Newsbreak's reportage

A few weeks ago, on mall stroll with the family, I was struck by the cover design of a book entitled: “The Seven Deadly Deals: Can Aquino Fix Arroyo’s Legacy of Costly and Messy Projects?” First, it was all designer gloom: red patina on black-and-white pictures of infrastructure projects, surrounding a grainy, black-and-white image of Aquino and Arroyo shaking hands during the turnover and inauguration ceremonies on June 30, 2010. Next, the fact that it was about the Arroyo increased the chances that it contains a lot of materials that The Economizer can write passionately about. Finally, the name of the editor was displayed prominently on the cover: Roel Landingin of Newsbreak. It always helps to learn what is in the enemy’s mind. 


I did not necessarily have 300 pesos to spare, but I found those pesos somehow, and proceeded to buy the thing along with other family stuff. And then I read this little book, totalling just 118 pages (including references) but mysteriously starting with page 9, in about 2 days. 


What it contains is a detailed and, from a layman’s point of view, an excellent report of the state of major infrastructure projects of which a significant portion was built or implemented or worked on during the term of President Gloria Arroyo. These projects are: 


1. North Luzon Railway
2. NAIA Terminal 3
3. Metro Rail Transit 3
4. Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway
5. Mt. Diwalwal


There are only five, you ask? The other “infrastructure projects” are the Quedancor, which was not in the business of infrastructure and was not a project, and defence procurement, which is not part of infrastructure and is not strictly a project. But apart from the fact that they are not really “infrastructure projects”, the detailed reportage is a tribute to the hard work of Newsbreak journalists, and the natural inquisitiveness and curiosity (or tendency to gossip) of the Filipino people. 


The detailed work is supposed to be enabled and supplemented by the “independence” of Newsbreak journalists. Here is the Newsbreak website on the proclamation: 

Newsbreak was born in a time of change—the first issue of what would become a fortnightly magazine came out on January 24, 2001, shortly after Edsa 2, when the Philippines was steeped in stories on people power.

Founded by senior journalists, who believe in honest, independent, and spunky reportage, we have since become a must-read for everyone who needs a better understanding of Philippine events. We have been providing readers in-depth stories, investigative reports, incisive analyses, as well as insider stuff that give a ringside view of the workings of people, politics, and power.

Thus spake Newsbreak. Unfortunately, the words “honest, independent and spunky” do not include “unbiased” and “objective”, two words that would not come to mind upon reading the book. Because other than detailed reportage, nothing in the stories, as told by Newsbreak, indicates that the “cost” and “mess” can be laid at the foot of President Arroyo. Let us count the ways: 


1. North Luzon Railway


Newsbreak’s beef is that North Luzon Railway is behind schedule and over budget, and the book has traced the cause of the budget buster to a reduction in the commitment of China National Machinery and Engineering Corp. “[S]ome $500 million worth of costs in terms of locomotives, train cards, stations and other items will no longer be shouldered by the Chinese firm but by private companies and Northrail itself,” says the book on page 24, citing a NEDA report. 


In addition, the contract price has increased to $1.3 billion, from $1.18 billion originally. But because the $500 million will no longer be shouldered by China, Newsbreak adds the figure to the total project cost, bringing it to $1.8 billion. 


All of these changes are contained in a supplemental agreement signed in 2009, and Newsbreak’s central point is that this is an Arroyo failure because she agreed to and personally approved these changes in a Cabinet meeting. This is Newsbreak’s case. 


But let us look at the wider picture. China funds the project, meaning that it loaned $900 million to the Philippine government. China requires that only Chinese firms may build the railway which is, after all, funded by China. China changes its mind, saying it will no longer pay for certain things, will only build up to here. Arroyo, with hands tied by the prior commitment to China, signs up. 


I think that Newsbreak’s complaint should be laid at China’s feet. One can say volumes about the issue, but it all boils down to this: if you agree to a Chinese-funded project, you are hostage to China. Cultivating an economic relationship with China is risky, as Newsbreak has found. The most that you can do is mitigate the pain.


2. NAIA Terminal 3 


Arroyo’s error in this matter is that she filed an expropriation case against PIATCO, potentially costing the government $400 million, “[a]gainst the advice of Solicitor General Alfredo Benipayo” (p. 40). 


But context always helps. The cancellation of PIATCO’s contract in 2002 brought two lawsuits against the government. “Fraport filed a case with the World Bank’s International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington, while PIATCO submitted a request for arbitration with the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Singapore” (p. 36). 


This means two things: 


          a. The government is exercising its rights within the borders of the Philippines to use the legal system to recover property that is entirely its own. In international forums, the Philippine government is the defendant; domestic courts must not be deprived of their say.


          b. More important, it hastens things. Filing the expropriation case gave an incentive to PIATCO to stop further action against the government in opening the terminal. Anyway, the expropriation case can be withdrawn by the initiating party, the Office of the Solicitor General. Given the favourable rulings in the international forums, the withdrawal can be done more easily.


Therefore, when all is said and done, President Arroyo was only doing what she could to move things along. It is not a failure of leadership; it is an exercise of leadership. That is the lesson that Aquino could learn very well indeed. 


3. Metro Rail Transit 3


Newsbreak’s reklamo is that Arroyo failed to raise ticket prices, in a crass, populist move. But if she had raised prices, would Newsbreak have praised the action? Or would it have declared it as another failure, a move that does not help the poor at all?


What is particularly grating is that this project lands on this list. It was during the Arroyo Administration, as reported in the book, that government banks LBP and DBP took over the MRT Corp. This eliminated the risk that foreign or private creditors would demand a full price on their MRT bond holdings, and stabilized the situation by allowing the government to explore its options without pressure.

None of this is a credit to President Arroyo in an “independent” report by Newsbreak. 


4. Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway


Even Newsbreak could not disguise the fact that this highway is being used already by motorists, has been privatized fully, and is being managed by mutually supporting private and public organizations. The only reason this lands on the failure list is that Newsbreak needs to fill out the number 7 on the list.


5. Mt. Diwalwal


Arroyo’s actions in this matter are described thus (p. 98): 

In 2003, Arroyo created the Task Force Diwalwal to address the environmental, social, and peace and order problems in the reservation area. The task force was tasked to formulate policies that will normalize the situation in the area. She also established the Natural Resources Development Corp. (now the Philippine Mining Development Corp. or PMDC) that was tasked to develop Diwalwal’s mining potential. It managed to carry out an exploration program to determine the remaining reserves in the two major gold veins and other ore bodies.

Because this action is so difficult to label as a failure, Newsbreak instead links this with the NBN-ZTE scandal (p. 99):

It did not help that the Arroyo administration was found in late 2008 to have signed a memorandum of understanding with ZTE, the Chinese telecommunications equipment maker that also figured in the $239-million national broadband network project bribery scandal, on developing Diwalwal. Although the MOU was not executory, it added to the distrust of the PMDC and the Arroyo government among small-scale miners and local officials in Diwalwal.

I think that these tendentious writings speak for themselves. Against the insinuation regarding ZTE, the action to create a Task Force totally fades away into “failure.”


Thus spake Newsbreak.

A Take on the "Filipino people"

I have just started my new job in a new organization, and on my first day (yesterday), I was suddenly and unexpectedly invited for a welcome interview with the head of my division, a Japanese national.


I have good memories of working (even for just a few days) with Japanese people in another division, and I was interested in hearing what this gentleman had to say to me. He was, I hazard a guess, a few years beyond middle age, but was very clean in dress that his white shirt positively glowed in the afternoon sun. With not a strand of grey-black hair out of place, he looked the part of a high-ranking executive.


It turns out that he simply wanted to welcome me to his division, and told me that he had not really "had a chance to read" my file so he was curious about my background. What was my name, he asked.


I said "[my name]".


"What a unique name," he said. "Is that ... ?" he trailed off.


I said, "Oh, it was just something my parents picked up in the newspaper."


"But both your parents are Filipino?"


"Yes," I said.


"Ah," or something to that effect, he replied.


And then, as I mentioned above, he was curious about my personal background.


So I told him I was born and raised and studied in the Philippines, worked for 7 years in the Bank of the Philippine Islands and then was for more than a year a temporary "consultant" in some projects in this very same organization (in other divisions and departments).


Then he congratulated me on my new job, and said I would be able to find a lot of opportunities to advance in this organization to which his division belonged. There were opportunities for promotion, but he really emphasized the seminars and training that I will be able to take part in.


Then he said, "[This organization] is a really generous employer [he laughed]. I worked for a few years in other places, but it's not the same. I think it is really generous, especially for the Filipino people." He smiled kindly.


I was struck by that comment, but I overcame it for a moment to say that the opportunities were in fact a big reason why I pursued a job in this organization.


He thanked me and I thanked him for his time and then we parted.


This post really is about the way he chose his words: "the Filipino people". I don't begrudge him the impression he holds of the nation. It is still a struggling, immature polity and a struggling, poor society, which could use a lot of help offered by the civilized and advanced Japanese. 


But like the wife who is told by a loving husband that she is "fat", or the husband called "loser" by his wife, it is jolting to hear it said out loud. We need to face our problems, but our problems seem to hold more urgency if they were hurled at us by those who have long assured us of their affection.

Noynoy Aquino and his place in history

There has been much media coverage of the second State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Benigno Aquino of the Philippines. Some might say too much, but I won't: a SONA is a newsworthy event, and many of us would be the worse off without such coverage. 


For instance, with such coverage, we can see how long the speech is, that there is really no realistic hope of summarizing it in reasonable time. One needs to spend an entire day, and considering that the speech was not precisely titillating, that would be a day badly spent. 


But let me just contribute my two-cents' worth on this news event. Nobody can fail to observe that every word that comes out of Noynoy's mouth is a bad word about his predecessor as President. But I wager that most of his hearers do not sufficiently apprehend how much this distinguishes him from President Arroyo. Having been abused and oppressed by political leaders for most of the last century, Filipinos no longer hope that a new President can bring about change, and cynically maintain that this President is the same as the last one, and the one before that. The sentiment is understandable, but it is also wrong. 


For Noynoy Aquino is not the same as Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is not the same as Joseph Estrada, and Joseph Estrada is not the same as Fidel Ramos, who was probably almost the same as Cory Aquino, but who was most certainly not the same as Ferdinand Marcos. Each of these presidents brought a different style to his or her administration, with the possible exception of Ramos. These styles distinguished each presidency, a truth that continues into the second Aquino Administration. 


Since it is only one year into office, people say it is too early to tell, but I hazard a crystal ball. Whereas Mrs. Arroyo used fiscal discipline and acute political acumen to achieve economic growth, Aquino relies on personal reputation to generate a welcome environment for private investment. Through a long and windy address, that is a theme that comes up again and again: I am a better person than my predecessor, and I run a cleaner operation, and for that, people here and abroad will trust the country with their investments. 


It is a thought-provoking gamble, and I bet Noynoy was not the one who thought of it first. No thought to markets, tax policies and spending programs can outweigh the personal preferences and personal character of the man at the top in the policies of this government. To a large extent, that is true of every Administration, but this one is unique in making it so personal -- you cannot trust other presidents the same way as you can trust me, and that is enough. Trust me, your invetment will be in good hands. Trust me, schoolchildren will be better educated because the education budget will actually be spent in educating them, not lining the pockets of bureaucrats and elected officials. Trust me, agricultural output will rise because I will make sure that irrigation will be improved. Trust me, highways and ports and airports will be built, warships will be ordered and delivered, because I am an honest man who will work to make sure that the budgets will be spent the way they should be. Trust me, government will work better because I will make sure the procurement process is cleaned up and there will be no corruption. Trust me. 


Will that be enough to lift the country out of poverty? To many people, a relentless focus on material wealth defeats the purpose of wealth generation, which is supposed to engender happiness in individuals. It is crass and narrow-minded. And it is not beyond the deductive capacities of the man on the street to realize that the son of a hero and of a democracy icon will not care to be judged in terms of wealth generation, but in terms of his place in history, of how far that place is from that of his father and mother. 


Which is probably why the second Aquino Administration will be dangerous for the Philippine economy. There is now a justified feeling that the substance of economic questions take second place to the affirmation of the President's personal character. For how can Noynoy aspire to the greatness of his parents, when, confronted with a question of economic benefit versus personal satisfaction, he will always choose economic benefit? Will his parents' legacy be served by that choice? 


It will not, and the fact that Filipinos' interests might -- just might -- be, constitutes the resounding rebuke to Noynoy's adherence to the "straight and righteous path". Trust him, but can you trust his sense of history? 

Statistics on Government employment

The conflict between the political Left and the political Right, played out over the various media, mainly revolves around the size of the government. Specifically, the Left argues that in an era of high unemployment and slow economic growth, the government should spend more and take on more activities in order to lift aggregate demand and increase economic growth. The Right argues that, far from being energized, now is the time for the government to step back and let the private sector do its job of increasing investment, and thereby, employment. 


This post has nothing to do with resolving this conflict. 


Instead, it has something to do with the nagging conflict inside TheEconomizer's guts. One of the Left's main evidence for saying that Barack Obama should spend more government money and do more to electrify the economy is that government employment -- authors continually state "at all levels of government," meaning state, local and federal -- has fallen year-on-year starting in March 2011. This is not the record -- no, nobody can claim that it is -- of a man who is determined to expand the state apparatus to ensnare individual lives. 


But TheEconomizer could not sleep. Really? Aren't they supposed to count only Federal employment, as it is the one most directly influenced by the Left's Deliverer? So TheEconomizer has spent considerable time and talent culling data from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics and has come up with the table at the end of this post. (I mistakenly pasted it before finishing the post, and I can't undo it any more. So forgive the inconvenient reference to the Table.) 


It turns out that the change has only recently happened. Year-on-year March 2011 up to June 2011, but none of the other months show a decline. ALL of the months in 2009 (Obama assumed office in January 2009), 2010 and January and February 2011 all posted increases in Federal employment. 


At a stroke, TheEconomizer's gut feel is vindicated. There is nothing to the allegations of lower government employment in the time of Obama. 


But this is not all there is, yet. What should be done is to compare the change and level of Federal-government employment with those of total private-sector employment in the relevant periods, in order to see if a more robust relationship can be observed. Also, there is something to the view that state and local government employment should be looked at also, because these entities receive considerable Federal aid, and in any case respond to policy directions at the Federal level. 


Alas, TheEconomizer has run out of time. Such delimitations will have to wait a few more days or weeks, but as of the moment, the main point of this blog post should be reiterated: Federal-government employment has increased, not decreased, in 26 out of 30 months of the Obama presidency. THAT is the record of this statist, ideological President. 

British phone-hacking scandal: a lesson in crisis management

Dear readers,

Today I will indulge myself and write about what I have been watching and observing the past days ... and months and years. I am talking about David Cameron and politics as crisis management.

As you know, the past two weeks in Britain have been dominated by news of illegal phone-hacking activities allegedly being perpetrated by journalists and executives at the tabloid News of the World (NoTW). This concerns the Prime Minister because the former editor of the newspaper, Andy Coulson, was employed by David Cameron starting in 2007 when he was still Leader of the Opposition, until January this year when Mr. Coulson resigned from his post as Director of Communications at No. 10 Downing Street.

Specifically in this post, I would like to talk about the Prime Minister's performance at the Dispatch Box, versus that of the current Leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband, during the debate on the public's confidence in the media and the Metropolitan Police, on 20 July 2011.

At the outset, I would like to tell you that my all-time political and public-affairs and statecraft hero(ine) is Margaret Thatcher. No one, it seems, can equal the combination of charm and forcefulness with which she led Government and dominated politics, not only in her own country but also the entire world, and in the process, changed the political imagination itself.

None can equal that achievement, but it seems that David Cameron is three-quarters of the way. His performance in the Commons is not as masterly as Thatcher's in her last major speech after she resigned as Prime Minister on 22 November 1990, but I suppose no one can really expect to equal that. Rather, he performed in such a way that brought out his strength and emphasized his basic honesty and decency, which was reassuring to a public that was getting exhausted and cynical about the whole scandal. In contrast, Ed Miliband could not shake off the impression that he was engaging in political point-scoring, something that Mr. Cameron ingeniously pointed out during his opening statement.

What matters in politics is the impression of competence and leadership, not so much the actuality of those. What transpired at the Despatch Box was that Ed Miliband, by being unable to convey that same impression, left the field open for Mr. Cameron to take. But it is not just by default that Mr. Cameron projects the image of being the only plausible Prime Minister for a few more years. I have already mentioned transparency and decency, but his basic intelligence also shines through in a quantity that manages to overwhelm the meagre supply in the Miliband brain. Only someone who can think on his feet is able to say, "I can assure the house that I have not met Mrs. Brooks in a slumber party, and I have not seen her in her pyjamas."

Which broke the mood, and for good. This is a scandal that teaches many lessons to everyone, but for this political observer, it teaches above all, that in a crisis, it helps to be transparent, decent and intelligent, and to show convincingly that you are all three.

NAMFREL and The Legend of FPJ's Contrabida

Greetings, Dear Readers! 


I have been missing in action for almost a year, but today I start making up for lost time. 


News reports have flooded in that the venerable election watchdog NAMFREL is supporting the conduct of an inquiry into allegations of cheating during the 2004 Philippine presidential elections. Granted this has nothing to do with TheEconomizer's avowed interests of economics or finance, it nonetheless resides in a lingering intuition in TheEconomizer's heart. 


And so here it is. 


If all of this engenders in you a sense of deja vu, it is because "calls" like this have been heard before, notably during the height of the Hello Garci scandal in 2005. But what really grates is the ventriloquism of NAMFREL and the Legend of FPJ. 


Back in 2004, the Secretary General of NAMFREL, Guillermo ("Bill") Luz, proclaimed in front of TV cameras that COMELEC tally sheets showing that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was leading her opponent, Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ), in the presdiential race, were not materially different from the results of the NAMFREL Quick Count and other NAMFREL tallies. At the least, the differences were not material enough to affect the outcome, which was a win by GMA. Indeed, in the Terminal Report of NAMFREL released on the 5th of June, 2004, GMA was leading by almost 700,000 votes (the final COMELEC tally showed that GMA had won by 1.1 million votes). 


Fast forward two years later, after the Hello Garci scandal had changed everybody's perception of GMA from a technocrat to a trapo, the very same Guillermo Luz told ABS-CBN news that he could no longer vouch for the legitimacy of the 2004 election results because certain other information and data might not have been disclosed by the COMELEC to NAMFREL and the general public. In effect, Mr. Luz was attempting to distance NAMFREL from the election results and the GMA presidency. And, it seems, from NAMFREL's own Quick Count. 


This is not the place to discuss the merits or demerits of flip-flopping, or indeed, the merits or demerits of NAMFREL being stripped of its electoral-watchdog status by the COMELEC during the 2010 national elections in favor of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV). However, this is the place to question the attempt by NAMFREL to gain credibility by surrendering it. 


In 2004, NAMFREL declared that GMA had won, based on its own count. If two years later it could not support that proclamation, because of data it MIGHT not have, then that is NAMFREL's problem. Indeed, the only thing that can be said to describe this behavior is that it follows the Legend of FPJ's contrabida. 


One hopes the plot is still familiar. This powerful local warlord, at whose command the local populace shakes in terror, tortures some poor farmer, who turns out to be the father of the woman who tugs at FPJ's heart. After much gunfire and more rapid-fire punching, the warlord is reduced to begging FPJ for his life, saying he did not really touch the woman's father, it was his predecessor wot won it. 


Which brings us back to NAMFREL. Bill Luz now runs the Ayala Foundation as Executive Director, to which TheEconomizer can attest personally, having seen him in the lobby of the BPI Bldg, at whose 10th Floor that Foundation holds office. In July 2011, the current secretary general of NAMFREL declares in a grammatically and verbally venturesome manner NAMFREL's support for an inquiry. Perhaps then he can blame his predecessor for blessing GMA's win back in 2004.

A Safety Net for the Poor

Opinion



Posted on 08:33 PM, September 15, 2010



Calling A Spade... -- By Solita Collas-Monsod



A safety net for the poor



The secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Devlopment has been getting a lot of flak lately about the more-than-doubling of the DSWD 2011 budget to finance the government’s Conditional Cash Transfer program, known locally as the 4Ps or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program. The objections which arise from various sectors -- religious, activists, politicans -- have one thing in common: they think that the program is a dole-out, probably given with ulterior motives, and therefore is at best useless.



Senator Ralph Recto has been quoted as saying that the Philippine program has "not proven to be effective in reaching the parameters set under the UN’s Millennium Development Goals." Others claim that the money would be better spent providing employment for the household head.


Let me disabuse the critics. First, it is NOT a dole-out.



It is a contract between the government and the household, where in return for the cash transfer, the family must fulfill certain conditions regarding education and health. If the conditions are not fulfilled, the money stops coming.



Exactly who can be the contractors, and what are the terms of the contract? To qualify for the program, the household income must be below the provincial poverty threshold, must either have a pregnant woman or children 14 years old and below.



And the terms of the contract are that for P500 a month, the following health safeguards must be in place: the pregnant women must avail of pre-and post-natal care and be attended during childbirth by a health professional; parents must attend responsible parenthood, parent effectiveness, and mother’s classes; children below 5 must receive preventive health checkups and vaccines, and children 6-14 must receive deworming pills twice a year. And for P3,000 a year each for a maximum of 3 children, the following education conditions must also be met: Children from 3-5 years old must have an attendance rate of 85% or higher in preschool or day care classes; children from 6-14 must have an attendance rate of at least 85% in elementary and/or high school classes.



And there is a unique feature here: the cash is received by the woman of the house, and for a very valid reason -- it has been found that women’s expenditure patterns are more focused on basic human priorities than those of their male counterparts.



Thus, the minimum amount that qualified household gets a year is P9,000 (with one child who is at least 3 years old) and the maximum is P15,000 (with three children up to age 14).



The second point that must be made is that while, as Sen Recto says, the CCT in the Philippines has not proven to be effective in reaching the UN Millennium Development Goals, that is not because it is a bad program, but because it hasn’t had time to take effect, and has had, so far, very little reach.



It was piloted in late 20007, and was supposed to have reached 123,000 poor families in 2008, and will reach 900,000 families by the end of this year.



Compare these to the number of households living below the poverty line in 2006: 4.68 million. Even if the percentage of poor familes has been estimated to have decreased marginally since then, the absolute number will have increased.



It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that the program is not going to have that much effect on the poverty situation.



Which is why the DSWD is more than doubling its budget, for the CCT, with the encouragement of both the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, who are financing the program through loans.



And why are the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and by the way, the United Nations, so enthusiastic about the program?



Very simply because it has generally succeeded in many other countries -- 17 at last count. So much so that Nancy Birdsall of the Center for Global Development has been quoted as saying that "these programs are as close as you can come to a magic bullet in development."



Why? Because evaluation studies show that they have significant beneficial impacts on schooling, health, infant mortality, child labor, and poverty. And on inequality as well.



What essentially the CCT boils down to is a social protection or safety net for those suffering from income poverty in the short run, that also addresses outcome poverty at the same time, building human capabilities so that in the long run, the intergenerational transfer of poverty is short-circuited.



There is always room for improvement, of course.And the success of the CCT in terms of human development outcomes will depend on the availability of the schools, health centers, and other facilities that are needed by the poor to fulfill their part of the contract, as well as the accessibility of the source of funds for the women. Not to mention the ability of the DSWD to target the poor without political interference.



Is P30 billion too costly a program? Compared to the subsidies given by the government to some of its GOCCs (with less or even nothing to show for it), not to mention the humongous government corporate debt that the national government has had to take over over the past 25, the CCT is not only reasonable, but certainly well worth it.



One must congratulate the Aquino government for putting its money where its mouth is with regard to poverty and development. If anything, it should be spending even more, as as long as the proper safeguards are met.



In any event, the CCT represents the Philippines’ only chance to make significant gains in achieving our Millennium Development Goals. Let us all be reminded that given the current (sans CCT) pace of progress, halving the 1990 income poverty incidence will only be achieved in 2026, reducing the 1990 maternal mortality rates will be reached only in 2048, universal elementary school completion in 2075.



Come to think of it, the success of this administration’s CCT program may yet go down in history as one of its most important accomplishments.

Not Enough

BusinessWorld Opinion

Posted on 09:05 PM, September 08, 2010

Calling A Spade... -- By Solita Collas-Monsod

"Not enough"

The government launched its Fourth Progress Report on the Millennium Development Goals, showing the Philippines’ pace of progress with regard to the 21 targets and 60 indicators that are being used to determine whether these MDGs are being met. President Noynoy Aquino and House Speaker Sonny Belmonte led the list of attendees (together with former President Fidel Ramos) -- which presumably sent the structural message that achieving the goals were of the highest importance to our leadership.

In his speech, PNOY emphasized that it was the responsibility of every Filipino citizen, not solely of the goernment, to help achieve these goals.

It would have helped if the President had reminded us of what the stakes are -- so that people would not simply dismiss the speech as just motherhood statements.

It has been estimated, for example, that achieving these goals means, among others, that more than 10 million people would be lifted out of poverty (between 2006 and 2015); more than 2 million people would be no longer go hungry; 240,000 more children would be able to reach their fifth birthday; 12 thousand mothers’ lives would be saved, and almost 7 million more people would have access to safe water. That would surely make everyone sit up and take notice.

The report, based on actual performance versus the target levels, evaluates the probability of achieving the goals (broken down into several targets and even more indicators) -- as either "low," "medium" or "high" -- using methodology suggested by the UN Statistical Insitute for Asia and the Pacific (SIAP).

But the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) has another methodology which is more useful, and certainly more colorful and more specific: it determines whether a country is an "early achiever" (a dark green circle) or "on track" (a light green triangle) or "off-track slow" (an orange square) or "off- track regressing" (a red upside down triangle), depending on, respectively, whether the achievements have already been achieved, or will be achieved on or before the target date of 2015, will be achieved, but after 2015, or whether the country is actually regressing (moving backward) rather than progressing. Moreover, the year the target will be achieved (given the country’s present pace of progress) can also be derived.

For example: MDG Goal 1a, which is to halve the proportion of population living below the poverty threshold is, in the Fourth Progress Report, rated as of "Medium" Probability. Using the ESCAP method, the country’s progress toward this goal is rated as off-track, slow, and will be achieved, at current pace, only in 2023 -- or eight years after 2015. With regard to the population living below the food or subsistence threshold, the probability of attaining the target is classified as "High"; but using the ESCAP method will tell us that using the country’s official poverty data (which should not be used because the poverty data over time are not comparable), the target will be achieved by 2011; and using the Balisacan estimates (which can be compared over space and time) will show that the target will be achieved by 2016, and therefore the country is off-track, slow.

And if one thinks that "off-track, slow" means a delay of one to eight years, think again. The probability of achieving the goal of universal completion of primary or elementary education is considered "Medium" as measured by the cohort survival rate; using the ESCAP methodology reveals that not only is the country "off-track, slow," but that at its current pace of progress, it will achieve the target only -- are you ready for this, reader? -- by 2070. The elementary school education completion rate, which has a "Medium" probability in the report, will be achieved only in 2075.

Or take MSG Goal 5, which is to improve maternal health, as measured by the maternal mortality ratio, and the contraceptive prevalence rate. The report rates the probability of achieving these targets by 2015 as both "Low." But using the ESCAP methodology tells us that at the current rate of progress, reducing maternal mortality ratio by three-fourths from its 1993 levels will be achieved not in 2015, but in 2064; while doubling the contraceptive prevalence rate from its 1993 levels will occur only in 2048.

Clearly, saying that the probability of achievement is "Medium" gives us a false sense of security, and makes these development challenges seem picayune; and considering a goal as having a "Low" probability of achievement is not enough. We have to be aware of what the time horizons are. Because it is one thing to say that the probability of having 100 children who started Grade 1 reach grade 5 is "Medium"; but it is shocking to hear that this so-called 100% target cohort survival rate"can be achieved only in 2070, or 55 years after the target date of 2015.

In other words, the Philippine performance in these areas is unacceptable, and must be reversed. It is not enough to say we will double or triple our efforts, because even then, that will not guarantee that the targets will be met. It is not enough to say that without corruption, there will be no poverty. Integrity is not sufficient. Commitment (political will) and competence are at least as important.

Noynoy Flunks His First Test

The Wall Street Journal
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Page 15

By Maria A. Ressa

     Filipinos have high hopes for President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III, who took power two months ago with the largest margin of victory in two decades and an 85% approval rating. His popularity rested mostly on promises of good values and cleaner governance--promises his mother, democracy icon Cory Aquino, made too. Yet his first major test in office shows how early political compromises are exacerbating problems in the weak institutions he's promised to reform.

     On Aug. 23, a disgruntled former police officer took a tourist bus hostage and after a long stand-off, killed eight passengers, all Hong Kongers. The government's response was an excercise in incompetence. In public hearings that began Friday, police and politicians admitted that untrained, ill-equipped forces were used while elite units were put on standby; that national leaders played no role in the crisis response despite foreigners' involvement; and that ad hoc, unclear lines of communication between local politicians and local police complicated matters. To add insult to injury, the authorities in charge left the scene to eat in a nearby Chinese restaurant precisely when the killings began.

     The incident sparked outrage in Hong Kong, where the government has called for an independent investigation and compensation for the victims' families. But Mr. Aquino only belatedly realized the gravity of the situation. His first instinct was to blame the national media for covering the event live, a sentiment that citizens in the blogosphere and on Twitter quickly echoed. When the hearings did little to quell public anger on Friday--two weeks after the fiasco--he claimed responsibility "for everything that has transpired."

     There is truth in that assertion. The agencies tasked with resolving the hostage crisis--the Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Palace [sic] Communications [G]roup--are divided into two political factions, both of which are competing for political influence. Instead of choosing between them, Mr. Aquino rewarded both with high cabinet offices.

     The first, the Samar faction, is named after the street where one of Mr. Aquino's campaign headquarters was located, and includes former aides and officials with long personal ties to the president and his family. Many of them, like National Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, served under Mr. Aquino's mother's government in 1986. The second, the Balay faction, is associated with the Liberal Party and former cabinet secretaries who publicly challeneged Mr. Aquino's predecessor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Younger and perceived as more professional, the Balay group is also associated with Senator Mar Roxas, Mr. Aquino's vice-presidential candidate who did not win election.

     These factional splits played a big role in last month's bungled response to the hostage crisis. The Department of the Interior and Local Government is in charge of both local government and security, and the Secretary of the Interior usually controls the Philippine National Police. But in July, President Aquino stripped Secretary Jesse Robredo, who belongs to the Balay faction, of his powers over the police.

     Mr. Aquino handed leadership to an underqualified member of the Samar faction, his personal friend and "shooting" partner, Interior Undersecretary Rico E. Puno. During the crisis, Mr. Puno exerted almost no leadership, preferring to let the local police handle the situation. There was little crowd control, and a local radio station was allowed to speak to the hostage-taker in the final moments of the crisis. During the later hearings, Mr. Puno said, "I am not capable of handling hostage situations. . . . I am not trained to do that."

     The factions also played a role in the management of public informatoin and press coverage. The Palace [sic] Communications Group, which in the past was headed by one press secretary, now has three leaders with cabinet secretary rank: the Samar faction's Sonny coloma and the Balay faction's Edwin Lacierda and Ricky Carandang, the latter of whom is a former television news anchor for my news organization. Thus on the fateful day, the administration had trouble deciding what to say and how to say it. Local officials were left to handle messaging, focusing on the details rather than the broader substance and impact of the day's events. Hong Kong's chief executive Donald Tsang was even prevented from talking to Mr. Aquino.

     For many Filipinos, this bungling is wearingly familiar. The country has a famously weak system of law and order which often sees criminals go unpunished. Mr. Aquino ran for office promising to clean up this culture of corruption. That's why the hostage crisis was so disturbing: It was a disastrous example of incompetence, political factionalism and lack of national leadership.

     All of which points back to the president's office. Like his mother, President Aquino is easy-going, well-liked by his peers, and shies away from controversy and conflict. That manner of governance might have worked in the House and Senate, where he failed to initiate or pass any bill, but it doesn't work in the president's office. The Samar and Balay factional split represents a real test of Mr. Aquino's leadership--between familiar, highly valued personal loyalty and generational change and professionalism.

     The president's indecisiveness has already indirectly led to one tragedy. The coming weeks will show whether he can learn from his mistakes, or whether the Philippines is in for another Aquino presidency that has good intentions but bungled outcomes.


Ms. Ressa is the head of news and current affairs at ABS-CBN Broadcasting and the author of "Seeds of Terror" (Free Press, 2003).

    

WSJ: The Alien in the White House

The distance between the president and the people is beginning to be revealed.
OPINION JUNE 9, 2010
By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ


The deepening notes of disenchantment with Barack Obama now issuing from commentators across the political spectrum were predictable. So, too, were the charges from some of the president's earliest enthusiasts about his failure to reflect a powerful sense of urgency about the oil spill.


There should have been nothing puzzling about his response to anyone who has paid even modest critical attention to Mr. Obama's pronouncements. For it was clear from the first that this president—single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival—was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans' leader, a man of them, for them, the nation's voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn't lacking in concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice—and for good reason.


Those qualities to be expected in a president were never about rhetoric; Mr. Obama had proved himself a dab hand at that on the campaign trail. They were a matter of identification with the nation and to all that binds its people together in pride and allegiance. These are feelings held deep in American hearts, unvoiced mostly, but unmistakably there and not only on the Fourth of July.


A great part of America now understands that this president's sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe.


One of his first reforms was to rid the White House of the bust of Winston Churchill—a gift from Tony Blair—by packing it back off to 10 Downing Street. A cloudlet of mystery has surrounded the subject ever since, but the central fact stands clear. The new administration had apparently found no place in our national house of many rooms for the British leader who lives on so vividly in the American mind. Churchill, face of our shared wartime struggle, dauntless rallier of his nation who continues, so remarkably, to speak to ours. For a president to whom such associations are alien, ridding the White House of Churchill would, of course, have raised no second thoughts.


Far greater strangeness has since flowed steadily from Washington. The president's appointees, transmitters of policy, go forth with singular passion week after week, delivering the latest inversion of reality. Their work is not easy, focused as it is on a current prime preoccupation of this White House—that is, finding ways to avoid any public mention of the indisputable Islamist identity of the enemy at war with us. No small trick that, but their efforts go forward in public spectacles matchless in their absurdity—unnerving in what they confirm about our current guardians of law and national security.


Consider the hapless Eric Holder, America's attorney general, confronting the question put to him by Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas) of the House Judicary Committee on May 13.


Did Mr. Holder think that in the last three terrorist attempts on this soil, one of them successful (Maj. Nidal Hasan's murder of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, preceded by his shout of "Allahu Akbar!"), that radical Islam might have played any role at all? Mr. Holder seemed puzzled by the question. "People have different reasons" he finally answered—a response he repeated three times. He didn't want "to say anything negative about any religion."


And who can forget the exhortations on jihad by John Brennan, Mr. Obama's chief adviser on counterterrorism? Mr. Brennan has in the past charged that Americans lack sensitivity to the Muslim world, and that we have particularly failed to credit its peace-loving disposition. In a May 26 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mr. Brennan held forth fervently, if not quite comprehensibly, on who our enemy was not: "Our enemy is not terrorism because terrorism is just a tactic. Our enemy is not terror because terror is a state of mind, and as Americans we refuse to live in fear."


He went on to announce, sternly, that we do not refer to our enemies as Islamists or jihadists because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam. How then might we be permitted to describe our enemies? One hint comes from another of Mr. Brennan's pronouncements in that speech: That "violent extremists are victims of political, economic and social forces."


Yes, that would work. Consider the news bulletins we could have read: "Police have arrested Faisal Shahzad, victim of political, economic and social forces living in Connecticut, for efforts to set off a car bomb explosion in Times Square." Plotters in Afghanistan and Yemen, preparing for their next attempt at mass murder in America, could only have listened in wonderment. They must have marvelled in particular on learning that this was the chief counterterrorism adviser to the president of the United States.


Long after Mr. Obama leaves office, it will be this parade of explicators, laboring mightily to sell each new piece of official reality revisionism—Janet Napolitano and her immortal "man-caused disasters'' among them—that will stand most memorably as the face of this administration.


It is a White House that has focused consistently on the sensitivities of the world community—as it is euphemistically known—a body of which the president of the United States frequently appears to view himself as a representative at large.


It is what has caused this president and his counterterrorist brain trust to deem it acceptable to insult Americans with nonsensical evasions concerning the enemy we face. It is this focus that caused Mr. Holder to insist on holding the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in lower Manhattan, despite the rage this decision induced in New Yorkers, and later to insist if not there, then elsewhere in New York. This was all to be a dazzling exhibition for that world community—proof of Mr. Obama's moral reclamation program and that America had been delivered from the darkness of the Bush years.


It was why this administration tapped officials like Michael Posner, assistant secretary of state for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Among his better known contributions to political discourse was a 2005 address in which he compared the treatment of Muslim-Americans in the United States after 9/11 with the plight of the Japanese-Americans interned in camps after Pearl Harbor. During a human-rights conference held in China this May, Mr. Posner cited the new Arizona immigration law by way of assuring the Chinese, those exemplary guardians of freedom, that the United States too had its problems with discrimination.


So there we were: America and China, in the same boat on human rights, two buddies struggling for reform. For this view of reality, which brought withering criticism in Congress and calls for his resignation, Mr. Posner has been roundly embraced in the State Department as a superbly effective representative.


It is no surprise that Mr. Posner—like numerous of his kind—has found a natural home in this administration. His is a sensibility and political disposition with which Mr. Obama is at home. The beliefs and attitudes that this president has internalized are to be found everywhere—in the salons of the left the world over—and, above all, in the academic establishment, stuffed with tenured radicals and their political progeny. The places where it is held as revealed truth that the United States is now, and has been throughout its history, the chief engine of injustice and oppression in the world.


They are attitudes to be found everywhere, but never before in a president of the United States. Mr. Obama may not hold all, or the more extreme, of these views. But there can be no doubt by now of the influences that have shaped him. They account for his grand apology tour through the capitals of Europe and to the Muslim world, during which he decried America's moral failures—her arrogance, insensitivity. They were the words of a man to whom reasons for American guilt came naturally. Americans were shocked by this behavior in their newly elected president. But he was telling them something from those lecterns in foreign lands—something about his distant relation to the country he was about to lead.


The truth about that distance is now sinking in, which is all to the good. A country governed by leaders too principled to speak the name of its mortal enemy needs every infusion of reality it can get.



Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of the Journal's editorial board.








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