Category: politics

pacquiao’s place

praising pacquiao by showbiz grande dame armida siguion-reyna aka tita midz is a good read.  specially this half:

Day after the fight, the papers had everybody who was anybody with a quote. Sen. Chiz Escudero hoped the boxer “inspires” those “easily disheartened by difficult challenges and setbacks.” Sen. Manny Villar credited Pacquiao as “reason to celebrate and stand proud of the Filipino race.” Sen. Dick Gordon lauded Pacquiao’s traits of “honest hard work, heart, experience, drive, pride an heroic elements” as “elements of a leader.” And from the diminutive Rep. Darlene Antonino-Custodio, who defeated Pacquiao in his first bid for Congress in 2007: “Thank you, Manny, for making us happy and proud once again.”

Most everyone expressed admiration for Mommy Dionisia’s son, and not only politicians. So did the MILF, perhaps the most realistic of all, for soon after recognizing Pacquiao’s skill, it said through a spokesman: “Boxing is a sport. But time will come and someone stronger will fight him and he will definitely lose.” The religious, with the Bishop of Cotabato claiming the victory as “answered prayers,” and Jesus is Lord leader Eddie Villanueva joining the praise.

And big business, through effusive statements from the likes of Aurelio Montinolla III, president of the Bank of Philippine Islands; Francis Lim, president of the Philippine Stock Exchange; Ramon Ang, president of San Miguel Corp.

Not to forget the one moving heaven and earth that she not be forgotten, wanting to run as congressman in next year’s elections. Gloria Arroyo, in Singapore for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum saying: “I hope we can all learn from his example so that, together, we can also move forward as a nation.”

Arroyo conveniently kept silence on who held us back from progress, as did her House Speaker who went to watch the fight live in Vegas, and later on innocently stated, “At least for one brief shining moment, we in the Philippines forgot all our problems, troubles and political back-biting and fighting each other.” A big fat hello, to the both of them, for playing dedma to their horrible misdeeds that caused our problems to begin with.

And it gets worse, and dreadfully so, when former activist and currently Arroyo spokesman Gary Olivar enters the picture, with “We have exhausted all possible honors and awards that could possibly be heaped on Manny because of his many victories. So if the administration party would want to include him in its senatorial slate, that’s the decision of the ruling party.”

Argh.

I clarify I’m just as proud as every other Filipino to have a kababayan declared as the “greatest fighter of the era.” This one’s clearly no ordinary champion pugilist, he has seven weight-class titles to his name — flyweight, super bantamweight, featherweight, super featherweight, lightweight and light welterweight — the first fighter ever to do so. His wins have been decisive, the one with Cotto had to be stopped in the 11th round by the referee out of mercy for the Puerto Rican who was so clearly outclassed by his opponent on the boxing arena, spouting blood — sa madaling sabi, magaling talaga si Pacquiao, sobrang galing niya.

But must we have him as senator, too?

It’s bad enough that when we applaud him for his boxing skills, we also almost insist he’s the greatest Filipino barring none, and by such fulsome approbation practically tell our young boys to stop going to school and consider boxing and nothing else but, we have to have him as legislator?

We professed paghanga to the OFWs and called them our “bagong bayani” for keeping our economy afloat with their remittances. The OFWs children wanted to be OFWs as well, it’s not a big percentage out there who want to be doctors, lawyers or teachers, most just wanted to earn dollars, period, and this has been so for years on end.

Similarly, what will our next generations want to be, the way we go overboard and salivate at the feet of a Manny Pacquiao? And on another (side) issue, hey. It’s good to praise the worthy, but how truly worthy is worthy when Pambansang Kamao and Pambansang Kulasisi go hand in hand?

pacquiao says he’s interested in running for office because he wants to continue helping the filipino people after he hangs up the boxing gloves.   but he has no experience or preparation or training of any kind for government office or politics, so why go there?   why not stay with sports instead, take on the cause of the philippine sports, raise funds for sports development nationwide, prepare our athletes for international competitions para hindi naman tayo parati na lang kulelat sa rankings. national sports is where he can continue to make a major difference.

manny pacquiao for congressman, for senator, for president, mananalo kasi, is a bad joke.   plain idiocy.   ilagay naman natin sa lugar ang pagmamahal natin kay pacquiao.   he is an absolutely stunning athlete who wows the world with his physical prowess and we’re very proud of him but but but but but but but he should not be allowed to think na okay lang na pumasok siya sa pulitika when all he’s got going for him is popularity.   he should not be allowed to think na okay lang na pumasok siya sa showbiz bilang singer at movie superhero just because he wants to, never mind na pang-karaoke lang ang singing niya at pang-commercial lang ang acting niya.

it’s like, how ironic, and pathetic, that after raising the bar for athletes he proceeds to lower the bar, as if it weren’t low enough, for elective officials and showbiz artists.   what a drag.

last-minute blues

there must be another way of handling the comelec registration process.   alam naman natin na may last-minute mentality ang pinoy.   comelec should have expected, and prepared for, the swarm instead of saying, kayo kasi…   lalo na’t merong concessions made to the rich and famous, like satellite ek-eks in kris aquino‘s case, and good old palakasan as in manuel buencamino‘s.   these, while masses of ordinary pinoys without connections had to line up for hours to register, if they were able to at all.    paano ka naman matutuwa sa ganyang palakad.

***

i can’t believe people are raving about the noynoy video hindi ka nag-iisa.   what’s so powerful about that torch-lit parade led by noynoy that went nowhere.   i’m like, they love this?   c’mon people, taas-taasan naman ang standards natin.   we already know na hindi siya nag-iisa.   tell us something new, let’s hear him talking platform.   hindi porke anak siya nina Ninoy at Cory ay okay na, siguradong he won’t lie, cheat, or steal.   that’s just too low a bar for a presidential candidate.   i need to hear how he’s going to address the problems of poverty, land reform, environment, education, foreign debt, chacha, atbp.   i will not take him, or anyone, on sheer faith.    i leave that to the pink sisters.

***

ayon kay senador nene pimentel tuloy tuloy ang pag-benta ng gma administration ng government assets, tipong ‘midnight sale,’    mostly to raise money pampuno sa napakalaking budget  ng 2009 or puwede ring pangkampanya sa 2010.    whatever, hindi lang pala ang food terminal inc. sa taguig at ang government shares in san miguel corp. at pnoc energy exploration corp. ang ibinebenta.  pati pala the sprawling properties ng national center for mental health at ng welfareville sa mandaluyong, gayon din ng national penitentiary sa muntinlupa city at ng home for the aged sa quezon city, “in complete disregard of their importance in providing vital social government services.”   ano ba yan.   ubos ubos biyaya.   and then what.   pag naubos, nakatunganga.   there must be a smarter way of handling our resources.    let’s demand that presidentiables be honest, yes, but also creative and wise.

the audacity of chiz

nagulat ako kay chiz.   nagulat ako nang sabihin niyang he’s out of the nationalist people’s coalition, that is, out of the shadow of party bosses playing traditional politics.    napa-wow ako sa kanyang declaration of independence, at sa wari ko ba, as i watched him declare himself a free man, free to serve the filipino people as they deserve and not as a political party dictates, i swear his aura changed, gumaan at umangat, at nagkaroon ng ibang kislap ang kanyang mga mata, no kidding!   it must be, like, you know, liberating?

before this, since ondoy, i’ve been saying to anyone who asked kung kanino ba ako na i will campaign and vote for the candidate who will promise to clean up not just the government but also the environment, and one who has the character and the personality to impose and implement a zero waste policy nationwide, which would mean radical changes all around that should shake up the system.   to my disappointment, i’ve heard nothing like this from manny, gibo, noynoy, erap, or chiz.   BUT to the credit of chiz, he was is the only presidentiable who has  concrete proposals re the relocation and rehabilitation of flood victims to alleviate  suffering.   This one in particular was an unexpected surprise:

Sen. Francis Escudero asked landlords to help in rehabilitation efforts by donating land to be developed into relocation sites.

“If they have a hundred hectares, perhaps it will not be too much to ask for them to donate 10 hectares,” he added.

i wondered of course what danding would have had to say to that.    it might even explain the rumored limited funding by npc.   but whatever triggered offchiz’s decision to bolt the party, it doesn’t matter as much as the fact that he bolted.

While Escudero’s resignation surprised many, a lawmaker from the militant Bayan Muna party-list group welcomed the move.

It is “a major political development in the presidential race. His move to bolt the NPC is a welcome move that should develop his capacity to take on many people’s issues in performing his duties to the people,” Rep. Satur Ocampo said.

Ocampo dared other aspirants to also take the stand of Escudero.

Rep. Mong Palatino of Kabataan party-list group said that the senator’s move could usher in “platform-based politics” in the 2010 polls.

this is even bigger and braver than mar roxas sliding down to vp.   suddenly noynoy isn’t such a sure thing.   audacious chiz is looking smelling talking good.   the game continues to change.   noynoy has some catching up to do.

environment 7: denr & the poor

THE DENR & SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
(Why The Poor Will Always Be With Us)

Junie Kalaw

In Mindanao, two years after her historic succession to the presidency, President Aquino, a very religious person, appealed for the help of the citizenry, especially institutions like the church and other non-government organizations (NGOs), in reaching “the poorest 30% of the population,” and offered the work of some monks as a model of what can be done.  Appropriately enough, the monks of the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Bukidnon, where the President made the appeal, are involved in reforestation and adapting farming methods to sloping lands, and literally lived with the bottom 30%.  These Filipinos occupy government-owned “forest land,” do not have access to government agricultural extension-work benefits or credit, and survive off the beaten track taken by the health-services delivery system.  They are under the sufferance of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) which, in its capacity as representative of the state, controls 50% of the country’s land area, all its forests including the flora and fauna therein, and all other natural resources.

In callingfor assistance to the country’s poorest 30%, the President could not have done worse than to refer the matter to the DENR which has always treated these 14 million Filipinos as problems, absurd as that may sound, and not as constituents whose poverty may have developed in them the prayerful habits commonly associated only with the likes of President Aquino and monks.

… The rural development strategy of Philippine policy-makers confirms government’s alienation from the people. The Department of Agriculture, for example, bewails the following:

Trade, tariff, and tax policies which strip agriculture of its attractiveness to private investors;

Monopolies and excessive government regulation of agricultural markets which steal from the farmer his fair share of returns from his produce and foster inefficiencies in the marketing system;

An exchange rate policy that overvalues the peso and thus makes exports less competitive than they would otherwise be in the world market;

The insufficient and declining share of government expenditures going to rural infrastructure and support services needed to pump-prime the rural economy;

These policies combining to create a biased incentive structure which favor the urban and industrial sectors and penalize agriculture and the rural sector.

It might help in planning as if the poor really mattered to flesh out impersonal technical terms like “rural sector” and call them what they in reality are: farmers, subsistence fishermen, kaingineros, and landless laborers.  It is they who are penalized, not a “sector.”  It is defective policies, not their poverty, that drive them to insurgency. Bureaucratese has its own way of annulling the government’s best intentions by reducing questions of ideology to technical cover-ups.

Consider the policy prescription of “fashioning a policy environment conducive to private investments in income-enhancing and employment-generating agro-based rural enterprises.”  Thus worded, it effectively masks the fact that the biggest investors in our rural areas are our farmers, upland dwellers, small fishermen, and landless laborers who toil and sweat it out.  They should be given control and tenure over the resources they work with.  They are the ones entitled to support and incentives to make their investments profitable.  A value-added increase the equivalent of Php1,000 per person of our rural population is about the same as a US$10 billion investment in the rural areas and amounts to a scenario far more honorable than foreign investments or even grants.

It was correct of the President to call on the church and NGOs to extend a helping hand, even though in the course of heeding this call many of them will have to develop alternatives to existing policies of government departments and to contend with being stigmatized as “subversive.”  But perhaps the President should have first looked around her to see why, given the policies of the men she trusts, the poor may always be with us.

Philippine Daily Inquirer, 5 September 1990