Roberto Pagdanganan and DFP General Manager Michael Kho. There was no public bidding, they said.

It turns out that William Tieng, owner of Winning Touch, himself has several contracts with DFP which he got without any public bidding either. Two congressmen filed resolutions calling for investigations not only of the chocolate contract but all the other contracts of DFP, including those awarded to Tieng.

Last week, the camp of Tieng sent a letter commenting on that column. In fairness to him, I am now reporting the contents of that letter.

The issue is neither the contracts of Tieng nor his "alleged monopoly" of the operations at Duty Free, the letter said. And it is EDF that will monopolize the chocolate business at DFP.

Chocolate products represent about 40 percent-worth about $40 million or P2.2 billion-of DFP's annual sales. At least 20 companies now supply chocolate products to DFP. In the new contract under question, only one, EDF, will henceforth be the sole supplier. The 20 other companies will lose their business, which means lost jobs for their employees, the letter said.

"Why fix something that is not broke?" it asked. "The new contract will earn less for the government than what it is earning under the present setup.

"Despite the amended DFP-EDF contract (to match Winning Touch's superior offer) which increased the government take by P180 million a year, DFP would still lose P336 million a year, according to the complaint of the DFP employees."

Besides, the contract was rushed; it was a midnight contract, the Tieng camp said. Pagdanganan's replacement had already been announced, and yet he approved a major contract. Prudence dictates that he should have allowed the new secretary, who was to take over in a few days, to review and sign the contract. Yet the PTA board pushed through with the meeting to ratify the contract on Aug. 25, when half of Metro Manila was under water. The President declared a calamity by lunchtime and sent home employees in both public and private offices. Why the hurry then? Besides, the letter added, EDF, just like Winning Touch, supplies other products to DFP.

* * *

Another government contract will be bid out this October, and it is bound to be a headache, too if it is not handled correctly. This is the sale of the 600-megawatt Masinloc power plant in Zambales, the first part of the privatization of the mega-losing National Power Corp.

The sale of all of Napocor's assets is expected to raise between $4 billion and $5 billion, not even enough to pay for its accumulated debts of $7.2 billion. But Napocor has to sell them in a hurry because it loses an average P100 billion a year!

The government badly needs foreign investors to privatize Napocor-and put a stop to its bleeding-as there is not enough local capital. A number of foreign investors have qualified for the bidding, among them, Marubeni of Japan, Kepco of Korea, YNN of Australia, YTL of Malaysia, and Atlanta-based Mirant Philippines.

The lone local bidder may be the First Generation Holdings of the Lopez group.

So what is the problem?

In a pre-bid conference last Sept. 1, the potential foreign investors denounced the bidding guidelines drafted by the government.

They denounced a "right to match" provision which states that any winning bid by a foreign company may be matched by a Filipino-owned company, which will then be proclaimed the winner.

This rule, said the foreign investors, is inequitable and gives preferential treatment to a Filipino company. It is grossly disadvantageous, unfair and discriminatory to foreign investors, they said.

But wasn't that the same rule given by the Supreme Court in the sale of Manila Hotel? A Malaysian company won the bidding but a Filipino group, led by businessman Emilio Yap, matched the bid and was declared the winner. The Malaysians protested but the Supreme Court backed the Filipino company.

But there is a difference between the Manila Hotel and the Masinloc power plant. The Manila Hotel is clearly part of the national patrimony and should remain in Filipino hands, the tribunal said. The Masinloc plant is not.

Foreign investors must be given a level playing field, otherwise they would not bother to invest here at all. Remember that they spend a lot of money and resources to conduct studies on the property they intend to buy. When the right to match is given to a preferred third party, that party doesn't have to spend or make any studies at all. It just matches the highest bid, knowing that the bidder made painstaking studies to arrive at the price. That effectively results in a virtual handover to the Filipino firm. The foreign investor loses his investment on the due diligence it made, and the Filipino company profits from the foreigner's pains and investments. That is unfair. That sends the wrong message to foreign investors and jeopardizes government efforts to privatize Napocor.

Restore maximum income tax rate to 70%

2004-09-23T23:01:00.000-07:00

Restore maximum income tax rate to 70%

Updated 11:01pm (Mla time) Sept 23, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the September 24, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

(Due to a computer glitch, an old column with a similar date was sent to the Inquirer and published in the Sept. 22 issue. Though it was written a year ago, the issue remains valid today, however. The following column should have been published instead. Sorry for the mix-up.)

THE PRESIDENT and Congress continue to dance the “moro-moro” around the pork barrel, an outstanding example of corruption, wastage and abuse of power in government. The President asks members of Congress to forego 40 percent of their pork barrel. The legislators counter that the President should forego her own pork barrel (yes, she has it in the form of discretionary, intelligence and social funds).

But all this is just for show and intended to fool the people and preserve the status quo. If the President is sincere about reducing the congressional pork barrel, all she has to do is remove the appropriation from her proposed budget -- and not just 40 percent of it. No need to ask Congress' permission.
If Congress is sincere about cutting the pork in the executive department, all it has to do is reduce the appropriations for intelligence and discretionary allowances. So why are they not doing this?

If Congress would cut all government allowances by just 20 percent, about P20 billion would be saved, an amount equal to the expected revenue from the proposed increase in tariff on oil imports as well as the congressional pork barrel.

As stated last Monday, while the Constitution prohibits members of lawmaking bodies from increasing their own salaries, they have been surreptitiously increasing their own allowances and other benefits. The list of allowances top officials pay themselves can fill a whole page. Aside from the usual discretionary and intelligence allowances, there are allowances for cars, drivers, gasoline, maintenance, travel, mail and phone, entertainment, housing, etc., etc. Some even have grocery allowances.

And in the case of government-owned or -controlled corporations (GOCCs) and government financial institutions (GFIs), their boards of directors can and have increased their own salaries -- and even their retirement benefits.

Easily the most obnoxious is the case of the Development Bank of the Philippines whose board of directors approved a P75,000 budget for each director for "office and staff allowance." It allowed each director to appoint two relatives to be paid out of this allowance. It was disapproved by the Commission on Audit (CoA), but the board defied the CoA and went ahead and created the new positions anyway. The directors obviously believe that charity begins at home.

It is not only members of Congress and boards of directors who have abused their power to increase allowances. Members of provincial, city, municipal and even village councils have abused theirs, too.

Easily the most abused privilege is the car plan. Members of the boards and councils attend meetings only once or twice a month. They already have one or two or more of their own vehicles. Yet they are provided with more new vehicles at taxpayers' expense -- luxury models, even -- plus backup vehicles for their bodyguards.

Under these car plans, the vehicles bought by the government become the properties of the users after a few years and after they have paid, on installment, a token price. In some cases, when an official is replaced, he does not return the vehicle assigned to him and it is lost to the government.

Theoretically, there is a watchdog -- the CoA -- that is supposed to check this form of abuse. But the auditors are co-opted into the conspiracy by being given their own cars. So they turn a blind eye, and everybody is happy. It is like letting a gang of thieves loose in the vaults of the Treasury.

The chiefs of the GOCCs, the governors and mayors use these benefits as a bribe to get what they want from the board and council members, in the same way that the President uses the pork barrel as a bribe to members of Congress.

In the face of such wanton abuse and wastage, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo wants to get the money to fund them from the people through bigger and more taxes. She has proposed eight tax reform measures. Of these, only the increase in the taxes on tobacco and liquor has the least opposition, although this is likely to increase smuggling and reduce local production and sale of these products, hence, less tax revenues collected.

The most regressive is the increase in oil tariff. This will impact on power and transportation rates, and hence on all products, and raise the inflation rate. It will hit the poor the hardest, but the government likes this because it is the easiest to collect.

One basic principle of taxation is to tax most those who can afford it the most. Yet our tax structure favors the rich and punishes the poor, especially the middle class. While increasing consumption taxes, which hits everybody, it has reduced direct taxes on the rich.

It has reduced the maximum income tax rate from the original 70 percent to only 30 percent. Thus, the mega-rich, the multi-billionaires that Forbes Magazine listed among the richest in the region, pay the same 30 percent tax rate as a member of the middle class. That original 70 percent maximum rate, mind you, applied only to income above P500,000 a year.

Before Congress enacts a new tax measure, it should first raise the 30 percent limit on income tax rates to the original 70 percent. But of course the legislators lowered the limit because it benefits them. They themselves earn millions for which they should pay the correct taxes.

Graft will be worse in a parliamentary system

2004-09-22T16:25:00.000-07:00

Graft will be worse in a parliamentary system

Updated 01:04am (Mla time) Sept 22, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the September 22, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

CONGRESSMEN are getting desperate because time is running out on a constituent assembly to amend the Constitution before next year's national elections. Now they are proposing that a transition president with a three-year term, instead of the full term of six years, be elected next year whose primary duty would be to shift to a parliamentary system.

But the term of the president cannot be shortened unless the Constitution is amended first. And any amendment cannot take effect unless the people first ratify it in a plebiscite. Which means we will have two polls in a space of eight months: the plebiscite and the national elections. Each of them will cost the taxpayers billions of pesos, an amount we cannot afford and is not in the 2004 budget submitted by the executive department. Congress cannot increase the budget submitted by the executive.

Furthermore, for this desperate plan to work, a constituent assembly must be in place next month and the plebiscite held next February, only three months before the May elections. There is very little time to prepare for all these.

A survey has shown that the people don't want Charter change, but leave it to the representatives of the people to push what they want instead of what the people want. They don't even know whether the people want a parliamentary system, but that is already the main agenda of a “Cha-cha” [Charter change].

The Senate does not want a “Consa” [constituent assembly] to amend the Constitution but a “Con-con” [constitutional convention]. As proposed by the Senate, delegates to the Con-Con will be elected at the same time as the other officials in the 2007 polls. The Consa, however, will be composed of, horrors, the present members of Congress.

As Senate President Franklin Drilon said, "It takes two to Cha-cha." But only the House is dancing to the tune. So the congressmen are getting desperate.

The most desperate of all is House Speaker Jose de Venecia, the conductor of the orchestra that is the House of Representatives playing the Cha-cha song. For this is his last hurrah, his last chance to be chief executive. This is also the last hurrah of former president Fidel V. Ramos, who is also for a parliamentary form of government.

Ramos and De Venecia have four things in common: 1. They are both from the province of Pangasinan. 2. They both want to be chief executive. 3. They both cannot be elected president -- Ramos because the Constitution bars him from running for president again, and De Venecia because the people already rejected him when he ran for president and is likely to be rejected again if he runs a second time. 4. They both want to become chief executive via the back door, by shifting to a parliamentary system, winning seats in parliament, and then running for prime minister.

De Venecia is a known wheeler-dealer famous for hammering coalitions from among different political parties. He is confident he can do it again with the politicians who would be elected to parliament. And that is not hard to do with the present members of Congress, most of whom would likely be elected to parliament. All he has to do is to be generous to the members of parliament (MPs) and they will vote for him to be the prime minister.

Besides that, the PM has to keep the MPs happy, otherwise they could declare a loss of confidence in him and vote to reorganize the government.

Where will the PM get all the money to buy the votes? Where else but from the people. While the MPs get fat, the people will be squeezed dry. You think life is bad now? Wait until we have a parliamentary government.

For in a parliamentary government, there is no system of checks and balances. There will be no Senate to check the MPs, who will be the counterparts of the present congressmen. There will be no executive department to balance the legislature. Parliament will be both the legislature and the executive department. The secretaries or ministers of the executive department will come from among the MPs. And the prime minister, the counterpart of the present president, will also be an MP, elected to his top post by his colleagues. The people will have no part in choosing the person who will rule them.

The government will become an old boys' club even more, controlled by the political party or coalition in power. The party can do almost anything it wants. It will be like a dictatorship with not just one dictator but many. Or like a banana republic with a ruling junta. Imagine having several Marcoses with less brains running the country. That's what we will be in a parliamentary system.

Theoretically, there will be opposition parties who are supposed to fiscalize the administration party. But in the Philippines, political parties don't stand for anything. Parties center around personalities, not ideologies or platforms of government. And opposition politicians tend to fly to the party in power to share in the spoils of victory. So in a Philippine parliament, opposition politicians and parties will join and coalesce with the winning party. Political butterflies will be as plentiful as locusts. Hence, there will be no more opposition parties to check the abuses of the administration party. That is like giving the combination of the safe to a bunch of thieves.

Life may be hard now, but it will be worse in a parliamentary system, especially with the quality, or lack of it, of the present generation of politicians.

A begging republic; a beggar-President

2004-09-20T23:01:00.000-07:00

A begging republic; a beggar-President

Updated 11:48pm (Mla time) Sept 19, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the September 20, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

THE ALLEGED "strong republic" has become a begging republic. And the President, whom an American magazine included among the "most powerful" women in the world, has become a beggar-President.

The government itself prohibits begging- huge billboards warn the poor and Good Samaritans alike against the giving of alms to beggars. But it has resorted to begging to save itself from a looming financial disaster. After "extorting" P1 million apiece from a group of mostly Filipino-Chinese businessmen trapped in a jetliner (for the so-called Bayanihan Fund), the government is now begging each of the 50,000 top taxpayers to pay P1 million more. For being such good taxpayers, the President will punish them by dunning them for another P1 million apiece, while the tax evaders continue to get a free ride.

Wouldn't it be better to tell them to pay the correct taxes instead of begging for contributions? According to estimates, there is about P200 billion in uncollected taxes lying out there.

The businessmen want tax credits-to be used to pay future taxes-in exchange for their contributions. So there really would be no increase in the government's tax income. And we have had such a sorry experience with tax credit certificates.

The President is also begging members of Congress to agree to a cut in their pork barrel; and the fat cats in government-owned and controlled corporations to voluntarily cut their excessive salaries. Why does she have to beg them when all she has to do is remove the appropriations for pork from her proposed budget? If she is really the "powerful President" that the Americans think she is, she should not be afraid of the members of Congress. If there is no pork appropriation in her budget, then that is the end of it. Congress cannot increase the proposed budget she submits; it can only decrease it.

But the truth is she has submitted a P10 billion budget for pork to keep the congressmen happy. Only they're not happy with just P10 billion. They want P20 billion!

She has asked GOCC officials to voluntarily cut their scandalously high salaries. But since it is voluntary, they will not do that. Some of them will take token pay cuts for show, but they will still retain their excessive allowances, bonuses and other perks. For the salaries are only the tip of the iceberg. A big part of their take is hidden, just like the hidden allowances of the members of Congress, especially committee chairmen (that is why they're fighting for chairmanships), and Cabinet members. That is why some congressmen volunteered to give up their salaries, for show. Their salaries are peanuts compared to their hidden allowances.

What the President should do is issue an executive order standardizing the salaries and allowances of GOCC officials while waiting for Congress to pass an omnibus salary scale for GOCCs. Why should a GOCC official get a salary bigger than a Cabinet member, Supreme Court justice, and even the President herself?

They say that GOCC officials should get salaries at par with those of their counterparts in the private sector. But there is a difference in the public and private sectors. In the private sector, when a corporation doesn't earn a profit, its top officials are fired by the board of directors. They get fat salaries and bonuses only when the corporation is making big profits. For the directors have a stake in the corporation-they are part owners and shareholders.

In our GOCCs, however, the directors and top officials are politicians, proteges, and camp followers being rewarded for helping the President win the elections; they stay on and on even if the corporation is being run to the ground. They couldn't care less for the corporations; they care only for what they can get from them while they're in the saddle.

The reason there is so much abuse and wastage in Congress and in the GOCCs is that we have forgotten the principle that law/rule-making bodies should not be given the authority to increase their own benefits. That is why the Constitution prohibits members of Congress from increasing their own salaries.

But legislators-and executive and GOCC officials-have surreptitiously increased their own benefits. Thus, they have so many allowances and other perks that they no longer have any need for their salaries. The pork barrel is only the biggest and most corrupt.

For such a corrupt system, it is a wonder why our supposedly responsible leaders have allowed it to remain for generations. I was still a student when the Philippines Free Press under Teodoro M. Locsin was already fighting the pork barrel. Instead of abolishing or reducing it, the congressmen increased it and disguised it under innocent-sounding names. It is now P200 million for each senator and P65 million for each congressman, hundreds of times more than the original allocation. The lion's share of the budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways now goes to the pork barrel of legislators. The DPWH has steadily lost control of its own budget. The legislators now control it. Legislators are now de facto secretaries of public works, usurping the authority and functions of the Cabinet member.

And yet the Constitution clearly delineates the authorities and functions of the three branches of government: Congress legislates, the executive branch executes, and the judiciary interprets (the laws). So why are the legislators performing the jobs of the executive departments? Because of corruption. They get kickbacks from favored contractors.