Arangkada for August 4, 2005

 

NAANGIN TANAN

 

Usa sa labing dakong kalibogan sa atong panahon: Sa usa ka bahin, nitibugsok ang popularidad ni Presidente Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ngadto sa 19%, nga maoy labing ubos sukad sa pagsugod sa surveys sa popularity ratings sa mga presidente niadtong 1984, duha ka tuig sa wa pa mapukan ang diktadura ni kanhi presidente Ferdinand Marcos; pero sa pikas bahin, ang mga kongresista nga nipirma sa impeachment complaint wa kaabot og 79, o 1/3 sa mga sakop sa House of Representatives, nga maoy gikinahanglan aron kasugdan sa labing daling panahon ang impeachment trial batok ni Presidente Arroyo sa Senado.

Duha ray posibleng katin-awan:

• Una, sayop ang surveys suma sa pasangil sa Malakanyang, nga lisod toohan kay managsama ang findings sa tanang ligdong nga research organizations, di lang sa lokal nga SWS ug Pulse Asia kon dili apil nang kalibotanong survey groups nga gikuha sa CNN, Time Magazine ug ubang langyawng media organizations; o
• Ikaduha, nga maoy mas katoohan, gipalabi sa mga kongresista ang ilang pamolitika kay sa pagpatigbabaw sa sentimento sa mga botante sa ilang mga distrito.

-o0o-

Sa labing uwahing survey sa Pulse Asia Inc., nga gihimo niadtong Hulyo 2-14 sa tibuok nasud, nitidlom sang popularidad nilang Bise Presidente Noli de Castro (44%), Senate President Franklin Drilon (39%), House Speaker Jose de Venecia (31%) ug Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. (31%).

Ang pagtibugsok ni de Castro gibasol sa iyang pagdupa ni Presidente Arroyo, kang Drilon tungod sa giisip nga oportunistang pagtalikod sa presidente, kang de Venecia tungod sa pagpahimus sa krisis pinaagi sa pagduso sa Cha-Cha, ug kang Davide tungod kay igo lang nangiyugpos atubangan sa higanteng eskandalo.

Sa kinatibuk-an, ni-us-os ang pagsalig sa katawhan sa gobyerno tungod sa krisis sa politika ug ekonomiya nga nihakop sa nasud. Pero si Presidente Arroyo maoy di katug nga maghayang. Kon ang imong approval rating mas ubos pa kay sa diktador nga niulipon sa nasud sud sa 14 ka tuig, duna kay seryusong problema.

-o0o-

Tungod sa nagkapuliki nga paningkamot sa mga torotot ni Presidente Arroyo pagsagang sa makalilisang nga testimoniya sa pag-umangkon ni kanhi Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano ug kanhi kawani sa Malakanyang, makalibog ang ilang sumbalik ni Michael Angelo Zuce:

• Sa usa ka bahin, nipresentar sila og mga saksi nga nipintal ni Zuce nga gawas nga mayukmok rang kawani sa Palasyo daghan pa gyod og utang ug atraso maong di katoohan ang pangangkon nga siyay gitugyanan sa importanteng tahas sa pagtapok ug pagsuburno sa mga opisyal sa Comelec;
• Pero sa pikas bahin, nipresentar sab silag mga saksi nga nipasangil ni Zuce sa pagpangolekta og minilyon ka pesos aron pagsurikbot sa mga protesta sa eleksiyon, tahas nga di mahimo kon tinuod pa siyang mayukmok. [30]   leo_lastimosa@abs-cbn.com

Grim Outlook

Posted by Alecks Pabico 
PCIJ

PESSIMISM is now the prevailing mood among business executives as the country has slipped into a prolonged political crisis that has already taken its toll on the economy. Results of the recent Executive Outlook Survey conducted by the Makati Business Club among its members find the business optimism in the economy at the start of the year now being replaced with gloom despite the government's improved fiscal condition in the first half of the year.

Majority of the executives surveyed feel that there will be a lower GDP growth this year, a sharp downturn in business optimism compared to January 2005 when the survey was last taken. They also expect higher  inflation (compared to last year's 6.0% rate) and interest (compared to last year's 7.34% level for 91-day T-bills) rates.

More than two-thirds of the respondents likewise expect the peso to depreciate against the dollar by about 5 percent in the next six months.  A little over half of senior business executives also now see investments in 2005 falling below last year's P221.8 billion in investment approvals.

In terms of issues and developments, political concerns now outweigh economic ones as 61 percent of  business leaders consider the credibility and effectiveness of the Presidency a key issue that must be addressed.

The survey also focused on government performance, with 17 agencies, institutions and basic services receiving positive net scores for their performance in the last six months. Eighteen, however, got negative net scores. Interestingly, most of the agencies in the top list were those headed by some of the resigned Cabinet officials tagged as the " Hyatt 10." The top performing agencies are:

1. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (80.8%) under Gov. Rafael Buenaventura (now retired)
2. Department of Finance (61.7%) under Sec. Cesar Purisima
3. Department of Trade and Industry (58.5%) under Sec. Juan Santos
4. Department of Budget and Management (53.2%) under Sec. Emilia Boncodin
5. Bureau of Internal Revenue (43.7%) under Commissioner Guillermo Parayno

Meanwhile, the worst performing government agencies in the last six months are the following:

1. House of Representatives (-82.9%)
2. Senate (-79.8%)
3. Commission on Elections (-78.7%)
4. Department of Public Works and Highways (-67.0%)
5. Department of Justice (-57.5%)

Done from July 1 to 29, the MBC survey had 94 respondents or close to 13 percent of the club's membership. A little over 70 percent of respondents belong to top management positions while close to 77 percent are Filipinos.

De Quiros' Column

There's The Rub : Evangelizing

Conrado de Quiros dequiros@info.com.ph
Inquirer News Service

THERE'S this joke about an old man who says, "I do not smoke, I do not drink, I do not stay up late, I do not go to dingy clubs with loud music, and I do not carouse with women. That is why I can now celebrate my 85th birthday."

His friend asks him, "How?"

I remembered that joke when I read about Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales saying that though he is not a great fan of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, he doesn't think getting rid of her will do any good. "Is she the only corrupt president in this country?" he asks. Ferdinand Marcos was corrupt and the presidents who succeeded him -- Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada -- were corrupt as well. Ms Arroyo is merely steeped in that tradition. Removing her won't solve anything.

"I want to evangelize people.... I want to change people's mentalities and give them a real orientation in life."

Same question: How?

I agree entirely with Rosales' premises, but I disagree entirely with his conclusions. It's true, we've had a procession of corrupt presidents over the last decades. It's true, Marcos was a humongous thief and the memory of his crimes is fading. It's true, ousting Ms Arroyo by itself won't solve all our problems.

None of that means we shouldn't oust President Arroyo. Ousting her won't solve all our problems, but it sure as hell, or heaven, will solve a great many of them.

The fact that we've had a procession of corrupt presidents doesn't make stopping a current one less imperative, it makes it more so. If I recall my religion classes right, the point is to confront evil at every turn, not to run away from it at every turn. Or worse, to see the uselessness of confronting it in the here and now because evil teems anyway in the there and thereafter. You push Rosales' argument further, it is useless to protest George W. Bush's occupation of Iraq because conquistadors have filled the earth since time immemorial, the Attila the Huns of this earth will always be there, it is a product of original sin. So what do we do, gnash our teeth and tear out our hair well before we end up in hell?

The argument is not unlike the one Ms Arroyo paraded at the State of the Nation Address, which is that our "trapo" [traditional politics] political culture is the root of all our evil. True, but some people contribute to it more than others, she most of all. You remove her and you hew down the roots of trapo politics. Or take very huge swings at it with the ax.

While at that, if we've had a procession of corrupt presidents for decades now, it is no small thanks to the Church, specifically to the kind of attitude Rosales sports. For some reason, the bishops discover the practical demands of the here and now when it comes to corrupt presidents they do not like but discover the irresolvable dilemma of evil throughout the ages when it comes to corrupt presidents they like. Jaime Cardinal Sin was like that -- his morality was selective. He rose to heroic eloquence when faced with the corruption of Marcos and Estrada, plucking out the moral imperative from the political retrogression, but lapsed to bovine contentment when faced with the corruption of Cory and Ms Arroyo, taking in the survival of the fittest in moral evolution. What did Sin and Jose Concepcion, chairman of the election watchdog Namfrel, like to quote? All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. They were never more right -- about themselves.

True enough, we may not forget about the sins of the past, notably Marcos'. But if this country forgets the sins of the past, it is also because its moral guardians refuse to see the sins of the present, and protest them. I've always said that what rehabilitated the Marcoses was not so much the policy of reconciliation that Cory took but the practice of thieving the Kamaganak Inc. [Relatives Inc.] took. The same is true of recent times: What has rehabilitated Estrada is not the failure of the courts to prove him guilty, it is the person who succeeded him proving more crooked than he was. Current sins always drown out past ones. No, more than that, they blot out past ones in the eyes of a jaded people. You do not protest what is happening before you, you make people forget what has gone before.

I've always thought that there was a corollary to Jose Rizal's famous aphorism that says, "Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan, hindi makakarating sa pinaroroonan." That is: "Ang hindi marunong tumingin sa kasalukuyan ay hindi makikita ang nakaraan." It's not just that those who can't see the past won't see the future. It's also that those who can't see the present won't see the past. Those things are as intricately woven as threads in fine cloth.

There is corruption and there is corruption, just as there is sin and there is sin, cardinal or not. Some sins are worse than others and demand from us as members of the human race, never mind as part of the Christian fold, that we stop them. Bush's occupation of Iraq is one of them. Ms Arroyo's occupation of Malacañang is another. It is one thing to rob this country of its taxes, it is another to rob it of its votes. It is one thing to rob the country of its riches, it is another to rob it of its will. It is one thing to rob this country of its body, it is another to rob it of its soul.

Lest we forget, Ms Arroyo is not just accused of corruption, though heaven knows the fact alone that she brought back the very thing we ousted a popularly elected president for, which is the illegal lottery "jueteng," which brought her to Malacañang, is reason alone to evict her. But more than that, she is accused of corrupting the electoral process through the grace of Garci. To dismiss that because corruption is endemic to the presidency, s--t happens, Adam bit the apple (that guy was the original evader of responsibility, he blamed Eve for tempting him), what kind of message will you spread with that? You want to change people's mentalities and give them a real orientation in life?

Same question: How?