Philippine justice chief offers to buy votes

By JAY R. GOTERA

MANILA

THE head of the Philippines’ Department of Justice drew public condemnation on Wednesday for openly offering to buy votes in favor of the Arroyo administration’s senatorial candidates in the May 14 elections.

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez was reported to have offered P10,000 to each of the 180 village heads in his home province of Iloilo who could deliver a 12-0 victory for Arroyo’s Team Unity (TU) candidates.

Gonzalez confirmed the report on Tuesday and said the money would come from his personal funds.

“It’s a prize, an incentive for them (village heads) to work harder. This is my personal contribution to Team Unity. I have lots of money. You want to borrow?” Gonzalez told reporters.

“When I give money, I can say from which safe in my house it came from. It’s just one harvest from my wife’s poultry business,” he said.

He said it would be up to the village heads if they will share the P10,000 “incentive” with their constituents.”

Gonzalez’s statements came as a shock to Malacañang as close allies of President Gloria Arroyo blasted the justice secretary for being “talkative and boastful.”

Presidential legal counsel Sergio Apostol said Gonzalez was not given a blessing by the President when he came out with the statement which he said the opposition will certainly exploit.

“The President was irked and irritated over the comment made by Secretary Gonzalez and she was not happy over what he had said because we’re sure that the GO (Genuine Opposition) would capitalize on this before our people. In fact, we have heard the President saying to one of her (Cabinet) secretaries to tell Secretary Gonzalez not to be too talkative,” Apostol said.

Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr., for his part, distanced himself from Gonzalez’s statement. “I don’t want to comment (on it) because it might thrive into a case,” Abalos told reporters.

Under the Omnibus Election Code, vote-buying is an election offense and the violator faces imprisonment of not less than one year to six years.

Gonzalez argued that he is not violating any law since what he will be spending is his personal money, not government funds.

But Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said Gonzalez’s argument that he will use personal funds would not mean he is not violating the law.

GO and Liberal Party senatorial bet Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III denounced as “illegal, therefore immoral” the offer made by Gonzalez.

“This smacks of transactional politics, the kind that has led to election fraud and irregularities in our electoral process. Coming from the secretary of Justice makes this offer doubly reprehensible,” Aquino said.

“Gone are the days when vote-buying operations are carried out in concealed fashion. Under this administration, schemes on how to rig election results are casually treated as regular announcements in radio programs and press conferences,” he said.

Aquino also described as improper and uncalled for Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita’s statement in Malacañang promising benefits to local executives in exchange for support to administration candidates.

Ermita said Malacañang has reminded local executives to support administration candidates because they would enjoy more benefits from the administration.

Gonzalez earlier drew public rebuke for his recent statements on the death of American missionary Julia Campbell. In a statement released to the media, Gonzales blamed Campbell for her own death for carelessly hiking alone to view the Rice Terraces of the Mountain Province.

Gonzalez also bad-mouthed the visiting Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) delegates in a recent meeting with them. The foreign IPU delegates paid a courtesy call on Gonzalez and presented him with a resolution seeking the release of detained party-list Rep. Crispin Beltran. The delegates sought Gonzalez’s help in persuading the Arroyo government to heed the IPU resolution.

But instead of accepting the resolution, Gonzalez told the foreign delegates to get out of his office and go back home.

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. condemned the justice chief’s conduct as unbecoming of a Cabinet official.

He said it could be that Gonzalez’s behavior is being altered by the medical treatment he is presently undergoing for a reported ailment. “That must be the effect of the dialysis (that he’s undergoing every now and then). To me, I think it’s the effect of the dialysis. Certainly, certain chemicals must have its effect on your disposition,” Pimentel said.

'Waterworld' Philippines looms amid global warming -- April 4, 2007

By JAY R. GOTERA

The Saudi Gazette

MANILA

THE Philippines could be swallowed by the sea before the start of the new century, the international environment group Greenpeace warned.

Releasing a briefing paper entitled “The Philippines: A Climate Hotspot,” Greenpeace said some 700 million square meters of land in the Philippines could be submerged gradually as the global average temperature rises and causes sea levels to rise.

The group said certain portions of the Philippines’ 703 municipalities may be submerged in water by 2095 to 2100.

The disaster could come much earlier if the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica melt completely, it warned.

The Greenpeace study identified the top 20 provinces in the Philippines that could go under the sea with a one-meter rise in sea level. These are Sulu, Palawan, Zamboanga del Sur, Northern Samar, Zamboanga Sibugay, Basilan, Cebu, Davao del Norte, Bohol, Camarines Sur, Quezon, Tawi-Tawi, Masbate, Negros Occidental, Camarines Norte, Capiz, Catanduanes, Samar, Zamboanga del Norte, and Maguindanao.

The group said Sulu has the highest land area that is vulnerable to a one-meter rise in sea level at 79.7 million square meters.

The Greenpeace study presents an overview of how extreme weather conditions threaten people, the economy, the different species and ecosystems.

The study discloses “never-before seen maps” that illustrate the extent of the impact of climate change in the Philippines.

“As experts predict climate change impacts to worsen in the coming decades, the question is how much will the country be affected? Unfortunately, what we have discovered is that the stakes are much higher than what we have originally imagined,” said Greenpeace Southeast Asia climate and energy campaigner Abigail Jabines.

Jabines said their study revealed that “the entire Philippines is a climate hotspot” and the country is “vulnerable to the worst manifestations of climate change.”

“And unless this disaster is averted, the costs in human lives and economic losses will continue to rise to catastrophic proportions,” she said.

Based on the maps shown, climate change can “irrevocably alter” the Philippines’ coastline.

Conservative estimates from Greenpeace predict that a one-meter rise in sea level may affect 64 of the Philippines 81 provinces, which cover at least 703 of the 1,610 municipalities, and submerge almost 700 million square meters of land, including islets, across the country.

The one-meter rise in sea level, which Greenpeace attributed to thermal expansion, does not even consider the melting of ice sheets of the Greenland and West Antarctica, which would pose an additional two- to four-meter increase in sea level.

“A one-meter rise in global sea level can occur sooner with the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets if global carbon dioxide emissions are not immediately curbed,” Jabines said.

“In a worst-case scenario of complete melting of the ice sheets, global sea level is projected to rise between seven to 12 meters,” she added.

Greenpeace pointed out the threats posed by the rise in ocean level to human settlements, tourist hubs, and vital ecosystems such as estuaries, mangroves, and coral reefs.

World Heritage sites in the Philippines such as the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park and Tubbataha Reefs Marine Park are susceptible to inundation and storm surges.

The group likewise noted that sea level rise also provides a higher base for storm surges due to typhoons, which increases the destructiveness of floods and storms to coastal settlements and infrastructure such as piers and ports.

“As a developing country with very little access to vital resources, the Philippines has a low ability to adapt and a lower ability to cope with disasters brought about by climate change impacts,” Jabines said.

Climate change also threatens the Philippines’ rich cultural heritage, as well as some of the rarest and most diverse fragile ecosystems in the world.

“And grimmer still is the fact that climate change will amplify the socio-diverse burdens already shouldered by Filipino families, such as hunger and water scarcity,” Jabines added.

Because of these, Greenpeace urged the government “to take greater leaps toward lasting solution,” and to anticipate and face the worst impacts of climate change.

Greenpeace said the government should immediately implement measures that would take into account how local governments can prepare through effective coping strategies and disaster preparedness.

They said that the Philippines must also embrace renewable energy and promote energy efficiency to cut carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 30 percent by 2050.

Filipino hostage-taker grabs world attention -- March 28, 2007

By JAY R. GOTERA

The Saudi Gazette

MANILA

IN a hostage drama played out throughout the world, a Filipino engineer and a companion took 32 schoolchildren and two teachers as hostages Wednesday inside a tourist bus in a show of disgust over the plight of the poor.

At past 7 p.m., it was all over as Armando “Jun” Ducat freed his hostages after government negotiators met his demand that the children be provided with free education until college. A computer school has agreed to sponsor their education.

The children were immediately taken to the hospital for stress debriefing.

Ducat was stripped of his Uzi sub machine-gun before he and his companion, identified as Cesar Carbonell, were taken to the Manila Police District headquarters.

Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis Chavit Singson, who was allowed to go inside the bus at around 6 p.m., got hold of the two live grenades Ducat was carrying.

The children, aged 4 to 6, were scheduled to go to Tagaytay for a field trip sponsored by Ducat as a gift after they graduated from his Musmos Bata Daycare Center in Parola compound in Tondo, Manila.

Around 9:30 a.m. Ducat told the driver, Deogracias Bugarin, to park the bus at a bus terminal near the Manila City Hall as someone would supposedly bring them food.

As the driver got off to light a cigarette, Ducat shut the door on him.

A large cardboard stating that he had taken the schoolchildren as hostages was then pasted on the front windshield.

Members of the Philippine National Police, Bureau of Fire Protection, ambulances and the Special Weapons and Tactics Team encircled the bus.

Traffic was stalled around the city hall due to thousands of onlookers.

Ducat demanded free housing and education until college for the 145 students enrolled in his daycare center.

Ducat assailed corrupt politicians for their indifference to the plight of impoverished Filipinos. “My fellowmen, beware of politicians. They spend loads of money this campaign season but once they’re in power, they will steal from us,” Ducat said in Tagalog through a megaphone outside the bus.

He said while the Philippines is recognized as a religious nation, the people act like “God-less” individuals. “We are number in corruption throughout Asia! The people are hungry!” he cried.

The schoolchildren were apparently oblivious of what was happening as they were seen waving when curtains on the bus windows were pulled aside. At one stage, a policeman delivered gallons of ice cream.

Around 10 a.m., Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., upon the request of Ducat, arrived and talked with the hostage takers for about 20 minutes.

“He has some demands and I already gave him an assurance that I would guarantee the education of the children,” Revilla said.

Revilla said he has known Ducat since he was the governor of Cavite.

He said Ducat is a man of principles and has a pro-poor advocacy. “He only wanted to be heard by the nation,” Revilla said.

Revilla said he and Ducat were partners in livelihood projects in Cavite. Ducat owns a lot used as a housing project in Imus, Cavite.

Gemma Arroyo, a parent, said they understand the grievances of Ducat. “We can forgive him because he’s a good man,” she said.

Arroyo says she skips meals, too -- March 23, 2007

By JAY R. GOTERA

The Saudi Gazette

MANILA

PRESIDENT Gloria Arroyo disputed the basis of a recent survey on hunger and poverty in the Philippines, saying that skipping some meals does not mean one is poor.

In a televised discussion on the economy at Malacañang with her top aides, Arroyo said she herself skips meals. “The question (in the survey was) if you missed one meal during the last three months. Even I missed one meal in the last three months, but…” Arroyo said without finishing her statement.

However, it was obvious that she skipped meals not because she lacked money to buy food, the primary reason for hunger as cited in the survey.

Arroyo did not say what the circumstances were or how she came to miss her meals, whether it was due to some diet program or a hectic schedule.

She was reacting to a recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) nationwide survey showing that hunger in the Philippines remained at a record high 19 percent, with an estimated 3.4 million households saying they experienced hunger at least once in the past three months.

She said some of the questions in the SWS survey might have been misinterpreted by the respondents since it was simply about missing meals, which anybody, rich or poor, could have experienced.

Arroyo said her government’s anti-hunger program aims to address both the supply and demand of food as she vowed to reduce hunger incidence in the Philippines in six months.

On the supply side, she said her government is implementing measures to increase food supply from the agricultural sector, make food production more efficient, and bring the food faster and cheaper to consumers.

This is being done, she said, by constructing more farm-to-market roads, bridges, irrigation systems, ports, roll-on and roll-off facilities and food processing centers as well as reducing the involvement of middlemen.

She said because of the projects in Northern Luzon, the prices of vegetables have gone down by as much as P20 a kilo.

On the demand side, the government is trying to increase the income of poor families through livelihood projects and increasing job opportunities through skills training and scholarships.

Arroyo also called on Filipinos to spend less on vices and more on basic necessities and urged families to practice responsible parenthood.

Opposition senatorial candidates laughed off the deadline set by Arroyo to reduce hunger incidence.

Genuine Opposition (GO) candidates Senate President Manuel Villar Jr. and former senator Loren Legarda said it would be a “big lie” for Arroyo to achieve her desired results within six months.

“The problem is a serious concern. You may be able to feed a family for one or two days but you won’t be able to feed them their entire lives. One cannot address the hunger problem in this country in six months. That is a big lie,” Villar said.

He said the problem is not Filipinos going literally hungry but their economic plight of living below the poverty line.

“If you say hunger, it simply means skipping one’s meals to save for other needs,” Villar said.

Villar said the government should focus on how to address poverty by providing a long-term solution to the problem.

For her part, Legarda stressed the need for the government and the private sector to work together in generating employment opportunities to put more food on the tables of indigent families.

Re-electionist Sen. Panfilo Lacson said the government should stop applying superficial solutions to the problem. He described the six-month time frame by Arroyo as “not realistic.”

“If she’s really bent on solving the hunger problem within six months, stop committing graft,” Lacson said.

Meanwhile, in another SWS survey, 53 percent of Filipino families rated themselves as poor.

The survey, conducted from Feb. 24 to 27, showed that self-rated poverty numbers rose in all areas but fell in Metro Manila.

“Self-rated poverty declined by 15 points in Metro Manila, from 54 percent last November to 39 percent this February,” the SWS said.

Self-rated poverty, however, rose in Luzon (outside Metro Manila) from 48 percent to 53 percent. In the Visayas, it also went up from 55 percent to 59 percent, and in Mindanao, from 54 percent to 57 percent.

The self-rated poverty threshold, which is the monthly budget that poor households need in order not to consider themselves poor, has been moving slowly for several years now despite considerable inflation, SWS said.

This indicates that poor families have been lowering their living standards, the SWS said.

Arroyo blames poor for their own hunger -- March 21, 2007

By JAY R. GOTERA

The Saudi Gazette

MANILA

PRESIDENT Gloria Arroyo virtually blamed the poor for the hunger they’re experiencing, saying that hunger “cannot be totally attributed to poverty and lack of opportunity but also to the spending patterns of the people.”

In a speech in Tarlac province at the inauguration of a sports complex, Arroyo said the poor must learn to spend their income on basic needs instead of luxuries so that their families would have enough to eat.

Arroyo was reacting to the Feb. 24-27 Social Weather Stations (SWS) quarterly survey on hunger which showed that the degree of hunger in the Philippines remains at a record 19 percent since November 2006.

Based on the SWS survey, the results showed that nearly one in five Filipino families has experienced hunger at least once in the last three months.

Arroyo said her government is taking reports on hunger incidence “with a sense of urgency” and wants to pinpoint specific areas where hunger is worst so that interventions can be mounted.

She said her government is advancing agricultural production, broadening and speeding up the food distribution and balancing out price disparities and fluctuations.

She said rolling stores have been deployed in poor communities, food prices in the markets checked, and food transport routes from farm to market ensured. She said the government’s program to entice more investments and jobs will also lower hunger incidence.

In essence, Arroyo pointed to the poor as the culprits for the soaring poverty level under her government, insinuating that the poor have not been spending their money wisely.

“I ask our people to spend on the basics first before the luxuries so our children will have enough to eat. All aspects must be dealt with so the whole citizenry can be healthy and productive,” she said.

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said the President was merely stating a fact. “There is a need to educate the people on the proper utilization of their meager resources,” he said.

He said that people should learn to cut down on “unnecessary expenditures” like alcohol, cigarettes and even on cell phone loads.

He said if one fails to send their children to school, or buy milk, food or similar basic necessities, it should prompt him to start saving or “marshalling resources very carefully.”

The survey showed that the number of households that experienced hunger stayed at 3.4 million, same as in November 2006.

Genuine Opposition spokesman Adel Tamano said the survey is a barometer “of the true state of affairs” under Arroyo’s leadership.

“This (report) belies Malacanang’s insistence that the economy is doing well. Clearly, when the President says things have never been so good, she’s referring to her family and cronies while the majority’s lot has worsened,” Tamano said in a press conference at GO’s headquarters in Mandaluyong city.

“Despite the Palace’s blabber about how well the economy is doing, evidently such is not the case for most people in Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon where hunger incidence has even worsened,” he added.

Tamano said hunger incidence has been at double digit levels since June 2004, immediately after Arroyo was proclaimed winner.

GO senatorial candidate Francis Escudero warned that the Philippines faces the prospects of famine, with its dangerous dependence on other countries for its food supply.

He said the country has fertile farmlands and free-flowing rivers for irrigation, but the government fails to exploit these rich natural resources to ensure food security.

He said the government dutifully appropriates funds for agriculture but diverts the money into useless projects.

Senate President Manuel Villar and Senate Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan said the government should stop bragging about the economic gains of the country because there is still a big number of Filipinos who are not able to eat three times a day.

RP most corrupt in Asia? Not really - GMA -- March 15, 2007

By JAY R. GOTERA

MANILA

PRESIDENT Gloria Arroyo rejected Wednesday the result of an economic survey showing the Philippines as the most corrupt economy in Asia, saying the findings were based on “old data” and biased media reports.

Arroyo said the results of the survey by the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd. (PERC), which was conducted in the first two months of this year, do not tally with the upbeat credit ratings given to the Philippines by foreign credit-rating agencies.

“The credit ratings are fine,” Arroyo said.

“As for political analysis, they work on old data, they don’t work on up-to-date data. And then they look at newspapers. And if you’re going to look at who are the ones in Transparency International Philippines, they are made up of opposition people,” she added.

Transparency International, also based in Hong Kong, has consistently given the Philippines low marks in fighting corruption.

The release of the PERC survey Tuesday came as a shocker for the Philippines since this was the first time that the country found itself ranked even lower than Indonesia or Thailand in terms of economic integrity.

Thailand and Indonesia ranked second in the survey of 1,476 expatriates in the region.

“The Philippines has the distinction of being perceived in the worst light this year,” said PERC, a Hong Kong-based group that provides advice to private firms and governments.

“It is bad and has been bad all along. People are just growing tired of the inaction and insincerity of leading officials when they promise to fight corruption,” the PERC report said.

The Philippines got a score of 9.40 from 7.80 last year in the poll, which has a grading system of zero as the best possible score and 10 as the worst. Thailand, which has a junta-backed government after last September’s coup, is probably the country where corruption problems are most visible, PERC said.

However, PERC said it had not noted a worsening in the actual situation in the Philippines despite its deteriorating score.

The protracted corruption trial of deposed President Joseph Estrada “is an example of the problem and probably explains why respondents to our survey were so negative in their assessment” of the country, the report said.

Indonesia, deemed Asia’s most corrupt country in the past five years, improved its score to 8.03, the same as Thailand. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s campaign against corruption has yielded positive results, though it’s being undermined by local-level officials, government bureaucrats and senior politicians, the report said.

Vietnam is the fourth most corrupt as the government is seen to take a selective approach to fighting corruption, the survey said. It scored 7.54 from last year’s 7.91. Vietnam was ranked the most corrupt economy in 2001.

Singapore is seen as the least corrupt of 13 economies, followed by Hong Kong and Japan, the PERC survey said.

Constancia de Guzman, chairman of the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC), said the PERC itself noted that the survey results did not reflect a worsening of the actual situation in the Philippines.

“If we are to talk about the government programs on anti-corruption, we have done, and are doing, a lot. This is observed by our stakeholders,” she said.

She cited a recent statement made by the American Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Amcham) expressing confidence in the Arroyo administration’s governance.

De Guzman said the PERC report only showed that the measures being adopted by government to address the corruption problem are not enough.

But she said there has been no let-up in government’s campaign against corruption. She said success in the anti-corruption drive have not made it to the headlines or have not been properly communicated to the public.

She said the PERC report focused on Estrada’s protracted trial and not on what the government has already done.

She, however, said people want actual results in the form of dismissals and suspensions.

“Even if we have improvement in the preventive measures and in the education component and strategic partnership, what the people want to know is how many people have been punished and put in jail due to corruption,” she said.

Passport crisis looms in RP - March 13, 2007

By JAY R. GOTERA

The Saudi Gazette

MANILA

A PASSPORT crisis looms in the Philippines following an admission by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) that the country’s supply of passports will last only up to June this year.

This was the disclosure made by Assistant Foreign Affairs Secretary Domingo Lucenario during a recent court hearing, Sen. Mar Roxas said Tuesday.

During the hearing, Lucenario said the passports may not be quickly replenished due to an existing court battle over a new, improved and more modern E-Passport program. It takes at least seven months for the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas to deliver new passports, he said.

Worried about the problem, Roxas has appealed to the Supreme Court to immediately act on an urgent petition by the DFA to enable the government to jumpstart the modernization of the Philippine passport and prevent a looming passport crisis.

Considering that the Philippines still does not have machine-readable passports, Filipinos may soon find it hard to enter the United States, European and other countries using passport scanners, Roxas said.

“It is ironic that the Philippines has a brand new law against terrorism, but its passports are still primitive and unfit for new international travel standards,” he said.

“Outdated as our passports are compared to the rest of the world, what is worse is a looming crisis where none of the Filipino travelers can avail themselves either of a jurassic or modern Philippine passport. We shall then be in passport limbo,” Roxas said.

He said the Philippines is the only country in Asia without a modern passport, and is included on a short list of similarly passport-primitive countries. These are Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus, Mauritania, Nepal, Chad, Togo, Tunisia and Guinee-Bissau.

“This list includes the world’s poorest African countries. For example, Chad is a conflict-ridden country, affected by drought and armed rebellion, with hundreds and thousands of Sudanese refugees crossing into their borders. What is our excuse?” he said.

“Once the supply of passports runs out, and unless there is a way to go around the legal skirmishes, the constitutional right to travel of thousands of Filipino travelers and our overseas Filipino workers could be seriously impaired,” he added.

The senator lamented the fact that the strictness of the Philippines’ anti-terror law is not mirrored in the integrity and efficiency of our systems.

“How ironic it is that while the international community lauded our anti-terror law, our OFWs and other Filipino travelers bearing such prehistoric passports have to suffer extraordinary scrutiny at all major international airports,” he said.

“The point here is if we are to address terrorism, it should not only be in making a law, but, more importantly, in improving and modernizing our law enforcement. We haven’t even made the computers of NBI to communicate with those of Immigration and other relevant agencies,” he added.

“This is one reason why I voted against the anti-terror law. We are crafting a law that reduces our rights and civil liberties, while other measures—modernizing our investigation, immigration and other systems and databases—could have been implemented instead,” he said.

Roxas said the need to have this Supreme Court case resolved favorably is immediate, also because the Philippines is one of the few remaining countries without passports that could help the government monitor terrorist movements.

Roxas appealed to the Supreme Court to act with dispatch on a pending petition filed before it by the DFA to prevent a possible passport crisis.

“This legal battle stands in the way of our national dignity with Filipino tourists and overseas workers having to suffer the embarrassment of extraordinary scrutiny in all major international airports because of our primitive passports. This legal battle is not just over an ordinary travel document, but about our dignity as Filipinos.”