“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

Critique on PGMA’s
2008 Sona

 

 The acknowledgment given by no less than the
President of the Republic of the

Philippines

to at least a dozen ordinary
Filipinos on the occasion of her State of the Nation Address did justice to the
newly-refurbished Congress by the new Speaker courtesy of taxpayers’
money. The one-day affair costs a P100
million after many years of neglect of a historical edifice that ought to be
preserved and maintained. 

 

 On the
viewing screen, at least, it serves as therapy that we don’t have to see a
clapping Speaker as much as an equally patronizing Senate President. Fact is, Villar practically did not have to
clap his hands that must have made it inhibitive for Nograles to have to overdo
any indicative patronage act. Coming as
8^th in a row of Sonas, this is probably the lousiest sona ever
delivered lacking as it does in its climactic effect. 

 

 As
reported, the sona has gone through 20 drafts to have been finalized on the wee
hours of the morning. Paradoxically,
right after the speech, headlines say that there was actually nothing in a P50
cents reduction in text messages. This
has given PGMA away or whoever wrote that sona? Where it reads, the piece must have been written by a
not-too-above-average person of influence. Fact is, it was almost unpresidential.

 

 What has a
sona got to do with the personal circumstances of the likes of Federico Alvarez
– a jeepney driver; Rodney Berdin – 13 year-old boy; Edwin Bandila – a rice
farmer; Rosario Camma – chieftain and mayor (in tribal attire); Jessica
Barlomento, Shenve Catana, Mary Grace Comendador, Marlyn Tusi – all welders of
Hanjin (a private firm); Victoria Mindoro – a farmer and factory worker; Pedro
and Concordia Faviolas – rubber farmers; Justice Vitug and Francis Lim – of
Texas Instruments and Philippine Stock Exchange, respectively; Allan Amanse – a
fisherman turned whaleshark watching officer; and Joey Concepcion – a
partner entrepreneur? 

 

 The story
line seems to generalize from very individual instances of deceptive successes
by particular individuals and necessarily, it is grossly violative of logic as
we normally understand. We simply cannot
generalize from limited particulars – in this case, singular instances or
specimens. Its residual media value is
of course of some help perhaps to launch that self-confessed admission of PGMA
to spend her time daily with the underprivileged. But this piece of PR utterly lacks that
modicum of honesty that makes advertising a good one.

 

 There isn’t
really much of a corpus of data that will make it hard for the average layman
to understand from PGMA’s speech. There
is no linguistic barrier as would otherwise make it difficult for readers to
get the gist of what the PGMA has to say she has accomplished and will continue
to accomplish. In other words, the sona
is couched in near layman terms.

 

 PGMA turned
the oil price issue as a convenient scapegoat for the shortcomings of
government in fiscal matters and braggingly enough, claims the government has
all the money to cushion off the impact of oil price spikes.

 

 Cunningly,
PGMA defended her VAT policy dismissing as she did that opinion polls made her
look unpopular. In her exhaustive
enumeration of the amounts of money taken from VAT for various programs of
government, it becomes crystal clear that without VAT, her administration has
long succumbed to death. It further
became clear that Malacanang always allocates from P.5 billion to P4 billion for
every program it envisions to undertake. For instance, PGMA allocated P3 billion for anti-graft fund, can you
believe it?

 

 It ought to
challenge reflection the uncharacteristic pride PGMA exhibits in her mention
that Land Bank has quadrupled loans for farmers and fisherfolks; that Pag-Ibig
loans have increased from P3.8 billion to P22.6 billion; that SSS as it is with
GSIS has increased salary loans benefits to employees since 2001; or that
PhilHealth has paid P100 billion for hospitalization (fact or fiction?). 

 

 In the end,
there is nothing to be thankful of about programs being implemented by this
government. Managing corporate RP has
become a profitable business in governance that even government banks have
become loan sharks to – fool the people, buy the people, off the people. See you in the 9^th. 

 

PRIMER C. PAGUNURAN

UP Diliman,

Quezon City

 Email: nielsky_2003@yahoo.com Cellphone: 09164985265

The President’s SONA

 

 The State
of the Nation Address, a yearly tradition where the president delivers her
speech before the joint session of Congress and Senate, is always attended to
with a sense of Marxist dialectics. 

 

Offhand, it divides a wedge between
apparently only two classes of people – the psychopants the militants, if we go
by extremely reductionist drift. 

 

At no time of the year is the
dynamics of democracy more graphically demonstrated than when a thick mob of
protesters is blocked by thick rows of anti-riot police and military troops and
any number of 10-wheeler container vans, fire trucks, military 6 x 6 army vehicles, and APCs are placed
across all possible entry roads. Red
flags, pennants, and effigies and the skilled political agitators in clenched
fists drown patronizing activists and international media observers to their
piercing oratories. 

 

 Thus, Sona,
viewed from within and beyond, mirrors two conflicting scenarios. PGMA does a one-woman show to make official
the final draft of her long-consulted presidential speech. At the other end, a mob – and their vocal
icons – speaks their minds on the true state of the nation before a demagogue. Thus, society writ large can see two sides of
the coin and it is apt for them to judge which version to choose.

 

 President’s
sona ought not to be a difficult task altogether. It is easy enough to defend some pro-poor
programs that are visible at ground level. Who will forget the food for children program, the one-time P500 refund
on electric bill, the cheap NFA rice in designated outlets, the land titles to
identified beneficiaries rationalized by presidential proclamations, those
checks to families-victim of the sea mishap and other disasters? 

 

No wonder, Malacanang, Inc. – under
the skilled care of its spin doctors – is just like any other photo studio
outlet. Tri-media takes care of the
final cosmetic touch with their editors, broadcasters, and writers placed in
secret payroll from Arlegui. In other words, on special events, PGMA can be
portrayed in the kindest way possible to her heart’s content.

 

Even the latest findings of social
weather or poll circuits such as the Social Weather Station, Pulse Asia and the
like few days or weeks before Sona are entirely tinkerable, if there be a
word. However bad, in very real terms,
the latest findings of PGMA’s performance and trust ratings have become for the
July 1 to 14, 2008 survey by Pulse Asia, still, if compared to that of last
year, nothing is really rotten anywhere. Is that statistical trick or what? Such words as – “do not differ significantly” in the context of 2007 and
2008 comparison are really tricks in the book by push-polling circuits.

 

Funny, but even if we say that one
of every two thinks that PGMA’s performance and trust ratings are poor, the
analysis as would be given by the president’s advisers will cut across the
grain to say – it is not that bad, in the end. Even if the statistical data already tells us that 48% disapproves of
PGMA and that 53% distrusts her – this disapproval and distrust ratings – can
still be (mis)interpreted in the best of light such as saying that in Visayas,
except

Mindanao

and

Luzon

, a 30% approval is registered. In other words, in matters political –
“beauty is in the eyes of the beholder” – that the defense secretary is heard
to have said it is pointless to boycott the sona without knowing it. 

 

PGMA has been president long enough
in a tricky two-term scenario. On the
scoreboard, the more official is the one from Malacanang or is this why there
had been at least 20 drafts before the final sona is completed? The military, defense, and police
establishment – being all-out on her side – serves as an insurance company that
she will finish her term up until 2010. What
with upcoming promotions for colonels and generals?

 

When sonas seem to resolve issues as
to why many Filipinos today experience hunger, as to why the price of oil
follows a near spiral, why the number of poor provinces or towns were never
reduced in spite of fatty pork barrels, then something is wrong in this
country. Effigies, grafitti, militant
voices – all will be drowned in oblivion with a government vest with so much
political power

 

There will be nothing new about the
sona that people do not already know at ground level. As an old year has passed, a new one has
begun. PGMA simply makes a grocery-list
of what she has delivered so far and a new grocery-list of what she intends to
deliver this year after her speech. 

Impact of oil price increase

 

 There
appears to be a contemporary global thinking that embraces the view that the
oil game is over. Stated simply, those
rounds of oil price increases – from $30 to $40 to $50 to $60 to $70 per barrel
of oil – will hit $100 per barrel. And
there seems to be a truism on this prevailing mindset given that oil price
increases were never seen falling in the world market.

 

 In the end,
there is an evolving ‘economic world war’ between the oil-producing countries that export this product and those
countries that are dependent on oil via importation. The global law of supply and demand, from a
macroeconomic perspective tells us that the war is won on the exporters’ side. And ironically enough, up until today, such
prices are demand-driven. It would have
been worse if supply decisions from these oil exporting countries have come to
play.

 

However, here in the

Philippines

, like politics, economics is
local. The impact of oil increases will,
by and large, hit badly in our domestic lives. Ordinary wage earners will understandably suffer the most as soon as its
adverse effects will be passed on to the prices of goods and services given a
consumer-led economy. Even the rather
palliative or nominal wage increase that has been legislated in recent memory
has done very little to compensate for the economic effects of such oil price
increase.

 

There are quarters who think there
is something that the government can do to cushion off its social and economic
impact. One is a temporary reduction on
the 3% tariff on oil. Another proposal
is to succumb to oil rationing. Lastly,
there are other cost reduction plans being laid out such as shorter or lesser
use of electricity in government offices such as maybe the three-day work week
in Congress.

 

As a people, Filipinos are known to
adjust automatically when domestic problems crop up. The word that best describes this national
trait is resilience. If we cannot afford
the transport fare, we walk or even perhaps, bike our way to our place of work. Does this not explain the phenomenal increase
in the motorcycle-riding population? 

 

Like other governments, there is not
much that can be done. The era of the
oil game is indeed probably over. The
oil-producing states will dictate what the world price per barrel would be upon
those states that are largely dependent on them. In short, over-dependency has become a
universal problem that individual states should resort to other possible
alternatives to move away from this heavy and crippling dependence on oil
imports.

 

The next time we go to the mall or
department stores to discover how well the prices of basic commodities and
other consumer items have jacked up, we should not be anymore surprised. Things are bound to happen – life can be a
lot worse than it used to be. This
serves as a domestic challenge – everybody in the household must find work to
get a little income.

 

Each day will soon be a survival
problem to not a few other families – our marginalized. Our economic experts are heard to make any
kind of proposal and it is yet uncertain if the government will be willing to
subsidize oil price increase through some form of temporary tax holiday. Will it do a tax embargo at this point in
time that its anxiety to project an economic growth has preoccupied it?

 

Oil price increases – and their
second-round effects – stare us all to the face. If there is not much the national government
can do for us, then, maybe we have to help ourselves enough. This rising tide of oil price increases,
figuratively speaking, will probably wipe out all societies lying below sea
levels. And our country is no exception.

 

In the meantime, let us fight it out
in the home-front. Let every able-bodied
and responsible-thinking member, aged 18 and above, in our household do some
productive economic activity just so to bring in money to contribute his/her
share to the overall household expenses. There is no time for lethargy. 

 

The current oil price shocks are
soon to be felt even harder since there
will be no shift in the terms of trade between the oil-exporting and the
oil-importing countries. All of us, no
exception will be the unintended victims of this world economic order. But as societies or governments must do their
part, every individual in any given society or government must do his or her
share as well. 

 

And, the challenge has just begun.

 

 

Bloomfields

plays par excellence!

            Our kids – Chloe, Andre, and Niels – went yesterday for a ‘baby’s day out’ which has been scheduled a week before.  That we consented to it is one of fair play – students deserve a break from a virtually regimented kind of high school education from La Salle College, Antipolo on the one end.

And on the other, it marks one month of my harrowing experience working for the city government where on the strength of a 14-0 tribal game, I got booted out, however mistakenly from being the head of a Business Permits & Licensing Office.  Politics is local, as they say and either one bends or breaks.   And bending is simply not my cup of tea.

I shall be writing a book on this learning situation possibly even have to enroll at the UP

College

of

Public Administration

and have a masteral thesis written on the subject as a permanent contribution to knowledge and place the experience in its true and correct historical perspective.  I am no Trillanes but the same analogy may be drawn.

On a happier note, we went to

Araneta

 

Center

, at the Gateway and were there from as early as

4 pm

to few more minutes before

12 midnight

.  Eat, walk, and be merry – seems to be the vicious activity for that day combing malls of anything our eyes could feast on but not quite buy them.  And then having to wait for the 9 o’clock time slot, we killed time around the Cineplex in Gateway – me and my wife were two-some, and Chloe, Andre and Niels are in their company of Bloomies who showed up to watch the gig.

A road fronting Café Adriatico was closed and tables and chairs were put instead and a nice makeshift stage were set up if not already fixed for a regular Saturday live band performance.  Cubao must have copied from Eastwood this stuff – a gig area in the middle of mall. 

There were yet to be two bands that played before the turn of the

Bloomfields

but that is not to say that the two other bands performed their level best according to their own music genre.  Except that it is the

Bloomfields

we came there for to watch.

And speaking of that Cubao gig, it seems to me it must be the best performance of the

Bloomfields

in a long time that we haven’t seen them perform.  My kids must realize that music as much as their education, is just part of their lives – either one is not their lives. 

In their new uniform hair-cut, the Bloomfields come up the stage with Rockie making the first crack of the show that were to be rock, that were to be oldies but goodies hits of the 60s.  The group sang two of their originals – Wala ng Iba, and Ale.  And for anyone who always  would not resist having to sing his or her out with such songs as Beatles’ Medley, Beach Boys’ Medley, Elvis hits, Hurting Inside by Dave Clark 5, The Things We Did Last Summer, Going Out of My Head, I Love You Now Today than Yesterday, Put your Head on my Shoulder, I Saw Her Standing There, Twist and Shout, La Bamba and such others I may have forgotten to recall – it was a fun-filled Saturday night worth the wait since 4 in the afternoon.

There ought to have been a kind of metamorphosis.  This means, they are doing better each time of musical performance in a select crowd.  Those who did not go and occupy the tables placed with white linen cloth do not have to go away – they listened to the

Bloomfields

just the same from outside the designated area – possibly more of them than we were seated. 

To get a table, one has to order.  That has always been the name of the game for a good show as the

Bloomfields

and the other bands that played, one from

Baguio

and one that copies from Queen.  Truly, the

Bloomfields

does copy from Beatles and the Beach Boys but what the heck.  We simply love the songs from way back and grew up with these songs to kingdom come – there is no changing musical taste – it stays forever.

Bloomfieds took a much longer time as the last band to perform trying to pinch the

12 o’clock

 

midnight

mood.  The group must have sang and played a lot of songs more than they did in one of their regular gigs at the Eastwood and performed pretty much better than all the gigs combined – that was really a personal opinion but I know where I am coming from.

Again, if there is always one thing lacking – it is that, the Bloomfields cannot quite perfectly connect at first sight with a new crowd only in the sense that it cannot enjoin the crowd to stand up, yell and shout any quicker than said.  It takes getting used to.  Also, the crowd does not respond to questions as if the national IQ is one of uniformity.  Only the little pack of Bloomies in the crowd have a stimulus response in the best tradition of B.F. Skinner in his concept of the “Ideal Society”.

The end part of the show is always the best part of it all for my kids and the Bloomies with them as they bond with the group on a one-on-one, one turn at a time basis.  And being with them, we have no option but to connect just as well.  As they say, there is no substitute for that ‘smooth interpersonal relationship’.  Fact is, one lady in the adjoining table thought  that me and my wife are relatives of the

Bloomfields

.  I admit, we are – being from the same species or my laughs.

It turns out, the lady was trying to see whether or not they can possibly invite the

Bloomfields

to their anniversary celebration.  But of course, the group is above the ordinaire.  It would cost anyone a lot of money to get them to perform or George knows it well.  That performance was really fabulous that we normally expect George to in fact cut the show as soon as he feels like doing but it seems he was more excited than anyone of us who watched.

            In the away-from-the-stage conversation with George and anyone of the group, we were told that their performance abroad was such a success that not many Filipinos were able to watch because the tickets were priced prohibitive and therefore, that show seemed to have catered to the American public.  The

Bloomfields

will be coming back with vengeance – they want to see more Filipinos enjoy the show, however prohibitive the ticket price is.

            And then again, they are booked for

Bahrain

, wherever that place is.  In short, the

Bloomfields

are living on a jetplance.  And George thinks he would not mind having to perform on a regular basis at the Gateway and that seems a good pleasant thing to hear – downtown Cubao – has not lost its history and place in the business world.

            So for the

Bloomfields

, when the crowd says encore, please oblige.  There ought to be no population control.