Horror story

Horror story

Updated 09:38pm (Mla time) Oct 27, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the October 28, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


I WONDER why we don't have too many sightings of “aswang” [local type of ghoul] these days. There was one a couple of years ago, somewhere up north, I think. I saw it in one of the news programs, an oddity or comic relief item, though it probably didn't seem odd or comic to the people who were afflicted by the “aswang,” or thought they were. The story was amplified in the TV program "Magandang Gabi, Bayan" not long afterward.

As the story went, some villagers were alerted to the presence of the unholy creature by an unholy smell spreading into the village. And by the fact that the newly born babies in the place, of which there were plentiful, were in a constant state of agitation at night. They were certain the stench did not originate from a fetid river nearby and the babies' cries from mother's milk gone dry. Unfortunately, the villagers never captured or killed the “aswang.” They caught sight of it on several occasions and with the aid of torches and flashlights gave chase, but it was too fast for them and disappeared in a flash in the moonless haze above the thatched roofs.

Anthropologists, of course, have an explanation for it. “Aswang” have a way of materializing in times of want. It's people's way of coping. They project their fears to the outside world, in the form of unholy creatures, which despite their fearful countenance (the local comic books had a way of drawing them that scared the wits out me as a kid) were capable of being destroyed. Not so poverty.

Maybe so. But anthropologists themselves, particularly in the godforsaken places of this country, of which there are plentiful too, have been known to glance behind them on a dark and lonely road in the witching hour.

Well, in lieu of “aswang” sightings, we do have a plethora of horror movies invading cable TV and, even scarier, feel Halloween invading the hotels and restaurants. I don't know though that the movies, local or foreign, still manage to give people the kind of fright appropriate to All Saints' Day, or more aptly All Souls' Day.

When I was a kid, the two popular movie genres were Westerns and horror movies. The Westerns thrilled and the horror movies chilled. Indeed, it wasn't just horror movies that were popular then, horror comics and horror radio programs were so, too. By far, the scariest were the horror radio programs, the "Gabi ng Lagim" [Nigh of Horror] types that featured some pretty awesome voice talents. What made the radio horror stories more terrifying than the movies was that it relied on the power of suggestion. What is scarier than what you see is what you don't see. Doors creaking, wings flapping, wild noises in the night -- all these, or the simulation of them, terrified more than the sight of nocturnal denizens creeping up on the hero and heroine in the movies.

Both the Westerns and the horror movies eventually died for various reasons. The Western died in a blazing gunfight with realism in the 1960s, realism ending up the faster draw. The Western was based on a heroic code not unlike that of the Japanese samurai movies, proof of which being that one of the most successful Western of all, which spawned no end of sequels, was "The Magnificent Seven," which came off Akira Kurosawa's "The Seven Samurai." To this day, Japan, which still clings in great part to tradition, continues to make samurai movies, though increasingly in animé form. Hollywood no longer does Westerns, or makes a whole industry of them. The inspiration is gone.

Horror movies, too, have suffered a tremendous decline, from the glory and gory Hammer days of the 1960s to the gory but not so glory days of zombie movies. I don't know what the reasons for it are. I suspect realism, too, had a great deal to do with it. You've got to be a little innocent or believe in something to suspend disbelief in a horror movie. You can't be scared as hell by hellish creatures or supernatural forces if you've become cynical or angry. The 1960s generation may not have been completely cynical, but it was angry. It was angry at many things, not least the Vietnam War, which became the other word for atrocity. You can't have a horror movie more horrifying than the one titled "My Lai." That massacre gave a face to horror to a whole generation.

We've been holdouts in the horror department, our movies continuing to mine the unearthly or ungodly long after Hollywood ceased to do so. But I don't know that they continue to gather big audiences, or still cause them to be deliciously frightened the way they did us long ago. The genre, of course, has gotten a new lease in life with the Asian horror genre spawned by "The Ring." I understand "Feng Shui," which has been quite successful, dips into that pool.

Why do horror movies continue to exert a fascination on us? Maybe the anthropologists have a point when they say our belief in the magical and fantastic, the supernaturally sublime and horrifying, heroes and “aswang,” is our way of projecting our fears into the world and resolving them through bravery and incantation. Maybe it's true, “aswang” sightings and horror movies flourish in periods of horrendous want and dire economic dislocation, enabling or persuading us to believe that however fearful our enemies are, we will vanquish them in the end. With hunger becoming more prevalent and a financial collapse waiting in the wings, maybe we'll dwell more and more on these as forms of escape in months to come. I recall that Imelda Marcos became more and more supernaturally inclined, or blamed the country's woes on unearthly causes, during the twilight of her and her husband's rule.

But that may be the most horrifying thing of all, our inability or unwillingness to see the real horrors creeping upon us in this cobwebbed land. We may yet see the greatest horror movie of all. In life.

Solutions

Solutions

Updated 00:58am (Mla time) Oct 27, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service



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


WHAT'S astonishing about the sums the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chiefs of staff have been playing around with like marbles is not just their size but their availability. Why this fortune should be theirs for the taking, only they, or those who approve their budget, can say.

I've been writing for all of my life, and I have yet to see a million pesos in one blow. I cannot look forward to retiring with just a million for my pains. I am not a regular employee and do not even get a 13th-month pay or regular bonus. So you will forgive me if my blood is aboil that the chiefs of staff get to retire routinely with P300 million as nest egg. Maybe the sums are an exaggeration. But you halve them, or reduce them by three quarters, and they are still a fortune to most of us.

What in God's name makes the chiefs of staff more important than the rest of us? They risk their lives in doing duty? Well, journalists, particularly the provincial ones, do the same thing, and more of them have been killed in the line of duty over the past months than generals. Some of them did not even have the means for a decent burial. More than this, if the Oakwood mutineers were to be believed, it's not the generals who put their asses on the line in the field, it's the junior officers and their men. The generals may only be found dashing off in helicopters to golf clubs in Zamboanga and elsewhere.

But if the generals have these sums to play around with, you wonder what the civilian officials have in their turn. No wonder the Department of Education, which by law is entitled to the biggest budget (which isn't followed anyway, since the biggest slice goes to debt payments) has earned a reputation not for being the seat of enlightenment but for being the seat of corruption.

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her officials have hastened to assure that a court martial of Carlos Garcia (what irony that he should be named after the Filipino president who launched "Filipino First," which Diosdado Macapagal, who came after him, promptly undid) will not wreck the AFP, it will strengthen it. It will strengthen it by cleansing it of its dregs. That presumes the muck ends with Garcia and doesn't flow upstream. Indeed, that presumes the muck ends with the generals and doesn't flow upward to their commander in chief.

As it is, Arroyo's culpability in this is patent, and not just by the principle of command responsibility. Her contribution to the corruption is direct. More immediately, it was her "revolving door" policy that made it possible. It produced four chiefs of staff in the same number of years, each one retiring with a “pabaon” [departure allowance] that could ransom a dozen kidnapped Chinese. Either Arroyo turned a blind eye to the practice or she actively abetted it. The latter is not unthinkable, given that she came to power through extra-constitutional means and has been vulnerable to uprisings, military or not.

On a broader and deeper level -- and this one bears repeating again and again -- it was her "war against terror" that catapulted corruption in the military to breathtaking heights. Especially in the first year after 9/11, when she echoed George W. Bush's line of "you are with me or against me," no one could question what government did, least of all its military operations. To do so was to be held up in derision as a terrorist-coddler or accused of treason. Fighting terrorism justified everything, including the curtailment of due process.

It was the culture of secrecy and paranoia unleashed by the "war against terror" that made the shit hit the fan, or unbridled corruption to hit the barracks. Until the US invasion of Iraq came along to disillusion even Filipinos, the last bastion of George W's imperial ambition, the generals were pretty much untouchable. No, they were pretty much infallible -- what they said was ex-cathedra.

What will strengthen the military today is not just the court martial of Garcia, though I'd be first to applaud if that should happen and is prosecuted with zeal. Who knows? Maybe Garcia would be persuaded to talk then, especially if a verdict of guilty carries with it not just a dozen push-ups but a dozen rifles lined up in a firing squad. But more than this, what will strengthen the military, or indeed the country itself, is Arroyo apologizing to the country for having dragged it down the drain with her military adventurism. A military adventurism that gave new lease on life on the praetorian mentality of the men in uniform and made mutinies, quite apart from runaway corruption, possible.

What will strengthen the military is reducing the size of the AFP to a level that matches national priorities and giving it only the budget it deserves. None of this means overlooking terrorism or neglecting national security. All of this means fighting terrorism in the only way that it can be fought, with the judicious combination of intelligence, diplomacy and force, and by assuring national security in the only way it can be assured, by empowering the people so that they can have the means, opportunity and motive to defend themselves. As this country's experience shows, a huge military never combats terrorism or oppression anyway. It only adds to them.

Of course, we should try the corrupt generals (and civilian officials), and punish them when they are found guilty. Life doesn't go on with justice, a nation doesn't move on without rewarding the just and punishing the guilty. But we want permanent solutions to the corruption in the military, let's cut it down to size, physically and ideologically, to reflect its true place in our lives. Our greatest enemies today are not terrorists and communists, they are hunger and corruption. Hunger terrorizes and corruption subverts.

Everything else is just “moro-moro” [a farcial play]. (My deepest apologies to the Moro.)

Credibility

Credibility

Updated 10:11pm (Mla time) Oct 25, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the October 26, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.


A RALLY by the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, the Farmers Movement of the Philippines) was dispersed last week at Welcome Rotunda in Quezon City. The marchers had just come from the Department of Agriculture where they camped out for a couple of nights. After a dialogue with agriculture department officials, they marched to Malacañang to send their lamentations to their President. Or since they knew that was going to fall on deaf ears, to assail the walls of the Palace with their shouts.

It was not clear who provoked whom, the riot police or the marchers, but the rally was scuttled. The marchers claimed it was violent, the police claimed they applied only the right amount of force. The latter were not in a good mood. One of their own, station commander Manolo Martinez, had just been gunned down a few days before by people they suspected to be the marchers' friends.

The marchers, on the other hand, did not particularly mind defying the authorities. It wasn't just that they were known to provoke routinely to press their point, it was that they had a pressing point to press. That point was hunger, the one that is already gripping many parts of the country today, and the one that is bound to ravage the whole of it tomorrow, with the exception of the subdivisions of Makati City, which are so food-secure that its residents' biggest headache is how to lose weight.

It is not clear who provoked whom at Welcome Rotunda for the rally to be dispersed. But that is not important. What is important is that it reminds us of a grim reality, which is the setting in which the scandal rocking government today -- yes, government and not just the Armed Forces -- is taking place. The disappearance of public monies is happening alongside the disappearance of food. The skimming of the fat of the land by a privileged few is happening while the teeming many go hungry. That is a combustible mix.

I did say in a previous column that what was worrisome about the growing problem of food scarcity, or plain famine, was that it was happening alongside displays of profligacy by government. That profligacy wasn't just to be seen in lifestyle, though the First Couple flouted their own strident injunctions for government officials to scrimp and save by bringing their entire family and friends, with the nannies too, along to see China. They would justify that later by saying they used their own money for it, which gave whole new meanings to living within one's means. Their means are truly awesome. More than that, the penchant for wastefulness was to be seen in President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's defense of the other Garcia, Government Service Insurance System boss Winston, who was the object too of corruption charges, and her appointment of Ramon Revilla to the Public Estates Authority. If she had decided to advertise her obliviousness to the plight of her country, or the cries of her people, she could not have done a better job.

When I wrote that column, pointing to the dangers of a situation where want coincided with excess, where a president threw cake to the hungry a la Marie Antoinette, the Carlos Garcia exposé hadn't happened yet. What had happened was that a few months earlier President Arroyo filled every kilometer of road from here to kingdom come with posters of herself, using public funds held by government gaming firm Pagcor and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.

Aquilino Pimentel speculates that the exposé on Garcia's ill-gotten wealth, which is just the tip of the iceberg, the submerged part being the wealth that went to his superiors, was leaked by the CIA after President Arroyo fell from grace with George Bush. Well, I've heard the same speculation over the last few weeks, in light particularly of the Garcia exposé taking place alongside the Heritage Foundation's assessment of Ms Arroyo as the weakest leader in Asia. Maybe it's coincidence, maybe George W's government is doing a number on her. But whether one or the other, it was just an exposé waiting to happen. It was merely a tossup which one was going to be exposed first, the military or the civilian bureaucracy. Winston was pointing in the direction of the civilian before Carlos swerved it in the direction of the military.

But whether one or the other, whether it's the military or the civilian bureaucracy that finds itself in the firing line, all of government reaps the bitter harvest with all this. It is not merely because President Arroyo is Garcia's commander in chief, or indeed because the pillage happened during the pit of President Arroyo's "war against terror," though the last bears repeating again and again. It is also that the Arroyo regime has absolutely no credibility to prosecute the defenders.

Nothing dramatizes that more than that Ignacio Arroyo, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo's expendable brother (at least he was the one left holding the bag labeled "Jose Pidal" that his “kuya” [elder brother] dropped on his lap while fleeing the wrath of God) is one of those making life hell for Garcia in the House. I wonder what he said when Garcia refused to answer his questions on the ground that he, Garcia, had a "right to silence." I wonder if the other congressmen could remember enough to howl in delight at the spectacle of the monumental farce.

President Arroyo would have Garcia court-martialed? The rest of the country would have her impeached. Every act of pillage her minions commit can only remind the world of the acts of pillage she and her husband have committed. How is Garcia's raid of the Armed Forces budget to earn a lease on life any different from President Arroyo's raid of the national treasury to earn a lease on power? How is Garcia's ownership of various monies and properties under various names any different from Jose Pidal's ownership of various monies and properties under various names, not least the pseudonym Mike Arroyo? Credibility is not their strongest suit.

Meanwhile, the rabble is marching down the streets, the growling in their mouths drowned only by the growling in their stomachs.

Misplaced sympathies

Misplaced sympathies

Updated 10:54pm (Mla time) Oct 24, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 25, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.


I WAS struck by an item I read on our front page last Wednesday. A couple of Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia's "mistahs" from PMA Class 1971, who are now high-ranking officials of the PNP, were impressed by his transformation in the congressional hearing. "He has really changed," they said. "He is no longer the silent, soft-spoken guy we've always known him to be since our days in the Academy."

This was just as it should be, one of them added. "The trial by publicity is just too much. If I were in his shoes, I would be just as combative. What's there to lose? I believe he is just a victim of circumstances. Yes, he made a lot of money. But nobody can say he did that exclusively. Higher-ranking officials might have stolen more. How come he's the lone focus of this controversy?"

The reason for Garcia's transformation from lamb to lion, the official added, was that Garcia was fuming at the thought that the congressmen who were pillorying him were "just as corrupt, if not more so." Garcia probably figured, the official said, that "the entire government should be on trial because corruption has been going on since time immemorial."

There and then you see the kind of thinking that has made crooks and thieves thrive in this country like pirates in Tortuga. You see the kind of thinking that has given this country the dubious distinction of producing two leaders that made it to Transparency International's list of the 10 most corrupt leaders in Asia (Marcos and Erap). You see the kind of thinking that has allowed the corrupt and ungodly in this country to go unpunished.

Of course it's true. Many of those who are surrounding Garcia like a pack of wolves in Congress are probably more venal than him. I still recall Ramon Mitra's depiction of his colleagues as people who will sign anything, including toilet paper, if it had peso signs on it.

As my friends keep telling me, moreover, how would you feel knowing somebody bigger than you, who was accused of bigger pillage and who has been the object of a bigger hearing, got away thoroughly unscathed? That of course was Mike Arroyo, who was accused at about this same time last year of amassing a fortune in the guise of one Jose Pidal. Unlike Arroyo who threw his brother, Ignacio, to the wolves, Garcia did not do the same thing to his son, whose botched attempt to smuggle in $100,000 to the United States first drew attention to his shenanigans. Garcia in fact begged his judges to go easy on his relations.

If I recall right, it was Ignacio who first used the concept of "right to silence" in defense of himself. That was how he answered questions about the Pidal account. He got away with the ruse, as did his older brother, the senators being content to construe silence not just as ignorance but innocence. Why the hell shouldn't Garcia use the same tack?

But this is the part that bothers me. I can understand why Garcia should be pissed off at the double standard. But I cannot understand why anyone would imagine he deserves sympathy, or indeed not to pay for his crime. That is the startling idiocy we've held on from time immemorial, to quote Garcia's "mistah," to go with the corruption that has gone on since time immemorial. That is the notion that two wrongs make a right. That is the notion that if you can cite the precedent of someone who got away with the same crime as yours, you should enjoy the same result.

Someone gets away with pillage, you may get away with pillage, too. Someone gets away with murder-and Arturo Pacificador has just given whole new dimensions to it-you may get away with murder, too. It's an incredibly perverse interpretation of the principle of universality.

But it is one that has taken on the aspect almost of legal tradition in this country. In fact, the real principle is: that another is just as guilty as you, if not more so, does not lessen your guilt, it only makes him equally guilty, if not more so. That another is just as guilty as you, if not more so, does not make you less indictable, it only makes him equally indictable, if not more so. That another is just as guilty as you, if not more so, does not make you less deserving of jail, it only qualifies him to keep you company, or stay on long after you've gone.

Or if the other person has gotten away with the crime already, then the principle is to haul him back and make him pay. Not free him. If Mike Arroyo has gotten away with being Jose Pidal, then arraign him for some other thing. The way the US government arraigned Al Capone for tax evasion, when it couldn't pin him down on bigger things. The comparison with Al Capone owes to more than physical appearance.

Two wrongs do not make a right, they make a bigger wrong.

Garcia is a victim of circumstance only in the same way that Arturo Pacificador is a victim of circumstance. He was born greedy in the same way that Pacificador was born murderous. But their parents themselves might object violently to the attribution of their perversities to genes. My apologies. Some greedy and murderous people are not born that way, they are self-made.

As to the trial by publicity, that is virtually the only trial that is possible in this country. And even that is not enough: Mike Arroyo remains a free and rich man. And despite the fact that all the surveys say Filipinos to a man or woman believe him guilty as hell, and not just of being Jose Pidal, his wife managed to win a second term. Well, the surveys say as well most Filipinos don't think she won at all. The genes run in the family, even if by consanguinity.

Garcia has a point if he thinks the whole government should be on trial. That doesn't mean he shouldn't. That only means he should have Mike Arroyo for company. That should be his biggest punishment of all.

Injustice

Injustice

Updated 02:46am (Mla time) Oct 21, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on Page A12 of the October 21, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Manila Metropolitan Area, Philippines -- ANTIQUE Governor Salvacion Zaldivar-Perez says the verdict of Regional Trial Court branch 12 finding Arturo Pacificador innocent of murdering Evelio Javier should be respected and accepted "even if it's painful like the Pangpang case." Perez was referring to the massacre in May 1984 of seven of Javier's supporters. Pacificador, Javier's political archenemy, was also accused of the crime but was acquitted. Only his men were convicted.

"Time heals and Antiqueños know in their hearts who had Beloy Javier killed," Perez added. She herself had four relatives who died in the Pangpang massacre. So that gives her a right to speak with authority on pain and acceptance in this case?

Not so.

This isn't just a personal pain, this is a national one. This is not just an injustice done to Javier, his relatives or to all Antiqueños, this is an injustice done to the nation. The need to right a monumental wrong remains as obdurate as ever. The need to punish the guilty remains as implacable as ever.

There are resignations and resignations. You may resign yourself to dying if you have cancer. You may not resign yourself to being murdered in the prime of life. Nor may the rest of us. We cannot resign ourselves to a monumental iniquity without dying ourselves.

Frankly, it staggers the imagination how Judge Rudy Castrojas could have found Pacificador innocent. He says what public opinion says and what the evidence shows are two different things. He says he can only judge on the basis of what he sees and hears in the court and not outside of it. Fair enough. But this is a case that even the most inept lawyer cannot bungle.

You may never hear someone say he actually heard Pacificador order his henchmen to gun down Javier like a dog in broad daylight. But you can always put two and two together.

Who had the means to murder Javier? Pacificador. He was top honcho in Antique and an ardent Ferdinand Marcos supporter to boot. He was Javier's bitterest enemy and had been accused once before of murdering Javier's people. Who had the opportunity to murder Javier? Pacificador. This was the “snap” presidential election [between Marcos and Corazon Aquino in January 1986], it was the perfect opportunity for Pacificador to show his boss, Marcos, what a loyal servant he was by removing a well-known Cory supporter from the face of the earth.

Who had the motive to murder Javier? Pacificador. That is the most damning thing of all. Who else would want to murder Javier while he campaigned for Cory Aquino? Javier himself points to him as the murderer. Shortly before the snap elections, he left a taped message naming the person who was bent on murdering him: Pacificador. If something should happen to him, Javier told the world in a recorded message, know only that one person could have done it: Pacificador. If Javier had risen from the grave and personally damned his oppressor, he could not have been more categorical.

Castrojos says there are other Pacificadors and not just Arturo. Chief of them is his son, Rodolfo whom the evidence points to as the mastermind. Unfortunately, Rodolfo is in Canada and cannot be made to answer for his crimes. Sorry na lang.

But his logic remains flawed. You grant Rodolfo was the mastermind and not Arturo, so what? The murder was clearly political, as Castrojos' own argument suggests. Why else would Rodolfo -- and his lawyer, Avelino Avellana -- want to kill Javier? If it was political, then Rodolfo could not have done it without Arturo's approval, as Arturo would be the first to reap the reward or punishment for it. And obviously they expected reward, the possibility of Marcos being ousted by an act of people power a month later being beyond the ken of the most fertile imagination.

At the very least then, this is a conspiracy, to go by Castrojos' logic. You assume Rodolfo was the mastermind and not his father, why should his father go free? Conspiracy is a crime. Maybe Arturo should get a lighter sentence -- two life terms instead of three or four -- but why should he go free?

I do not know what legal remedies are left after this ruling-there is the ban on double jeopardy. Though it's easy to see, with idiocies like this, why extra-legal remedies flourish in this country, and why the National People’s Army gets to score points with the public with its routine practice of it.

But I do know one thing, which is that legal remedies or not, we may not slip quietly into the night respecting and accepting this atrocity however painful it is. Time may not heal this wound, it may only cause it to rot to malodorous lengths. There is only one thing that has been known to heal wounds like this, and that is justice.

It is not enough that we know in our hearts who did the foul deed and hope to God he rots in hell. I've heard it so many times before: each time somebody gets murdered in this country and retribution eludes his killers, we should let go, time heals, life goes on. No implacable pursuit of redress is going to bring back the dead.

Wrong. The dead do spring back to life in the dogged pursuit of justice. It is the only thing that makes them do so. Otherwise they are as dead as a doornail and as forgotten as graves with no names. Time does not heal wounds carved by iniquity, it makes them fester. And life does not go on in the face of humongous wrongs, only death does. Life gets pinned down in the grinding wheels of injustice, unable to lift itself to go on. Have you ever wondered why we as a people seem to be floating around in space, with no past or future, not knowing where we came from or where we are going? Have you ever wondered why if we have the sensation of moving at all, we seem only to be moving backward? A people with no sense of right and wrong will always feel that. A people that cannot reward right and punish wrong will always feel that.

No justice, no cure. No justice, no life.

Still, strength

Still, strength

Updated 10:41pm (Mla time) Oct 19, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service



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


THE HERITAGE Foundation's assessment of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as the weakest leader in Asia Pacific raises some interesting questions about the nature of weakness and strength.

Heritage itself is confused about the concepts. Decades ago, it found Ferdinand Marcos a strong leader, at least when he did not strike the occasional pose of opposing the United States for local nationalist consumption. In fact, Marcos was a weak leader, notwithstanding that he ruled with an iron fist. The weakness did not lie in that his rule was being challenged from inside, by restive military officers, and outside, by the horde howling at the gates. Nor did it lie in that his kidneys were rotting away from lupus. It lay in the very nature of his rule. Dictatorial rule does not a strong leader make. But I'm getting ahead of my story.

President Arroyo herself uses the concept of a "strong republic." Much of it, of course, is just spin, which is the one thing she excels in. She came to Malacañang gratuitously, through the labors of others, and her claim to the throne being tenuous, she needed to project strength and authority. She surrounded herself with the accouterment of them. Not least rhetorically, "strong republic" being a chief phrase.

All this forces us to ask: What are the true properties of strength? What makes for a strong leader?

It helps to see what it is by seeing what it is not.

Strength is not stubbornness or pursuing things with a one-track mind. Strength is not refusing to apologize to a whistle-blower you falsely accuse of being part of the crime she has blown, and compounding the problem by ordering your police chief to make good your mistake. I remember writing several angry columns at the incredible suggestion of President Arroyo's aides that for her to apologize to Acsa Ramirez would be to show weakness and compromise national security. To this day, she hasn't. She has merely said let bygones be bygones.

Strength is not pursuing power with unyielding obsession. It is not making friends of enemies and enemies of friends to win votes. It is not transforming the one body tasked with ensuring clean elections into the one agency engineered for cheating. It is not ransacking the public treasury to buy an election. Strangely, I have heard people express admiration for this unscrupulous doggedness and describe it as strength. In fact, it is mere pettiness, one with disastrous consequences for the nation. Marcos showed that kind of doggedness, too, and look where it led us.

Strength is first of all strength of character. And strength of character is above all being able to admit mistakes and knowing when enough is enough. It is the ability to look power in the face and shun it. True strength, as "The Lord of the Rings" suggests, is not having the boldness to wear the ring of power and corrupting oneself, it is having the courage to throw the ring into the fires of hell and freeing oneself. As far as that goes, my hat's off to Cory Aquino who had the courage to say no to a second term notwithstanding that it was hers for the taking. That is strength.

Strength is not a martial posture or a predilection for war. Strength is not blindly following a superpower into thrashing about after being wounded and turning gung-ho for arms and war. A posture that can't be lived up to anyway, as President Arroyo's sudden retreat in the face of Angelo de la Cruz's kidnapping shows. The Heritage Foundation's view of President Arroyo as a strong leader during the height of her "war against terror" is an ironic one. The strength is an illusion, though one shared by her civilian and military aides, who gloated at the surplus warplanes that came their way and struck macho poses in the group picture. The only strong thing in all this was the odor it emitted.

Strength is morality, not pugnacity. Strength is reason, not brute force. Strength is the principle "right is might" and not "might is right." The real strength here, as in the United States, was shown by those who refused to be cowed into submission by the mob that howled in the streets and a government that led them on to a lynching. The real strength lay among those who asked why we were doing this and not among those who merely answered that that was what everybody else was doing.

And finally strength is not tyranny. That is the most dangerous illusion of all, the notion that authoritarianism, iron-fisted rule, dictatorship represents strength. "Strongman" is a misnomer, as is "strong republic." A strongman (or woman) is not a strong leader, he is a weak one. A "strong republic" is not a strong political order, it is a weak one. A strong leader does not impose her will on her people, she imposes the will of her people on her. A strong leader does not screw human rights and civil liberties to defend her nation's freedom, a strong leader defends human rights and civil liberties as the very essence of her nation's freedom.

The bigger and more dangerous illusion there is that democracy is a weak system and authoritarianism a strong one. The opposite is true. Democracy is the strongest system of all because it rests on a strong people. The aim of democracy is to make a strong people, not a strong government. The truth of democracy is that a republic is only as strong as its citizens. You can destroy a strong government, you cannot destroy a strong people.

Democracy is not unlike the strongest profession of all, which is teaching. The best teacher is not the one who makes himself indispensable, who will always be there to guide his pupil along. The best teacher is the one who makes himself superfluous, who makes sure his pupil will learn enough to go his own way someday.

President Arroyo is the weakest leader in all of Asia Pacific today. But that is so for reasons the Heritage Foundation will never understand.

Strength

Strength

Updated 00:03am (Mla time) Oct 19, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A10 of the October 19, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.


DANA R. Dillon of the Heritage Foundation is right when she says Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo "is the weakest leader in the [Asia-Pacific] region." She is right when she says Ms Arroyo is "an equal opportunity weakling" who would "rather appease than confront." She is right about these things -- but for the wrong reasons.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative American think tank that approved of Ferdinand Marcos for the most part, has always been confused about the meaning of strength. In that respect at least, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye is right to say its assessment is biased, owing mainly to President Arroyo's decision to pull out Philippine troops from Iraq to save a Filipino from a beheading. Dillon expressly shows his bias: "The longer [President Arroyo's] administration makes foreign policy for the Philippines, the more it seems that threats from terrorists and regional bullies influence her more than diplomatic and financial aid from Manila's friends and allies."

His equation is simple and simplistic: Had President Arroyo remained true to her commitment to the "coalition of the willing," she would have been a strong leader. But she did not. Hence, she is a weak one. In fact, her decision to pull out the tiny Philippine contingent from Iraq is the only show of strength she's made in close to four years of rule. But also for the wrong reasons, which in the end reduces it to an act of weakness.

I did say then it wasn't enough to pull out our troops from Iraq. By itself, it smacked of horrendous cowardice, coming as it did especially after her high-profile, gung-ho saber-rattling and strutting before the Iraq invasion. For her decision to represent an act of principle rather than of expedience, it had to go with a rejection of the invasion and an apology to both the Iraqi and Filipino people for dragging them to hell to satisfy the whims of a madman. You can't just pull out your troops and act as though nothing has happened. That may be possible in this country, whose people suffer from perpetual amnesia and who can't remember that the person who rescued Angelo de la Cruz was the same person who drove him to his captors' arms to begin with, but that is not possible elsewhere. Elsewhere, people remember -- and demand explanations.

I warned repeatedly about the consequences of that action without an articulated change of policy, or heart, to go with it. It would be seen as an act of cowardice, it would be seen as a show of weakness. Well, it's a lesson Ms Arroyo should have learned a long time ago: You try to please everybody, you'll please no one.

President Arroyo's support for the US invasion of Iraq, or indeed for George W. Bush's idea of fighting terrorism, was never an act of strength to begin with. It was an act of weakness. It represented the very thing Dillon cites as proof of Ms Arroyo's weakness, which is her penchant for appeasing rather than confronting. Outside looking in, it might have looked like a show of strength, a defiance of the sentiments of most of the world, particularly of the South, as represented by the countries belonging to the Non-Aligned Movement. Inside looking out, it was an act of weakness, a pandering to the biases of this country to drum up support for a second term. No, more than pandering to the biases of this country, exploiting and fanning the worst prejudices of this people, which are our blind love for Americans and blind hatred for “Moros” [Filipino Muslims].

President Arroyo's dubious distinction as the weakest leader in the Asia-Pacific region did not begin when she acceded to the demands of Angelo de la Cruz's captors. It began long before, when she acceded to the demands of this country's captors, the people and institutions who have run it from time immemorial, more and more to the ground. It was a monumental irony from the start that Ms Arroyo would ensue from the loins of the EDSA People Power II uprising, the overthrow of Joseph Estrada, like the overthrow of Marcos, sounding the call for heroic changes. That she would neither be heroic nor change anything was patent from Day One in her inauguration speech when she forgot about the real forces that drove Estrada away and began praising the generals who flocked to the EDSA highway at the 11th hour to pluck victory away from everybody else. That's how Angelo Reyes got as far as he did.

That was patent in the way she bowed down to Estrada after "EDSA III," figuring she couldn't afford to antagonize him and his followers if she wanted to win a second term. That was patent in the way she tried to accommodate the Marcoses and their cronies, figuring she too needed them if she wanted to stay in power. That was patent in the way she banned the movie "Live Show" from public view to please Jaime Cardinal Sin. "Live Show" was a perfectly respectable movie made by a perfectly respectable director, Joey Reyes, who had the added virtue of having fought Estrada when most movie folk tried only to please him. Certainly, he contributed far more to EDSA II than Ms Arroyo.

Indeed, that was patent in the way Ms Arroyo turned herself into an American vassal, single-handedly pushing this country back to commonwealth status, in defense of an idiot of an American president. Can there be a more embarrassing display of vassalage than her speech at the UN last year, where she echoed Bush's line after Kofi Annan, Jacques Chirac, Mahathir Mohamad, and even the Pope had taken turns criticizing the US for its occupation of Iraq? You want to see strong leaders, all you have to do is look at the last four, who are strong not merely because they stand their ground (Bush does the same thing out of stupidity) but because they stand on moral ground.

No, Ms Arroyo's descent into the weakest leader of Asia did not begin when she pulled out troops from Iraq. It began long before -- with no small help from the American government. And groups like the Heritage Foundation.

Three things

Three things

Updated 11:36pm (Mla time) Oct 17, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 18, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.


GOD or Fate seems to be really playing tricks on this country. The Oakwood mutineers must be kicking themselves in the ass. Barely had the spit dried on their apology to their commander in chief than their accusations were bolstered by the scandals rocking the Armed Forces of the Philippines today. Comes now proof that corruption there is far deeper and more prevalent than even they had led us to suppose.

The proof came initially-and almost providentially-from an unexpected source. Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia's son was held by US immigration authorities after failing to report he was carrying $100,000 into America. Garcia, the ex-AFP comptroller, would later try to explain it away as a loan from friends here and abroad, which only made matters worse. Some are luckier than others? That sounds like some are smarter than others.

Subsequent investigation showed that was only the tip of the iceberg. Between 2002 and 2004, Garcia's transactions amounted to an eye-popping P185,539,963. This does not include his assets in 40 banks and pieces of property in the United States, among them a house in Ohio and a Park Avenue condominium in New York. Garcia not being that high up in the AFP, the conclusion could only be that either he was an exceptionally clever operator to have been able to rip the AFP off that way or, as Sen. Aquilino Pimentel baldly says, he was acting on behalf of his superiors. There is little evidence to suggest he was an exceptionally clever operator.

Of course, I would like to add my voice to the chorus calling on the Senate and other investigating bodies to leave no stone unturned, as they like to put it. The moss-covered one Garcia represents is bound to yield big worms underneath. But I would also like to point out three things about these iniquitous doings that have so far eluded public notice, and outrage.

The first is the nature of the pillage. It is not only that it is huge-the pillage in some other Asian countries is bigger-it is that much of it is being transferred abroad. Garcia's wife and two sons are American citizens, and Garcia has been steadily stashing money in the United States. In two months alone this year, January and February, he remitted P49.7 million and made dollar transactions worth P36.96 million. Along with the $100,000 seized from Garcia's son at the San Francisco airport last December, these come up to a pretty penny.

The one reason I've always thought a "lifestyle check" on public officials was not just inutile but actually inimical to fighting corruption was that it gave added incentive to the corrupt to spirit their loot abroad. A "lifestyle check" does not make public officials, civilian or military, honest, it makes them careful. It does not fill public officials, civilian or military, with a burning desire to live simply, it fills them with a desperate sense of need not to get caught stealing. A "lifestyle check" merely prevents the corrupt from flaunting their ill-gotten wealth locally. It doesn't prevent them-or their patrons, in all probability Garcia isn't doing this for himself alone-from doing so abroad.

In these cash-strapped times, that is absolutely criminal. The crime isn't just corruption, it is treason. It should be treated as such. That is what makes our pillage far more harmful than that of other Asian countries. We bring the loot out. That isn't just money that is lost to the taxpayers, that is money that is lost to the nation.

The second is the time frame of the pillage, much of it happening during the last three years. Corruption in the military has always been rife, but it flourished mightily in the last three years, during President Macapagal-Arroyo's time. Much of Garcia's transactions occurred between the period 2002 and 2004. So did Interior Secretary Angelo Reyes's sudden increase in wealth. In but one year, from 2002 to 2003, Reyes' bank deposits rose 5,381 percent, from P75,000 to P4,111,111. His net worth also rose by almost a hundred percent during the same period, from P4.8 million to P8.3 million. He has the same explanation as Garcia: he has rich relations who decided to bequeath.

What were the last three years? They were the period when GMA waged her "war against terrorism," a "war" that put the reins of government in the hands of the generals, particularly those involved in national security. A "war" that turned any criticism against it-particularly the destruction of accountability-into an act of terrorism. I did keep saying at the time it wasn't fighting terrorism, it was fomenting it. Corruption naturally followed in its wake. You have a situation where you cannot question anything government does, particularly with respect to military operations, you guarantee pillage.

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo may not escape blame there. She it was who created that situation.

Which brings me to the last point. Why investigate the military alone? At the very least, as Rex Robles adduces, it's not just the generals who are being investigated by US authorities for deposits abroad; it's also three Cabinet officials. Which again is a crime of treason, apart from corruption. Malacanang's reaction to this has been to bristle at the thought and demand that Robles prove it, the same reaction it had to Bishop Oscar Cruz's charge that government was coddling gambling lords. A contrast with the way GMA herself went out of her way to find proof against Acsa Ramirez after she had falsely accused her of being part of the crime she had reported.

At the very most, you want to see who experienced a sudden improvement in fortunes in recent years after desperately knocking on doors trying to find work only a decade ago, look at one Mike Arroyo.

Dreams

Dreams

Updated 02:24am (Mla time) Oct 14, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the October 14, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


SOME years ago, I spoke to a group of Filipino children in Hong Kong. It was in a part of town not unlike Manila’s Malate district, where a crowd promenaded and music slipped through, or blasted away from, dingy bars. The kids, who were in their late teens and early 20s, played in one of the bars and had earned a reputation for being the best band there, drawing no small amount of following each time they played. Their place had a good-sized crowd that night.

We got together during the break; a friend of mine who lived there had introduced me to them. They turned out to be children of Filipino musicians who had decided to settle in Hong Kong. The bar itself was owned by their parents. One thing the kids said at one point in our conversation, conducted at pretty high decibel levels with rock music playing in the background, struck me. They had been to Manila several times, they said, and had gone to the places where bands played. And they had been impressed by the musicianship. Each time they went there, they said, they felt like amateurs.

They had been composing their own songs, they said, and longed for the day when they could play them there. To get some recognition in Manila, even if they didn't get to reach the top of the heap-that was accomplishment enough. That was their ambition in (musical) life.

I remembered that conversation after being deluged with pictures of Jasmine Trias wherever I went this past week. I like the kid, but I don't know why she has been turned into the toast of local Tinseltown. She is charming and talented, but so is an army of full-blooded Filipino young men and women currently playing in dingy bars in Manila and the provinces. Particularly in performance, which is where the Filipino excels in (unfortunately, Filipino musicians have yet to excel in the composition part). Filipino popular music performers have gotten global attention and been deemed world-class. Not so their compositions. With the possible exception of "Anak," Original Pilipino Music gets to be played only largely to Filipino audiences abroad.

I don't know that we need another performer in our midst. But clearly Trias' appeal lies beyond her musical abilities. She has been mined for something else, and that is the Great Filipino Dream.

That Great Filipino Dream used to be the exclusive franchise of Nora Aunor. She was the biggest thing there was in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and continued to have a strong fan base for decades (I know that she had the longest running TV show, "Superstar.") To this day, she continues to have a fanatical following, though a much-diminished one. The essay that recently won First Prize in the recent Palanca Awards (I was one of the judges), Wilfredo Pascual Jr.'s "Devotion," dealt precisely with that phenomenon. One urban poor resident had literally devoted her life to collecting every bit of paraphernalia of her idol.

Aunor, of course, captured the imagination of the masses for a couple of things. The first is that she came from a dirt-poor family, she herself spending her childhood running after trains to sell water to thirsty travelers. The second was that she had a great voice. Joseph Estrada's appeal lay in that he essayed movie characters that clawed out of poverty with pluck and fist. Aunor's appeal lay in that she was a real person who clawed out of poverty with pluck and voice. Those are the two things Filipinos pride themselves in, their ability to fight and their ability to sing. For millions of starving Filipinos, Aunor represented the, getting out of the rut through song. Many of her early movies dwelt on that theme.

Trias may just have stolen the crown from her, representing as she does the 21st-century Filipino Dream. That Filipino Dream consists of several things.

The first is living in America and preferably being an American citizen. That is what Trias does and is. Though she is as brown as Aunor and loves Filipino food as much as Aunor, she is an American citizen and speaks with an American accent. But nobody cares. The universal indifference to her nationality is patent in all the local write-ups, where no one describes her as American. For all her nationality and accent, she is deemed Filipino to the core.

(That is true as well, incidentally, of Alex Pagulayan, the billiards standout. Filipinos cheer for him wherever he goes, notwithstanding that his papers say he is not a Filipino but a Canadian. For most Filipinos, his being Canadian means nothing: He remains Filipino by heart.)

The second is making it big in America. That is an ambition that has eluded Filipinos, whether it be those living in America, who are citizenship-wise no longer Filipinos but Americans, or those living in the Philippines. This country has not lacked for artists and writers and professionals who have dreamt of making it big in the US, and failed. Some years ago, Lea Salonga achieved phenomenal success in that respect, shining in "Miss Saigon" and taking Disney by storm. She did become the toast of the town, too. But she didn't look as brown as Nora Aunor and wasn't as plebeian as Nora Aunor. She captured the middle class but not the “masa” [masses]. Trias has done both.

The last is making it big in America, or anywhere else in the world, through the one thing Filipinos are good at, or believe with religious fervor they are good at, which is singing. More than fist, voice has become the ticket Filipinos believe will get them through the trials and tribulations of life. Trias got near to bagging the "American Idol" trophy through it, and for most Filipinos that is more than good enough. It is the stuff of which their dreams are made.

Some, of course, will have other words for dreams. But let us leave that tomorrow, for when the sun breaks and reality creeps in.

Bush-whacking democracy

Bush-whacking democracy

Updated 06:44am (Mla time) Oct 13, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 13, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


GEORGE W. Bush kept his histrionics to a minimum the second time around, and so managed to lose to John Kerry only by a slim margin. But the voters are not likely to forget the image he cut during the first debate. That was when he showed his true colors. American commentators would have a field day later analyzing the personality that emerged from it. "Arrogant," "testy," "slowwitted" were some of the words they used.

One suggested that he exhibited all the characteristics of a "dry-drunk," an alcoholic who hasn't had a drop for a spell, showing impatience, rudeness and a persecution complex. Another, John Reynolds, had a theory about the persecution complex, as demonstrated by Bush interjecting, "Let me finish," 60 seconds into his rebuttal when no one was asking him to stop. It was probably Bush listening to a prompter through a hearing device. It's the only explanation that fits the facts, Reynolds says. Other than that Bush is hearing voices in his head, of course.

If I recall right, that was how a James Bond movie introduced the villainous Goldfinger. He was cheating at poker by having someone tell him what his opponent's cards were via a hearing aid.

But this isn't a column on Bush's personality, or how the second debate went. This is about the fragility of democracy. For the one thing that struck me after reading all those commentaries about Bush's character, "mediocre" being the summation of it, was how someone like him could possibly have waylaid American democracy.

That he should become president isn't startling at all. The American presidency has known mediocrity, and even prospered with it, the system being pretty much on autopilot. Gerald Ford, the White House equivalent of Edward Blake's Inspector Clousseau (he supplied abundant proof of being a bumbling fool), easily comes to mind. So does Ronald Reagan, who served for a couple of terms, saw the world in terms of Star Wars and propped up tyrants all over the globe, but presided over a period of affluence and liberalism for America. No, there are precedents for Bush-like clones becoming president of America. What is startling is that Bush should be able to switch off the autopilot and bushwhack democracy.

The only precedent for it is Joseph McCarthy. He it was who brought the United States to a point everyone today would be hard put to recognize as democratic. He was the fellow who caused a massive witch-hunt of communists in the United States -- the equivalent of Bush's witch-hunt of terrorists in the United States -- employing methods thereto known only to communists, the way Bush has used methods hitherto known only to terrorists. The price of being blacklisted, or worse brought before the all-powerful Committee on Un-American Activities, was steep. Many Hollywood directors and actors lost their jobs and their standing that way, some of them committing suicide, others fleeing the United States. Charlie Chaplin was one of the latter and he never set foot on the United States again.

By all accounts, McCarthy was not unlike Bush. In fact, he was uncannily like Bush. Like Bush, he was ambitious but had few credentials to back up his ambition. Like Bush, he was a failed businessman and had a rocky political career, particularly at the start. Like Bush, he was investigated for unethical campaign behavior and falsifying tax returns but managed to have it quietly dropped. Like Bush, he dragged his country to hell by sowing fear, hatred and suspicion among Americans and turning many of them into informers. Like Bush he made patriotism the true refuge of scoundrels. The only thing about him, in fact, that isn't like Bush is that he did not become president, thank God.

But Bush has, and shows to what extent anyone with mediocre abilities but with vaulting ambition -- a combustible mix -- can do to drive even American liberal democracy, which has withstood various onslaughts for a couple of centuries, down the path of tyranny. Of course, he had no small help from 9/11, a dramatic event that shifted the tectonic plates of history -- and American thinking, making it vulnerable to paranoid tweaking. But McCarthy did not have any such help -- the threat of a nuclear attack remained only a threat -- and was still able to do it.

The strength of a democracy is its people. But that strength can also be a weakness, particularly when the press, which deals with the molding of public opinion, conscripts the people into the cause of tyranny. The American press did so in the 1950s, the American media have been doing so since 9/11. Indeed, there is an earlier precedent for this: Even before the 1950s, in the last years of the 19th century, Randolph Hearst's newspapers -- the equivalent of today's Fox News -- whipped up America's appetites for imperial venture by pointing to the need to rescue Spain's colonies (Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines) from its brutality. Not quite incidentally, Bush's concept of forcing democracy by gunboat upon those countries that do not have it dates back to this period, when William McKinley unveiled his doctrine of "manifest destiny" or "white man's burden."

Fortunately, democracy, though not impervious to attacks like this, is also not brittle. It does rebound, no small thanks to the people themselves recognizing the madness for what it is. Though whether the rest of the world that has felt the impact of America's slide to tyranny rebounds just as fast, is another story, and one best left for another day. For the moment, what's worth contemplating is the vulnerability of even the most robust democracy to authoritarian manipulation. It does highlight the truth of an old adage: The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

The price of democracy is eternal questioning.

Wrong turn

Wrong turn

Updated 10:54pm (Mla time) Oct 11, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A10 of the October 12, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.


THERE'S one disturbing thing the growing anxiety about the impending crisis -- deepened rather than dispelled by the food coupons government proposes to hand out to the hungry -- has sparked. That is the renewed talk about the possibility of emergency rule, or a plain authoritarian one, in this country. I've heard it in a number of fora lately: people wondering if an iron-fisted policy would not halt the economic decline, or forestall the riots.

I've even heard some people argue that iron-fisted rule might be good for democracy itself in the long run. Their argument runs thus: A stern ruler who has a vision, like Lee Kuan Yew or Mahathir, could arrest the slide and rev up the economic engine. A growing economy enlarges the scope of freedom, as witnessed by China, which has greatly relaxed its rigid political structures because of rapid growth. In the end democracy thrives in its fullest sense, with the citizens having both bread and freedom.

I thought the last anniversary of Ferdinand Marcos’ proclamation of martial law, which we marked only some weeks ago, would have put an end to this kind of speculation. But the specter of hunger seems to have revived it like an electric charge to an atrophied heart. The argument of course is not without its appeal -- it looks good on paper. But that is only on paper. Marcos himself used the same argument many years ago, and showed the only paper it looks good on is the kind used in the toilet.

I have three arguments against it.

The first is that the people who are likely to declare emergency or authoritarian rule in this country are the very ones who caused the problem to begin with. Marcos declared martial law in 1972 expressly to arrest the country's slide into anarchy and chaos and to reform an oligarchic society. That was all very well except that he himself was the reason for the anarchy and chaos -- he (and Imelda) had just about pissed off everyone in the country -- and he himself had contributed greatly to social inequality. The latter would deepen during martial law, with the emergence of his cronies and their collective pillage of the country.

The one who is likely to usher in authoritarian rule today is President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the very person who caused the fiscal crisis (or contributed most to it), the slide into anarchy and chaos, and the deepening divide between the rich and the poor. The last being the kind people used to call "social volcano" before the 1972 proclamation of martial law. It doesn't take a brain scientist to figure out what would happen if the disease were to pose as the cure, if the problem were to pose as the solution. Martial law gives the answer: The anarchy and chaos would grow, the social divide would widen.

We'll probably see even more anarchy and chaos if it should happen this time because of one thing: Unlike Marcos, Ms Arroyo does not control the military.

My second argument against authoritarian rule, permanent or temporary, is that it misses the point about what makes other countries, particularly those in Southeast Asia, work. It is not authoritarianism. The various Southeast Asian countries have different political orders. Some are authoritarian (Malaysia, Singapore), some are liberal (Thailand, post-Suharto Indonesia), some are socialist (the Indochinese countries). Yet most of them have advanced tremendously. Malaysia and Singapore reduce us to scatological terms; and even Vietnam -- ravaged by a long and bitter war -- has caught up with us and is outstripping us. Clearly, what they have -- and we don't -- goes beyond the kind of political order they have.

What they have in fact -- and we don't -- is nationalism. Or for those who are allergic to the word, what they have-and we don't-is a sense of country, a sense of belonging to country, a passion for country. Several ways of saying the same thing. I cannot sufficiently belabor that point. Those countries have bigger crooks than us, but they have patriotic crooks. Suharto stole much more than Marcos, but he kept the money in Indonesia. Marcos stashed it abroad. Those are two different attitudes and ways of thinking, those are two different worldviews.

We want to copy from them-although that, too, is the one thing they have and we don't: They don't copy, they do things their way -- let us copy their (com)passion or “malasakit” for their country. That's what works for them, that's what works for any people. Name one country that has gotten ahead in life that has a people that want to belong to another country. We can experiment with all the social and political orders we want, but none of it will work if we expect to be elsewhere at the end of the day, or when doomsday comes.

My third reason against authoritarianism is that we have already tried it while we have yet to try democracy. Yes, that's right, democracy. That is something we've never had, at least in its essence, which is giving power to the people. We've had rebellions, we've had revolutions, we've even had people power, but we've never given power to the people. That is what democracy is all about. What makes a democracy is not a strong republic, it is a strong people. That is what makes America a democracy, that is what makes the various countries of Europe a democracy, that is what makes at least some socialist countries a democracy: Power is wielded by their people.

Laws are nothing if they cannot be enforced, and the only ones that can really enforce the law are the people, not cops or soldiers. It is the universal expectation that public officials may not steal, and the universal demand for retribution to fall on those that do, that prevent officials from stealing. That is something we do not have. We do not have a strong people. We do not have an order where power rests in the hands of the people. We do not have a democracy.

It's time we tried it.

Still, hunger

Still, hunger

Updated 00:24am (Mla time) Oct 11, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 11, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.


I CAUGHT Patricia Sto. Tomas on TV defending it. Frankly, she said, she couldn't understand why anyone would protest the food coupons. Sure it was a desperate move, but the situation was desperate. People were hungry. At least government was doing something. Would we rather President Macapagal-Arroyo just wrung her hands and fell on her knees in supplication? The food coupons were not meant to be the ultimate solution, just a temporary one.

Ignacio Bunye said the same thing. "In any crisis," he said, "the government must serve first and foremost those who are on the edge of survival. Relief, however temporary, is called for as we lead on in the more fundamental and larger reforms that would deal with poverty permanently."

Well, we have a saying, "Aanhin pa ang damo kung patay na ang kabayo?" which translates literally in English as, "What will you do with the hay when the horse is dead?" It asserts the wisdom of having a sense of priorities. Saving hay means nothing when the horse is kept hungry: the plenitude of hay won't matter to it when it's dead. First, feed the horse, then save as much hay as remains afterward.

It's not a bad adage, but it is one that does not apply here. This is not a case of feeding the horse first and saving hay afterward. This is a case of giving the horse a bit of hay-and a few drops of water-after deliberately starving it for months. The exact parallel here is bringing toys to the war-ravaged kids of Muslim Mindanao. By itself there is nothing wrong with that, it is even salutary. It offers diversion, if not comfort, to kids in refugee centers, many of whom have lost their mothers and fathers to the war. But it is nothing less than obscene when it comes after causing those same kids to lose their mothers and fathers to a gratuitous war. It is not thoughtfulness, it is rubbing salt on wound.

That is what the food coupons are. By itself, it is not a bad idea. But it is nothing less than obscene when it comes after causing people to go hungry in the first place. That is what its critics are protesting. Have government officials become so inured to iniquity they cannot see the monumental irony of those food coupons? Isn't it one for Guinness that the one leader who brought hunger to this country, and sparked the specter of food riots in the future, is a trade specialist? Isn't it one for Ripley's that the one President who drove this country on the verge of economic collapse, issuing food coupons for the first time since the War, is an economist?

It is not merely-as critics of the food coupons say-that it violates the other adage that says, "It is better to teach a man to fish than to give him fish." It is simply that it gives a man fish after taking his boat and his fishing line away from him and putting up a "No Trespassing" sign in front of the sea. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo borrowed in three and a half years more than Fidel Ramos and Erap did in their combined eight years of rule. To have nothing to show for this other than a country now on the verge of a humanitarian disaster-as Bishop Deogracias Iniguez of the CBCP puts it-not unlike the African countries we used to pity and give mission alms to, represents pillage of a scale that rivals only the Marcos regime's. It is giving people fish after robbing them of the means to catch fish.

In any crisis, says Bunye, government must serve first and foremost those on the edge of survival. Those words are not without sublime irony, having taken on the most perverse meanings over the last several months. Government was made to serve someone on the edge of survival some months ago. That was GMA, the post-Edsa II President who was desperate to win a second term after plunging the country to a desperate pass last year. No money was spared to allow her to do so. You add up the entire amount the food subsidies will cost the nation, and it is nothing compared to the sum GMA spent to win the 2004 elections.

Unfortunately for the hungry, they cannot eat her billboards. They cannot even use them to fortify their shacks: Even the hungry have aesthetics.

As the crisis bites, we are going to hear government officials tell us more and more to forget our differences and recriminations and unite behind GMA to pull the country out of the rut. We are going to hear government officials tell us more and more to stop complaining and dwelling on the negative side of things and start working together and thinking positively to get this country over the hump. Nothing can be more stupid. The reason we are in this rut, or keep falling deeper into it, is that we do not recriminate and complain enough, we do not dwell on the "negative" enough.

If we had protested loudly against GMA's ransacking of the public treasury to win a second term, we might even now have enough money for wholesale relief. No, we might not even have a situation needing massive relief to begin with. If we had protested loudly against her "war against terror," we would not have had a fellow Filipino threatened with beheading by Iraqi partisans. No, we might not even have had a situation where overseas Filipino workers need to be prevented from going to Iraq.

Angelo de la Cruz survives and we toast GMA for deciding to pull our troops back, forgetting she put them there to begin with. GMA issues food coupons and we-or her supporters, which include ex-activists and ex-pillars of civil society-toast her for feeding the hungry, forgetting she made them hungry in the first place.

The point in any crisis is not just to unite, it is to know how to lead. Otherwise we'll just go around in circles. Is it a wonder we keep having the sensation the world is spinning?

That's not just the product of hunger.

Hungry

Hungry

Updated 05:16am (Mla time) Oct 07, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the October 7, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


I FIRST heard it at a meeting with Sixto Roxas and several other economic experts. The crisis staring the country in the face, they said, was not really a fiscal or financial one, it was a social one. Specifically, it had to do with hunger. That was what the figures were showing, and that was more and more likely to happen over the next several months. It wasn't just that the banks would go kaput, it was that the people would go hungry.

Well, the papers have just confirmed what they've known all this time. The good news is that hunger reached its highest peak not during Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's term but Joseph Estrada's, or shortly after Estrada's. That was in March 2001, a couple of months after Estrada was overthrown, when the incidence of hunger reached 16.1 percent. Though that happened in President Arroyo's time, we may safely conclude it was still the product of Estrada's mismanagement, a euphemism for the mess he made of this country.

The bad news is that the second highest incidence of hunger happened during President Arroyo's time. The even worse news is that it happened two months into her second term. Hunger rose spectacularly. It did so as prices soared, putting food and other necessities beyond reach of the poor. I did say in a previous column that I have first-hand knowledge of it, having to buy stuff from the stores near us for my needs. The cost of eggs and Ibuprofen -- yes, the latter is part of my needs -- has climbed over the past months. While I personally have not gone hungry, I am hard put to make any savings now.

It is not hard to see why prices have risen dramatically over the last couple of months. I wasn't alone to warn so. The kind of election spending President Arroyo unleashed to win a second term was bound to make it so. That was exactly what happened three decades ago when Ferdinand Marcos spent a fortune to get reelected. Three months after he won a second term, prices soared and the peso plunged. A development that spawned the violent rallies that came to be called the First Quarter Storm of 1970. Uncannily, President Arroyo's election last May is following that pattern more and more. Prices have gone up, and only a couple of weeks ago, the peso teetered over the edge and fell. To what abyss, we can only guess.

As it is, however, hunger, or even the specter of its becoming even more universal, is not the real crisis. The real crisis is that this hunger is happening alongside the Arroyo administration's profligacy. It is the sheer contrast between a people going hungry and government going blind that makes for a social volcano, one threatening forthcoming, if not imminent, eruption. Hunger is just the magma in the bowels of the volcano, government's indifference to it is the force roiling it. But this one doesn't resemble the start of Marcos' second presidential term at all, it resembles the twilight days of martial law, when a hungry people beheld Imelda Marcos throwing cakes at them.

You can't find clearer proof of President Arroyo's profligacy than that she borrowed more than Fidel Ramos and Estrada combined did in eight years, and has nothing to show for it. Except a people going hungry. And if that isn't proof enough, she supplies something more visible to the naked eye in retaining Winston Garcia, the government official who likes to buy paintings, in the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), and appointing Ramon Revilla, the ex-movie star and ex-senator who contributed to society only when he became ex in both respects, to the Public Estates Authority.

Garcia I will always remember as the fellow who spoke before the showing of Fides Cuyugan and Ryan Cayabyab's opera on Juan Luna last year. He talked interminably, defending the GSIS' controversial purchase of Juan Luna's "Parisian Life" from Christie's, sparking a spasm of coughing from his audience. The coughing reached epidemic proportions, putting some even on the verge of throwing up, but the fellow never got the hint. No, he is not going to resign from the GSIS out of “delicadeza” [sense of propriety].

I did say during the campaign that President Arroyo was by no means the "lesser evil." And that turning a blind eye to cheating (the Commission on Elections existed for the purpose) and the wanton use of people's money to campaign (you saw nothing but huge billboards of President Arroyo grinning at the world from Aparri to Jolo) to stop the "greater evil" of Fernando Poe Jr. winning was bound to produce a truly monumental evil, the likes of which we have never known before. That is happening even as we speak: armed with an apparent mandate (apparent because most Filipinos, if the Ibon and SWS research groups are right, do not think Ms Arroyo won the election), Ms Arroyo now regards the presidency as an entitlement rather than an obligation.

The contrast between a people going hungry and a government going blind has produced a nasty consequence of late. That is the rash of crime. It is not merely the quantity of it, though that is startling enough in itself. It is the quality of it, or the boldness with which criminals are plying their trade. That is the other thing that reminds me of the twilight years of Marcos’ rule by martial law. That was how things were in 1984 and 1985, when bandits were robbing banks like the days of the old American West.

The murders of a Today newspaper business reporter and a Cebu network staff member testify to the growing mayhem. That is only partly explained by the criminals' newfound fondness for cell phones. It is explained also by the criminals' newfound sense of freedom. The boldness with which they are plying their trade you see in the way they are holding up eateries, particularly the open ones beside or on sidewalks. One of our favorite eating places, the Persian restaurant along Timog Avenue in Quezon City, was held up this way some weeks ago. Diners were relieved of their wallets and cell phones. Thankfully, no one died, though one was shot in the leg for resisting. Diners lost their appetites afterward.

That's another way of going hungry.

Again, sense of country

Again, sense of country

Updated 09:44pm (Mla time) Oct 05, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service



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


Brian Entwistle wrote this feedback:

"I really liked your article, 'Alarm bell.' As a foreigner (Aussie), I have often questioned the role that fleeing to the land of milk honey takes in the mind-set of the Philippines. I have debated the topic with my friends who are Ausaid-sponsored students from the Philippine public service. For me, it seems that it serves the government's best interest as an agent for the status quo to keep things the way they are in the Philippines, knowing that people will eventually look to foreign shores for their livelihood. Of course once they do go, they will be sending greenbacks back to the Philippines for their families.

"I've been going to the Philippines since 1988, and am constantly reminded by my friends of how hard life is in the Philippines. Some want me to find them spouses here... I hope [your article] provokes people to look in the mirror and consider their priorities."

Well, I myself have debated the point with detractors, foremost of them Filipinos abroad, particularly in the US. Some have been quite bitter, saying my remonstration with the current Filipino Diaspora is typical of people who have not discovered the virtue of democratic choice, something they now enjoy where they are, again notably in the US. I remember that my articles about Barry Gutierrez and several others who decided to come home after studying in prestigious schools in America (I praised them naturally) were received in this way by some readers, to my great astonishment. For some reason, those who had decided not to come home thought they were being disparaged.

Indeed, I recall that a group of college students from the Ateneo who came to interview me for a school project raised the issue too. Other Asian or Southeast Asian countries, they said, echoing a typical reply to my position, had nationals leaving their shores, and didn't seem the worse for it. Why should we be so?

Well, as I've said on several occasions, there's a difference between their exodus and ours. It lies in the quality as much as in the quantity. The quantity is patent. The sheer volume of Filipinos leaving this country is breathtaking. This year alone, some 2,000 doctors are expected to leave this country, as Minguita Padilla, who has chosen to stay put, reveals. I know it firsthand. A couple of friends of mine have opted to try their luck abroad. Both are bankers, a fact that makes me wonder what profession is likely to be spared the virus. (Well, maybe law enforcement.) One went to Canada, and the other, well, he was about to leave for the US when, on the eve of his departure, he got an offer from another local bank. He decided to stay to see, figuring he could always leave if it wasn't worth it.

I said it before: In other countries, the choice of leaving the country is a personal one. Here, it is a collective one. It is the difference between a disease and an epidemic, the exception and the rule. The epidemic is not bound to abate with the threat of an impending economic collapse.

The quality is more subtle, but is no less obdurate. In other countries, leaving home for a job abroad is the last resort, here it is the first. It is not a compulsion, it is a dream. It is not an act of desperation, it is an act of ambition. Other nationals, including the Chinese, study and work abroad. But the difference is that most of them come home: They cannot see themselves pursuing happiness elsewhere.

The sheer volume of Filipinos trekking to the ports and airports, some looking tearfully at a home they will never see again but most others sighing with relief and barely throwing a glance back, would not be a problem if it did not go with something more virulent, which is our lack of a sense of country. As I also said before, the problem is not really the overseas Filipino workers, it is our elite. This is a country whose leaders do not have a passion for it. This is a country whose elite studied in American schools, whose children study in American schools, who own townhouses in American suburbs. This is a country whose elite does not mind despoiling it because at the end of the day they can always leave it.

True enough, as Enwistle says, the Filipino Diaspora helps the elite keep the status quo. But far more than that, it frees the elite from being threatened by the collapse of the country. People have wondered why government officials do not seem to be alarmed by the brewing crisis, which, if some financial experts are to be believed, will make us lucky to end up like Argentina. Well, they can always leave the country.

That is my beef with dual citizenship. True enough also, other countries have dual citizenship and seem none the worse for it. Well, they are none the worse for it because their citizens carry with them their roots and their identity, which are never lost when they take on a second citizenship. But we are poorly rooted--give our government officials themselves a quiz in Philippine history and the majority will fail--and are only too willing to give up an inchoate identity at the slightest opportunity. The concept of Filipino citizenship is rubbery enough as it is. You give people dual citizenship, notably Filipino and American, and there will be precious little left of the Filipino to justify the word "dual."

In any case, the people seeking dual citizenship want only the dual benefits, they do not want the dual obligations. They only want the right to invest in the two countries they are citizens of, they do not want the obligation to pay taxes, or be drafted into war, in both.

Truly, the Filipino-bashing attributed to Art Bell may be a hoax but it is so only in attribution, it is not so in reverberation. It's an alarm bell that demands to be rung.

Cues

Cures

Updated 11:27pm (Mla time) Oct 04, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the October 5, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


I sympathize completely with Minguita Padilla (PDI, 9/29/04) in her crusade to vindicate doctors from the witch hunt being waged against them by some people in media and Congress. Chief of them Korina Sanchez, who seems to have made it her life's work to make doctors pay for the sins of the world, and Serge Osmena, who has decided to lead the torch-carrying mob laying siege at Frankenstein's castle.

Sanchez has renewed her attacks against doctors in her radio and TV shows, while Osmena has authored Senate Bill 1720 criminalizing "medical malpractice" and forcing doctors to get "mandatory malpractice insurance."

As Padilla says, in these days, when doctors are leaving the country faster than you can say "penicillin," it is inconceivable why we persecute them in this way. With government cutting down on its health budget ("it now allocates a scandalous 35 centavos per Filipino" for health), with fewer students taking up medicine ("at least 35 medical schools are on the brink of collapse because of a large drop in enrollment"), and with the ranks of doctors in this country so depleted the UP-PGH, "which used to turn away so many applicants for residency (not even able) to fill up half of its available positions today," we may wake up soon to find out there's no one left to give balm to our wounds.

One would imagine, Padilla says, that those who have remained behind--and most of them have done so by choice--would be objects of much adulation. Instead, they have become objects of opprobrium.

Let me be clear about a couple of things from the start.

I do know that medical malpractice happens, and I agree that they may even be rampant. I do know that patients are often at the mercy of hospitals, are often overcharged, and are often given a raw deal, either not getting better or even getting worse. It's not only because each time I listen to AM radio while on the road I get to hear these complaints from the public in various talk shows and commentaries. It's also because I get to hear these complaints directly from friends and relations. Try telling a horror story about doctors and hospitals in a family gathering, and you won't hear the end of it. You'll get a dozen stories along the same lines, each one worse than the last.

My own good friend Rodolfo Salas' son-in-law died in what they reckon to be a case of hospital negligence. The young man choked to death from his vomit in the middle of the night after he was taken in for intestinal pains. A decade or so ago, I wrote several columns on the eye-popping number of deaths in Cebu stemming from doctors taking in more patients than they could handle. These things do happen. And it is alarming that they do.

And I do agree that something ought to be done about it. I agree that it is not enough that doctors just promise to reprimand and punish the guilty. People have every reason to complain and bring their cases to the attention of media when the Philippine Medical Association proves deaf to their entreaty. People have every reason to demand that their cases, which represent a grave injustice, do not go the way of coup plots or mutinies where the perpetrators are given push-ups.

What mechanisms this will take, however, I do not know. I do know enough conscientious doctors to say with confidence that a dialogue between them and the public on this score will not be a dialogue of the deaf. They are as much concerned with the integrity of the profession they love as the public is of the health it cherishes.

What I am against is turning doctors into The Enemy. Which is what such things as criminalizing medical malpractice and forcing doctors to buy malpractice insurance do. They turn doctors into suspects who may be presumed guilty until proven innocent. At the very least of course, what it will do is jack up the cost of doctors and hospitals.

But that is nothing. The best argument against it I heard from a friend, who said it would effectively end medical volunteer work, particularly among the poor in the countryside. Doctors who volunteer thus have to make do with crude instruments and the most adverse conditions to treat patients. Now why would anyone want to do that if all she or he would get from their pains would be an Atorni Agaton trying to make a fast buck on an operation gone sour-malpractice being criminal, it can be brought to court by anyone other than the victim or the victim's kin--by making a case of it?

One truly would imagine that it's bad enough that we do not pin medals on those who have decided to stay behind amid the lure of greener pastures in Canada and elsewhere. Though, of course, the exiles are not always guaranteed work as doctors, which is double the pity. One would truly imagine that with Elmer Jacinto, the young man from Basilan who topped the medical board exams, setting a horrendous example by agreeing to work as a caregiver in New York, we would want to give our doctors, full-blown or burgeoning, all the incentives they need to stay. But to make their lives hell instead?

Having survived asthma as a kid and various afflictions as an adult with no small help from doctors, I personally cannot understand Sanchez's and Osmena's tack. The doctors are right to argue that at least they, who hold the power of life and death over people's bodies, take exams to show they are qualified. Whereas those in media, particularly TV which is ubiquitous, who hold the power of life and death over people's reputations, do not. I have always asked myself that question too, why journalism is not a licensed occupation. Why anyone can feel free to call himself, or herself, a journalist while merely poisoning the air with verbal smog.

But it will take more than doctors to cure that.

And the winner is

And the winner is

Updated 00:05am (Mla time) Oct 04, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 4, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.


THE TEXT joke I got was: You can't envy the American voter. If he votes Democrat, he'll be caught between two johns. If he votes Republican, he'll be caught between a dick and a bush.

Well, if the debate last Friday showed anything, the John is better than the Bush. That was the consensus of most American survey-makers. John Kerry did so much better than George W. Bush. Good for Kerry who had been trailing Bush for some time now. Bush's charge that Kerry is a flip-flopper who can't make up his mind on Iraq and therefore is not fit to lead had proven effective. Thanks in no small way to media outlets, such as the rabid right-wing network, Fox, drumbeating the line. But almost overnight, last Friday, Kerry turned it around. For the first time, he had Bush on the run-or shriveling in the vine, to use a more appropriate metaphor.

I caught portions of the debate last Friday and felt an acute sense of deja vu. I saw a similar debate a couple of years ago. I can only hope the results would be the same. That was the debate in Germany between the two candidates for prime minister, Gerhardt Schroeder and Edmund Stoiber. Before that debate, Schroeder, the incumbent, was trailing
Stoiber, the challenger, by a mile. Schroeder had promised to end Germany's high unemployment rate when he won the first time but failed to deliver; joblessness worsened during his term. Of course, he had scored points some months before the elections by beating Stoiber to the flood-stricken areas in the east, wading in knee-deep mud to give relief to residents. But it wasn't enough to overtake Stoiber's lead.

Then came the debate. Schroeder did one simple thing. That was to promise voters Germany would not join the United States if it declared war on Iraq. It struck a deep sympathetic chord among the voters, the majority of whom had grown up in a post-Hitler culture that hammered the virtue of peace in their minds. It also struck a deep antipathetic chord in Washington and Capitol Hill, many American officials calling it a betrayal of postwar US-German relations. It was at least one promise Schroeder would live up to. Overnight, he erased Stoiber's lead and beat him in the elections.

More accurately, he beat him to a draw: It was his coalition with the Greens that won the day for him. But that is another-more complicated-story.

It would be poetic justice if the American presidential election went the same way. I half suspect it will be equally close, no small thanks to Bush's predilection-like his little brown sister Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's-for dagdag-bawas. Quite frankly, I don't know why Kerry has allowed himself to take on a defensive tack. He has no lack of things to accuse George W. Bush of to dispel the charge of being an obstacle to the war against terror. Bush's connections to the Bin Laden family, which Michael Moore highlighted in "Fahrenheit 9/11," easily come to mind. I don't know why it is Bush who has been on the attack, resorting to tirade and insult when he is the one most vulnerable to them.

Happily, Kerry has bounced back, and if he goes on to win the election next month, Bush will see this debate as the second biggest mistake he made in his life. The first, of course, was the Iraq War, which Kerry pounced on last Friday. The best part of it was when he answered Bush's charge of flip-flopping by saying in very even tones: "I've had one position, one consistent position, that Saddam Hussein was a threat. There was a right way to disarm him and a wrong way. And the president chose the wrong way."

I would tell friends last Friday night I thought that was Kerry's shining moment. As it turned out, most American viewers felt the same way. They gave Kerry the debate largely as a result of it.

Kerry was the clear winner in Friday's debate, and if he wins, I suspect the world will win, too. I did say when Mary Ann Wright visited here last month (she is the much decorated diplomat who resigned her post in disagreement over Bush's policies on Iraq; she is currently campaigning for Kerry) that I did not expect US policy to change dramatically under Kerry, Bill Clinton himself having continued the US policy of imposing an embargo on Iraq which led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi children. But any shift from Bush's 21st-century version of "manifest destiny," which is what his policy toward the world amounts to, should be a welcome one.

What suggests it would make the world a winner-indeed, what affirms Kerry's position that there is a right way and wrong way to deal with dictators-was the Arab reaction to the debate last Friday. The only ones who were not happy with Kerry's performance, worrying it might in fact carry him on to the White House, were the extremists and the heads of the autocratic regimes. The extremists want Bush to win because he is their biggest recruiter, in the same way that Marcos was the biggest recruiter for the New People's Army. And the heads of the autocratic regimes, like Saudi Arabia, want Bush to win because they do not like reformers who put pressure on them to recognize such democratic niceties as the citizens' rights.

True enough, there is a right way and a wrong way to deal with tyrants, who are to be found not just in Iraq. Bush's way isn't stopping tyranny, it is propping it up.

But you never know, life tends to be perverse. The truly strange thing is that Bush should be leading Kerry at all after a disastrous first term-one where he succeeded in pissing off just about everybody in the world, not least those who deeply sympathized with America after 9/11. But a friend of mine may have found the perfect explanation for it. The dumbest voters, he said, are not to be found in the Philippines.

They are to be found in America.