Desperate
Desperate
Updated 11:29pm (Mla time) Sept 06, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A10 of the September 7, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
SOMEONE put it so well on radio. She was a working mother, the caller said, and had no problems scrimping and saving and even donating cash and kind to help pluck out the country from the jaws of death. She was scared of the warnings about the economy collapsing, she said, which she knew would affect the next generation most of all, including her children. She could see from her forays to the market how the prices of goods were rising. Eggs, which used to cost P3 not too long ago, now cost P4 or more. The same was true of medicine: Alaxan had risen by P1 in the neighborhood store. She was willing to do her bit for flag and country, but she had a problem: Whom does she give her cash and kind to? She didn't trust government officials. They were a bunch of crooks, she said.
That was by no means the first time I heard that thought expressed, nor would it be the last, though nowhere else would I hear it said as directly or forcefully. People were not unwilling to help stave off an Argentina-type crisis. But they were unwilling to entrust their money to the congressmen or to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
It's a dilemma of epic proportions, made no less so by the urgency of the situation. The problem is not that it is the hardest thing to get this country to come together to solve a problem of this magnitude. Nobody wants to cut off his nose to spite his face. The problem is getting the country to rally around their leaders to solve a problem of this magnitude. Those are two different things. Quite simply, the people do not see their current leaders as part of the cure, they see them as part of the disease.I cannot say I blame them. The first time I heard Bishop Fernando Capalla propose that the faithful give up P1 each to their beloved President, I reacted the same way, too. I have no problems giving up P1 or more, if that is what it would take to tide the country over the next few years. But why should I want to give it to Ms Arroyo and her cabal? Why should I believe they will use my money for the national good and not merely their own?
There is little to suggest so. At the very least, I go back to Ms Arroyo's use of taxpayers' money--which is my and my neighbors' money--during the last elections to put up billboards and posters with her face on it grinning at the world. Other Filipinos may be willing to forget it but I'm not. Though while at this, it is a testament to the perversity of our situation that the GNP (gross national product) actually recorded an increase during the second quarter of the year, which was when this prodigal and profligate use of scarce national resources took place. The paradox is easily explained by the unreliability, no, deceptiveness, of GNP as an indicator of the true state of economic affairs. The GNP can actually rise during disasters and calamities, which are situations that give rise to the production of various products and services as government rushes to relieve the affected areas. What is not glimpsed there is the real values that are lost to the community.
In the case of the second quarter, the GNP rose because of massive campaign spending, chiefly by Ms Arroyo. Very little of this spending represented a real utility to the community. Possibly with the exception of the Ms Arroyo billboards that went on to become the walls and roofs of shanties and the Ms Arroyo T-shirts that now shield the backs of tricycle drivers from the lash of wind and rain.
That is only the most visible part of Ms Arroyo's cavalier attitude toward public funds. Less visibly, but which Joker Arroyo has recently revealed, there is the fact that Ms Arroyo borrowed more in three and a half years than Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada borrowed in eight years. None of her borrowings has translated into more infrastructure and education, the two things that assure the foundation for future growth. In fact, expenditures for both infrastructure and education have fallen during her term, as her government uses 42 percent of its budget to pay for the interest alone of her debts.
Frankly, I don't know how Ms Arroyo passed Economics 101. Let alone pass herself as an expert in the field.
Which brings us back to the question that spells life and death for the nation: How do we save ourselves when we cannot rely on our leaders to do the job? How can we cure the nation when our leaders are not the medicine but the virus that attacks it?
I don't know the answer to that question. But I hope others do. Or will propose one soon. Time is not on our side.
I myself am tempted to suggest that the national budget, and whatever savings can be made from voluntary and involuntary contributions from Filipinos, resident or overseas, be held in escrow until the Ms Arroyo government can show proof of its integrity, or capacity to use the money as it was intended for. Or until we can devise an independent auditing system that will ensure the money will go to what it was intended for. Until then we should place the money under the supervision of a Council of Elders, representing the best and brightest and least venal in society--the Jovito Salonga and Sixto Roxas-types--or under a coalesced civil society authority that excludes all the NGOs that profited from the Peace Bonds.
Desperate ideas? Yes, but these are desperate times that call for desperate solutions. Maybe it's time we came up with suggestions unheard of before. What we face is a fate unheard of before. Unlike the First Couple who can always move to San Francisco, we have to stay here and bear the brunt of a catastrophe of their making. What else have we got? The current arrangement, which is putting the means for our recovery in the hands of Ms Arroyo et al., is like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank.
Or, to use a more current and apt metaphor, putting Benjamin Abalos in charge of clean elections.
Updated 11:29pm (Mla time) Sept 06, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A10 of the September 7, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
SOMEONE put it so well on radio. She was a working mother, the caller said, and had no problems scrimping and saving and even donating cash and kind to help pluck out the country from the jaws of death. She was scared of the warnings about the economy collapsing, she said, which she knew would affect the next generation most of all, including her children. She could see from her forays to the market how the prices of goods were rising. Eggs, which used to cost P3 not too long ago, now cost P4 or more. The same was true of medicine: Alaxan had risen by P1 in the neighborhood store. She was willing to do her bit for flag and country, but she had a problem: Whom does she give her cash and kind to? She didn't trust government officials. They were a bunch of crooks, she said.
That was by no means the first time I heard that thought expressed, nor would it be the last, though nowhere else would I hear it said as directly or forcefully. People were not unwilling to help stave off an Argentina-type crisis. But they were unwilling to entrust their money to the congressmen or to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
It's a dilemma of epic proportions, made no less so by the urgency of the situation. The problem is not that it is the hardest thing to get this country to come together to solve a problem of this magnitude. Nobody wants to cut off his nose to spite his face. The problem is getting the country to rally around their leaders to solve a problem of this magnitude. Those are two different things. Quite simply, the people do not see their current leaders as part of the cure, they see them as part of the disease.I cannot say I blame them. The first time I heard Bishop Fernando Capalla propose that the faithful give up P1 each to their beloved President, I reacted the same way, too. I have no problems giving up P1 or more, if that is what it would take to tide the country over the next few years. But why should I want to give it to Ms Arroyo and her cabal? Why should I believe they will use my money for the national good and not merely their own?
There is little to suggest so. At the very least, I go back to Ms Arroyo's use of taxpayers' money--which is my and my neighbors' money--during the last elections to put up billboards and posters with her face on it grinning at the world. Other Filipinos may be willing to forget it but I'm not. Though while at this, it is a testament to the perversity of our situation that the GNP (gross national product) actually recorded an increase during the second quarter of the year, which was when this prodigal and profligate use of scarce national resources took place. The paradox is easily explained by the unreliability, no, deceptiveness, of GNP as an indicator of the true state of economic affairs. The GNP can actually rise during disasters and calamities, which are situations that give rise to the production of various products and services as government rushes to relieve the affected areas. What is not glimpsed there is the real values that are lost to the community.
In the case of the second quarter, the GNP rose because of massive campaign spending, chiefly by Ms Arroyo. Very little of this spending represented a real utility to the community. Possibly with the exception of the Ms Arroyo billboards that went on to become the walls and roofs of shanties and the Ms Arroyo T-shirts that now shield the backs of tricycle drivers from the lash of wind and rain.
That is only the most visible part of Ms Arroyo's cavalier attitude toward public funds. Less visibly, but which Joker Arroyo has recently revealed, there is the fact that Ms Arroyo borrowed more in three and a half years than Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada borrowed in eight years. None of her borrowings has translated into more infrastructure and education, the two things that assure the foundation for future growth. In fact, expenditures for both infrastructure and education have fallen during her term, as her government uses 42 percent of its budget to pay for the interest alone of her debts.
Frankly, I don't know how Ms Arroyo passed Economics 101. Let alone pass herself as an expert in the field.
Which brings us back to the question that spells life and death for the nation: How do we save ourselves when we cannot rely on our leaders to do the job? How can we cure the nation when our leaders are not the medicine but the virus that attacks it?
I don't know the answer to that question. But I hope others do. Or will propose one soon. Time is not on our side.
I myself am tempted to suggest that the national budget, and whatever savings can be made from voluntary and involuntary contributions from Filipinos, resident or overseas, be held in escrow until the Ms Arroyo government can show proof of its integrity, or capacity to use the money as it was intended for. Or until we can devise an independent auditing system that will ensure the money will go to what it was intended for. Until then we should place the money under the supervision of a Council of Elders, representing the best and brightest and least venal in society--the Jovito Salonga and Sixto Roxas-types--or under a coalesced civil society authority that excludes all the NGOs that profited from the Peace Bonds.
Desperate ideas? Yes, but these are desperate times that call for desperate solutions. Maybe it's time we came up with suggestions unheard of before. What we face is a fate unheard of before. Unlike the First Couple who can always move to San Francisco, we have to stay here and bear the brunt of a catastrophe of their making. What else have we got? The current arrangement, which is putting the means for our recovery in the hands of Ms Arroyo et al., is like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank.
Or, to use a more current and apt metaphor, putting Benjamin Abalos in charge of clean elections.
posted by Dante at 10:59 AM
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