Arabian Night

The Arab world is in the midst of waking up to a new day after ages spent in slumber. It started as a dream in Egypt which eventually became a nightmare for every dictator in Libya, Jordan, Saudi, and other nations who have been long dictated and stripped of their basic human rights. It is ironic that this part of the world is the cradle of civilization, that hosted some of the earliest civilizations of all time like Mesopotamia (Iraq).

Walk the Leak

The internet has done it again. This time with shocking, factual, and downloadable evidence. The bold move was greeted with extreme hostility from the US Government, prompting attacks on all levels. It was forthcoming, people behind wikileaks would not expect a bouquet of flowers from the US Government after releasing classified war logs from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sadder than sad

By Marlen V. Ronquillo

It was not about mass murder and mass mayhem, the sickening, gory and dehumanizing stories of human depravity that we are all too familiar with. But it was easily the saddest story of contemporary times.
Even the efforts of The Manila Times’ editors to write headline so subtly, “RP trails Asean peers in per capita income,” cannot obscure the depressing let-down of the story: We are about to be the sub-Sahara of the Asean region.

The story essentially said that we will have today’s per capita of Indonesia by 2015.

The Truth Commission and the promised day of reckoning

The state of Israel moved from developing agricultural oasis from rocky, hostile land to building technology enclaves more impressive than Silicon Valley as determined Jews hunted for Nazi criminals and brought them to trial. It did—and still does—world-class R and D on every vital concern without wavering on the resolve to get the Adolf Eichmanns of the world.

Germany, the country that gave us the Nazis, turned a ruined economy into the largest and most advanced in post-war Europe while dealing with its ghastly past—though uncomfortably and grudgingly at times.

The United States confronted racism and inequality, (Selma, Rosa Parks, Kent State, Civil Rights Act), until it elected an African-American president—without losing its status as the world’s largest economy.

PNoy should tell the Factions: My way or the highway

The good news is this: Kamaganak Inc. is history. Either the president gave his next of kin a stern warning against meddling. Or, they did it voluntarily. My sense is the latter.

The bad news: Several factions have emerged from the wreckage of the Kamaganak Inc. The latest count says there are more factions jockeying for power in the PNoy administration than the disparate groups under the Rejectionists.

On land transport, Kong Ping should go back to Cory model

BY MARLEN V. RONQUILLO

Because the discussion of public issues are not often framed well (the context is often lost), the efforts to put in order the land transport sector in the metropolis and the rest of Luzon are anchored on the usual knee-jerk thing: impounding buses, both metro and provincial, with the usual impunity. Confiscating licenses to cripple bus operators. The brutal hand of the state as policy.

To juice up media interest (the footage-rich orgies of impounding by the MMDA and other law-enforcement agencies), there is this complementary move to cast the bus operators as villains. Either they are operators of colorum buses. Or, operators of rolling coffins. As per stereotype, bus operators are more evil and sinister than loan sharks and illegal recruiters.

Homer’s odysseyI first met

BY MARLEN V. RONQUILLO

1-UTAK congressional nominee Homer Mercado 15 years ago. This was in Australia. He was on a transport observation tour. I was a fledgling livestock farmer jotting down notes—and getting amazed—at a country with more cattle than people. And one with a prodigious agricultural sector.

The deficit hawks are stoking early fear and foreboding

BY MARLEN V. RONQUILLO

Even the professional fault-finders in our midst (they are legions) can only appreciate President Aquino’s leadership. You cannot see scheming and plotting and ill-motive. You can only see a leader with the purest of intentions.

Despite this, there is a sense of foreboding and fear among us in the low-income bracket. The reason:
there seems to be an obsession with deficit-cutting. The dominant talk is about fiscal consolidation and spending cuts. Where the emphasis should be on job-generation and perking up an economy that has been sluggish over the past 10 years, deficit hawks have gained the upper hand in the discussions of our economic directions. And this has peaked into a worrisome chorus.

The SONA vow: I have promises to keep

President Aquino’s SONA opened up with a Frostian (Robert, the poet) dilemma. There is a road that forks two ways, he began. One goes the right way, the path of the straight and true. The other one leads you astray.

He asked us all, millions of Filipinos who left what they were doing to listen to the new president, to follow the right path. And, he vowed to lead by example.

No LP martyrs

BY MARLEN V. RONQUILLO

THE surnames of the LP martyrs are, sadly, nowhere in the new government.

President Benigno Aquinoc 3rd has laid down the moral basis for governing. Integrity, compassion for the common man, the disavowal of things identified with power and the arrogance of power.

This, and the conduct of her immediate family especially the sisters, has resonated with the public. The polls, which gave him a stratospheric positive rating, had essentially validated what is the sense at ground level.

Now the question is this: Can the Aquino administration add something more to further prop up the high moral ground of his leadership? Nothing much at this point. Except the recruitment into his administration of people related/identified with the original Liberal Party (LP) martyrs. Two LP leaders who were assassinated just two years or so before Ninoy’s own martyrdom: Cesar Climaco and Jose Lingad.

Water shortage, rice imports and ‘tongpat’

BY MARLEN V. RONQUILLO

Water shortage has been a national constant. In 1998, the water level at the major multipurpose dams dropped so low that the dams cut down by more than one half their water releases to rice farms. Over one million metric tons of rice had to be imported—the first time in our sorry rice-buying history that imports exceeded the one million mark.

The massive rice buying that ingloriously started in 1998 became the national template—well into the end of that century and into the new millennium. For the years 2009 to 2010, over 3.6 million metric tons had been imported, a reckless rice-ordering spree that some claimed had been driven by “commissions.”

Too many Abads in government? In a swath of Lubao, people are celebrating

BY MARLEN V. RONQUILLO

The headline does not seem to wash, given what is common knowledge. Why would Lubao, the hometown of former President Arroyo, celebrate the rise to political prominence of the Abad family? It is public knowledge that Abads turned against the former president and Butch Abad was a cog of the Hyatt 10 Group.

While the opposition to the former president over the past few years came from several sectors, it was the opposition from the Hyatt 10 Group that was most relentless, dogged and sustained.

On the surface, you can’t really square off the two things: the political ascent of the Abads and celebration in a corner of Lubao over the Abads’ rise to prominence. But it is true. I am, in fact, part of the community that is celebrating the event. And this is the full story.

Low-to-average expectations

BY MARLEN V. RONQUILLO

From their leaders, Filipinos have low-to-average expectations. We know why. Their leaders have been frustrating them from time immemorial. Worse, some leaders do not only fail to deliver on their promises. They screw them up. And they rob them blind.

President P-Noy will soon deliver his speech before the two chambers of Congress assembled with low-to-average expectations from the people. In fact, the Filipino Everyman is content with what he sees right now—a president who is impervious to the trappings of power. Should P-Noy decide to break tradition and manage to convince the manicured hordes (the lawmakers) to instead go to Luneta and mingle with the masa as he delivers his speech, so much the better.

MMDA out of sync with P-Noy’s pro-people gestures

BY MARLEN V. RONQUILLO

The 40 richest Filipinos are worth more than $20 billion. Close to 40 percent of the population live below—or just barely above—the poverty line. There has been no time in the sad history of the country with this kind of economic gap. Yes, we know, the rich are different from you and me. But should we have a vast, seemingly unbridgeable chasm, for a gap?

The good news amid this story of brutal poverty is a leadership that tries very hard to make it up with the common man. No wang wang and beating the red lights for the convoy of P-Noy. No special treatment for her sisters at the airport immigration lines. While these gesture are merely symbolic, they resonate and resonate deeply. To the Filipino Everyman, used to a culture of impunity and recklessness, these gestures are heaven sent.

To P-Noy and Alcala: The basics indeed but with revisions

BY MARLEN V. RONQUILLO

Filipinos generally agree with P-Noy’s focus on the basics, which he spelled out in his 20-minuter speech. A government agenda with a vast arch, in a context where funds are scarce and expectations for results are high and very urgent, is out of the question.

But the “ basics” should be the real thing: the most cost efficient, the ones that can produce real results.
Or, the game-changers, if you will. However, some of the specifics cited by PNoy in his inaugural are second priorities, not basic and urgent programs. These should be revised by a process of shifting and tinkering.