Inquirer Editorial

Editorial : Exposed and humbled

IT WAS a surprising sight on television -- the spectacle of the world's mightiest power laid low and humbled by the elemental forces of nature. The winds and rain of Hurricane Katrina killed thousands of people, devastated about $100 billion in public and private property and flooded a vast area of the American South.

What has been called America's deadliest natural disaster in a century also brought out the lack of preparedness of a superpower that could invade and overrun another country thousands of miles away in a matter of days. Food, water and medicines were unavailable for days for tens of thousands of evacuees in crowded, sweltering evacuation centers. Law and order broke down, and looters, killers and rapists, particularly in New Orleans, roamed and operated at will until the National Guard belatedly stepped in and restored some semblance of order. The entire debacle saw the United States failing its first major test after putting up new security arrangements since 9/11.

What are the lessons of Katrina? The first is environmental: One cannot fool around with the environment and not expect it to hit back with destructive fury. It's the law of ecological karma. American columnist Ross Gelbspan said, "The hurricane that struck Louisiana and Mississippi was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service [but] its real name was global warming."

The unabated use of polluting fossil fuels has caused global warming and many scientists fear that the world may have entered a period of irreversible climate change. We can feel it here in the Philippines where typhoons have become stronger and more destructive, where the level of floodwaters is constantly rising and where sometimes the weather is reversed, with rains falling in usually dry months and drought occurring in usually wet months.

The second lesson is the need for preparedness. It cannot be said that the US was not warned about the coming of Katrina. Days before it finally struck land, TV stations were running hourly bulletins about Katrina. In the meantime, very little was done to shore up installations or board up buildings. Ultimately, in some areas in the direct path of the hurricane, boarding up would have done little to mitigate the damage. The hurricane was so fierce and powerful that it mowed down everything in its path. But the death of thousands could have been prevented had they been evacuated before the hurricane. Some people thought evacuation was not necessary. In the face of an impending natural disaster, it is always better to err on the side of caution.

The US government should have been prepared to cope with the logistical nightmare of moving tens of thousands of people, feeding them, providing them with clean water, clothing them, giving them temporary shelter and ministering to their medical and health needs. New Orleans pointed up the lack of preparedness of the government.

The third lesson of Katrina is the need to study scenarios of the aftermath of a disaster, prepare for the relocation of people and the reconstruction of their homes and infrastructure. In this regard, American and Philippine officials (for the Philippines is a disaster-prone country) would do well to study the rehabilitation and reconstruction work being done by Indonesia in Aceh and Nias, two of the areas hardest hit by the tsunami last December.

The rehabilitation and reconstruction program was discussed last week in a session of the Asian-European Editors' Forum held in Jakarta under the auspices of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. The program is based on "the principles of transparency, accountability, participation and responsibility by giving preference to wider community interest and [is] free from corruption, collusion and nepotism." That part about corruption and collusion should be noted by Philippine government officials, for it will be recalled that billions of pesos were lost to corruption in the relief and reconstruction work for the victims of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.

The Indonesian program keeps government participation to a minimum; nongovernmental organizations bear the brunt of the work. About $6 billion to $8 billion is being allocated for the rehabilitation and reconstruction program, and of this about half will come from the government and half from international donors and NGOs.

Right now, nothing can be done to reduce the force and destructiveness of hurricanes and typhoons, but people and government can always do something to prepare for their coming, mitigate the damage they inflict and avoid the deaths that they cause.

EVAT v. Glo

As I See It : EVAT could hasten GMA's fall

Neal Cruz opinion@inquirer.com.ph
Inquirer News Service

THE SUPREME Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the expanded value added tax law may be a blessing in disguise for the Filipino people, two-thirds of whom, according to opinion surveys, want Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo out. The EVAT, when implemented, will bring untold hardships to the people, and it could hasten the ouster of GMA. The increase in the prices of commodities, fuel and electricity will surely further infuriate a people already angry over the shameless murder of the impeachment case by the pro-administration House justice committee. The people might just go back to the streets and demand GMA's resignation or forcible ouster. Even those who did not join the street protests before will join this time, for there is nothing more left for them to do but to protest. The crowds will get bigger and bigger, and angrier, until they finally chase GMA out of Malacañang as they did President Estrada.

Some administration legislators already see this gathering storm and they are proposing the suspension of the EVAT, fearing that the explosion of public anger would bring down the administration. Rep. Joey Salceda and Sen. Mar Roxas have filed measures to exempt at least fuel and electricity from EVAT coverage. Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez goes farther: "Why not just repeal the EVAT law?"

Indeed, raising taxes at a time when the price of oil is rising to unprecedented levels is foolhardy and reckless, even suicidal. And stupid, if you ask me. More sensible governments subsidize oil expenses to lighten the burden on their people. The Arroyo administration is doing the opposite, stacking instead the shoulders of an already overburdened people with more taxes-because GMA's administration desperately needs additional taxes in the face of a big budget deficit and an enormous debt burden. So it is loathe to suspend even part of the EVAT.

But as the saying goes, "You cannot squeeze blood out of a turnip." You cannot squeeze more taxes out of a people who have nothing more to give. Many Filipinos eat only once or twice a day. Too many have no jobs and no roofs over their heads. At present, our power rates are the highest in Asia next to Japan which has a very high standard of living.

When the EVAT is implemented, we may yet top Japan's power rates. And when the prices of fuel and power rise, transportation fares will also rise, and so will the prices of all products.

The peace and order situation will worsen, the crime rate will soar. What is happening now in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, where looters are shooting policemen and soldiers, can happen here. If a family has nothing to eat, what are they to do? Hunger makes people desperate and reckless. All it needs for widespread looting to happen is for one person to start it. We already had examples of this in the past. It is likely to happen again.

But it is the fate of many leaders not to see what is coming until it is too late. Blinded by power, isolated from reality, surrounded by sycophants, leaders are often overconfident, believing that they are smarter than the others who fell before them. President Erap (Estrada) himself related that he was confident he could not be overthrown, until he found an angry mob knocking at the gates of Malacañang, and he had to leave in a hurry.

Marcos, a very powerful dictator for 20 years, was also confident his generals would protect him. They couldn't-even from unarmed, non-violent civilians.

GMA is confident that the worst is over for her. The impeachment case is in the process of being killed and buried. The street protests are not as big as before. The opposition is being run over on the railroad by the House "express train."

But that is the lull before the storm. A raging storm is coming and its furious gales could blow GMA away. The prudent way is to leave before the storm hits, like the millions in New Orleans, Louisiana, Mississippi who evacuated their homes before Hurricane Katrina hit. They were spared the sufferings of those who stubbornly stayed behind. Will GMA be sensible and leave early? Or will she be foolish and overconfident, and choose to stay put and bear the fury of the storm that is surely coming?

* * *

GMA is beginning to sound like a broken record. All her speeches have the same theme: Let us unite.

Unfortunately, she doesn't know the meaning of "unite." For her, it means "Support me," "get behind me," "don't expose my wrongdoings," "forget my past sins," "don't rock the boat."

But "unite" means everybody getting together and working together, not "uniting around me." She also has to give something to the people; it shouldn't be that only the people are giving to her.

For the taxes and cooperation of the people, she should give them something in return, like services, jobs, affordable necessities but, most of all, truth, honesty, justice, sincerity and transparency.

But what do the people get from her? Lies, cheating, injustice, insincerity.

Why will the people pay more taxes when they see their taxes being used to bribe mercenaries, congressmen and lying witnesses? Before she asks the people to pay more, GMA should first stop the pork barrel. She must have the moral authority to demand a clean government. How can she truthfully say that she is fighting corruption when the pork barrel is a most corrupt system where hundreds of thousands of pesos are stolen by people's "representatives"? The pork barrel should be the first thing that a president trying to save funds should cut. But GMA is afraid to scrap it because she would have no carrot to entice congressmen not to sign the impeachment complaint. Come on, you cannot make the people believe that those signature withdrawals are not in exchange for very generous considerations.

Future Heroes

Viewpoint : The heroes we never were

Juan Mercado
Inquirer News Service

"HERO" was the favorite word of the week. The word popped up everywhere -- from the convoluted impeachment debates, the Ramon Magsaysay Awards rites to the Libingan ng mga Bayani [Heroes' Cemetery] memorial rites.

"What we have is a crisis of heroes," wrote Inquirer columnist Antonio Montalvan II. Essays on the late President, written by students, he said, revealed youngsters groping for values that Ramon Magsaysay embodied.

In the House of Representatives, is a case of "too late the hero" unfolding? asked constitutionalist Joaquin Bernas, S.J. Unusually shy House members hint that they'll vote for impeachment -- but only in plenary, not in committee. So far, the opposition has lassoed only 49 of the 79 signatures needed to prevent premature expiry of the impeachment complaint.

If the vote collapses in committee, interest in the plenary sessions evaporates, Father Bernas points out. That's the lesson of past impeachments. Legislators then morph into truants.

"We can't all be heroes," Will Rogers once cracked. "Somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by." Is that the reason for this shy-violet routine?

"I see greed, I see indifference, I see apathy … when I listen to the radio or read the papers," Taguig Mayor Freddie Tiñga lamented at the National Heroes Day rites. "It's the heroes I do not see."

"Yet, if one only looks in the right places, one would find heroes," Tiñga said amid the graves of heroes (excluding, so far, the best Filipino dictator money could buy). Today's unsung heroes range from citizens who share with the poor to ordinary policemen who turn down bribes.

"Many heroes lived before Agamemnon," the Greek poet Horace wrote in 65 B.C. "But all are unknown and unwept, extinguished in everlasting night, / because they had no spirited chronicler."

Well, PO2 Guinan Ibrahim and PO1 Jose Calibuso had the Inquirer and other media. Just after Tiñga's speech, they nailed a thief and returned P1.28 million to the victim's family. "Not a centavo was missing," their superiors said. "These are Northern Police District heroes."

Concern about "values that endure even after the sun goes out" is welcome. The country suffers, Montalvan says, from a "crisis of saints -- the self-proclaimed variety, that is." They claw for today's version of Horace's "spirited chronicler": the front page or prime-time TV.

So, I dug up my dog-eared copy of "The Heroes We Never Were." Skeptical University of the Philippines graduates cheered National Scientist Dioscoro Umali who delivered this address shortly before his death. Excerpts:

"I wonder if our generation may have failed your generation," the dean diffidently began. Despite undeniable achievements, like broadened literacy and longer life spans, "our profligacy of years past dissipated your inheritance of abundant God-given resources … and in politics, your heritage from us will be a mixed bag.

"We do not inherit the land from our parents," Umali recalled the old peasant saying. "We merely borrow land from our children." But these resources were wasted recklessly.

"We endangered your capacity to provide daily bread for your families, from the land you loaned us. As prodigal parents, we radically altered your future. Greed of the past has seen to that. We lowered the threshold for violence by breeding social unrest. Above all, you will have little time left to correct our failures.

"We stripped the land of its beauty. Your children will no longer thrill, as we once did, to the heart-stopping dive of a hawk…. The rich texture of Philippine mahogany will be a quaint story for them. Their panoramas will be of drab landscapes, blanketed by sterile cogon grass, not the verdant meadows we knew as youngsters.

"And the bitter tragedy is that these victims are our grandchildren: 'flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone.'

"Part of that legacy is a 'gathering storm,' stemming from failure to ease poverty, lag in agrarian reform, population pressure --and elite indifference. What passes for national debate were the 'charades of yesterday's men.' Are we not all in danger of losing sight of the real future?

"Candor compels me to warn that … your children will be drafted to quell future insurgencies and other consequences of today's unwillingness to accept the social responsibilities of wealth," he said.

"We hope that you learn the lesson we never fully grasped: that a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions; that sharing and equity constitute the first seeds of your survival. Realism compels me to say: Be the heroes we never were -- or perish."

All citizens, especially those gifted with education, are called to "heroic service," Umali told the graduates. All must seek, in their careers, to increase the options of people beyond shared poverty. It is critical to craft people-centered policies and demand accountability from government.

Back those who would nurse the blighted landscape, he urged. "Nature has an amazing God-given capacity to regenerate. The debris are soon swept away by nature's forgiveness, once the hand of man is no longer raised against her."

The disciples' plea "at Emmaus strikes a responsive chord for people of my generation: 'Stay with us, Lord. For the day is now far spent. And it is almost evening.'

"In our twilight years, there is a desperate hope, in many of us, that your vision will see beyond the debris we left to what can still be retrieved and rebuilt. Go and be the heroes we never quite managed to become -- and live."

Copying Machines

The Case of the Comelec Copiers
By Aries Rufo
Newsbreak Senior Writer


SOMETIME in April last year, the city and provincial offices of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) nationwide each received a Sharp copying machine along with election accountable forms and paraphernalia for use in the May 10 national polls.

Some employees were surprised to receive the equipment, since not one poll official in the field had heard about the purchase. The Comelec main office had turned down equipment requests in the past for lack of funds.

Based on records gathered from the Comelec's shipping committee, a total of 107 copiers were distributed from Batanes to Sulu. NEWSBREAK estimates that the purchase amounted to P6,755,980 at P63,140 per unit. Comelec sources recall that the machines were delivered at the main office sometime in March, with Comelec finance chief Eduardo Mejos saying that these were urgently needed in the provinces and had to be shipped out immediately. Since they were already in the thick of preparations for the elections, the usual reservations that normally accompany such huge acquisitions were relegated to the background.

Recently, questions about the copiers surfaced anew after opposition witness Michaelangelo Zuce testified at the Senate that President Arroyo met with some poll officials at the family residence in La Vista Subdivision in Quezon City in January last year. Zuce said his uncle, Virgilio Garcillano, who had not yet been appointed commissioner at that time, was present, along with Mrs. Lilia Pineda, wife of suspected jueteng lord Rodolfo "Bong" Pineda.

In his sworn affidavit, Zuce said that at the dinner meeting, Arroyo asked the help of Comelec regional and provincial officers in the forthcoming presidential race. For their part, the regional and provincial poll officers asked for "Xerox machines" and vehicles.

Apparently, it was a request that the President did not forget.

When NEWSBREAK asked Comelec executive director Pio Joson and property division chief Amor Balbon about the source of the copiers, the two said they were unsure since these just surfaced at the Comelec. But they said it was Comelec finance services chief Eduardo Mejos who seemed to have facilitated their acquisition.

Curiously, it was Mejos who took charge of the machines' distribution in the city and provincial offices. This wasn't part of his job as finance chief.

The Comelec itself couldn't have purchased the machines since there was no bidding held for their acquisition.

Until now, the property division has yet to receive any document showing that the copiers are Comelec property. This has caused some minor problems, particularly in their repair and maintenance.

Balbon explained that before any purchase and replacement of spare parts could be undertaken for the copiers that have broken down, a memorandum from the Comelec acceptance committee should state that it had received the machines as a donation and that the Comelec was now the owner.

But documents gathered by NEWSBREAK show that the Office of the President was the source of machines, which were given to the Comelec as a donation.

When told about it, Balbon expressed surprise, saying it was the first time that Malacañang had made a donation of any kind to the poll body.

But in the light of the Zuce testimony, some Comelec officials are expressing concern that the copier machines were not merely donations but an attempt by the President to curry favors with election officers. They point out that the President may therefore be liable for vote-buying.

Under the Omnibus Election Code and Comelec Resolution 6420 in connection with the May 10 polls, the giving of donations or gifts in cash or in kind is a prohibited act during the campaign period, from February 10 to May 8, 2004.

The prohibited act constitutes vote-buying, according to one Comelec regional director. The source also said that under the Revised Penal Code, the prohibited act also constitutes bribery "since it was done in consideration of something."

At the very least, a Comelec commissioner said that the act of donation of the copier machines by Malacañang was "irregular" since it came from a sitting president who was seeking reelection. "With the President as a candidate, it can be interpreted that she could be soliciting votes or support from the election officials."

Intentions are hard to prove, but one document could show that Malacañang wasn't just being charitable. Among the documents that Zuce submitted to the Senate was a memorandum submitted by Garcillano to the President in connection with his consultations with regional election directors and provincial election supervisors in Mindanao. In that memo, Garcillano stressed the importance of getting the unqualified support of Comelec personnel in the field. "Let us make them feel that when they look back they have that debt of gratitude and residual loyalties to us," Garcillano said.

He may as well have been referring to satisfying the need of Comelec field people for something so simple as a copying machine.

Tiglao's Column

Commentary : Are they serious?

Rigoberto D. Tiglao
Inquirer News Service

ARE the opposition congressmen really serious in their move to include the amended complaint as part of an impeachment trial against the President? Only if they think the Senate will be willing to be tied down for a year-even years-of impeachment trial.

The amended complaint constitutes seven different charges against the President. Of course, Marcos lawyer Oliver Lozano's 13 charges will have to be included as well.

What will happen in the trial?

For starters, take one of the amended complaint's charges: alleged "human rights violations," obviously a complaint designed to get the Left on board the impeachment. (Fifteen out of the 47 impeachment signatories are party-list representatives, 10 from the Left.) The complaint claims that the President "acquiesced in and provided impunity to the killing of political dissenters or infringed their freedoms of expression and assembly."

The complaints' specifics? Totally based on a report of Karapatan, an NGO: "411 assassinations, summary executions and (cases of) indiscriminate firing, 130 victims of involuntary disappearance, 245 tortured, and 1,563 illegally arrested." That's a total of 2,349 people, all of them alleged victims of human rights violations.

The accused here is not only President Macapagal-Arroyo, but the Armed Forces of the Philippines which, the complaint alleges, was the main perpetrator of these crimes.

How will the Senate deliberate this charge? Investigate, of course, every single one of these incidents. Can you imagine the number of witnesses and documents necessary to prove each and every one of these 2,349 instances of human rights violations? I've seen a PNP report on the Hacienda Luisita incident. It contains the affidavits of 43 policemen and laborers.

Assume that it would take the Senate one day to evaluate each case. That would take them 2,349 days, or six years. OK, there could be a proposal to take just a sample of, say, just 10 cases. But could the Left and the President's lawyers come to an agreement as to which cases to include in the sample? Would the Left give up should, after the 1,000th case, no human rights violation be established?

Another charge in the amended complaint: The President did not implement Piatco's Naia III contract. It took the Supreme Court a year and a half to study and decide that the Piatco contract with the government was anomalous. It took roughly a year for the Office of the President to go through the roomful of documents to get to the bottom of the case. Would all the top men of the transport and communications departments under three administrations be summoned as witnesses? Would the Senate call to the witness stand Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada, since the former first approved it and the latter amended it?

Another charge in the amended complaint: The President approved the North Rail project, even though it was overpriced and the interest rate on the Chinese loan for the project was high. This would require going through a procedure similar to the one used in connection with the Piatco contract-and that would include studying or reviewing the voluminous documents pertinent to the case.

Who would be the witnesses here? House Speaker Jose de Venecia, who convinced the Chinese government to finance it? The governor of the Export-Import Bank of China, who signed the loan agreement? Chinese President Hu Jintao, who witnessed the signing ceremonies? And the Chinese ambassador to Manila, who has publicly stated that the contract is "above-board, we have nothing to hide"?

Another charge which could have an interesting twist: The President used the Road Users' Tax projects to promote her candidacy. Would all the congressmen-including those in the opposition-who were partners in road maintenance projects be called to the witness stand? How about the thousands who were employed in these projects?

We'll be seeing of, course, a replay of the hearings on the jueteng and wiretap controversies, which lasted nearly four months (two months for Sen. Manuel Villar's committee and two months for the congressional committee). No, not just a replay, but many, many more episodes.

Contrast the shotgun, scatty approach of this impeachment move to the focused, reasonable charges in other impeachment cases. The one against Nixon involved not the Watergate break-in, but only the specific instances when the US president asked officials to cover up its links with the White House. The case against Clinton involved not his alleged sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky but perjury (on Aug. 17, 1998 before a federal grand jury) and obstruction of justice (six specific instances). The case against Estrada involved the charges of getting jueteng money and part of the tobacco excise tax proceeds through Chavit Singson.

Read the charges in the amended complaint, and visualize how they will be deliberated by the Senate-then, Fr. Joaquin Bernas' theory that there is only one impeachment proceeding with an extended bill of particulars isn't convincing. There will be entirely new proceedings-entirely different sets of documents, entirely different groups of witnesses-for the fraud charges, the Piatco issue, the human rights violations charges, etc.

The Senate isn't exactly just a debating club. To operate, the chamber costs taxpayers about P1.3 billion a year, or P7 million each session day. With the plethora of different charges in the opposition's complaint, the Senate would probably work as an impeachment court-and forget its law-making work-for an entire year or even more.

Through the many, many months of an impeachment trial, live television and radio will day after day be broadcasting-and newspapers will be publishing-the charges against the President again and again. That's exactly what the Gloria Ibagsak crowd wants out of this impeachment move. With this daily-even hour-by-hour barrage (courtesy of cable TV), the anti-GMA forces hope to see the President buckle under pressure, and resign.

That kind of harassment against the President is exactly what the framers of the Constitution feared, and sought to prevent with the constitutional provision mandating that only one impeachment complaint-with substance-may be attended to within a year.

Give the President her day in court, the opposition and NGO types keep repeating. What they really want is to tie her down in court for years.

Well, yes, the opposition is serious in having the amended complaint in the impeachment trial-but for a rather different reason.

Secretary Rigoberto D. Tiglao is the head of the Presidential Management Staff.

Blueprint

High Ground : How we can move forward from Gloria and Garci

William Esposo wmesposo@hotmail.com
INQ7.net

THE never ending tale of the tapes plays the old disgusting tunes like a broken record. Both sides – the administration and the opposition – create a laughable spectacle as they try to outdo each other's puppet show. One wonders when they will run out of puppets to testify to their story line. Neither side is even aware that the Philippines has tuned out from their frequency long ago.

Hardly anyone is listening because nothing they say is relevant to addressing the problems that beleaguer the nation. At the brink of the precipice, people must make life and death decisions. But all the teeming millions of hard-up Filipinos find better use for their time listening to Koreanovelas than listening to lies and half-truths from a president largely perceived as illegitimate and unfit to rule and an opposition which promises nothing more beyond clamoring for her ouster.

Many political analysts misread the situation. They think that the problem lies in the absence of a personality figure as rallying point, comparing the present situation to that in 1986 when Cory Aquino became the unifying factor for People Power. It is true, we do need a rallying point, but this rallying point need not be around a singular personality.

In 1986 and 2001, Filipinos packed the will and force to remove two undesirable presidents – Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada. Today, Filipinos find themselves in even worse conditions and yet this is not stirring up people to seek an overthrow. They had wanted change and they had fought for it then, but the change did not come. What they saw instead was a reinvention of the decadent ways of old politics. What they saw was a mutated breed of dirty politicians rendered more vicious by greed and callousness and as pernicious as new bacteria strains that overpower new antibiotics. We have a situation where Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's ratings have sunk to the lowest point in presidential history. Depending on which survey, 65% to 80% of Filipinos want her out, yet we see no visible show of public outrage. Dictator Ferdinand Marcos did not even come close to having such an overwhelming number of people wanting him out. Conservative assessments will confirm that Marcos got easily 40% of the 1986 vote, which is not really too far off in obtaining a popular mandate. Yet the collective anger that had swelled into an astounding and unprecedented show of People Power had become history's new standard in effective non-violent revolt.

More than the non-existence of a credible opposition good enough to serve as leadership alternative, Filipinos now find themselves outsiders to the political farce they call government. They have become reluctant, jaded and disgusted spectators of a theatre of the absurd and its rituals that cover up their real themes of greed and power grab. They cannot empathize with what their leaders say because experience and better sense tell them there is nothing for them there.

Quite a number of people erroneously conclude that the Cory phenomenon in 1986 had been a simple case of emotional buildup and spillover of public anger resulting from the Ninoy Aquino assassination in 1983 – exactly 22 years ago yesterday. The event may have served as a trigger but the impetus and resolve to unify had found form and substance in Cory who embodied the dreams, angst and outrage of Filipinos wanting deliverance and their democracy back.

Public emotion over any angering event fizzles out in a few months. Knowing the Filipino's more forgiving nature and short memory, we can expect Filipino anger to recede faster than that of other nationals. When Cory led the country three years after Ninoy's murder, the people were rallying behind the ideals and promise she represented – the restoration of democracy. Public outrage over Ninoy's murder had by then already blended in the background as part of the tapestry of abuse and corruption of the Marcos regime. Cory's leadership galvanized millions of angry Filipinos – rich and poor, young and old – to demonstrate their heroism and compelling faith in democracy.

Lost on many was the reality that Cory was simply the symbol. The real rallying point was democracy. At that time, Cory was a widow with no political or public administration background – in a country that had yet to elect a woman president. If 1986 was the usual personality game of Philippine politics, then the mantle of leadership would have fallen to the likes of Senators Pepe Diokno, Jovy Salonga or Doy Laurel who were better known and had track records.

Nearly two decades after having won back our freedom in the People Power revolt of 1986, Filipinos find themselves trapped in a system which does not work. People are so disillusioned and they are rejecting anything and anyone even remotely associated with that system. This comes as no surprise. Way back in 1972, Filipinos were already disappointed with the system. Marcos was able to impose Martial Law partly because there were people who were willing to try out Marcos's New Society, hoping it would be better than the system of the trapos and the oligarchy.

The Filipino has tried to live with all the series of shenanigans of one regime after another. Today, it is clear that people's faith and confidence in the system and the present crop of leaders have totally disintegrated. A people who no longer trust their government and their leaders cannot be expected to be involved in trying to make the system work.

We are a country in stalemate and in search of a great and powerful idea that we can believe in and will push us forward. Trapped in the power play of the entrenched elite, we need a national agenda that will embody the real aspirations and needs of the people. In 1986, the restoration of democracy was the national agenda. The New Testament provided the bedrock for Christian faith. What the country needs today is a new political testament that can inspire a nation to take charge of its future and destiny.

Thus, to focus our search on that one personality that will serve as the end-all and be-all of our national salvation is to lose sight of the very root of all our problems. Worse, to do that is to lose the lesson of our success in 1986 when People Power earned this nation its greatest respect from a world public. Before he can move forward, the Filipino needs to follow the right pathway founded on a system that is designed to benefit the majority towards a better life. It is the WHAT and not the WHO that is the key to moving forward and placing Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the failed system behind us.

The situation is much like the attitude and behavior of consumers towards a product that has outlived its usefulness. When housewives dumped the use of solidified lard for cooking for the more convenient and healthier liquid vegetable oil, competitors of Purico, the then brand leader in the solidified lard market, found their cause moot and academic. Wisely, Procter and Gamble, the company behind Purico, became the supplier of a new generation of cooking oil by selling the Mayon vegetable oil brand. The big deal about horses of the finest pedigree pulling elegant carriages became stuff for memorabilia once Henry Ford's first automobiles rolled out from its plants.

The system that Macapagal-Arroyo, Joe de Venecia, Joseph Estrada, Fidel Ramos represent has undoubtedly gone obsolete. Ramos, de Venecia and Macapagal-Arroyo are trying to reinvent and preserve themselves by proposing a charter change. But no one is buying tickets to watch their production because people are really waiting for the real blockbuster. The real blockbuster can only be the one which captures the very essence of a people's dream to restore and rebuild their self-esteem and self-respect as a nation. That real blockbuster is what holds the key that will unlock the guarded wariness of people's hearts and minds.

I was most delighted when my friend and fellow Inquirer columnist Randy David so kindly emailed me a copy of the highlights of a collaborative opus of UP professors dubbed as Blueprint for a viable Philippines. I saw in it the promise of that badly needed national agenda most Filipinos may well find as the glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

Blueprint is not a product of trapos (traditional politicians) and entrenched interest groups. It is a well-thought out document put together by notable and respectable nationalists and scholars of Philippine history and governance. Blueprint is some kind of a master roadmap out of the nation's problems and into a new and better beginning for the majority of Filipinos. Blueprint boldly exposes the injury done to our national well-being by vested interest groups, patronage politics and trapo stooges. Blueprint prescribes solutions after dissecting present policies and analyzing why they fail or are doomed to fail. The prescriptions unmistakably affirm the primacy of Philippine national interests, and as a consequence, that of the interests of majority of Filipinos. Donald Dee, Sergio Luis-Ortiz, Miguel Varela, Bill Luz and the big businesses that they represent, Joe de Venecia and his ilk, the trumpeters of Globalization who have just about killed our agriculture sector, the thieves and predators in the bureaucracy, the influence peddlers, the power brokers, the abusive cops and soldiers, the monopolists, the warlords, drug lords and jueteng lords will hate the UP Blueprint.

Blueprint proposes to effect empowerment of the majority by realigning policies to serve national interest. It goes without saying that the very few whose power and authority are derived from existing laws and policies which serve as instruments for exploitation, abuse and oppression will have to give way. Whose country is this anyway?

Blueprint is an enlightened piece of political work. What makes it even more credible and significant is that its authors want it to be an open document where people can participate and contribute in evolving a more acceptable and democratic document. Hopefully, Blueprint will be the start of things that will help bring about that breakthrough that will release us from our miserable political entrapment.

New Advisers?

President woos tycoons to her advisory group

Gil C. Cabacungan Jr.
Inquirer News Service

PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is forming a new advisory group made up of the country's business leaders to rebuild her ties with big business, a significant bloc of which recently joined the rising clamor for her to resign amid the "Gloriagate" and "Juetengate II" scandals.

A Malacañang official said that among the core members being considered for inclusion in the proposed advisory council were SGV & Co. founder Washington SyCip, Ayala Corp. president and CEO Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, SM Group executive vice president Tessie Sy-Coson, Phinma chair Oscar Hilado and Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. vice chair and CEO Cesar E.A. Virata.

The official, who requested anonymity, said Ms Arroyo had long been wooing these business leaders to join her advisory group that would recommend economic policy reforms needed to sustain the country's growth.

Earlier plan

But Ms Arroyo's move to recruit these business leaders into her brain trust hit a snag on July 8 when her economic team led by Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima urged her to step down. Purisima and the other members of the so-called Hyatt 10 said Ms Arroyo's struggle for political survival had become a hindrance to good governance and policy implementation.

That same day, the leadership of the influential Makati Business Club also joined calls for Ms Arroyo to resign. The MBC's resign call was later criticized by some of the group's members who said they were not consulted on such a big issue.

Even so, the Palace official said Ms Arroyo remains undeterred in her plan to organize her business advisory group. The official said the President had continued to host low-key dinners with these industry captains over the past few weeks.

"Her goal is to quietly rebuild unity of business groups in order to get a consensus on new reform ideas and secure support for her reforms," the source said.

Confirmed

A source close to Coson, the eldest daughter of retail king Henry Sy, confirmed that she had attended some of these dinners with the President and other businessmen. The source, however, denied that Coson had been designated one of the President's advisers.

Francis Chua, president of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said Ms Arroyo has been wooing the country's leading businessmen to support her efforts to put the economy back on track amid a looming oil crisis.

"The President believes that we need a concentrated effort if we are going to solve not only the fiscal crisis but more importantly the looming oil crisis," said Chua.

He said the President's commitment to address all allegations against her -- from jueteng payoffs involving her family to cheating in last year's elections -- should allay fears of businessmen that the political crisis would adversely affect the economy in the face of surging world oil prices.

Crucial week

This week is crucial for Ms Arroyo as opposition attempts to impeach her come to a head and the Supreme Court rules on the legality of the expanded value-added tax (VAT) law, the centerpiece of her economic reform plans.

The high court is expected to lift its suspension of the VAT law, boosting Ms Arroyo's image with international ratings agencies concerned about the country's huge debts but making life harder for millions of poor people.

Still, some political analysts have voiced doubts Ms Arroyo will be able to regain the confidence of the entire business community.

During his short-lived tenure, then President Joseph Estrada formed in January 2000 a high-powered Council of Senior Economic Advisers to guide him on economic policy. The body was made up of SyCip, Zobel de Ayala, Virata, former Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Gabriel Singson and former Senator Vicente Paterno.

Ten months later, the members of the council, except Singson, resigned amid the "Juetengate I" scandal. Estrada was ousted in January 2001 in the EDSA II people power revolution.

Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (FFCCCII)

Makati Business Club

Supreme Court of the Philippines

The Economist

Commentary : 'It's the economy, stupid'

Rigoberto D. Tiglao
Inquirer News Service

A CLICHĒ that may seem to be. But other than the weaknesses of the charges against President Macapagal-Arroyo, it's one answer to the question why the Gloria-Ibagsak crowd-despite all the sophisticated and well-funded plots and propaganda it has made against her-can't prod a People Power revolt.

The economy is important in understanding our past two Edsas. Because of massive Marcos cronyism, the economy was in crisis by 1984, making almost inevitable the first Edsa in 1986. On the other hand, Erap's (Joseph Estrada's) drinking and mahjong sprees kept him away from decisively leading the economy out of the Asian-wide financial crisis that started in 1997. The political crises that broke out under Marcos and Estrada, because of entirely non-economic reasons-the Ninoy assassination in 1983 and Chavit Singson's exposé in 2000-only further weakened the troubled economies of each period. These, in turn, deepened the political crisis that confronted them, resulting in their ouster.

In contrast, despite the plots against the President since 2001, the economy in the past four years under her has become stronger.

Take a look at the figures: the rate of economic growth, measured by the growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and inflation rates, in percentages:

President Average GDP Growth Rate (%) Average Inflation Rate (%)

Aquino 3.8 10.4

Ramos 3.7 7.6

Estrada 2.8 6.0

Arroyo 4.0 5.2

The economy registered its highest growth under Arroyo's presidency compared to the preceding three administrations; inflation, the lowest. There is an unmistakable economic momentum. Growing only 1.3 percent in the first quarter of 2001 when she assumed office, the GDP growth rate has accelerated to 6.4 percent by the first and second quarters of 2004, slowed down this year only by the oil crisis.

Jobs generated annually, measured by year-on-year increases in the number of employed persons, have seen the biggest number under Arroyo:

President

(No. of years) Total during term (000) Average per year (000)

Aquino (6) 4,800 800

Ramos (6) 3,774 686

Estrada (2+) 405 162

Arroyo (3.5) 3,643 1,214

The economic growth under Ms Arroyo has helped the poorest. Poverty incidence has gone down, from 27.5 percent in 2000 to 24.7 percent in 2003. This means 1 million Filipinos getting out of the poverty quagmire in just three years. Wealth distribution has also improved, as shown in the percentage changes in the shares of the different economic groups in the national income. Under Arroyo's watch, the percentage share of the richest 10th decile has declined by 1.5 percent, with the nearly corresponding increases in the share of the poorest deciles.

But it's not that the rich are being terribly impoverished under Gloria's term. Take the case of our stock market's performance, compared to those of others in the region. We're the third best performer this year. In contrast, massive stock manipulations involving the SSS and other state funds occurred in 2000, triggering a near-meltdown of the bourse.

Country 2004 Price Index 2005 May Price Index Growth (%)

Indonesia 1,000 1,088 8.8

Korea 895 970 8.3

RP 1,822 1,929 5.8

Singapore 2,066 2,161 4.6

Malaysia 907 861 -5.1

HK 14,230 13,867 -2.6

The two economic values that react immediately to political disturbances-the exchange and interest rates-behaved quite differently during Erap's and now Gloria's troubled months.

During Erap's crisis that started mid-2000, the peso's exchange rate fell from P43 to the dollar to P51, a huge P8-loss in our currency's value, foreboding a chaotic period unless Estrada was ousted. That certainly convinced the elite to junk him ASAP. In contrast, since the current turmoil started in June, the peso's exchange rate has held steady at the P56-level. This, despite the fact that crude oil prices have zoomed up to their highest levels in 20 years, putting tremendous pressure on the peso's value.

Interest rates, represented by the 91-day Treasury bill rates, remained high at the 10-percent levels in the months before Estrada's fall. In contrast, this year, T-bill rates have even softened, from 7.7 percent at the start of the year to the latest 5.8 percent.

And the coming months?

Business firms are expecting that the political storm will be ending soon.

A Bangko Sentral poll of 839 firms-that's more than double the 300 respondents in Pulse Asia's surveys-showed that businessmen are forecasting a better business climate in the fourth quarter, with the outlook index for that period measured at 18.3 percent. This is a reversal of the negative (i.e., pessimistic) 10.4-percent index for the third quarter of the year. (This newspaper's Aug. 19 article on this poll got it all wrong, with its headline: "BSP survey shows bearish outlook.")

It's the economy under Gloria which is helping thwart all the Ibagsak plots.

Oil Crisis

Editorial : Change in lifestyle

OIL futures last week breached the $67-a-barrel mark in New York, and so far no relief is in sight. It appears that in the near future as well as in the long term, the global economy is in for another period of high oil prices.

The Philippines, which is 55 percent dependent on fossil fuels for its energy needs, is greatly affected by the constantly rising prices of oil. Analysts estimate that every dollar increase in the price of Dubai crude adds about P500 million to the country's annual oil bill.

This is additional expenditure that the country, which is already pressed for funds, can hardly afford. Thus, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and business leaders have agreed that the best solution to the oil crisis is to cut down on the country's consumption of 330,000 barrels a day.

A huge reduction in the country's consumption of oil will entail a drastic change in the lifestyle of the people. Many of them will have to walk or bike to work. This will mean not only savings in fares and oil use but also daily exercise, and ultimately, a healthier work force.

Those who can still afford to drive cars will have to buy bantams and minis instead of the gas-guzzling AUVs, SUVs and CRVs. Some may have to switch to scooters or gas-powered skateboards. One version, the TT Racer, is light and can be maneuvered through the densest traffic.

Experiments should be pursued on the use of alternative fuels for vehicles such as alco-diesel, coconut methyl ester made from copra, compressed natural gas, ethanol and electricity. Some hybrid vehicles can be run on both gasoline and electricity.

Housewives will have to cut down on the use of LPG and electricity in the kitchen. One stove that runs on alternative fuels is the "green charcoal" stove that uses briquettes made of sawdust, corncobs, peanut shells, twigs and branches. Another is the "fantastic kalan" that uses wood chips, fresh coconut shells, charcoal and any hard combustible material. Several years ago someone made a stove that used compressed and balled old newspapers. We wonder whatever became of it.

More households will have to be encouraged to use solar energy for their daily needs. Some people think that solar energy is expensive. The initial installation of solar panels may be expensive, but in the long run, solar energy can be economical. In Negros Oriental province last year, a study showed that for as low as P343 a month, rural households can run modern conveniences such as television sets, electric lights, radio sets and even karaokes using solar energy.

A 5-watt system can be installed for P35,000. In Negros Oriental, people can buy it for only P20,000 because they can get a P15,000 discount through a grant from the Netherlands government and a P5,000 subsidy from the provincial government.

The architecture of office buildings and homes will have to be changed to reduce the use of electricity for airconditioning. For starters, homes can be designed so as to allow the maximum circulation of air: high ceilings, many windows and doors and ventanillas or sliding wooden windows beneath the big windows of old houses.

Filipino architects would do well to study Arabic architecture, particularly that of Saudi Arabia. In Jeddah the most striking feature on the facade of a typical townhouse are the "rawashin," great bay windows. The latticed rawashin serve three functions: providing privacy, enhancing the appearance of the house and providing good ventilation.

Today many public buildings and private homes have to use airconditioning because their architecture is Western; they are designed so as to conserve heat for fall, winter and early spring. This is illogical; we don't have winter in the Philippines. Why not use tropical architecture for a tropical country like ours?

Because less airconditioning will be used (we hope), people will also have to change the way they dress. Off with the heavy, thick and dark-colored woolen and flannel suits. Instead, more clothes made of cotton, linen and ramie will have to be used. For formal occasions, the elegant piña and "jusi" [banana fiber] will have to be used, but some way must be found to bring down their prices.

For the poor, the current oil crisis will mean more scrimping and greater deprivation. The rich, for their part, could help reduce the consumption of costly oil by changing their lifestyle and adopting the philosophy of voluntary simplicity. Malacañang has said that energy conservation is now a matter of national survival. Everyone will have to contribute to the effort to reduce oil consumption if we are to keep our head above the water.

Glo's Fave Mouthpiece

Commentary : Witches' brew

Rigoberto D. Tiglao
Inquirer News Service

IF you think the heated discussions of the congressmen tackling the mechanics for the impeachment are all garbage, take a look at the garbage-in.

Other than election fraud, many of the over a dozen charges against the President are indeed mind-boggling. For starters:

The President's approval of the E-VAT Law: "The oppressive E-VAT Law is another act of betrayal of public trust," according to former Marcos lawyer Oliver Lozano's Fifth Supplemental Affidavit. So, will all the legislators who voted for the passage of the E-VAT Law also face impeachment?

The President's refusal "to meet one-on-one with Mrs. Imelda Marcos" and "re-negotiate the 75-25 compromise agreement on the Marcos wealth" (Fifth Supplemental Affidavit). I'm sure Imelda is dying to be a witness in this charge.

The following six charges are in the "Amended Complaint" filed July 22 by the opposition and other Gloria Ibagsak people:

"Human rights violations": "Killings of political dissenters and infringement of their freedoms of expression and assembly…perpetrated by the members and agents of the AFP." The Left must be jolted out of its time-warp, that we're in 2005 now, not in 1985 when people under the Marcos dictatorship certainly believed that party line. Obviously, other than the President, the armed forces will be the accused here. The AFP has maintained in investigations by the Commission on Human Rights that the alleged killings were casualties in the anti-insurgency campaign. With this charge, the Gloria Ibagsak conspirators can kiss goodbye their wishful thinking that the military will one day join them.

Implementing the North Rail Project. Why not file this in the Ombudsman where it logically belongs, if the charge had any merit? Because the charge recruits into the impeachers' camp every congressman who hates Speaker Jose de Venecia, who convinced the Chinese government to invest in the project. This charge intends to torpedo what could be an epochal project that would link Manila to the northern provinces in the same manner that railways became the arteries for the US economic expansion at the turn of the 20th century. Exasperated, the ambassador of the People's Republic of China said: "Please keep endless politics out of NorthRail."

Not implementing Piatco's Terminal III contract: But it was the Supreme Court itself which ruled the contract anomalous. The respected Gloria Tan-Climaco, a former SGV chair, should file a libel case against those who signed the impeachment complaint. It makes the ridiculous charge that she asked for $20 million from Fraport for the government to open the terminal. Coincidentally or not, the Piatco lawyers are the same high-profile lawyers for the purported jueteng witnesses.

PhilHealth Cards: Only in the Philippines will a head of state be impeached for making available health insurance for 69 million of its citizens, 30 million of whom are the poorest in the land.

Road Users Tax Projects: Only in the Philippines will a head of state be impeached for implementing a law (RA 8794 of June 2000) to maintain roads.

Deactivation of the Southern Philippines Development Authority and the downsizing of the National Electrification Administration. Huh?

Another impeachment charge, over which Dinky most probably will be teary-eyed over:

That the President "permitted the First Gentleman" to stay away from the country (Third Supplemental Affidavit).

The impeachment charges look more like an obnoxious witches' brew wherein everyone in the coven wants to add his or her own special poison ingredient.

The ingredient for the Erap-FPJ-Lacson forces that were defeated in 2004: the election-fraud charges. Big, big problem here. This relies 100 percent on what the opposition admits are illegally acquired wiretaps. These are inadmissible in any proceeding according to the Anti-Wire Tapping Law. In the first place, are they really accurate recordings of conversations? Last Friday, local and foreign experts concluded that the tapes were either spliced or had serious anomalies.

The ingredients for the Left: "human rights violations" and the E-VAT.

Throw in the ingredient that the President should be impeached for not negotiating a settlement with the family of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. This would bring in the remnants of the Marcos forces.

It is not surprising therefore, that many in Congress would not want to gulp this witches' brew—intended not for anything else but to drug people's minds to join another lynch-mob.

Analyze the sequence of events of the past two months, and the word conspiracy jumps out. The jueteng hearings started in early June and then the alleged tapes surfaced a week later. The impeachment complaints were made between June 27 and July 22. The Gloria Resign campaign reached its peak July 8, when on that day the following events occurred: the Hyatt 10's melodrama, the resign calls by Cory, by a faction of the Makati Business Club, and then by the Drilon wing of the Liberal Party. Jojo Binay's Makati rally that evening was supposed to be the culmination of that coup-through-press-conferences.

That offensive fell on its face, and people have started to ignore the Ibagsak hubbub. On to Plan B: Camouflage the agitation to oust a President elected by 12.9 million Filipinos through an impeachment process, wherein everything but the kitchen sink will be thrown against her.

The plot's next scenario: Trigger a People Power when Congress throws out the impeachment complaint.

The Constitution's framers had the wisdom to realize that the impeachment process could degenerate into a harassment weapon for an immoral opposition hurling a plethora of baseless charges against a President, and tying down Congress away from its primordial law-making duty. So they put up a check on the process: Congress can consider only one impeachment complaint per year. A technicality that may seem, but only rules can put scheming scoundrels at bay.

"Fair is foul, foul is fair," the witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth intoned. Things are seldom what they seem.

For Congress to tackle all of the complaints seems fair. Yet it runs foul not only of the Constitution, but of sheer common sense. Not meeting with Imelda Marcos as grounds for impeachment? The Piatco and NorthRail issues?

For Congress to limit the inquiry only to the first Lozano complaint may seem foul. It is really being fair to Congress'—and to all Filipinos'—time and energies.

(Secretary Tiglao is the head of the Presidential Management Staff. He was an Inquirer columnist before he joined government in 2001. His views in this column are his own and should not be construed as official views of the Office of the President.—Ed.)

Roco's The Best

High Ground : Raul S. Roco: Filipinos lose the best, keep the worst

William Esposo wmesposo@hotmail.com
INQ7.net

When your country is helplessly trapped in the vicious downward spiral wrought by corruption and poverty, the least it needs to hear is news about the passing away of yet another of its already dwindling number of better leaders.

Raul S. Roco's demise last August 5 bore down on the nation like additional weight on a sinking ship. It is certainly not the time to lose our few remaining great Filipino icons, not when the term 'leadership' itself had become synonymous with 'impeachment', 'fraud' and 'nausea'. So why are all the good people going away and why are we left to live out the nightmare of the presidency of Gloria M. Arroyo?

Discerning voters knew it then during the election of 2004 that Raul Roco was the most qualified and best prepared candidate to lead the country in the wake of the two preceding disastrous presidencies of Joseph Estrada and Gloria M. Arroyo. But voters in impaired democracies usually fail in making intelligent and informed choices of their leaders. Many voters thought actor Fernando Poe Jr.'s pluck and daring on the cinema screen would also translate to a good ending in political leadership. Others allowed themselves to be locked in a situation where they must only choose between the 'lesser of two evils'. Forcing people to limit their choice to two undesirables had been a ploy to shut out the real threat to mediocrity and ineptness. This ploy was meant specifically to eliminate the threat of Raul Roco.

Other than Malacanang's failed attempt to smear Raul Roco for 'misuse of public funds' and 'extravagant spending' when he was Education Secretary, Roco's political career had never been tainted. Today, media's accolade for Raul Roco comes too late. It is regrettable that they revere him now for the good they had largely ignored or bypassed in the past, all because these did not qualify as sensational media bytes. Roco fell victim to the ruthless dynamics of a leadership bent on preserving itself at all costs and a media most vulnerable to reporting scandals, confirmed or otherwise.

With dirty tricks and deceitful machinations becoming the trademark of the regime of Gloria M. Arroyo, the injustice done to Raul Roco comes as no surprise. A regime that finds extreme difficulty in projecting a clean image can only resort to besmirching the reputation of anyone and anything that poses a challenge to its perpetuity in power. Inasmuch as the regime cannot appear clean because of the endless trail of scandals that hounds the president and her closest kin, it finds recourse in making its rivals appear 'dirtier'.

I wince each time I hear Gloria M. Arroyo wailing about being a 'victim of black propaganda, dirty tricks and trial by publicity'. It is as absurd as Hitler claiming to be a victim of racism and Idi Amin, of a most wicked cruelty. If it is any consolation, we at least know that the nation has wised up to her ways and is giving her rotten grades in a wide variety of credibility and approval ratings. Abe Lincoln best said it: "You can't fool all the people all the time."

But truth indeed prevails and the divine Maker has decided that Raul Roco's lifework is done. Raul joins the peace of his Maker, now safely out of reach from his detractors and evildoers who even have the gall and the temerity to publicly acclaim their recognition of Raul's virtue and goodness. That Raul is now hailed as the best president we never had is the ultimate tribute to his achievements and capabilities. It is also tacit condemnation of the present regime. Just as promised by the Almighty - in the end good triumphs over evil, the target of unjust slander is exalted while the serpent of doublespeak and perpetrator of lies is doubly condemned.

I am proud of having supported Raul Roco's dream of leading our country. I am proud to have stayed with him, through thick and thin, regardless of what the ratings say and in defiance of the fool's logic calling for a vote for the candidate that symbolized the lesser evil. Midway into the campaign, we knew the cause was lost and that money will again dictate its evil designs on an unwitting electorate.

I am honored to have earned Raul Roco's trust to be one of his campaign advisers. Working with Raul and his staff up close and personal was a most inspiring experience. His idealism made its mark in every one of his staff. After over 20 years either as a political watcher or as a direct participant in political events, I have developed the smarts for detecting shysters in politics. Raul Roco was the real thing. Not one to conceal his aversion to ineptitude and corruption, Raul's quick temper invariably hit their mark among the wrongdoers and their deeds. Raul's unmistakable honesty and straightforward character make his superior intellect and integrity most evident. All told, Raul had his high points and his low points but in the final analysis, they all served to magnify his human-ness, his magnanimity of spirit and his drive to serve.

In the initial 14 months that Raul Roco had been leading in the presidential race surveys, power players and brokers had sent him feelers - offering support. Such is the way of Philippine politics. Politics here is so tied-up with major economic interests that it has become a matter of business survival to be on the winning side of a presidential election. Raul knew very well that his campaign funds were no match against those of his opponents, let alone those held by the transient occupant by the Pasig River. But Raul chose not to compromise principles for exigency, believing and trusting to the very last in the wisdom of the Filipino people.

During the time when he held on to number 1, Raul Roco could very well have cemented his lead by taking the pragmatic approach. Power brokers and king makers had what it takes to make him win by expanding his war chest beyond his wildest dreams. I do not know of any other politician in this country today who would have passed off that opportunity. Raul Roco did. One of my favorite quotations goes: "Great is the man who can win a crown but greater is the one who can refuse it." Raul Roco virtually did that when he refused to accept the funding from interest groups that could have ensured his victory.

Raul's closest lieutenant, Ernie Pangan, who is also one of the prime movers of the Focolare Movement in the country, confided to me that Raul always emphasized to his staff that they are not to strike any deal that will compromise his presidency. Raul understood the sinister workings of patronage politics and its Frankenstein, the traditional politician. Raul's dream was to be the president of the people, not of selfish and moneyed interest groups.

He could have won. He had what it takes and he was number one in the initial part of the campaign. It would have been easy to sustain the momentum had he acquired the wherewithal to run victorious all the way up to the finish line. But he believed that good moral character, integrity and leadership capability had the power and force to win the battle against poverty, against the lack of education and economic opportunity of his people. He knew that if he allowed himself to be beholden to selfish interests, he would be betraying his own people and his own vision of a Filipino nation that has reached the 'Promised Land'. If he did that, he will not be true to himself and that to Raul Roco was the biggest sin of all. He offered himself and he offered real hope but alas, people were trapped in the game played by the demons of Philippine politics. They were concerned only in making a choice between lesser evils.

Yes, I am deeply saddened by Raul Roco's passing. With his passing, he takes with him a priceless asset of honest, moral and capable leadership. He has won - his integrity and sense of service remained intact to his last breath. The real losers are truly the Filipino people who suffer but remain blind to genuine sources of hope.

I am sadder for the upper and middle class members of our society who found refuge in the lesser evil. I can understand how much more difficult it would be for the masses to discern what is good for them. I can understand their attraction to showbiz types who comfort, humor and entertain them in the misery of their daily existence. But the supposedly more educated, more informed upper and middle class members of society who we expect to have better sense and propriety - there is no reason at all for them to select the lesser evil.

Because of them, the lesser evil has made our country a virtual hell.

Audio Forensics for Beginners

Posted by Alecks Pabico 
PCIJ

OUR source, an independent audio expert, has offered us a basic audio forensics lesson that we'd like to share with readers. One of the widely used methods for analyzing the authenticity of an audio clip, he says, is to break the clip down into its time-frequency domain spectrum by means of an algorithm called the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and look for discontinuities (changes in background noise), magnetic head start/stop/pause signatures, changes in subject's voice frequency signatures, and recording equipment noise.

The FFT algorithm breaks down the audio clip into its frequency component and is plotted on frequency-time domain image called a spectrograph. The horizontal component of the graph is represented by time (t) and the vertical component is represented by the frequency with the lowest frequency starting at the bottom of the graph. The volume (or decibel rating) is usually represented by changes in color/intensity of the plot.

Plate 1 shows an example of a FFT Spectrograph analysis, this one done on the three-hour recordings, particularly on the " yung dagdag" portion.

The top portion of the image shows the actual waveform of the clip while the bottom part is the result of the FFT Spectrograph analysis. The forensic person will initially look for discontinuities on the clip by simply checking each frequency (from background noise to equipment noise) and see if there are changes in the plot colors (in this case, an increase in audio volume is depicted by dark red pixels, a decrease, by light red pixels).

Next step would be voice-print analysis. In this particular case, this task does not need to be performed because the person (Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) in the clip already made a public declaration as to who the voice on the tape belongs to.

Plate 1 clearly shows no discontinuities found on the spectrograph analysis, which led our source to conclude that the clip is unaltered and pretty much authentic.

Case of the Bunye "Splicer"

Plate 2 shows a FFT Spectrograph analysis of the Bunye "unaltered/original" version.

Here you will find strong indications of discontinuities particularly in the middle-top portion of the spectrograph. These are actually Pres. Arroyo's background noise which disappears when "Gary" (political operative Edgar "Bong" Ruado) is speaking. The forensic person will simply conclude the test because the clip already failed in the background discontinuity test.

Now here is the interesting part, the lower-mid frequencies (lower-mid portion of the spectrograph) show only subtle discontinuities between Arroyo's and Gary's. This is an indication that the "splicer" knows his assignment on "background noise" that he "induced" one across the clip. Still, the work is not perfect because the splicer "forgot" to filter the noise in the higher frequencies (Arroyo's background noise in particular), and made the analysis much easier to execute.

Case of the Chavit X-Tape "Splicer"

Plate 3 shows an FFT Spectrograph analysis of track 6 of the "Chavit X-Tapes."

FFT Spectrograph shows very strong indication of discontinuities particularly before and after former president Joseph Estrada's waveform.

 

Plate 4 shows a zoomed version of these discontinuities.

Here we also see a "very consistent/very repetitive" clean background noise frequencies particularly on the voice of the other person. This is very typical on recordings done using a "professional" tuned-microphone/recording equipment and a quiet room with the doors/windows closed or a "recording studio." On the discontinuity test alone, a forensic expert will readily conclude that the clip is very much "spliced."

 

Plate 5 shows an FFT Spectrograph analysis of track 3 of the "Chavit X-Tapes."

No apparent discontinuities were found here but it seems the higher frequencies were cleaned out — filtered either via software or some solid-state recording equipment.

The "splicer" who worked on tracks 3 and 6 probably forgot to read books on "Audio Splicing 101 for Dummies" or the one who released this forgot to ask the experts if the "splice" will pass or not. They probably forgot that a "phone" tap should have at least some natural and continuous background noise on it. This is a case of too much exposure on expensive "noise free" audio equipment.

Inquirer Editorial

Editorial : Polling madness

Inquirer News Service

FORMER PRESIDENT Fidel V. Ramos advised President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to look closely at the results of scientific surveys so she would know the sentiments of the people and improve her leadership. Ramos said scientific surveys serve as "a very accurate guide" of public opinion, but he didn't say clearly how the administration is supposed to respond to them.

If the President were to heed the results of the survey, she would have been gone from Malacañang even before the "Hello, Garci" tape scandal broke out. But even after a series of recent surveys showing more and more Filipinos having an unfavorable opinion of the President and the way she is running the government, Malacañang officials continue to say Ms Arroyo will not step down since surveys cannot substitute for an electoral mandate. Instead, the Palace continues to hope that public opinion will be kinder to Ms Arroyo, even if it is becoming increasingly difficult to see how it could be done. The times are hard and it looks like tougher times lie ahead for the Filipinos, with oil prices going through the roof and higher taxes looming in the horizon.

But there are surveys, and surveys. While most recent surveys have focused on the approval (or disapproval) ratings of the President as well as how the scandal that has been rocking her presidency ought to be resolved, there have been a few that seem to be of very little value or significance.

One was the mid-May survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) poll group on Charter change. The survey of 1,200 people nationwide showed that 70 percent didn't find anything in the present Constitution that needed to be changed. But the same survey found 73 percent of the respondents admitting that they had little or almost no knowledge of the Constitution. The only useful conclusion one can reach from such a survey is that Filipinos do not know their Constitution. But to cite the survey findings as an argument against Charter change would be a non sequitur. When people oppose something they don't even know, all they are saying is that they have a fear of the unknown. It is hard to say who is more foolish: the people who judge things they don't know or those who ask them to do so.

Such silly poll-taking apparently is not a monopoly of the SWS. The Pulse Asia poll group produced something very similar shortly before the President's State of the Nation Address last July 25. In its survey, done from July 2 to 14, Pulse Asia asked 1,200 respondents to rate, on a scale from 0 to 10, the incumbent president and her predecessors, starting from Ferdinand Marcos to Joseph Estrada, according to six criteria of good governance. Marcos topped the poll with a rating of 7, while Ms Arroyo trailed everyone else with a median rating of 4, which meant that half of those surveyed, gave her that rating or even lower.

Again it should be asked how relevant are such findings when very few people have a clear recollection of the Marcos martial law regime. Marcos' 20-year rule ended almost 20 years ago. Filipinos 35 years old and below, who make up a large portion of the total population, hardly know anything about martial law (that's how poorly we have educated our youth on history). So how could this particular segment of the sample population be expected to make sound judgments on the five different administrations? Is it fair to ask a person who has tasted only Coke all of his life to compare it with Pepsi? And can he be expected to give a meaningful answer?

Obviously, the Arroyo administration fared very poorly in comparison with its predecessors, based on the survey findings. But what was the basis for the favorable verdict given to Marcos, especially by those who knew little more than that he was a past president? If Pulse Asia told us that the survey showed that familiarity breeds contempt in the case of Ms Arroyo and that absence makes the heart grow fonder in the case of Marcos, it might have brought us closer to the truth.

These efforts of our pollsters are truly pathetic. Like politicians aiming for a bombshell or the media on the lookout for a scoop, they seem to work at breakneck speed to conduct surveys, release the results and generally compete with the politicians and the media for the public spotlight. The trouble is that the relevance and import of some of their surveys have become more dubious, more suspect and even trivial.

Mercado;s Column

Viewpoint : A cage full of bananas

Juan Mercado
Inquirer News Service

THE BRITISH don't have a written constitution. They never did. But their unwritten charter extends throughout their realm, shrunken in today's post-empire era.

Like Russians, we Filipinos painstakingly scribble out our constitutions, which are often honored more in the breach than in the observance. Our transient "leaders" badger us to rewrite them to suit their equally transient plans.

People power shredded Ferdinand Marcos' Constitution that ensured his perpetual stay in power. Protests erupted in 1997 when President Fidel V. Ramos and 87 congressmen -- whose terms of office were petering out -- pushed for House Resolution 40 and Senate Bill 18. Both mandated Congress -- as a constituent assembly, not citizens in a convention -- to blue-pencil the Charter.

"That'd be like setting monkeys loose in a cage full of bananas," exploded critics.

"We can win the battle in the House," Speaker Jose de Venecia told President Ramos then. "But we'd lose the war outside."

Will they win this time?

As President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's regime stalled from the wiretapped tape scandal, Ramos dangled a "parachute": within a year, recast the Constitution to underpin a federal parliamentary democracy. Charter change could be her legacy.

"We have strained the present political system to its final limit," the President stressed in her State of the Nation Address. "It's time to start the great debate on Charter change" -- with Congress as rewrite desk.

Congressmen were ecstatic. But senators froze at the prospect of being obliterated in a unicameral system. Local executives were tantalized by liberation from "Imperial Manila" under a federal system. These triggered today's charter rewriting pandemic.

Charter change is far more important than the President's fate, citizens like Antonio Hidalgo and Jenny Llaguno told an informal gathering of Filipinos who served in the United Nations. But the move is exploited to divert attention from electoral fraud and other charges.

"Everyone's political energy is focused on bringing down or defending President Arroyo," Institute for Popular Democracy executive director Joel Rocamora wrote. "There's no way constitutional reform will go anywhere under current conditions."

Indeed, no one is fooled. For all the rhetoric, this is about simians and bananas. Most would-be charter editors cling to position, perks and pork. "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac," former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said.

"Are there constitutional provisions that need to be changed now?" a Social Weather Stations survey asked in May. Seven out of 10 replied "No." "Grassroots interest in Charter change continued to be low." Three out of 10 favor some amendments, the SWS reports.

Yet, more people feel that "something's got to give." A system that thrives on persistent near-anarchy and locks the majority into penury can only end in upheaval. The conflict treadmill hasn't stanched the migration hemorrhage of the country's best and brightest.

"There is a time for every purpose under heaven," Ecclesiastes writes. "There is a time to tear down and a time to build" -- or even rewrite constitutions. Is that time now?

A system change could end "Imperial Manila's" grip on resources and talents, say Prof. Jose Abueva, former Ambassador Jose Romero and their group. These could be funneled into a semi-starved countryside. Their ideas are distilled in a new book, "Charter Change for Good Governance: Towards a Federal Republic of the Philippines, with a Parliamentary Government."

Former Prime Minister Cesar Virata thinks a shift could end the gridlock between the executive and the legislature. As early as the 1970 convention, the late former Sen. Raul Manglapus plugged for a parliamentary system.

"Does the possibility of a switch justify the hopes that are being attached to it?" asks the veteran journalist Harvey Stockwin in "Reflections From Asia" aired over Radio-TV Hong Kong.

There are no quick fixes, warn citizens like Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales. Unless mind-sets change, the same Neanderthals would entrench further injustices using the new system.

People rejected the scorched-earth policy offered by the discredited Joseph Estrada and communist allies in a "transitory government." Instead, a consensus is emerging that impeachment proceed, while the debate on Charter change starts.

But this accord is also a refusal to be stampeded. There's a clear-eyed realization that constitutions enshrine a nation's ideals and the values a people cherish, their permanent hopes for tomorrow. To rewrite a charter wisely, "reason free of passion" is needed.

Today's banana cage of political primates won't provide that milieu. Legislators have devalued congressional hearings into stands for massive perjury by stool pigeons and seamy bagmen. Who would entrust recasting a constitution to moral ciphers?

We'd welcome Charter change drafted by delegates elected to a convention. That will be possible only if both the administration and opposition handle today's impeachment process far better than the aborted Estrada trial.

If impeachment is unfair, there'll be extortionate institutional costs. The chance for constitutional review and reform could be stripped away by turmoil.

There's enough kindling for that-from today's near-paralysis of governance, $64-a-barrel of oil, the country's degraded credit ratings, depleted natural resources, terror threats to hidden hunger. That's too high a cost for unleashing monkeys in a cage stuffed with bananas.

Mercado's Column

Viewpoint : Abattoir ethics

Juan Mercado
Inquirer News Service

"WHY should we believe you?" GMA Network's Maki Pulido lobbed that question at the improbably named Michaelangelo Zuce, self-confessed bagman. That left the Senate's "star witness" on alleged 2004 election fraud "tongue-tied," columnist Marichu Villanueva chuckled.

"Skewer bastards with tough questions" is counsel that editors drill into cub reporters. The probing query can help sift fact from spin and reality from propaganda. They curb lynch-mob journalism.

They're also indispensable for a country steeped in what Sen. Miriam Santiago calls "slaughterhouse politics."

Another bagman, this time from the "jueteng" illegal lottery probe, confirms this fact. Richard Garcia wailed that opposition legislators "coached him and other witnesses" on how to link the President's family to jueteng.

His covert drillmasters in perjury, he claimed, included Senators Panfilo Lacson, Aquilino Pimentel and Jinggoy Estrada and Rep. Ronaldo Zamora. "The twists and turns" … of this case have started to loop themselves around Lacson," an Inquirer editorial notes. "He now has to extricate himself."

But senators like Jose Laurel, Claro Recto, Lorenzo Tañada and Raul Roco never had to extricate themselves. They never rigged testimony. Aside from intellectual stature and integrity, they had that exquisite moral sense we Filipinos call "delicadeza" [sense of propriety].

Far too many of their successors unfortunately work by ethics of the abattoir. And "slaughterhouse morals" sap institutional credibility.

The Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada kleptocracies devalued the presidency. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's governance, stripped of values other than what is expedient, eroded it further.

Rodrigo Perez Jr., Hilario Davide and Christian Monsod were exemplary Commission on Elections stewards. But Luzviminda Tancangco and Virgilio Garcillano debased that.

The "Craven Eleven" senators sealed the second envelope in Estrada's impeachment. Dwarfs like Tito Sotto, Gringo Honasan and Lito Lapid replaced the likes of Lorenzo Sumulong, Oscar Ledesma or Emmanuel Pelaez. Thus, we're saddled with a diminished Senate over the years.

"The whole lot lack credibility, not for want of competence, but of morals," Institute for Studies in Asian Church and Culture's Melba Padilla Maggay writes in Patmos Features. "Our leaders have so alienated themselves from the people by their utter lack of integrity."

People are roused by today's moral rot but not enough to pour out into the streets in massive numbers, Maggay observes in "Ambiguities and the Search for a Moral Center in Governance." In today's crisis, "no line in the sand bids us to take sides with the resolute force" of earlier emergencies.

Left, Right and religious groups, like those of Bro. Eddie Villanueva, forge tactical alliances without agreement on aims. These ambiguities shut off clear-cut responses to positions staked by hardline partisans.

Most of today's responses are "relics from failed social experiments" -- coups, martial law, a junta or badly contrived imitations of "people power" -- Maggay notes.

People reject murky plots of the ruling elite. They're "wary about calls for extra-constitutional means of transferring power." One finds a "growing consensus to work within the disciplines of our constitutional framework."

Yet, today's impasse could open a new way out of obsolete response boxes, Maggay thinks. We must link to "that spiritual center out of which our people make most of their decisions, including politics."

"Our indigenous culture is such that people get roused only where the battle between good and evil rages. We resonate best with issues that connect with the depths of our spiritual moorings as a people. Politics must touch that core of values… [seen] now and again, in surprising displays of momentary solidarity."

She cites "the calming effect" of the Catholic Bishops Conference statement as an example. "The opposition was reduced to mumbling in corners, even as they whip up yet another wave of protests. The middle forces were quietly nudged into deeper reflection."

"Not even in Latin America, where countries are also predominantly Catholic, has the Church such authority and power to influence a nation's political temper," she adds.

Analysts claim this is partly due to "residues of the late Cardinal Sin's forceful moral leadership at critical times" and the Church's "almost medieval hold on centers of power." Maggay disagrees. "This influence is rooted in the very character of our people, at its core deeply and unabashedly spiritual," she writes. "This is why our prayer rallies also morph into political meetings."

"This culture produces folk heroes and heroines that fuse within themselves the political and the spiritual," like Hermano Pule in the mid-1800s or Cory Aquino in 1986. They have power when they give voice to what the people sense to be the Santong Boses. "Our millenarian movements call that the Spirit."

Priests or politicians lose that potency when seen to lack "malinis na loob," or selfless service. Religious leaders lose their following when they shift from prophecy to politicking.

"Today, as in previous crises, there is such a deep longing among our people for a moral center in governance," Maggay points out. The Arroyo government's future hangs to "the extent to which it regains credibility by fulfilling this expectation."

Neither will the opposition meet that yearning by a treadmill of seamy bagmen, cadged from the abattoir -- and coached by covert drillmasters to perjure.

Inquirer Editorial

Editorial : Witness weakness

THE POLITICAL opposition's entire case in the jueteng payola issue, including the alleged involvement of the President's family, is based on the testimony of a number of witnesses. Therein lies its weakness.

The presence of Archbishop Oscar Cruz at the Senate hearings-and his repeated vouching for the credibility of the witnesses-is only an apparent strength; his participation does not, by itself, confirm the truth of the various testimonies.

To be sure, an elusive criminal enterprise like the illegal numbers racket does not depend on paperwork, such as purchase orders or memoranda of agreement, that can be subpoenaed. And some of the testimony presented during the seven hearings have proven useful; it is clear that jueteng has made a comeback in some areas, and that some form of local connivance, either on the part of the police or the local government, or both, is responsible for it.

But the evidence for the involvement of the Arroyos in the same racket that brought down the previous and more popular president is based entirely on the word of three witnesses. Two of them have offered what essentially amounts to hearsay; the third said she actually delivered the money to Rep. Mikey Arroyo, the President's son, and Rep. Ignacio Arroyo, the First Gentleman's brother, on at least two occasions. But again, it is her word; the only documentary evidence she could offer proved that she had deposited money in a police general's account.

This is not to say that the two Arroyo congressmen and even the President's husband were not involved in some form in the illegal numbers game; only that, if they were in fact involved, this is not the kind of evidence that could convict them in a court of law. (In the court of public opinion, of course, and if we read the results of the latest surveys of both Pulse Asia and the Social Weather Stations correctly, all three have already been found guilty.)

Now, one of Archbishop Cruz's witnesses, Richard Garcia, has executed a rather melodramatic turnabout. He has not exactly recanted his previous testimony, but he has alleged that opposition senator and ex-presidential candidate Panfilo Lacson had urged him to implicate the Arroyos.

Lacson has since denied Garcia's allegation, and has taken pains to identify Garcia as the archbishop's witness. In one television interview, he even went as far as to say that Garcia was being "handled" by Archbishop Cruz; the word has a special meaning in police work and Lacson, of course, was once chief of the Philippine National Police.

Both Garcia and Archbishop Cruz, however, have said that Garcia had first surfaced through Lacson, and that it was Lacson who actually introduced Garcia to the anti-jueteng prelate. In other words, and as far as the "handling" of Garcia was concerned, he was eminently Lacson's witness.

The twists and turns of this part of the case have started to loop themselves around Lacson; he now has to extricate himself. But the senator's predicament aside, the larger question has to do with the political opposition's jueteng payola case. A weak case has just been made weaker; how did the opposition find itself in this situation?

The answer, in part, lies in our tendency to build cases on personal testimony rather than physical evidence. (It is a tendency shared not only by opposition leaders but by police officers, NBI agents, government officials, even journalists in search of a good story.) The problem with depending on just the words of witnesses is that a lone witness' recantation undermines everything else; physical evidence, such as the paper and electronic trail deposed President Joseph Estrada actually left behind, does not have that kind of vulnerability.

The opposition's long wait for ex-Isabela Gov. Faustino Dy Jr. is yet another symptom of this disease, another sign of investigative unimaginativeness.

Now consider the other alleged impeachable offense that hangs over the President's head: betrayal of public trust through election fraud. There is a wealth of possible evidence that can be mined if only those who feel most betrayed actually buckle down to work, by following up leads in the Garcillano tapes or Michaelangelo Zuce's affidavit. The opposition's tedious task is to tie the knots in a definite pattern; that is how a net is made.

But maybe the opposition is too busy chasing the next I-promise-to-tell-all witness?

Apathetic People

Commentary : Politics, prayer and fasting

Denis Murphy
Inquirer News Service

RALLIES, marches, public relations experts and spin masters can usually be part of political change, but it seems clear this time we need more. Ordinary people are more apathetic than they've ever been in the country's great crises. Few attend the rallies, for or against the government, unless they're paid or pressured by their bosses, for example. A few are angry, but most are just apathetic. Apathy is the political equivalent of the sin against the Holy Spirit, namely despair and loss of hope that are both unforgivable and the end of the road.

An attempt to go beyond the old approaches is the initiative now at the Edsa People Power Monument. It calls for prayer and fasting and asks people to listen to God's voice in their heart, so they will know what to do in the present political turmoil. This effort of prayer begins with two premises: that we haven't listened enough in the past, and we don't know what the solution is now.

Three groups have united to organize the work: Pag-asa (Nicky Perlas), Kapatiran (Nandy Pacheco) and Gomburza (Fr. Robert Reyes, Fr. Raul "Puti" Enriquez and Msgr. Gerry Bitoon). All who join have committed themselves to prayer and fasting for 40 days and to make other sacrifices.

It is not a perfect work by any means. The crowds are small, though the organizers hope they will build up. People say there is too much political talk, as if it is already clear what God wants. Some people complain there is too much talk in general and little help with prayer: how should we pray and how should we know the voice we hear is God's and not our own? The activity is supposed to be for all religions and for people of no religion, but it seems nearly all are Catholic. The organizers are determined to im prove in these matters.

What gives the effort its backbone and charisma is the presence of Father Reyes every day, all day at the monument. He is fasting, taking only fruit juices. On Sunday, July 31, he was on the 22nd day of the fast. "Attention must be paid to this man," to borrow a line from "Death of a Salesman."

Father Robert is my parish priest. I know he has many critics in and out of the priesthood. He has faults, for sure, most of which he readily admits and some of which he still has to face, but we should recognize that he is a special person. Some call him a "prophet." That's a lofty title for someone who often comes to our house to drink beer and talk. We are his parishioners in the Project 4 area of Quezon City.

The People Power Monument is a wonderful place for this mixture of prayer, fasting and politics. Just 50 meters in front of the statue, where the MRT runs now, ordinary citizens stopped the tanks of Ferdinand Marcos. The tanks then broke through the stonewall into a field just south of the statue, now Corinthian Gardens, and waited for further orders. My memory of the whole situation is that it was touch and go: The soldiers were confused and surly and if ordered, I think they would have gone back and finished their journey to Camp Crame.

There is no common political agenda in the group. Everyone is invited: people of contradictory opinions are welcome to come and sit quietly side by side. All religions are welcome.

The fast began on July 3 with a new moon, and for a night or two, Venus was close by. They were two young girls in the night sky, sisters, the older sister watching the younger play, a scene you see often in Manila. The noise of the traffic on the Edsa highway makes it difficult to hear the speakers. If you're meditative or sleepy, however, the traffic roar begins to sound like the "Om" of Buddhist and Hindu mystics.

The fourth night at the monument, the first reading at Mass included the most beautiful lines in the Old Testament: "I have seen the humiliation of my people in Egypt and I hear their cry when they are cruelly treated by their taskmasters. I know their suffering. I have come down to free them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a beautiful spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey." (Exodus 3:8) Madre Filipinas at the top of the statue behind the priest held her hands high in exultation. Her chains, broken now, still hang from her wrists. Such is the magic of the place and people praying for God's liberation and the special hour in the country's history that the words of God to Moses seem spoken again there at the Edsa monument.

Nearly everything remains to be done. People now have a place and an inspired commitment to prayer and fasting as part of a public search for God's will. No one knows what God will reveal. People may find answers to present problems. They may learn in prayer the proper fit between the Gospel and politics for the country, and even the proper fit between the Gospel and the Filipino people. How must the Gospel be preached and how do we pray?

We should be grateful for the work of Gomburza, Pag-asa and Kapatiran.

Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates.