The Nation’s Trillion Peso Debt

Mindanao Post October 2003

In a statement, Mrs. Arroyo sought to allay fears and apprehensions over the country’s worsening indebtedness primarily blamed on the government’s financing its budgetary deficit through heavy borrowing from domestic and foreign sources. Borrowing from domestic sources accounted for 52 percent of total debts while the rest were foreign loans

The government "has the will and the means" to repay its P3.158-trillion debts as long the economy grows amid the latest political turmoil rocking the country, President Arroyo said recently. Mrs. Arroyo gave the reassurances after the Department of Finance (DOF) reported out the total debt stocks of the government have ballooned by as much as 17.2 percent as of August this year from the P2.7 trillion level a year ago.
Assuming Mrs Arroyo is re-elected in 2004, at the rate of 17% increase of indebtedness annually, simple arithmetic indicates that by the end of her term in 2010 (6 years multiplied by 17% equals 102%) the state would double its current debt. We would be allocating 80%, twice the 40% of the national budget we now pay yearly. That leaves 20% to run the government. Now with that scenario, what kind of idiot would want to be her presidential successor? That would be slim pickings indeed.

Perhaps I’m too dense to comprehend the contemporary economics paradigm. The state is comprised of the family as its basic unit. If a family’s spending exceeds its income, it would have to fill the deficiency by borrowing. But as Ben Franklin said, “ If you want to know the value of money, go and try borrowing some.” The family would have to stop borrowing after running out of things to hock. The government has no such restraints. It can, and does, borrow and borrow from local and global pawnshops, until lenders slam the door in its face, as in the case of Argentina. Inflation then soars like a balloon until one deflated pandesal costs hundreds of pesos each.

So, why doesn’t the government just renege on a payment or two of outstanding debt or repudiate it altogether? That would be unthinkable to finance officialdom — the nation would be treated as a pariah or like a SARS carrier in the global financial and commercial community.

The family who runs out of resources to pawn or borrow from will figuratively, even literally, tighten its belt by reducing consumption of essentials and cutting off non-essentials. Can government leaders visualize a similar approach? Sure they can, if accompanied by resolve, sincerity and imagination. To mention a few of the ways:

Eliminate waste — corruption and inefficiency are estimated to zap 20% of the budget. Lifestyle checks is a modest start. More vigorous methods must be applied: pruning the bloated bureaucracy, eliminating redundant agencies and duplication of functions (example, the superfluous DPWH since private contractors do the work); phase out (gradually, to ease the pain) of the Countryside Development Fund (CDF, a euphemism for pork barrel) and transform this into a comprehensive equitable national infrastructure program, or alternatively, to increase the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) of each City, municipality and Province to 80% (a way of obviating cha-cha for federalist form of government).and decentralize and devolve the functions of Departments to the Regional branches (except Foreign Affairs and Defense). Revise populist policies that promote the concept of a socialist welfare state that encourages indolence and mendicancy in the community.

One impediment to the creation of more revenues is pseudo-nationalism that stems from xenophobia. The policy limiting entry of foreigners into commerce and owning real estate discourages the investment climate and potential jobs from foreign investors. The policy plan of job creation through the agricultural sector is myopic. In less than half a generation, the rural birth rate will force a search for employment away from farming. We need to loosen the reins and allow more foreign investors, not just in confined places like economic zones and industrial farms, but even in such hazardous places like Bangsa Moro and Sayaff territory . Commerce and trade in these areas could succeed where guns failed. Speculatively, Robot’s citrus farm with a foreign partner or principal would have by now pioneered development in Tawi Tawi, instead of more forays and marauding into neighbor Malaysia.

Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople, presiding over a U.N. General Assembly roundtable on financing for development, said debt swap for anti-poverty programs will help poor countries realize the U.N. millennium goal of reducing the incidence by half by the year 2015. Under the debt/swap scheme, debts would be forgiven provided the savings are allocated entirely to anti-poverty programs, including micro financing for small enterprises, especially in the countryside.

As if on cue and superb timing, Governor of Banko Sentral Rafael Buenaventura called on banks to support its micro-finance program, which he said is a viable financial undertaking, citing extremely high repayment rates for credit extended to the poor. This assertion is credible, given the success of the thriving”5/6” underground lending system, and the Bangladesh Grameen bank experience.

The seed funds provided by the government savings under the debt/swap scheme would then be supplemented by finds generated by a putative savings mobilization program started during of National Treasurer Leonor M. Briones which allowed retail investors to buy Treasury bills for as low as ₧5,000 from accredited banks through an electronic platform.

“If you can count your money you don’t have a billion dollars” --- Paul Getty billionaire

Running into debt doesn’t bother me it’s running into my creditors that’s upsetting. ─ Gus Edson New York Daily News

Poverty is hard but debt is horrible. — Spurgeon

Ignorance and Trust

Executive seminars are common practices of large companies to ensure their managers gather no moss. Although a number of these seminars are of the “meatloaf” variety ─ half of the time you meet, the rest of the time you loaf ─ sort of like a paid vacation on company time, they are believed to produce better managers.

In one such executive seminar session, the moderator who was a management consultant posed some questions to the participants. Asked what is the most important resource of an organization, the group almost in unison answered, “its people”. The next question that challenged the group, “What is the most precious thing in the world?” , took a little bit more pondering and elicited a wide range of responses. But eventually a consensus emerged: Trust.

A third question was then asked, “What would you say is the most expensive thing in the world?” After many moments of reflection, many answers were offered ─ platinum, plutonium, uranium for atomic fuel, and even gold and oil were mentioned. The consultant then cut in with the answer that stunned many. “The most expensive thing in the world is ignorance. He then cited examples of actual events where firms came to grief because of ignorance of an employee who makes decisions with incomplete or wrong facts.

In one newspaper report, a senator flayed a top customs official for ignorance when the official allowed realistic toy guns to be imported in violation of a presidential decree banning such importation. Of course, we can expect that there would be bureaucratic decisions based on ignorance, but the dirt would be swept under the rug.

Returning to the topic of trust, the Americans, just like us Filipinos who demonetized the sentimo, made their cent a museum piece. Embossed on the coins were the words In God We Trust. The pennies are gone but the words linger. Pinoys are aware of the motto that adorns many sari-sari stores, but with a slight twist: In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash.

Trust is the essence of good business. Consumers trust the quality and safety of the goods they buy. Depositors entrust their money in banks (who reciprocate by offering sign pens with a string attached); commuters trust the carriers, planes, buses, and ferries to take them safely to their destination. Buyers and sellers rely on mutual trustworthiness in their deals.

In the context of Philippine economy, foreign investments are eagerly sought that would provide jobs and boost a sluggish economy. But we would be sending the wrong message to potential investors if we amend the Constitution as is being proposed. They would likely ask what protection their investments will have if Philippine laws, even the Constitution, are unstable and whimsically changed. The Base Law remains the only institution where trust still has sheen. Much of the branches of government ─ the judicial, the legislative, and above all, the executive ─ have been tarnished by corrosive elements. Implied in the question, is the doubt on the stability of the bedrock where they can repose their trust, in the fair play they rely on.

If the Constitution were not amended, how then would Federalism be effected? Simple, my dear Watson; increase the Internal Revenue Allotment to 80%. After all, power and autonomy is synonymous to who controls the funds.

When no one trusts, does it matter that everyone lies?

Rewrites of Jottings: The Great Dictator

Whenever the name of Ferdinand Edralin Marcos is brought up in media he is usually derided as a despicable dictator, so much so that it is becoming a trite expression. Everything he did were misdeeds, terrible ones, not a single kind word said, the personification of absolute evil. This is a bit puzzling to me. No man could be that bad.

Mulling the thought further, I searched for something positive about him. If the man was so vicious and vile, and his countrymen ashamed and disgusted that he ever existed within our midst, why haven’t four succeeding administrations expunged the memory of his name and his dictatorial edicts, the Presidential Decrees? Worse, why are these decrees still carried in the statute books and our Judicial System to punish Filipinos?

In late October1989, a columnist of a leading Manila paper wrote in opposing Marcos’ cadaver to return to the country:

Strange People

We are a strange people. We get rid of a dictator and now there are those in our midst who want him back. Anyway, they say, he’s dead. What harm can he do? …

That’s it precisely. Ferdinand Marcos had done harm. He ha d done his worst. He deserves to rest where he is. … As a people we are practicing Christians. We mourn Ferdinand Marcos, pray for him and forgive his trespasses though we never heard him ask for forgiveness from his victims. But surely, he is unforgettable.

Not to forget the tyranny of his rule. Not to forget his monumental plunder. Not to forget how we, only three years ago, raged against the ceaseless excesses of Marcos, his family and favorites.

… We are a strange people. We are free and don’t seem to know it. Those of us who agitate to return the Marcoses have tied up ourselves in knots to the Constitution and the law. Just like Marcos, the brilliant lawyer. Everything he did was according to the Constitution and the law, including his powers to make laws. No one could be more majestic than Ferdinand Marcos in his regard for the law. No one invoked the law more than he who suppressed the freedoms of his people.

(the column goes on denigrating in heavy sarcasm).

A reader responded:

… no, we are not a strange people. Please do not impose your alienation from self, people and truth on the Filipinos with your literary fiat. No, we are not practicing Christianity. It is a universal principle to assume a man’s innocence until proven guilty. … as for forgiveness, that implies judgment. Have you brought him to any legitimate court with criminal charges? You were afraid that bringing him back to face Filipino Courts might lead to civil unrest. Wasn’t EDSA civil unrest? Besides, why talk of justice and fear its consequences?

How dare you speak of justice when you cannot understand its first principle: presumption of innocence, presumption of innocence! How many times will we have to repeat it to your (unflattering) mind? And will you dictate to history that it should judge while you yourself have already judged?

So, shall we leave it to history to judge Marcos? Who will write the history books that future generations will read? — the bumbling authors that riddle textbooks with silly errors? (but that’s another story). He is already remembered as the 14^th President of the Republic, with no pejorative title appended.

As my views run against the grain of prevailing mood, I offer this quote: The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom.

The Supreme Court of the Philippines recently ruled (although not yet final and executory) that the Marcos assets held in escrow by the Philippine National Bank is ill gotten. The loot ordered forfeited to the government, rightfully belongs to the entire Filipino people and should be utilized to benefit the general welfare, not just a special segment of society, not just human rights victims of martial rule as ordered by U.S. Judge Real (they can claim from the Marcos Estate), not just agrarian reform beneficiaries as required by law, and certainly not just to subsidize socialized housing as proposed by a Congressman. I believe that the applying the money to pay a portion of our huge national debt will benefit every citizen including unborn generations who are now heavily hocked by government borrowings that started with Marcos.

Rewrite of Jottings: Constitutional Change: Are We Ready For It?

Mindanao Post

The clamor for Constitutional amendments is rising in intensity. Lawyers, legal minds and intelligentia are joining the voices. But the motives that drive the demand for change are as varied as the tribes and vernacular dialects of the 7,000 islands of the archipelago. These motives are packaged into political jargon — Parliamentary or Federal form of government, term limits of elected officials, Constutional Convention or Constituent Assembly being among the foremost. The imminent 2004 elections is the adrenalin stimulating the clamor.

In all honesty, has our society matured sufficiently to make such a change? Consider this. In the economic sense, we are a developing nation barely able to grow our own food to feed the population, where the poor are proud of their status and mendicancy has attained a level of respectability in society. Poverty has seen to that. In the International arena, we are puny, unable to fend off military intruders, even those in the guise and garb of fishermen. In the civil order domain, the established order is a regime under challenge by several groups that are separatist or communist and is under siege by kidnappers, bank robbers and money launderers, the government manned by corrupt bureaucrats and bumbling police, a government that sells or gives away the national patrimony to a select few so that those that hold the reins of power can advance their own interests, and a bureaucracy that repudiates the principle of command responsibility and ethics, blind to padded payrolls and subordinate misdeeds. Most worrisome of all is the general public feeling that government neglect is to blame for their personal problems has transformed into bitterness and cynicism about all authority and agencies of government. This state of affairs may be the precursor to civil disobedience and disorder.

Our written history clearly shows the domination of foreign powers — Spanish, Japanese and finally American who shaped our system of government. American democracy strongly influenced our current system and Filipino ingenuity crafted statutes to suit local conditions, at times even beneficial to the general welfare. Although our system of governance had American underpinnings, it lacked some of the essentials of American democracy and constitutional order, of debate, elections and representative political institutions, ingenuous traditions and the paramount concept that the American tradition abhors the notion of rulers and the ruled, that they do not live under a government, never mind under a regime; that the people are the government.

The three branches of our Government are mutually independent and exercise checks and balance on each other. That’s the theory. Yet, it seems that while unconstitutional exercise of power by the legislative or executive branches of the Government is subject to judicial restraint, the only check upon the judicial exercise of power is its own sense of restraint.

In all honesty, can any Filipino deny and dissemble the truth that this nation is “run like hell by Filipinos”, a deluded preference of a past President? Has our society gained enough sense of respect for the rights of others to the extent of reviewing the mollycoddling of squatters? Even so, are we ready for charter change? Can change make a difference? Can we expect a beneficial change in such short order when the legislative process has not passed legislation that would replace the enduring Presidential Decrees, edicts of a despised dictator, 16 years after he was deposed? Will amendment establish finally the principle of a government that governs by the consent of the governed?

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader? ~ Benjamin Disraeli

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worse when they despise him. But of a good leader who talks little when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: We did it ourselves. ~ Lao-Tzu

CASINO GAMBLING SCIENCE

Rewrite of Jottings: CASINO GAMBLING SCIENCE

If the City Administration had its way a Casino will soon re-emerge in Cagayan de Oro. The PAGCOR casino’s fleeting appearance a dozen years ago was nipped in the bud by hostile reception, despite the Supreme Court’s decision of its legality. Heeding the decision’s notation that the casino operation should not be objectionable to residents (the social acceptability proviso), PAGCOR finally decided that retreat was the prudent course of action. Just a few weeks ago, PAGCOR again had to abandon plans to set up a casino, this time in Boracay, due to opposition from residents, parish leaders and local officials. If the casino does reappear in CDO, some foreknowledge of casino gambling basics might come in handy to first timers.

Casinos evolved from the card habitués of Europe and are found worldwide. The best known are in Las Vegas, Monte Carlo and Atlantic City. Gambling in a casino is an activity that involves money, but unlike a business, which requires rational behavior in making financial decisions, it can evoke hunches and all-or-nothing behavior. The atmosphere in a casino, sometimes called palace of pecuniary persuasion, ranges from the sedate Monte Carlo to the raucous Atlantic City. The rules of the game are designed to give the casino an advantage.

Studies of casino gamblers show that at any given time half of the gamblers don’t know what they are doing, and only about 10 percent are knowledgeable about odds, house edge and money management. The use of chips for gambling in a casino is another edge for the casino and is intended to make money meaningless and for the gambler to forget that money has value.

A fling at the casino can be enjoyable and maybe profitable. But the glamour and excitement of the casino action can sway even the most prudent and restrained person. The wise player takes measures to improve his statistical and psychological odds, first by following three basic rules:

1. Play only with money you can afford to lose. Set aside the amount you will play with and never, never dip into your wallet for more.

2. Know when to leave the table whether winning or losing.

3. Drink only after playing.

A player should consider certain minimums for his gambling amount. A game should be started with enough chips to cushion a bad streak then recoup. Imagine a bet as a unit. Experts believe 40-50 units is a thumb rule minimum. Since each game has minimum bets (baccarat highest and slot lowest), the player’s bankroll will depend on which game he intends to play. The edge varies widely in each game and the player has to choose with care if he is to have a fighting chance.

The usual games in a casino are blackjack (or “21”), craps (dice), roulette (steel ball rolling on a spinning carousel), baccarat (chemin de fer) and slot machines (the notorious one-armed bandit). While all games are based on chance, only blackjack offers the player to use skill (by keeping track of the cards played/discarded0 and gain advantage over the house.

Roulette has 38 numbers, going from 1 to 38, plus 0 and 00. The natural odds of betting on a number are 37 to 1, but the casino pays out only 35 to 1, a house advantage of 5.26 percent.

Dice, or craps, is played with a shooter (bettor) rolling a pair of dice (cubes with surfaces marked 1 to 6) and other bettors laying bets on the PASS LINE expecting the shooter to win, or on the DON’T PASS if they expect the shooter to lose. If the shooter makes a 7 or 11 on the first roll, he wins, but loses if he rolls a 2,3 or 12. If he rolls any other number (4,5,6,8,9 or 10) on that first attempt, that number becomes his “point”. The shooter keeps rolling the dice until his point turns up again for a win or until he rolls a 7 where he loses both his money and the dice. The house pays even money but has an edge of 1.4 percent.

The simplest game is blackjack, or “21.” Up to 7 bettors play against a house dealer using from one 52-card deck or up to six decks (which reduces the players’ memory skill. The object is to get closer to 21 than the dealer. Each card equals its face value, Aces being optional at 1 or 11, and the picture cards (J,Q or K) equal to 10. A player who gets a two-card set totaling 21 (Ace plus a 10 or picture card) is blackjack and wins 3 to 2. Any other winning hand gets even money. The edge of the house is in the players getting busted (totals more than 21, a losing hand) ahead of the dealer.

Baccarat (chemin de fer) is for the high stakes gambler, and is played with cards with up to 14 bettors seated at a table. The rules of the game again give the house some advantage, and there is no skill involved, just pure chance. Only two hands are played: the “bank” and the player hands. Each tries to beat the other by drawing two or more cards to obtain the winning total. Bettors bet on either the “bank” or the player. Each side can draw cards only in accordance with complex rules.

Slot machines are programmed to release a percentage of its coin intake during a “cycle.” Each pull on the lever located at the right side (maybe there are “lefties”? which spins the reels (3 to 5) to display one of the symbols (bells, limes cherries etc.) on each reel. Certain combinations of symbols resulting from a pull will release a specific number of coins as prize. The house takes from 10 to 25 percent of the players’ coins thus justifying the machine’s sobriquet: one-armed bandit.

Since in all games the casino has an edge, it chips away at even a prudent and cautious player who overstays — and in the long run cleans him out. The probability of loss is common to all casino gamblers, but most important to keep in mind is that losing a little for the excitement is an experience, but losing control can be tragic.



"There is no better way to exercise the imagination than the study of the law. No artist ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets the truth." -- Jean Giradoux

Our Binary World

In primary school, we are taught to count to ten, then in multiples of ten, the basic decimal system. When we look at our extremities, we see ten fingers on our hands and ten toes on our feet

Taking a closer look at the math in life, however, one is soon aware that it also comes in pairs. In the sports arena, there is a winner and there is a loser; in commerce, a buyer and a seller; in charity, a donor and donee. Humans have organs that come in pairs ─ eyes, hands, feet, testicles, brain lobes, lungs, kidneys and liver. It takes two to make a quarrel or to tango, and in wildlife, the predator must have its prey and the herbivore its herbs. In morality, there are double standards or double books of accounting. All of these are embraced in the binary system that counts in twos.

The marvelous machine that brought on the information age, the computer, does its thing with a simple yes or no, a binary system using two digits, 1 and 0 (one and zero), in an on-off system of electronic switches called diodes in a complex matrix of integrated circuits.

Binaries are present even in political systems, the pros and cons of debates; the proposal to amend the Constitution splits people into two camps, those who favor and those who oppose. Moreover, within the ranks of those who favor, the method of making the change is divided into two groups— those that advocate a Constituent Assembly against those who prefer a Constitutional Convention, in short the elected versus the selected. The former opposes a Convention due to its high expense and the quality of the selection process ( if we consider that this President is stigmatized with having 6 cabinet secretaries that abandoned the ship of state in the short span of 2 ½ years), and the latter opposes an Assembly due to fear of self-aggrandizement.

A few binaries have suffered degradation. Once upon a time, only two sexes were recognized: either an individual was male or female, but today society has accepted the existence of gays and lesbians. Husband and wife duo has now been joined by gay partnerships that are even solemnized in some religious sects. A further degradation is predicted by scientists to occur in 125,000 years when the male of the species will be irrelevant and superfluous. Presumably, so would the transvestites.

Communications

When a baby cries, it is communicating its distress, pain or hunger, and the anxious parent responds, a classic illustration of basic human communication -- viva voce (oral) but not quite language, a system the baby has yet to learn. Fundamental communications use the binary system: a source and a terminal, the baby as source and the parent as terminal in the illustration. We know that people and animals communicate with its own kind, and perhaps plants and the lower life forms do too. Humans have progressed from oral means advancing from the primitive grunts and growls to the contemporary shriek and howl songs, and developed sophisticated methods of transmission beyond line of sight voice, body and sign language, semaphore and flashing light to long distance telegraphy

Telephones started the trend of long distance communications that can reach beyond shouting range. The electrical device carried conversation via a copper wire hung on poles. But after a few kilometers the internal resistance of the wire sapped signal strength (attenuated) making the sound faint or inaudible. To solve the attenuation problem, amplifiers were inserted at strategic points. The phone served intranational talk well enough and even with neighbor nations, but costly cables laid on the ocean floor were needed for intercontinental conversation.

The next leap came when radiotelegraphy and Morse code was invented. Radio waves (which travel in a straight line) was bounced back to earth by the ionosphere layer. This inexpensive technology had one drawback: sunspot activity sends out rays dispersing the ionosphere layer. Without its reflector, radio signals go straight out to space. The same effect also silences short wave voice radio. Even today, those nasty sunspots zap satellite TV transmission.

Satellite sovereignty

The prediction of futurists that our rapidly advancing information and communications technology will create a global village is becoming a reality, but the ancient differences among nations linger. It was not washed away by the new wave of information and understanding.

The initial forays of satellite broadcasting had two components, one for transmitting television broadcasts to TV or cable stations on the ground, and another directly transmitting the TV program to homes. A test program of direct-to-home transmission from satellite was conducted in India, a brainchild in part of science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke who originated the idea of placing communications satellites 22,300 miles above the equator in the geostationary orbit now called the Clarke orbit.

The satellite has made it easier for nations to talk, but it also raised new suspicions. Direct broadcast to homes has weakened control of governments (especially the authoritarian type) on ideology and propaganda dominion over its citizens. More than sovereignty is at stake. There are also economic concerns, strongly voiced by the Group of 77 (composed of 120 third world nations) demanding equitable sharing of the world’s natural resources. One of these natural resources is the geostationary orbit. Only a limited number of satellites can be placed along the 100,000-mile ribbon in the sky.

Most communications satellites, which transmit at lower frequencies and create wider beams than direct broadcast satellites are spaced about four degrees apart in the Clarke orbit. But, direct broadcast satellites operate by international agreement at the high frequency of 12 gigahertz (12 billion hertz). With the narrower beam, they can be placed closer together without mutual interference. Satellites placed every two degrees around the Earth (approximately 900 miles apart) can accommodate 180 slots.

To control the situation, in a 1977 meeting of the World Administrative Radio Conference, a ruling was approved stating that every nation, regardless of size, be awarded at least one slot in the Clarke orbit with five transmitting channels per satellite (essentially applicable to Europe, Asia and Africa, the Eastern hemisphere). The Western hemisphere allocation for North and South America in an International Telecommunications Conference, gave the U.S. 8 slots, Canada 6, Mexico 4, Brazil 5, Argentina 2, Carribean consortium 1, and South American consortium 1. Thirty-two channels for each orbital slot was agreed on by the delegates.

The rulings make certain that nations cannot beam signals that overlap and interfere with each other, producing bedlam on the ground. Politically, the rulings insure that each nation can exert a controlling power over transmissions beamed from direct broadcast satellites to citizens.

Any self-respecting economic tiger should have its own satellite. Being a tenant on someone’s skyflyer is flaunting one’s poverty. So, moved by this irresistible force, a Pinoy satellite was launched to a geo-stationary orbit above our airspace. Agila II owned by the Mabuhay Philippines Satellite Corporation went skyward from a Chinese launch center on board a Chinese rocket in mid-1997.This status symbol does not come cheap, and the risk of launch failure significant. But the lure of profit overpowered timidity and the Pinoy skyflyer joined the rest of man-made objects crowding earth’s sky.

Space above earth’s stratosphere is crisscrossed by orbiting objects sent up by the superpowers that created the ICBM (InterContinental Ballistic Missile) technology, the rocket delivery system for nuclear warheads designed to wipe out humankind from the planet. Fortunately for Homo sapiens, saner minds prevailed over mindless trigger fingers and averted what could have resulted in what was expressed as “mutually assured destruction” (acronym MAD). Much later, the regional conflicts of other powers fueled a race to acquire ballistic technology which led to satellite launching technology. France, Pakistan, North Korea, and lately, China, have joined the original launchers U.S. and Russia.

Some of the first orbiters have fallen back to earth unscheduled and uncontrolled, raising untold anxiety in the countries along the probable swath of the crash landing. The MIR space station launched by the Soviets in the mid-80’s plummeted to earth like the entry of a meteor.

Satellites have made profound changes in the manner and speed of communications and broadcast entertainment. Other advances are in mapping, weather, spying, navigation and fishery, and many more technologies are being developed at a dizzy pace. It does have drawbacks. One of these is the hazard of falling debris from defunct machines. Another is the cacophony of microwaves (although beyond hearing of the human ear) that are reflected or initiated by the satellites. A coming hazard would be the quarrels and conflicts over atmospheric domain that would be analogous to the territorial disagreements on the surface.

Mapping satellites may help in resolving conflicting territorial claims and disputes, particularly in potential oil bearing areas. Weather is routinely forecast from data such as ocean surface temperatures and wind activity obtained from a meteorological network scattered over the globe and transmitted via satellite. For purposes of plotting a ship’s position, mariners have mothballed their sextants and archived star tables, and now use the more convenient GPS (Global Positioning System) from a group of satellites to navigate the oceans.



National Broadband Network

The Electronic Commerce Act of 2000 mandated government to install an electronic network to facilitate transactions between government agencies from the national down to the local level. The objective of the network is to reduce government's expenses on information and communications technologies. A confusing and hazy hierarchy involving the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), a policy-making body directed to establish and administer comprehensive and integrated programs in information and communications technology, and the Department of Transportation and Communication (DoTC) brainstormed and came up with the National Broadband Network (NBN) project. This ambitious project aims to create an intranet or an "internal" network for government institutions, to include connectivity to remote barangays. The law mandates the establishment of a web-based government portal, and a domestic Internet exchange system to help communications and electronic transactions between government agencies, and eventually to the public.

The project ran afoul of obstacles and criticism ranging from lack of transparency to absence of feasibility study and cost estimate, suspicions of overprices and bribes, even technical infrastructure, and duplication of an existing network, the Department of Science and Technology's Preginet (Philippine Research, Education and Government Information Network). Critics cannot comprehend the need for computers in a remote barangay which has no electricity. The most telling argument against the project was the failed Telepono sa barangay fiasco.

The broadband technology and its participation in the electromagnetic spectrum inferred in the project is another matter for another story.



If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, don't accept, for you will lose a friend. If two strangers ask you to judge a dispute, accept, for you will gain a friend. — Source Unknown

Change

The only constant in the universe is change, so the saying goes. The cosmos is undergoing change, expanding, merging, bursting and collapsing. Our planet too is under constant transformation ─ changing weather and climate, geology, topography. Certainly, we humans are by nature changeable creatures. We often change clothes, change money into coins, or the TV channel being watched. Some change hair color with dyes, or whiten skin into a sickly pale hue. We often change our mind, the school we attend or our latest amour. These changes are easy; most being mere reflex (unthinking) action or require only minor decisions. Tougher decisions are involved when switching to another job or a new home. However, people by nature resist change if the change is involuntary, particularly when it affects them personally and negatively.

Progress usually requires change, and change does not take place without resistance. Minimizing this reaction to change is an important function of a manager whether in private business or in public administration.

Take for instance the case of relocating squatters (who are now called the landless or the patronizing term informal settlers), which involves a change in their place of abode. The positive lure of the change is the promise of free or concessionary real estate, even housing, that could improve the lifestyle of beneficiaries. However, there are also negatives that are personally threatening. A primary factor is economics, such as the added cost of shuttling to their place of work or livelihood, to the market, and to the children’s school. Another would probably be a lack of basic water and electric power facilities. The beneficiaries who find that the negatives outweigh the benefits will determine their attitude and ultimately resist the change.

Changes in the routes of public utility vehicles to decongest traffic if done too frequently will eventually be resented and resisted, particularly if dissemination of the plan is poor or inadequate and disrupt commuters’ travel habits.

During an interview in a TV talk show, a government official stated, “the planned change would be implemented, subject to the availability of funds.” Planning a change with uncertain funding is not planning. It should be categorized as dreaming.

A study made on why planned projects fail found that the greatest stumbling block was lack of management decision. Lack of funds or time were less of a retarding factor. This is in opposition to often heard statements about shortage of personnel or funds to support new projects. The implication is quite clear that management itself may be the most serious impediment to innovative progress.

Managers of large business corporations have learned to anticipate the challenges of change and how to manage the change. Here are six tips to minimize the resistance to change:

1) Announce and explain a change as soon as possible. Tell why it is necessary and how it will benefit those affected. People tend to suspect what reaches them only by rumor, and to fear what they do not understand.

2) Bring your subordinates into the act. Ask their advice. Their participation in planning for change commits them to cooperate with it.

3) Make sure the change is profitable. Change without visible improvement will encounter bitter resistance, and will be remembered the next time you want to make a change ─ even if it is a worthwhile one.

4) Make one change at a time. Nothing is more disruptive than a series of changes in quick succession. A good manager tries to space them.

5) Give the change time. Opposition does not vanish overnight. Allow people time to adjust. If opposition persists, find out why.

6) Admit a mistake. If a change will not work, say so ─ and drop it. Whipping a dead horse accomplishes nothing.

There is one significant exception to the reality of universal change ─ the independent mindedness of the youth.

“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders, and they love to chatter instead of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.” ─ Socrates, roughly 400 B.C.

Two millennia and four centuries later, the same lament can still be heard

Even if youthful behavior has not changed much, the youth themselves change ─ they become parents and elders ─ and in their wisdom see the youth of the succeeding generation behave as badly as they once did in their time.

"Change has considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better. Obviously, then, one’s character and frame of mind determine how readily he brings about change and how he reacts to change that is imposed on him." - King Whitney Jr.

(Bumper sticker): Change is inevitable. Progress is optional

Of Civility, Word of Honor, Ethics and Honesty

As a young pupil in grade school, one lesson was deeply etched into my young brain and remains vivid to this day of my twilight years. The teacher was explaining the anecdote of the boy (shepherd) who cried wolf. To emphasize the lesson, she asked each pupil to draw the boy watching a flock of sheep and the menacing wolf. My drawing was incomprehensible; I interpreted the sheep as “ship” as pronounced by the teacher. I drew a boy watching a banca (the ship). From that unforgettable embarrassment, I certainly learned from the anecdote the consequences of fibbing, and the values of honesty and word of honor.

It was perhaps serendipity that the teacher’s pronunciation “painted that memory with colors that never fade”(from Perfect Day poem). Other Filipinos may not have been so lucky — they have not learned in such a striking manner the value of palabra de honor and delicadeza, word of honor and civility — and this nation is suffering from the dearth of this virtue so glaringly lacking in its leadership.

I am of course alluding to the retracted vow of the President not to run for election in 2004. The self-imposed declaration not to run was made in December 2002, for the sake of national unity, she said. A few months later, she declared she will run after all, full speed ahead, national unity be damned. It is a terrible feeling of betrayal and anxiety that one feels when pronouncements of our top executive can not be relied upon, words that will never be transformed into action and will remain in the category of forgettable promises.

During the tense hours of the Oakwood coup when the surrender ultimatum deadline was on its last minutes, the negotiators’ word (primarily Ambassador and former General Cimatu) was accepted as credible by the coup leaders. They consented to be court martialled.

Now Malacanang has been persuaded, or perhaps did the persuading, that the coup leaders will be charged in a civil court reneging Cimatu’s word which has the force and authority of the President of the Philippines. Betrayal of one’s own ambassador plenipotentiary — this is statesmanship?

The language of politics is assuming greater heights of incivility. Perhaps this is the new culture that evolved from a series of civil disorders spawned by EDSA I. The first “people power” mob toppled Marcos the prolific producer of Presidential Decrees, the second deposed Erap on suspicions of patent greed and replaced by Gloria who is now accused by detractors with having links to the murky Jose Pidal issue, which raises the question: Have we replaced overt greed with covert greed?

Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr. recently said, "The crying and urgent need is not only national unity and reconciliation but the return of civility among our leaders and a reservoir of goodwill and trust." He added that it was unfortunate that President Arroyo’s offer of a "principled reconciliation" to various political groups — particularly to all those involved in the House of Representatives’ attempt to impeach Chief Justice Davide — have "been met with little enthusiasm, if not distrust and derision.” He added that achieving political reconciliation will need more than an offer from the President. "It cannot be reconciliation for the purpose of election," an apparent dig at GMA’s intention to seek a full six-year term in next May’s presidential elections.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr., for his part, said a "reconciliation between the administration and the opposition is possible but only under the rules of civility and democratic discourse."

The latest instances of incivility of word are from respectable sectors of the community in the wake of President Arroyo’s retraction of her moratorium on death-penalty executions. .The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippine (CBCP) accused Mrs. Arroyo of attempting to appease the Chinese-Filipino community to boost her candidacy in the May 2004 elections and human rights groups led by the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) said Mrs. Arroyo’s decision to lift the moratorium was nothing more than "a display of politics. The reasons for the flip-flop is obvious; she needs to win votes and curry favor." Knowing the penchant of GMA to pursue whatever is in her self-interest — after all she is a mere mortal with human frailties — these groups could have remained civil with brief statements of regret.

Breaking one’s word is telling a lie, and one who does could be an inveterate liar or a congenital liar. Breaking one’s word does breed mistrust and incivility in future discourse.

Ethics

What philosophical principles forbid biotechnology from engaging in certain practices such as:

· Transfer of genetic material from one species to another?

· Interference with the life process?

· Physicians in life support methods?

· Controversial medical practice like abortion, euthanasia, surrogate parenthood, sale of human eggs or organs, cloning humans, nanotechnology (building life forms atom by atom)?

· The case of Brenda Winners ─ when she found out that her unborn child lacked most of the brain’s cerebral cortex, she could have decided to abort or give birth then let it die. Instead, she and her husband chose to have the baby, keep it alive, and let its organs be used as transplants.” God brings these babies into the world and they should be able to do some good, even if they can’t live.” said Brenda Winners

HOW PERVASIVE IS DISHONESTY?

When ERAP was deposed as President and GMA installed in his place as de facto President, the event was the culmination of an epic political drama. Starting with an impeachment trial as prescribed in the Constitution, this due process sputtered to a screeching halt when evidence was suppressed at the trial triggering the resignation of the panel of Congressmen-prosecutors. The trial’s sudden demise rekindled the rage of indignant ERAP critics and spelled the end of the ERAP era.

What was the essence of the four articles of impeachment? Dishonesty, pure and simple. A sitting president is deposed just because of simple acts of dishonesty? Surely, people should understand that the bigger the belly, the bigger the hunger, and a hyperactive libido urges randy hedonist activity ─ all demanding basketsful of money. After all, dishonesty is common in society

In sports, there are those that misdeclare their age, disobey training rules, give excuses, find fault or blame others when they lose. In schools, there’s cheating in exams, giving or receiving unearned grades for a fee, violation of copyrights by photocopying books or magazines, purchase ready-made or plagiarize thesis and term papers. In business, there are tampered scales, cheating on taxes, gouging consumers with fake medicines and imitation goods, and pirating intellectual property. In the bureaucracy, graft is commonplace, names of ghosts in the payroll, rosters heavy with kin and crony, and insults the public with surly service. In politics, well, that’s apparently where Imeldific and ERAP honed their sticky-finger skill.

The perception that the bureaucracy, once known as the civil service, are not just lacking civility, but are seemingly ashamed of the idea of serving, demeaned by the word servant. A great many look at the bloated bureaucracy as teeming with corruption, and believe that it needs “a little more pruning and a little less grafting. Now the public must ponder: it takes two to tango; the corrupt bureaucrat does not commit graft on his own, he always has a corruptor ─ the dishonest citizen – or a weak minded victim. This citizen might be a neighbor, a friend, a kin. Finally, look in the mirror if the reflection has a clean conscience. You must have heard the former president blurt often that he has a clear conscience. Well, some wit countered that “a clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.”

People judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold, but so has a hard-boiled egg. — Good Reading

Decency It is discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. — Noel Coward

Political Dynasty

It all started with an email from an old friend urging:

Send this to all Filipinos you know. Save our country.

THE EVIL OF DYNASTIES
"Virtual Reality" column of Tony Lopez
Tue, June 12, 2007 Issue of The Manila Times

Just how bad dynasties are to the economy and the country can be gleaned from the amount of taxpayers' money these people have access to. Take the Senate. There will be siblings - Pia and Alan Cayetano.

In addition,Alan's wife, Laarni, took his old congressional seat from Taguig. There will probably be a father-and-son senator - Nene Pimentel and Koko Pimentel.

The No.2 most popular senator, Chiz Escudero, has his father, Sonny, as congressman from Sorsogon, his son's old turf. Ed Angara is senator; his son and namesake is a congressman.

A senator draws P200 million in pork barrel; a congressman, P70 million. Therefore, Pia, Alan and Laarni will rake in P470 million a year, or P1.4 billion in three years. Nene and Koko will have P400 million between themselves yearly, or P1.3 billion in three years. Chiz and Sonny will enjoy P270 million per year, or P810 million in three years, just like the Angara father-and-son tandem.

How much does the average poor make a day? A third of the 85 million population, or 25.5 million of the people of this country make less than $1 a day, or P365 (or P17,155) a year.

According to Ping Lacson, the P200-million pork barrel of a senator is just a starting figure. If a senator sponsors a Cabinet department during the budget hearings and sessions, he/she is given access to P350 million in the line budget of that department. So P200 million plus P350 million, that's P550 million.

What do the Filipino people get in return for electing these people? Very little, if any.

In the last 100 years since Filipinos began electing their
representatives, the Philippines dege-nerated from being the No. 1 economy, trading and commercial power in Asia to No. 73 least compe-titive country in the world. Today,the Philippines is less free than it was a century ago. Did you know that the Philippines used to be Asia's industrial power?

As late as the 19th century, the Philippines was already one of
Asia's premier industrialized countries and was the center of culture and education. The country was producing iron-ore sheets, refined iron ore, liquor from molasses using then unheard-of boilers, fine textiles for export, and was using steam engines and steamships. It established the first bank in Asia, made the first typhoon forecast in Asia, and set up the
first European-style universities in Asia.

Manila had a street car system, just like San Francisco; and had a ferrocarril line from the city to Dagupan in the north and from Manila to Batangas and Bicol in the south. By 1895, Manila had an electric light system. The first conglo-merate were established by Filipino tycoons. What happened after that?

During the last 100 years, Japan became a military power and the world's No. 2 economic power next to the United States.

During the last 50 years, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and
Singapore became economic miracles. Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore became nation states (they used to be unknown islands while Filipinos were already conducting diplomatic relations with Europe and China). In fact, at one time, the Sultan of Sulu was a frequent visitor in China because he
liked it there. He stayed there for three months, but died of syphilis. The Chinese erected a monument in his honor.

In the last 30 years, the Philippines became the slowest growing
economy per capita in Asia, bar none. During that time, Congress produced 15,000 laws and law schools 30,000 lawyers, half of whom are active. So two lawyers for every one law. Yet, the Philippines has a very poor human rights and economic rights record.

We got our priorities wrong. We gave the people the power to vote even before the people and those they elect learned how to govern properly, or at the very least, prepare or educate themselves to have a modicum of competency and honesty.

These days, people kill people just to be able to serve the people.

People bribe people just to be able to serve the people. That is the meaning of a heated electoral contest. And of fraudulent elections.

Should our politicians be blamed for the nadir we have fallen into? I will say No if those families mentioned in the first part of this column will return their pork barrel and declare, "from now on, I will truly serve the people." C'mon, give the money to the 12-million school-age children who are out of school because of extreme poverty. You don't deserve so much money.

You didn't earn it.

My response:

In sending this to all Filipinos you know to save our country, please add my comments below:

“What do the Filipino people get in return for electing these people (dynasties)? Very little, if any” declares the "Virtual Reality" column of Tony Lopez. He starts by enumerating the current crop of families controlling the Philippine government and laments the decline from a century ago as number one economy (untrue – Japan was numero uno) to today’s sick man of Asia status.

All men are created equal? Nature favors biodiversity, not similarity (triplets are rare, one every 240 mega births; Malaysia even brags that they celebrate differences), so we should expect some individuals to be better than others, and some dumber. Those that excel become the elite. Tough, but empirical truth.

Since the time of Aristotle who gave the classical definition of oligarchy, it is government by a few, usually the rich, for their own advantage. It is compared with both aristocracy, which is defined as government by a few chosen for their virtue and ruling for the general good, and various forms of democracy, or rule by the people. The major distinction between oligarchy and democracy is that in the latter, the elites compete with each other, gaining power by winning public support. A dynasty is an oligarchy of a prominent and powerful family.

The formation of oligarchies within the various forms of democracy is the outcome of organic necessity, according to sociologist Robert Michels who first developed the theory of the Iron Law of Oligarchy. If laws are passed to control the dominion of the leaders, it is the laws which gradually weaken, and not the leaders.

Oligarchies can often become instruments of transformation, by insisting that monarchs or dictators share power. We can patiently wait for the inevitable change to happen (hoping for the change to be for the better) or leave the change to the next cycle of mass extinction to make a new start.

Reveling and nostalgia over past glories is unproductive. I know, I know, we cannot plan for the future without considering past history. There is a famous George Santayana quote: “Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The quote is often mangled, only the second part mentioned, and the wording varies greatly. But that’s not the problem. The problem is that everyone seems to completely misinterpret Santayana’s warning and advice, to ends which are completely opposite from the original meaning.

The Philippines is young, emerging to join the independent and free societies barely a hundred years ago, after domination by Spain for four centuries. Yet even in those four hundred years, world history records narrate, most nations are ruled by hegemonies, family dynasties that inherit power from ancestors until conquered by another forceful leader who eventually establishes his own dynasty (Genghis, for example) and the cycle repeats (Hitler is an unusual exception – he did not live long enough).

It is also on record that the so-called free democratic societies a leader or group soon emerges that become the dominant force and ruler. In the Pinoy context, this is exemplified by a former Senate President’s railroading bluster, “What are we in power for?”

“During the last 50 years, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore became economic miracles.” Yes, but they did not carry the baggage of Pinoy: pride of being an Asian leading nation. Those cub Tigers had no other way except succeed or perish; we literally took the road to hell led by Filipinos.

“In the last 30 years … Congress produced 15,000 laws and law schools 30,000 lawyers, half of whom are active. So two lawyers for every one law. Yet, the Philippines has a very poor human rights and economic rights record.” (In American slang about screwing a light bulb, it takes two lawyers to do it). These poor individuals strived to become lawyers believing this is the avenue to political power. About a quarter of candidates pass the bar, the failures become law court clerks that specialize in collecting special fees “for the boys”.

But Lopez absolves the politicians for the present mess blaming instead the electorate for making injudicious choices. In conclusion, Mr Lopez proposes doling the pork money to the poor, a step that helps insure the mendicant mindset of that class in our society whom Dr. Jose Rizal tagged as indolent. And the dole-out process is called political patronage, a tool of dynasties.