The (hopefully) feigned betrayal stemmed from the stories I was writing at the time about the Ampatuan clan, how its members wielded power, and the sorry state of public education in the province of Maguindanao.

Gallows humor made the fear bearable back then, but now it has become clear that what I was dealing with was no laughing matter. In one barbaric, gruesome Monday morning, the monster created by clan wars, warlords, and the tacit approval – and exploitation of it – by high government officials claimed the lives of over 40 people, among them women and journalists, in one of the province’s lonely roads.

Maguindanao is a beautiful province. But its clear rivers and streams and green fields are red with the blood of some of its own people, as these had been in far too numerous instances in the past.

For now, Frances Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, solicitor general of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao or ARMM, of which Maguindanao is part, is calling on media to be fair and not to preempt the investigation into Monday’s carnage.

“We are looking at different angles,” she told PCIJ in a brief phone interview Tuesday. “We are looking for the culprit and let’s wait for the result of the investigation.” She declined to make any other comments.

How does a local journalist cover Maguindanao? Based on what I witnessed while doing fieldwork for my stories last year, carefully – very, very carefully, as one would circle over a bomb that may or not go off.

One local journalist, for instance, had flatly refused my request for help in getting a face-to-face interview with Maguindanao’s Andal Ampatuan, the clan patriarch and chief executive of the province. The journalist had once accompanied a foreign colleague in interviewing the governor; when that story yielded an unflattering picture of Ampatuan, the local journalist was summoned to a dressing down in the old man’s mansion. He calmly took the barrage, convinced he could have faced much worse.

A handful of other local journalists also warned me against crossing the Ampatuan clan, but they were helpful enough to get me in touch with Norie Unas, the provincial administrator. Unas told me that the governor would not agree to an interview.

Ampatuan rarely goes to the capitol. It is the capitol, via Unas, that goes to Ampatuan. The governor conducts business in his mansion just across the newly-built capitol.

Almost every month, the old Ampatuan and members of his clan go to Manila, but his security cordon remains as tight as that in Maguindanao. The same is true for other officials in ARMM. I counted four security people assigned to an ARMM department head who I interviewed in Manila.

Journalists, of course, rarely have any security detail – even in places where having one could be a good idea.

Needing a picture for the story I was doing on education in Maguindanao, I asked a photographer in the region for some shots of students or schools there. What he sent were “happy pictures” of students seemingly drowning in books and other resources. He said he had taken them during one of those school visits arranged by local officials.

The pictures didn’t quite go with what I had seen and written about — the dismal state of education in the province. And so I requested other shots, but was rebuffed politely. It was explained to me that even while the photographer was based in a city several provinces away, the risk would be the same.

I needed other pictures for my story about the Ampatuans, and I stumbled upon a photo of some members of the clan with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in Malacanang. But the photographer refused to have his work associated with my story, saying the Ampatuans knew he had taken it.

It is not difficult to appreciate the fear. Despite having asked Unas for permission to take pictures of the façade of the newly-built capitol, I was only able to take half a dozen, most of them embarrassingly ugly. The capitol’s fatigue-clad guard kept on shooing me away, and my camera was no match for his armalite.

A Manila-based journalist also recalls instructing her cameraman to take footage of the expensive 4x 4s in the ARMM head office’s parking lot – and ending up with no shot. Armed men who ordered them to leave the area made sure of that.

Sheer ignorance may make non-ARMM journalists willing to go farther than their local counterparts, but wariness soon creeps in. While locals refer visiting journalists doing stories on Maguindanao to two hotels in Cotabato City, the suggestions come with comments that one can easily be traced in these places. Locals also make it a point to say that although Cotabato City is closer to Shariff Aguak, the capital of Maguindanao, than Tacurong City, the latter’s larger population can be a refuge.

Visitors to Maguindanao are advised to be indoors before it gets dark, a dictum closely observed even by locals. And while there is greater anonymity in taking public transport, the presence of tanks and clumps of uniformed and armed men in many areas do not calm the nerves of someone not accustomed to them.

For sure, covering Maguindanao poses unique problems. A hit-and-run tactic by parachute journalists prevents them from staying informed and updated, but local journalists may not want to venture far enough either because they fear their whereabouts can be traced. A source, meanwhile, can be easily threatened, no matter how high his or her position in government is.

These became apparent to me while I was there, but I was reminded of this again weeks before my stories on Maguindanao and the Ampatuan clan were to come out: The PCIJ suddenly received word from a fellow journalist that a member of the clan was making inquiries about me.

That prompted someone in the PCIJ to buy me a shirt that said, “Every time I have a great idea, I get into trouble.” – PCIJ, November 2009

In this issue

• Dig this
• A mess of mines
• The Canadian quandary
• Of tribal leaders and dealers
• Thailand’s continuing crisis
• Mike Arroyo claim stalls land reform in Negros
• Every 6 hours, pirates seize a Filipino seaman
• House opposition seeks cap on Gloria’s spending habits

CLOSING DOWN a mine is not just a matter of giving employees their walking papers and putting a padlock on the door. Indeed, when a mine ceases operations, a full-blown cleanup (plus sometimes an orderly dismantling) follows. Or at least that is what should happen.

Over the last three decades, several large-scale mines in the country have been shut down because of economic loss, labor disputes, or a rejected mining application. But none of these mines was rehabilitated right after closure; unfortunately, government regulations at the time lacked the provision to enforce remediation. Those regulations came in 1996, when guidelines on mine rehabilitation and decommissioning were set in the implementing rules and regulations of the Mining Act of 1995.

To date, though, only one abandoned mine is undergoing rehabilitation. And while Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) officials say a few other idle mines have attracted lease applications (and presumably would be checked and fixed up at some point), there is no question that these and others like them pose health and environmental risks – and will continue to do so until their various problems are addressed.

In fact, a 2001 report by Tetra Tech EM Inc. on 20 abandoned mines across the country had observed that all pose risks at varying degrees. Noted the U.S.-based environmental consultancy firm: “Land and water media are impacted with chemical contaminants, which may harm human health and the aquatic, terrestrial and wild lives. Unless proper mitigation and corrective actions are undertaken, the surrounding population and receiving environment will be continuously exposed to both chemical and physical risks.”

MGB had tapped Tetra Tech to help it draw up a list of mines that needed the most attention. In its report, Tetra Tech said that most of the 20 mines it was asked to assess failed to meet the official criteria for total suspended solids (TSS), total dissolved solids (TDS), and the measure of acidity or alkalinity (pH). Most also failed to comply with the United States Environmental Protection Agency standard for freshwater sediments, indicating the accumulation of metal contaminants in the receiving bodies of water.

Previously, MGB had conducted a similar study, but that one assessed 44 abandoned mines.

MGB pinpointed six mines from the Tetra Tech report that it said would take priority in rehabilitation efforts. These had been run by the following companies: Philippine Pyrite Corp. in Bagacay, Western Samar; Palawan Quicksilver Mines in Puerto Princesa City; Basay Mining Corp. in Negros Oriental; Consolidated Mines Inc. in Marinduque; and Thanksgiving Mine/Benguet Exploration Inc. and Black Mountain Inc. in Benguet.

From the earlier study, it selected the mine operated by Western Minolco Corp. in Benguet for the last slot in its priority list. Among other things, the MGB said that the mine had caused the destruction of aquifers, while toxins were found in surrounding bodies of water.

IT IS the Philippine Pyrite mine in Bagacay that is now undergoing rehabilitation. Yet while it says it will still use the Tetra Tech study as a reference point, the MGB has started re-evaluating and revising its priority list of abandoned mines for rehabilitation, based on an entirely new set of criteria and processes.

For sure, even Tetra Tech had confessed having difficulties over what constitutes an “abandoned mine.” Abandoned areas usually refer to areas with no claimant at all, but the firm noted that although many mines had ceased operations, several still have owners and even managers.

A case in point is the controversial Marcopper mine in Marinduque, which has not been in use since it had a monumental mine-tailings spill in 1996. The company that owns it still exists, and guards remain there to secure the premises. The MGB also says that it did not include it in any of its risk assessment studies primarily because of ongoing court proceedings.

At least there is an action plan for the Marcopper cleanup, although that has been on standby for the last three years. Besides that of Philippine Pyrite, the rest of the mines the MGB had on its old list have neither that nor the chance of being rehabilitated anytime soon — unless new owners step in and do the cleanup themselves. That means a wait that may not be welcome to the communities living within or near the six other former “priority” mines, since they will bear the brunt of any calamity coming from these sites. (see Table 1)

In truth, having families near the mine sites had been one of the key factors on which MGB based its selection of the seven mines for priority rehabilitation. Thus, even if Tetra Tech had ranked others higher in terms of risk, those mines were excluded from the MGB list because they were deemed far enough from any household for the dangers they posed to have immediate impact.

To make its assessment, Tetra Tech had used a Risk Based Prioritization Strategy (RBPS) that considered four major criteria: waste generation and management, pathways, receptors, and compliance. The higher the score a mine got, the higher the risks it presented. (see Tables 2 and 3)

The Philippine Pyrite mine in Bagacay, which topped the MGB list, garnered a risk rate of 82.53 percent in the Tetra Tech study. It ranked second among the 20 mines that Tetra Tech looked into, the top slot being occupied by Benguet Corporation-Dizon Copper/Gold Mines (BCD) in San Marcelino, Zambales, which scored 83.93 percent. The BCD mine had no community residing anywhere near its mine site, hence its exclusion from the MGB list.

The Philippine Pyrite mine, which extracted pyrite and copper for 36 years, is now the government’s flagship mine-rehabilitation project. The Mining Environment and Safety Division (MESD) of the MGB has pointed out that the mine not only exhibits many environmental problems, it is also located at the border of a nature reserve.

The threats at the Philippine Pyrite mine include the formation of an acid mine drainage, which may lead to the spread of potentially toxic metals. In addition, its tailings ponds are unstable and may collapse, spilling toxic contents. Its mill and laboratory facilities are also decrepit.

Three of the six mines selected from the Tetra Tech study had no physical hazards, but they nevertheless made it to the MGB list because they had significant problems in other areas. Palawan Quicksilver, which mined mercury in Puerto Princesa for more than two decades, was among the three without physical hazards. Yet it apparently had considerable waste generation and management issues, scoring 29 points out of the possible 33 points in that category.

The two other mines that posed no physical risks were those of Benguet Exploration and Black Mountain. Sediment samples from these gold mines, however, showed that they exceeded screening standards for concentrations of all chemicals “of concern”: arsenic, lead, zinc, copper, and cadmium.

IN ITS report, Tetra Tech had acknowledged that a detailed rehabilitation and full implementation of engineering technology may not yet be feasible. But, it said, there are selected controls that need to be implemented especially for sites posing high physical risks to the surrounding population. These include the structural enhancement of tailings ponds and dikes to prevent collapse and contain waste rock in order to reduce acid mine drainage.

The report also highlighted the importance of understanding the source, pathway, and exposure scenario of potential contaminants. Tetra Tech recommended as well a full-blown site and ecological risk assessment after a few years of operation for a mine. This could help detect potential environmental damage early, it said.

In the meantime, MGB’s latest attempts to assess which idle mines need most attention have yielded only four mines “for further evaluation” so far: those of Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corporation (ACMDC)/Uldom Pit in Cebu, Hinatuan Mining Corp. (HMC) Manicani in Eastern Samar, North Davao Mining Corp. (NDMC) in Davao, and the Española mine in Palawan.

MGB’s newest assessment strategy requires each regional office to use these impact categories to gauge the level of risks presented at abandoned mines within its area: acid mine drainage hazard, safety hazard, impact to vegetation, erosional hazard, visual intrusion, and heritage value. MGB would then compile and evaluate each region’s assessment results to come up with a new list of mines to rehabilitate.

Choosing which mine to rehabilitate and how to go about that task have proved difficult and daunting, the MGB says. For instance, explains MESD engineer Marcial Mateo, each plan must be site specific, depending on the type of mine. And this takes a great deal of time, he says.

As for idle mines that now have lease applicants, Mateo admits that there is no way of knowing if those who have expressed interest in the mines would eventually assume responsibility over the environmental liabilities they would inherit. This is why, he says, the government is now considering the inclusion of rehabilitation and/or environmental liabilities as conditionality in lease applications for abandoned mines.

Mateo says that another option is to require the investor to pay the government for whatever expenses it would incur for the rehabilitation and remediation of a mine site. But whether or not there is an application to reopen an abandoned mine, he says, an in-depth evaluation of the current condition of the mines must be done.

Interestingly, for all the dangers posed by the abandoned mines, people interviewed by Tetra Tech for its report had called for their reopening. After all, these had provided employment for residents of the host communities when they were in operation, as well as for those in nearby areas. Mining companies were seen as stable sources of income compared to farming and fishing, which were among the more common means of livelihood of towns that also had mining sites.

Now if only someone would clean up the mess afterward.

In this issue

• Dig this
• A mess of mines
• The Canadian quandary
• Of tribal leaders and dealers
• Thailand’s continuing crisis
• Mike Arroyo claim stalls land reform in Negros
• Every 6 hours, pirates seize a Filipino seaman
• House opposition seeks cap on Gloria’s spending habits

IT MAY be just an unhappy coincidence that TVI’s activities in Canatuan began in 1997, the same year a mine-tailings accident occurred at the Marcopper Mining Corporation site in Boac, Marinduque. The mishap, which involved Vancouver-based Placer Dome, Inc, is still considered the worst in Philippine mining history. TVI’s projects do not seem to be challengers for that dishonor, but the company has nevertheless encountered one controversy after another in Canatuan, some 800 kms south of Manila.

To start with, TVI has been accused with dealing with a “bogus” set of Subanon, the indigenous tribe that had been awarded a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim (CADC) covering over six million hectares in Siocon in 1997. According to Subanon elders Timuay Fernando Mudai and Timuay Boy Anoy, that TVI executed agreements with the Siocon Subanon Association Inc. (SSAI), after a controversial election in November 2001 when new leaders were elected to the SSAI board.

The SSAI’s original leader, Timuay Jose Anoy, says that the Subanon who participated in the poll lived outside the ancestral domain area and were thus not eligible to seek election. As a compromise, the government set up a Council of Elders from both the former SSAI leaders and the new faction that supported TVI.

A report by the Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links (PIPlinks) and the international charity group Christian Aid describes this council as having no traditional status in Subanon society. But Glenn Noble of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) says the government gave TVI the go-signal even with two warring Subanon factions because “the quarrel or fight between the IPs (indigenous people) is between them.”

TVI itself argues that the Subanon’s free, prior and informed consent was not required by law because the mineral production sharing agreement (MPSA) it bought in 1997 for its Canatuan project preceded the Indigenous People’s Rights Act. Still, says TVI public affairs director Rocky Dimaculangan, TVI entered into a memorandum of understanding and a memorandum of agreement with the Subanon “as a gesture of affirmative action.”

Critical UN report

TVI, however, was apparently unable to win all of the Subanon to its side. By 2003, Rodolfo Stavenhagen, former United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of Indigenous People, wrote in a report following his visit to the Philippines: “It has been reported that the company’s presence on their ancestral land has caused militarization and acts of violence, by the company’s security guards and other armed units, such as rape, the establishment of checkpoints and the maintenance of blockades, barring of food and essential commodities, blocking health services and religious practices, desecration of the sacred sites and breaking the ritual requirements of the sacred ground. They further allege that the presence of TVI Pacific has led to the destruction of hunting grounds and herbal medicine areas, the disruption of education and divisions between indigenous peoples.”

For sure, the presence of armed guards has done little to assuage the wariness of locals toward the company. At one point, it was even the fatigue-suited members of TVI’s Special Civilian Armed Auxiliary (SCAA) who had tried to persuade the 93 or so families residing in the mining area to leave. According to PIPlinks, SCAA personnel offered Josie Gonzaga, a long-time Sitio Canatuan resident, P175,000 to relocate. This was upped to P250,000, but she still turned it down. Then she was invited to a meeting and asked to become an SSAI member, accept the money, and sign a waiver.

Checkpoint access

“If we did not agree to sign then we would not be granted a green card, which entitles us to pass TVI’s checkpoints.” Gonzaga told PIPlinks. But she refused to give in, which earned her an eviction notice. PIPlinks says at least one home was later bulldozed, along with farm lots near the TVI project area.

TVI says though that those who lost their homes were invited to live in a new community being built by the company, and that they “are being offered opportunities to benefit from TVI’s social and community development programs.”

Dimaculangan also says that the SCAA was formed in 2002 in reaction to an ambush on two company vehicles that had left several TVI employees dead. (The company says 15 were killed but the government count was 13.) The ambush was attributed to a “lost command” of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), but the rebel group had denied this.

In any case, Dimaculangan says that there is a Council of Elders resolution stating the need for protection, and that TVI has a memorandum of agreement with the military. “SCAA provides security not only (for) the company, but (for) the community,” he says.

Much of the grumbling over TVI in Canatuan, however, eventually reached the civil-society community in Canada. By 2005, the Canadian Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Development (SCFAIT) was prompted to investigate TVI’s Canatuan activities. It recommended that the Canadian government conduct a probe on the impact of TVI’s Canatuan project and that Ottawa refrain from promoting the firm pending the outcome of the investigation.

“Of course our government never did that,” says MiningWatch Canada’s Catherine Coumans. Instead, the Canadian government conducted roundtable discussions, with civil society and the mining industry representatives coming together and talking about the issue. Yet another set of recommendations emerged from those discussions — and that is how far they have gotten.

In this issue

• Dig this
• A mess of mines
• The Canadian quandary
• Of tribal leaders and dealers
• Thailand’s continuing crisis
• Mike Arroyo claim stalls land reform in Negros
• Every 6 hours, pirates seize a Filipino seaman
• House opposition seeks cap on Gloria’s spending habits

UNDAUNTED by the resounding defeat recently of the fourth impeachment complaint against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the opposition at the House of Representatives is embarking on another crusade that does not seem to stand a chance of winning, at least under the present administration.

The opposition now seeks to control the president’s wide discretion in disbursing public money, including the lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), derisively called ‘pork barrel,’ and other unspent amounts in the annual budget program.

Deputy minority leader Teofisto L. Guingona III is spearheading this move in a bid to prevent a repeat of the alleged diversion of P728 million meant for fertilizer procurement into the administration’s campaign kitty in 2004.

The suspected diversion is now the subject of a Senate probe in which former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn ‘Joc-joc’ Bolante has been forced into a “starring” role.

According to Guingona, what is now being called the “P728-million fertilizer fund scam” allegedly engineered by Bolante could have been prevented had there been safeguards in the budget process.

“Our studies have shown that current budget procedures that were designed to give flexibility in allocating funds to priority programs were abused, thereby enabling what is now allegedly plunder,” says Guingona.

“Because the national budget is so complex and the amount involved is so large, most Filipinos would rather not have anything to do with it,” he adds. “And yet, if we are to improve our lives as a nation, we first need to take control of our national resources before we can deploy them for our development.”

“Hence, it is imperative that we need to return the budget to the people,” Guingona asserts. “To do that, we need to reform the budget process.”

As a first step, Guingona has filed House Bill No. 5580 titled “Impoundment Control Act of 2008.” It defines impoundment as the president’s refusal to spend or delay the release of duly appropriated funds.

The measure requires the chief executive to secure congressional approval in withholding or completely rescinding the release of any item in the budget program. Moreover, the proposed law requires the president to identify the purpose for which the withheld amount will be used.

Under the bill, the president would need to justify to Congress that the amount he or she wants to withhold or withdraw could no longer serve the purpose for which it was originally intended or appropriated, or that the authorized project/program had already been terminated/completed.

Revilla initiative

Interestingly, as early as July 3, 2007, a similar bill was already filed in the Senate by Sen. Ramon ‘Bong’ Revilla Jr., a known Arroyo ally. His version even appears to have more teeth than Guingona’s because it has a penal clause.

In the Revilla bill, deferring, withholding, or cancellation of an authorized allocation in the General Appropriations Act would be punished by a fine of up to P100,000 and “temporary special disqualification.”

The penal provision, however, neither defines “temporary special disqualification” nor specifies the officials covered. As well, the bill is not clear on whether or not the president should be among the accountable officials.

In lieu of a penal provision, Guingona’s bill prohibits deferred or rescinded funds to be used for any purpose other than what Congress has authorized through legislation.

Still, Guingona himself candidly admits that controlling the president’s hands in disbursing funds is an almost impossible thing to do given the current composition of Congress and Malacañang’s influence on its members.

University of the Philippines Professor Leonor Magtolis Briones, convenor of the civil society groups Social Watch and Alternative Budget Initiative, fully agrees with the lawmaker from Bukidnon.

“No sitting president will welcome such reforms because the situation favors the executive…and you have to think in terms of 2010,” Briones points out. “Remember, the Bolante thing happened during the election proper. No sitting president and no executive department will give up what it enjoys.”

First step, long journey

But why mount a movement with just faint promise of success under the present circumstances?

“This is the first step of a journey… a journey (intended to) make everybody understand how important it is that our budget law should be reformed and how it can affect their lives,” Guingona says.

“Everything I said seeks to control the wide discretion of the president,” he explains. “Do you think the present president will allow her powers, her discretion to be curtailed? Well, to be realistic, it’s just like the impeachment.”

He reasons, though, “This is not an issue between the opposition and the administration, but this is about reforms for the country, not only for the administration.”

The congressman is counting on heavy pressure from the media, civil society groups, business organizations and the public at large for Congress and Malacañang to agree to reforms in the way taxpayers’ money is spent.

This and other budget reform measures will be presented to the candidates in the 2010 elections and get them to commit to the needed reforms. “After all is said and done, how can anybody in conscience say no to reforms?” Guingona asks.

Abuse of power

Yet, even without the Revilla initiative at the Senate, Guingona’s proposal is not really a new idea. Similar bills had been filed in previous congresses, but none prospered.

Guingona says his bill was inspired by the U.S. Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which was triggered by serious doubts that then President Richard Nixon was abusing his power to put on hold the release of funds for programs he did not like.

The U.S. law created the congressional budget office and established procedures for developing an annual budget plan. It put in place safeguards to prevent the executive department from using the budget as a political tool.

Revilla’s bill, for instance, notes that in 1992, only P270.63 billion of the P334.55 billion budget was released, leaving P63.92 billion or roughly 20 percent impounded or unreleased. The implication? The impounded amount could have been used to dispense political favors.

The innocent-looking entry in the annual budget called “overall savings” makes Guingona suspicious, especially when the previous year’s budget is re-enacted and the administration generates substantial savings that can be used for political purposes.

Savings or war chest?

In his analysis of the annual budget programs, Guingona points out that savings in 2005 soared to 17.36 percent, from 0.94 percent in the previous year. The government operated in 2004 on a re-enacted budget of 2003.

The situation was almost the same in 2007 when savings reached 16.71 percent, from 0.20 percent in 2006 when the 2005 budget was re-enacted.

This time, Guingona notes a disturbing P106.11-billion “overall savings” in the 2009 budget. The amount, he says, can find its way into the administration’s “war chest” for the 2010 elections.

The money came from unreleased or unused allocations for agencies and lumped into “savings,” which can then be transferred to favored offices. It is in this process where “abuse of savings” comes in, Guingona says.

There are many reasons why appropriated funds are not released. One is an agency’s non-compliance with the documentary requirements of the Department of Budget and Management. Politics is another, such as what happens when the presidency withholds “pork barrel” allocations for congressional districts of legislators perceived to be “unfriendly” to the powers that be.

“Mukhang sinasadya yata ang re-enacted budget (It looks like the re-enacted budget is no accident),” remarks Guingona. “Kapag tinamad ang Congress, kapag nag-order ang presidente, re-enact na lang ang budget (When Congress gets lazy and the president issues an order, the budget is re-enacted just like that).”

With a re-enacted budget, he explains, the president gets what he calls for emphasis as “beef barrel,” as compared to the lawmakers’ “pork barrel.”

This is where, he insists, the impoundment control measure is necessary to stop the executive from transferring appropriated funds from one agency to another through a circuitous process. And this, he says, is what happened with the controversial fertilizer funds in 2004.

Too many lump sums

Benjamin Diokno, who served as budget secretary to former Presidents Corazon Aquino and Joseph Estrada, says the practice of overstating revenues also gives the president the excuse to generate savings from certain agencies while augmenting the budget of other departments.

This effectively weakens the power of Congress over the purse because the president can choose which projects to fund and which not to fund, oftentimes setting aside the priorities of legislators.

Diokno, an economics professor at the University of the Philippines, warns of possible abuses in the disbursement of many lump sum items or Special Purpose Funds in the proposed 2009 budget.

Guingona himself notes that a whopping 87 percent of the annual budget goes to lump sum appropriations, largely for debt payments. That leaves only 13 percent for Congress to appropriate, or to play around with. Worse, more than half or 60 percent of the 13 percent is in Special Purpose Funds where proposed spending is not itemized, thus making it difficult to track.

Lump sums list

Like Guingona and Diokno, former Senate president Franklin M. Drilon believes that limiting the president’s power to withhold fund releases is an effective option to ensure accountability, transparency, and fairness in the budget process. In a forum on the budget last September, Drilon identified the following as some of the lump-sum items in the 2009 budget that the president or concerned Cabinet secretaries can spend at their discretion:

• P3.34 billion – Malusog na Simula, Yaman ng Bansa Nutrition Program (National Nutrition Council)
• P1.792 billion – Malusog na Simula, Yaman ng Bansa Feeding Program (Department of Social Welfare and Development)
• P5 billion – Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (DSWD)
• P1 billion – National Targeting System (DSWD)
• P500 million – Core shelter program (DSWD)
• P1 billion – Kalayaan Barangay Fund (SPF)
• P1 billion – Kilos-Asenso Fund (SPF)
• P2 billion – Calamity Fund (SPF-Office of the President)
• P800 million – Contingent Fund (SPF- Office of the President)
• P9.36 billion – Ginintuang Masaganang Ani for Rice (Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Fund)

The Ginintuang Masaganang Ani or GMA banner programs of the Department of Agriculture under the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA) in particular has become a favorite reference of Guingona and other advocates of budget reform to illustrate abuse of the power of the purse.

In its 2007 report, the Commission on Audit (CoA) found irregularities in the GMA programs GMA Rice and Corn, GMA High Value Commercial Crops, and GMA Livestock, including:

• P237.61-million loss or waste of government resources (which could have been prevented if risks were managed through timely devised guidelines, proper coordination with stakeholders, bidding on procurements, acquisition of equipment and farm implements suited to needs and timely delivered, compliance with MOAs and relevant regulations, and timely project progress monitoring and evaluations
• P781.29-million unrealized benefits because projects were either delayed or not carried out due to weak enforcement of conditions to complete the project
• P1.31-billion lack of audit trail due to failure of fund recipients to submit liquidation reports, incomplete or absence of master list of farmer beneficiaries, non-compliance with regulations, MOAs and standard procedures, and NGOs not found in stated addresses/local offices/residents
• 6.5 to 36 percent of sampled farmer beneficiaries in three regions (Regions 3, 4 and 7) did not receive the subsidized rice seeds/fertilizers from DA and denied the signatures appearing in the master list, while in Region 8, 624 kilos or 46 percent of 1, 345 kilos of rice/seeds for distribution were not accounted for.

Guingona says the anomalies that attended the GMA programs and other favored projects of the administration with lump sum appropriations can be repeated in 2009 and 2010 if the public will not keep a tight watch of how the monies are spent.

Joc-joc’s way

The way he describes it, the lack of such a monitor made it easy for P728 million of government money to be allegedly distributed to administration allies for Arroyo’s 2004 presidential campaign against popular action film star Fernando Poe Jr.

Guingona says Bolante appeared to have an automated teller machine (ATM) card with a “bank” known as the Department of Budget and Management, which enabled the DA undersecretary to withdraw more than a billion pesos in just one week.

On Feb. 2, 2004, the DA requested the release of P728 million from the GMA program fund. Bolante got the money the next day, through Special Allotment Release Order (Saro) No. E-04-00164 for the purchase of farm inputs.

On Feb. 11, DBM issued another Saro, No. E-04-00294 for P1.102 billion requested on Feb. 9 to cover the implementation of the GMA Rice and Corn program.

The initial release of P728 million, Guingona says, came from savings of P970 million in the DA funds in 2003 for the GMA programs and were carried over to the 2004 budget. The bigger release of P1.102 billion came from the regular appropriation of P2.86 billion.

That explains the bigger allocation of P2.86 billion for the DA in 2004 compared to the re-enacted 2003 outlay of P2.56 billion. The GMA programs fall under the SPF/lump sum amount under the AFMA.

Guingona also points out that Bolante actually got P1.83 billion from the DBM in one week, just days before the start of the campaign period for the May 2004 presidential elections.

“The tragedy here is, Joc-joc Bolante did nothing illegal,” Guingona admits. “But is it moral? Is it ethical that P1.83 billion is released in one week during an election period? Something definitely smells fishy here.”

Guingona, though, clarifies that Bolante is finding himself in deep trouble for alleged manipulations in the distribution of the funds intended for farmers. There were substitution of beneficiaries, “ghost” deliveries of farm inputs, and other questionable ways to disburse the money.

In the 2009 budget, the DA allocation, including AFMA, totals P39.7 billion, representing a growth of 56.3 percent from the 2008 outlay of P25.4 billion. The DA was the third of five portfolio agencies with the highest budget increase in 2009, next to DSWD (up by 114.7 percent, from P.4.89 billion in 2008 to P10.5 billion in 2009) and Department of Finance (70.23 percent more, from P8.13 billion to P13.84 billion).

In presenting the P1.4 trillion budget proposal for 2009 to the Senate in September, Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. enumerated the DA priorities in support of the administration’s thrust for food sufficiency as: fertilizer, irrigation and other infrastructure, extension and education, loans, dyers and other post-harvest facilities, and seeds. These were the same items involved in the 2004 fertilizer fund scam and other GMA programs under the DA.

The 2007 COA report on the DA notes: “The good intention of the GMA Rice Program to reduce poverty incidence and attain national food security is tainted with weaknesses and irregularities in its implementation, reducing the effectiveness of the program.”

Advocates of budget reforms are saying that the only way to ensure judicious spending of the people’s money is for Congress to clip the president’s power to manipulate the budget process.

But the big question is: Will the president be willing to give up such a privilege that keeps her in power?

In this issue

• Dig this
• A mess of mines
• The Canadian quandary
• Of tribal leaders and dealers
• Thailand’s continuing crisis
• Mike Arroyo claim stalls land reform in Negros
• Every 6 hours, pirates seize a Filipino seaman
• House opposition seeks cap on Gloria’s spending habits

BANGKOK — “Political conditions.” That was what the Thai Airways lady at the Chiang Mai airport scribbled as the reason for the cancellation of our Nov. 27 flight from Bangkok, crossing out the word “weather” stamped on our e-ticket. Minutes earlier, an AirAsia staffer had done a similar thing for our other cancelled flight, writing “political disturbance at Bangkok airport” on our tickets.

Indeed, what do you really call the blockade of the international and domestic airports in Bangkok for about a week?

At one point, the takeover by anti-government protesters of the two airports left more than 350,000 tourists stranded in the country, while returning Thais could not come home. Media reports said more than 500 Filipinos, here for different reasons (from attending civil society meetings to doing viajera-buying ahead of Christmas) needed to be ferried home. Set for mid-December, the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was postponed to March.

Finally on Dec. 2, the Constitutional Court handed down a verdict on a pending case for electoral offenses and ordered the dissolution of three parties in the ruling coalition. These included the dominant People’s Power Party (PPP), which the airports’ temporary occupants had been trying to chase out of office since that party won the December 2007 polls.

The verdict was apparently all the protesters needed to leave the air terminals, which resumed normal operations last Friday. Yet even though there has been relative calm in the Thai capital since, few believe that the “political disturbance” that led to the airport debacle has ended.

“It is not solved at all. We all know that it’s just the start,” says Noi, a language instructor, pointing out that there had been no dialogue or discussion between the opposing sides since the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) began stepping up its protests in May this year.

“I don’t like (Premier) Somchai (Wongsawat), but I agree that governments should come and go through the right way, through elections, “ adds Noi. “The problem is that few people really believe what he says, and most people just want this to end.”

Deep schisms exposed

For sure, “political conditions” may continue to bedevil this prosperous Southeast Asian nation that is already starting to feel the impact of the global financial crisis. As it is, deep schisms — which many are calling “class tensions” — have now been laid out for all to see in a society unused to dealing with open conflict.

PAD, after all, is led by the Bangkok-based, conservative, middle-class elite, while the government it has been so against is identified with the much-maligned former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, whose power base is the rural poor.

The latter — clad in red to distinguish themselves from PAD supporters who wear yellow — have been coming out in force in recent months in a desperate attempt to keep their government of choice in power. Increasingly, however, they have only witnessed how electoral processes and mandates, as well as the role of the courts and respect for the law, have been either ignored or seemingly twisted to serve particular interests.

PAD leaders, for one, say that elections have not worked for Thailand and instead allowed politicians like Thaksin, who has since been convicted of corruption and is now in exile, to be voted into power by majority voters from rural areas who “did not know any better” and were duped by his populist policies in health and livelihood.

This is why PAD protesters have been working to oust the elected government since the pro-Thaksin PPP came to power in the December poll — the first held after the September 2006 military coup that overthrew Thaksin.

“The PAD (has) suggested reducing the number of elected MPs and a recipe to do away with the principle of ‘one person one vote’,” observes Chulalongkorn University professor Giles Ungpakorn. “So the root cause of the problem is the conservative elite’s contempt for the poor and their contempt for democracy.”

These groups and the elite they represent, he continues, could not stand seeing how a political force like Thaksin was shrewdly and successfully courting votes from the poor — which for decades had been left without political power — through schemes such as a universal health scheme and village loans.

Pokpong Lawansiri of the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (Forum-Asia), meanwhile, allows that Thaksin’s administration was known for human rights violations in the war against drugs and in Thailand’s Muslim-dominated south. “Nevertheless,” Pokpong argues, “if the majority of the population voted for the said party or candidates, we should respect the voice of the majority.”

Likewise, Pokpong says, PAD’s threats to go back to the streets if it does not like the next leader “disregard the votes of the majority.”

Somchai is the second Thai premier to be shown the door in three months. Just last September, the Constitutional Court had ruled that Somchai’s predecessor, Samak Sundaravej, had violated a constitutional ban on earning extra income through his cooking shows. PAD, which had held protests calling for Samak’s resignation at an old Bangkok bridge earlier this year and at the Government House in August, had at first rejoiced upon hearing of the court decision on Samak. But it girded for battle once more after the PPP chose Somchai, who happened to be Thaksin’s brother-in-law, as prime minister.

A political numbers game

As of last Saturday, the Democrat Party — one of whose MPs is a PAD leader — said it had cobbled together the numbers to have its 44-year-old Oxford-educated leader and MP Abhisit Vejjajiva voted prime minister. Party leaders said they had the necessary majority numbers from its members, smaller political parties and defectors from the disbanded PPP (who explained that they were switching sides for the country) and wanted Parliament to convene Dec. 8 to proceed with the vote. On Monday, it submitted a request to the House, which needs royal clearance to convene the chamber.

Many former PPP members have also been busy trying to regroup under a new party called Puea Thai in a bid to keep the majority they had led in Parliament. But the military and some influential figures are said to be bent on thwarting such efforts — and preventing yet another round of PAD protests — by getting politicians to juggle the political balance of forces in the House.

In the meantime, Pokpong notes that while the courts have ruled on electoral matters, the leaders of PAD have not so much as been taken to equal task for their protest actions. There has been a lot of talk about prosecuting leaders for damages, but this remains to be seen.

“Many are asking why the militant (PAD) and alliance leaders and supporters have not been brought to justice for grossly unlawful acts,” Pokpong says. “The (PAD) is responsible for the siege of Thailand’s Government House and airports and those are serious breach of laws.”

Media reports estimate financial damage to the international airport alone to reach some 350 billion baht ($10 billion). At the Government House, where public property was destroyed, repair costs could be around 22 billion baht ($628.5 million). Damage to the tourism industry, a major dollar-earner for Thailand, will be deep and painful going into the new year.

At the very least, the airport closure — some called it an “invasion” and others a tamer “sit-in” — was nothing less than strange, going by forms of protests around the world. Airports do not usually close during peacetime and they are among the first places that states instinctively secure during emergencies.

Even airport officials have been at a loss on how to assess what happened.

ThaiAirAsia chief executive Tassapon Bijleveld has been quoted by local media as saying, “It is unclear to me whether the airport demonstrations can be classified as a riot or civil unrest, which may or may not entitle us to sue them.”

As for the residents of this throbbing, modern Asian city, an office employee here echoes the sentiments of many of them in saying, “I’m not on either side, but one does not have to be in order to say the truth, that this has been so embarrassing for Thailand.”

Unfortunately, PAD members seem oblivious to the implications of what they have started and promise to keep on doing if their demands are not satisfied. Still swept up in the euphoria of what to her was a victory, one PAD protester said recently: “Oh yes, I’m willing to go back and do it all over again, because I’m doing this for the good of my country.”

In this issue

• Dig this
• A mess of mines
• The Canadian quandary
• Of tribal leaders and dealers
• Thailand’s continuing crisis
• Mike Arroyo claim stalls land reform in Negros
• Every 6 hours, pirates seize a Filipino seaman
• House opposition seeks cap on Gloria’s spending habits

THIS month alone, one Filipino shipping crewmember has been taken hostage every six hours somewhere in the world, according to an official running count by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) that is now being updated by the day, if not by the hour.

The unpleasant statistics — the worst ever recorded in a month — underscore not just the surge in piracy off the largely lawless East African coast. The numbers also underpin how feeble Philippine government measures are in keeping Filipino seafarers from harm’s way.

Over the last two years, pirates have seized 39 shipping vessels, including eight in the last two months alone. Aboard smaller vessels but now better armed, they are now staging daytime assaults on bigger ships, where they used to attack only in the dead of night before.

The Philippines is among the world’s top sources of shipping crews, accounting for about a fifth of the 1.2 million international ship workers. In 2007, a total of 266,553 Filipinos left home to work in international passenger ships and cargo vessels under employment contracts lasting about a year.

The shipping industry has long been considered one of the most dangerous in the world. Recently, however, piracy has risen up in the list of menaces faced by seamen.

Indeed, the number of Filipino seafarers being seized by sea pirates who hijack ships and vessels for ransom in different parts of the world has climbed to 70 in just three weeks up to November 18, bringing the cumulative total for the year 2008 to 213.

134 Pinoys in custody

Of the Filipinos taken hostage, 134 are still being held by pirates, the highest number ever according to the DFA. The rest, or 79 seafarers, had been freed, yet typically only after the payment of ransom by their shipping companies.

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB), the private sea-piracy watchdog, reveals that the number of reported hijackings on the high seas has spiked to 83 cases in the third quarter this year compared to the same period in 2007. There were 53 cases recorded in the first quarter of 2008, and 63 in the second quarter.

The IMB also estimates that a total of 581 shipping crewmembers were held hostage all over the world in the first nine months of the year.

As a consequence, the number of Filipino seamen taken captive by armed men in Africa rose multiple-fold — from less than two per month on average from January to June, to almost 40 a month from July to September.

The sharp rise apparently startled Manila to start considering measures to address the problem. In August, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo proposed to disallow the deployment of Filipino seamen in ships and vessels passing through waters where sea piracy is rife.

The Philippines, after all, routinely imposes both temporary and long-term bans on sending Filipino workers to war-torn countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Lebanon.

Romulo’s proposal was forwarded to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), the government agency that regulates the lucrative recruitment industry. But the agency’s board of trustees rejected the proposal, following opposition from ship operators and manning companies that argued that a ban could kill a significant segment of the recruitment industry.

Some leaders of seafarers’ unions similarly nixed the proposal, saying it would deprive Filipino seamen of employment opportunities.

POEA tries a new tack

In 2003, a PCIJ investigative report examined how the government and manning companies were trying to persuade Filipino seafarers to give up some of their employment benefits in order to remain “competitive.”

This time around, the POEA adopted measures that in its view would help protect the rights and welfare of Filipino sailors in ships sailing through dangerous waters.

Last October 7, the POEA’s board of trustees issued Resolution No. 4 that doubled the daily compensation and death and illness benefits of Filipino crewmembers whenever their ships pass through the so-called “high-risk” area in the Gulf of Aden. The resolution was to take effect immediately.

The POEA also revised the standard employment contract for Filipino seafarers and gave them the option to get off any ship that plans to sail into waters beset by piracy and hijackings.

If one goes by the numbers so far since, however, the new POEA policies are hardly keeping Filipino seafarers from falling into the hands of African pirates.

This month, or just weeks after the new policies were put in place, the average number of Filipino seamen being seized by pirates each month has almost doubled to 70 — and counting — from the previous figure posted between July and September 2008.

The PCIJ tried to contact the POEA by fax and by phone call, but as of press time, there was still no response from the agency.

In the meantime, Migrante International, the leftist support group for overseas Filipino workers, says it is not surprised that the policy has been rendered effete.

Reverse results

John Leonard Monterona, the Saudi Arabia-based Middle East coordinator for Migrante, says the POEA’s decision to double the pay and benefits of seafarers at risk yielded an unwanted result: encourage more Filipino seamen to sail on in waters prone to pirate attacks.

“The double hazard pay scheme is simply saying ‘Welcome aboard, Filipino seafarers; let all of you be kidnapped but what we need are your precious remittances,’” Monterona laments in an emailed statement.

Seafarers, who are better paid than other overseas Filipino workers, send higher than average remittances. In 2007, seafarers sent home $2.2 billion, about 15 percent of the $14.5-billion total remittances from Filipino workers overseas. That is comparatively huge since they make up only three percent of the 8.7 million Filipinos working and living abroad.

Too, their remittances continue to be sent home to the Philippines even when the seamen are being held captive. Under the POEA’s standard employment contracts for Filipino seamen, ship operators and manning companies automatically send to the seaman’s families a big portion of his monthly salary.

The doubling of hazard pay and benefits has elicited mixed reactions from Filipino seamen.

Kobe Romulo, for one, says he will volunteer for duty in a ship sailing through dangerous waters and risk being hostaged by pirates in return for higher pay and benefits.

“I’ll go ahead despite the risks,” says the 28-year-old deck hand from Davao who is training to be a third officer. “It’s difficult to find good paying jobs these days.”

Close encounter

Although he is single, Romulo says he is supporting two siblings through school. He also says he has had a close encounter with Somali pirates when a chemical tanker where he worked as an able-bodied seaman was given a chase by a pirate ship somewhere in the Gulf of Aden in August this year. But he reasons, “These things really depend on chance and fortune. There’s nothing you can really do about them.”

Yet there are also those like Carlos Campos, 51, a fitter, who says not even the doubling or tripling of pay or benefits will make him work in a ship passing through the pirate-infested waters of the Gulf of Aden.

“I’m retiring in the next few years. I can’t risk anything happening to me,” says Campos, who has put three children through college, built a house for his family, his parents, and his wife’s parents after working for three decades welding and repairing ship parts at sea.

Besides, he adds, he can now choose which ship company to work for because a surge in hiring for Filipino crewmembers in the last few years meant there’s more demand than can be met by the supply of qualified seamen.

“I recently signed up for a cargo vessel that won’t be passing through Somalian waters,” Campos says, adding that average seaman’s wages have also gone up in recent years because of the rise in demand.

Neither practical nor desirable

But he admits he is in the minority when it comes to seafarers who are steering clear of ships headed for dangerous waters. Most Filipino seamen, says Campos, would be attracted by the doubling of pay and benefits, and volunteer for duty in a ship sailing through the Gulf of Aden.

Still, both Campos and Romulo agree that a policy banning deployment of Filipino seamen in ships passing through the Gulf of Aden is neither practical nor desirable. “It will just encourage Filipino seamen to seek work abroad without passing through POEA,” says Campos.

They are also pinning their hopes for improved security — not from the Philippine government but from a US-led coalition of 10 countries, including Russia, that is working to secure sea lanes beset by pirates off the Eastern African coast.

“The coalition should deploy more naval patrols to ward off the pirate ships, which usually pretend to be fishing boats, and secure the international ships and vessels passing through the Gulf of Aden,” says Campos. He adds that intensified naval patrols by Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia also helped cut piracy in the Malacca Straits, which was a piracy hot spot until a few years ago.

In this issue

• Dig this
• A mess of mines
• The Canadian quandary
• Of tribal leaders and dealers
• Thailand’s continuing crisis
• Mike Arroyo claim stalls land reform in Negros
• Every 6 hours, pirates seize a Filipino seaman
• House opposition seeks cap on Gloria’s spending habits

THE annual revenues it promises to corporations easily come to millions of dollars each. For governments, the figures can reach billions. The materials it extracts also end up in a wide range of products for all sorts of uses — from fuel to infrastructure components, to luxury goods, including the gaudiest gems — and it is capable of providing employment for thousands of people per site for decades. Indeed, if only it weren’t intrinsically destructive, mining would be a thorough winner of an industry.

But there’s the rub: Mining materials like gold, iron ore, copper, and even the lowly coal necessitates the clearing of vast tracts of land, disturbing habitats of local fauna, and boring through and often slicing up mountains. Unfortunately, too, poisonous substances are sometimes brought up along with the coveted materials, which are also semi-processed on site with harmful chemicals. Its critics thus say that even barring accidents, the mining industry is literally a dirty business, if not a disastrous one (except, perhaps, in terms of profit).

Mining, however, seems to be a necessary evil. After all, although rappers and Paris Hilton can keep breathing even if they had less bling on their bodies, a wide variety of metals are still needed for the construction of buildings, homes, and vehicles, among other things. Even PCs and cell phones and whatever latest gadget we have decided that we can no longer do without have more than one mined component. For sure, activists have begun arguing that there are enough metals (and gems) above ground that can be recycled, hence reducing the need to mine for these. Yet aside from the recent attempts of some unscrupulous individuals to smuggle tons of Philippine coins to China and South Korea (where they presumably would be melted and their copper and nickel content extracted for something else), there are hardly any signs of anyone heeding that call.

In the meantime, proponents of mining insist its drawbacks can be reduced and that companies and governments are now starting to apply the lessons learned from previous disasters. Here in the Philippines, environment officials say earlier mishaps, especially the 1996 Marcopper mining disaster in Marinduque, have led to more stringent implementing rules and regulations for the controversial 1995 Mining Act that provides a slew of generous incentives for foreign investors. Already, a couple of cyanide spills at the copper, zinc, and gold mining site of an Australian firm in Albay in 2006 saw the government closing the company’s operations there for more than a year and slapping it with hefty fines. Obviously, though, the better scenario would have been no spills at all.

It’s such a rich and complex subject matter that i Report will be devoting the next two months to it. We start by revisiting the towns that bore the brunt of Marcopper’s mining activities in Marinduque. We will also look at older mining communities, as well as scrutinize new ventures, both big and small. We may even go overseas to see how some of the Canadian and Australian mining companies that operate here behave elsewhere.

There is much to explore, so dig in.

In this issue:

• Gloria’s inglorious record: Biggest debtor, least popular
• The economy
  Misplaced government spending worsens woes
• ‘Dubious’ oil price hikes hurt the poorest most
• Romulo L. Neri: Can golf, realpolitik work at SSS?
• Perspectives
  That bumpy ride called democracy
• First person: August 21, 1983
  A million came for Ninoy as reporters battled with censors
• On the 25th year of the Aquino assassination
  Noynoy, Nene, Joker remember Ninoy
• They all remember Ninoy, too
• Public Eye
  Amid the fighting, the clan rules in Maguindanao
• Young guns, young terror

BANGKOK — Anti-government protesters make up a sea of yellow and the other side, red. Look familiar? To Filipinos, yes: Yellow, after all, is the Pinoy color of protest, bringing back the angry-turned-euphoric days of the civilian-led revolt against the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in February 1986. Red, meanwhile, was favored by the Marcos loyalists.

The political divisions in the Thai political drama are quite different from 1986 Philippines, not least because the anti-government groups actually want to go back to a time of fewer elective positions in government and argue that democracy has not worked in this country. But several other scenes unfolding here trigger memory buttons for Filipinos, who consider themselves veterans in the culture of protest.

In late August, the yellow crowds in the Thai capital, wanting to chase the elected prime minister and government out of power, occupied and blocked symbols of state power after months of rallies that had begun in May. As emotions ran high, so did talk of “people power,” a phrase coined from the Philippines’ Edsa Revolution (version 1.0), as well as “direct participation in democracy,” and “the people’s voice.”

Over and over, newspapers, radio and television here use two words: prachathipathai (“democracy” in Thai) and prachachon (“the people”). Democracy and the people — they were mantras of Filipinos, too.

Many of the same questions arise: Who, exactly, are “the people”? Where lies the line between mob power and genuine popular revolt? Does democracy play out when elected leaders elected are booted out by protesters, who in effect overturn this nationwide mandate? At what point does unpopularity merit the ouster of a leader, instead of waiting for the next poll?

For sure Thailand comes from a very different perspective and history, and simplistic comparisons do not work, even with a neighboring nation that has undergone similar experiences. Yet the current political turmoil in Bangkok can prompt even a non-Filipino to revisit the Philippines’ own journey to democracy, one that has been long, bumpy, and remains unfinished. It also makes one try to recall the universal democratic values that people — whatever culture or region they come from — aspire for.

Word power play

It’s confusing enough that here in the Thai capital, both the pros and the antis claim to be democratic and to represent the views of the people of this country of 66 million.

Consider the names of the groups involved in this political battle: “People Power Party” (PPP), which cobbled together a government after the December 2007 polls and nominated Samak Sundaravej as prime minister. “People’s Alliance for Democracy” (PAD) is the group that has been leading the protests against Samak, who it accuses of being a mere proxy of ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra (now in exile in Britain and seeking political asylum there to escape corruption charges).

Last Sept. 9, the Constitutional Court ruled that Samak had to leave the prime ministership because he had violated a constitutional bar on private employment and conflict-of-interest provisions when he continued to host cooking shows while in office. But PAD may not be satisfied until PPP itself lets go of the reins of government.

“New politics” is even what PAD leaders call their proposal to have 70 percent of Parliament — the fulcrum of popular representation in just about any system — appointed instead of elected. To political analysts, this is the most worrisome aspect of the protests cloaked in the garb of popular action: PAD protesters are presenting a formula for regression of democracy on the argument that voters (mainly out of Bangkok and supportive of Thaksin’s populist moves) did not know any better and were deceived into backing the current government.

At the same time, many of those drawn to the protest rallies appear to have joined in not because of what they are for, but because of what they are against: the not-exactly-charming or progressive Samak.

The crisis has brought out the deep fissures in Thai society, one that many now acknowledge openly. “It seems everybody is divided,” says an environmental activist. “Really, it’s very individual. Even within one organization, there are different views. Even families are divided.”

At one point, many just wanted the tensions to end — whichever way, whatever the implications — if only to get the protesters off the streets. Yet even now that Samak’s stint in office is over, it’s unclear what will happen next. Says Van, who works at a local administrative court: “I don’t think the crisis is finished. It is just toned down, but it will be back again, I believe.”

Some Thais say they are uncomfortable feeling like there are only two sides to choose from — the thinking that “if you’re not with me, then you’re against me” — when they don’t identify with the political motives on either side.

They are also concerned over adding more cracks in a society that has heretofore put value on a united exterior, as well as fears of violence, fears of unknown political territory ahead, apart from the usual concerns about the impact on the economy. Indeed, these are far from normal days in a society where conflict in daily life is usually dealt with more subtly, without overflowing clearly into the open.

A messy democracy

For Filipinos, of course, noise is part of politics and of our democracy. It is a democracy that has been messy as well, and one sometimes wonders why a poor country would cherish it so much when it has yet to deliver on most of its promises.

Some would say the Philippines is a battle-hardened nation — one that, like many other countries, decided at several junctures in its history that foreign rule and local despots were unacceptable, and in more recent decades, that civilian rule is to be held supreme at all costs. Yes, Filipinos blocked Edsa in February 1986 to protect the coup leaders at Camp Aguinaldo. But the citizens’ move was part of a popular revolt, long brewing before the military decided to switch sides, to make sure Marcos’s rule ended. In the late ‘80s and again in recent years, Filipinos also made it clear that the military should stay in the barracks and not toy with the idea that it can have a role in the political arena.

And yet the messiness of democratic processes has meant that elections may put in power rogues and the corrupt, and do not, on their own, translate into good governance, or tear down undemocratic structures like oligarchies or reduce the gap between rich and poor.

These truths hit home even more clearly when one has been living overseas for some years.

A question asked of me from time to time is: The Philippines is known for its capable workers, has some great minds in international diplomatic, political, and activist circles, so why is your country like that? “Like that” could mean many things at any one point, a situation where corruption charges against people close to the president remain unresolved, or one where the economy is bad shape.

Then again, we are among the world’s largest exporters of human labor due largely to our perpetually sorry economy. Pinoys sing in probably most of the world’s hotels and lounges (Thailand included), work as seafarers in most of the world’s ships, clean houses across the globe, and send home record remittances each year. Our continued push for outmigration is far larger and steadier than many of our Philippines’ neighbors, and there is no indication of that changing anytime soon.

The challenge remains very much how to make our system of democracy, warts and all, deliver the economic goods.

Dealing with political tensions

What Pinoy-style democracy has consistently provided is space. In general, any group feeling strongly about a cause is able to go to the streets to voice out either its support or protest. Violence has occurred in the past, but this has not deterred many from speaking out. To some, photos and reports of groups shouting slogans and carrying insult-and-humor-filled banners, are just gulo, evidence of disorder. But the rowdiness, the open anger mixed with fiesta make for normal political culture in the Philippines — until the next rally to release frustrations and bring pressure on the government.

By contrast, Thailand is not exactly a society that is used to rallies left and right or easily finds ways to let its stresses out (even if it is the land of great massage places). Media reports and academic papers often describe it as a hierarchical society, having social structures that for a long time have seen the voice of Bangkok-based elite and middle class, determine political fates. It is this same bias, analysts say, that drive groups like PAD to argue that the rural voters who brought to power people like Thaksin and Samak did not know any better when they chose these figures, and that this now has to corrected through means outside the normal democratic electoral process. A key PAD leader, publisher and businessman Sondhi Limthongkul, was quoted as saying in the International Herald Tribune that Thai elections lead to “a very shabby democracy.”

In a commentary in the English-language The Nation newspaper, journalist Pravit Rojanaphruk asked why in recent weeks “the views of ordinary people — especially the rural poor — have been conspicuously absent from media reports.” He also asked, “What has happened to the opinions of the 70 percent of the population who are not members of the middle class and elite?”

Some Thais say it is not easy to see beyond the personalities involved and note that in a democratic process, the means to remove elected leaders is the ballot. Van also echoes others in saying, “My fear is that though Samak may be gone, some others can be chased out the same way. I can’t really give you any solution because it has been like this for ages — people, power, and money. We can’t escape.”

So far, the usual possible scripts have not played out, including the military stepping in. In recent weeks, many have also expressed the hope that the King would intervene as he has in the past, and bring some order and stability back.

The green activist says the present situation could be a threshold of sorts, offering a chance for Thai society to try to find a way to deal with these stresses. He points to the fact that non-violence has so far been stated and affirmed as a norm and standard by all sides, especially after a violent confrontation on Sept. 2 that resulted in one death.

The activist says he would not like to see another coup in a country that has already had 18 since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932. “Maybe, maybe there is a little opening here for some kind of change,” he says. “We’ve never had real, deep change. All the changes have been just at the surface. Other countries have had revolutions, colonization, and other pressures that result in a change of structure. For us, it’s been the same for a long time.”

He adds that the crisis is not really about Samak or Thaksin, or the corruption or electoral charges against them. “This is about class,” says the activist, noting the conclusion by groups like PAD that the rural vote for populist leaders carries less weight than that of the Bangkok-based elite. “(And) we haven’t really had a way to deal with such tensions.”

The road ahead

Every crisis is also an opportunity, it is said. In the Philippines, economic ruin, corruption, and human-rights violations simmered for decades, leading to conflicts of different sorts and degrees until the middle class and the poorer sections of society, in cities or rural areas, reached a critical point of agreement about the kind of country they wanted, after kicking out the dictator. Today, 22 years after the return of democratic rule, we Filipinos are still asking how far we have come in this journey called democracy.

As for the Thais, some are hoping that greater space is created, the better for wider acceptance of the idea of one person having an equal political voice (including in votes) as the other. This, after all, is a core norm that is among the strongest pillars of democratic rule anywhere and works for both the powerful and the voiceless alike.

It’s now September, a month in which both the Philippines and Thailand experienced a crucial event in their respective histories. Sept. 11, 1972 marked Marcos’s declaration of martial law. In Thailand, the second anniversary of the latest military coup against ex-prime minister Thaksin is today, Sept. 16.

Again, two different events in two very different contexts happening in these Southeast Asian neighbors. But in their own ways, these are our reminders that democracy — or attempts at it — makes for a rocky, circuitous process, and sometimes, a very painful one.

Johanna Son is a Filipino journalist based in Bangkok and is director of Inter Press Service Asia-Pacific.

THE DAY HE DIED. With apparent rush, soldiers of the Aviation Security Command (Avsecom) load the body of opposition leader Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino Jr. onto a van at the tarmac of the Manila International Airport on August 21, 1983. This, one of 12 sequence-shot photos, was taken by Times Journal photographer Recto Mercene. Even as a soldier (2nd from right) pointed a gun at him, Mercene said he just let his camera roll. “It was as if they were just loading a log or a mannequin.” Journalists were restricted to the airport Visitor’s Lounge, even as Aquino was led off the plane straight to the tarmac where he was shot dead.

WE DIDN’T even hear the shots. Someone had to tell us about the gunshots outside, and then I saw Doña Aurora Aquino stand up and start praying. Roberto Coloma of Agence France Presse, meanwhile, quickly grabbed the nearest phone and began breaking the news to the world.

A few minutes later, foreign TV correspondent Ken Kashiwahara managed to slip into the airport VIP lounge, which was by then packed with people. As he slumped into a couch, he cried, ”Ninoy was shot! Ninoy was shot!”

An anguished cry leaped from the lips of lawyer Joker Arroyo, followed by sobs from other people inside the room. Doña Aurora nearly fainted and former Senator Lorenzo Tañada, who was holding on to his cane, offered to assist her to a couch in one corner of the room. There she sat, quiet at first, before she buried her face on Senator Tañada’s shoulders, saying, “I just couldn’t believe that my son was killed because we need him.”

To think that when I learned what my assignment was for that day 25 years ago, I had considered it just an ordinary one, having perhaps been used to covering the political opposition that hardly mattered in our paper. Surprisingly, however, our city editor, Rolando Estabillo, told me this was one coverage I shouldn’t miss. True enough, it would later not only lead mediamen like me to question what it was we were doing, it would also change the course of the entire nation.

I was then working for The Times Journal, one of only three national broadsheets at the time. But it was also known as an administration mouthpiece, being owned by President Ferdinand Marcos’s brother-in-law, Benjamin ‘Kokoy’ Romualdez.

Yellow ribbons

My assignment that Sunday, August 21, 1983, was to cover the arrival of opposition leader Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino Jr. After three years in exile in the United States, Ninoy — Marcos’s acknowledged political archrival — was returning home on board a China Airlines flight from Taipei. From our office near Port Area in Manila, I noticed that there were yellow ribbons tied onto the trees along Roxas Boulevard; my driver to hummed “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” all the way to the airport.

Security was tight at the Manila International Airport near Pasay City. All of us who were covering Ninoy’s arrival were asked by Aviation Security Command (Avsecom) officers to proceed to the VIP Lounge, at the far end of the airport’s left-wing side. Only the regular airport newsmen were allowed to enter the arrival area. But our airport reporter Recto Mercene told me later that even there, they had no view of the tarmac.

At the lounge, I found Ninoy’s mother, Doña Aurora, praying the rosary as she sat beside Tañada and Arroyo, who was Ninoy’s legal counsel. Then opposition Assemblyman Salvador ‘Doy’ Laurel was also there. He looked restless, and complained to one of the security guards that we “all looked like prisoners here.”

In a way, we were, because the security officer assigned to the lounge would not let us leave the room. At one point he told us that Ninoy’s plane had already left Taipei, but offered no other details. He also promised we would be allowed to meet the charismatic opposition leader once his plane landed, but until then we had to stay put.

Sprawled on tarmac

That’s where Ken Kashiwahara had found all of us. The husband of Ninoy’s younger sister, Lupita, Kashiwahara had accompanied the 50-year-old former senator on the trip home. He said that shortly after their plane landed at one p.m., several armed men came and escorted Ninoy out of the aircraft. Kashiwahara said he and the rest of the passengers were not allowed to disembark. “A few seconds later,” he told us, “we heard at least two shots followed by another shot.”

Kashiwahara said he peeked through a plane window and saw two men sprawled on the ground. He said he was sure one of them was Ninoy.

But the authorities were not issuing any statements even after an hour had passed. Recto Mercene also told me that he and other airport beat reporters were not allowed to go to the tarmac, while the photographers were threatened that their cameras would be confiscated if they insisted on taking photos.

We decided to follow Doy Laurel, who rushed outside the arrival area, which was now teeming with people. Many of them had gone to the airport after hearing the news about shots being fired, and that Ninoy could be the man who lay dead on the tarmac.

There had also been people who had gone there earlier to welcome Ninoy. Those who lined the road leading to the airport reportedly came from as far as Northern Luzon and Mindanao. Several of them brandished placards and wore pendants and shirts with the slogan “Kay Ninoy pa rin kami (We remain with Ninoy).” They all wore yellow armbands.

For once the loquacious Doy Laurel was at a loss for words. He finally said, “Ninoy has fulfilled his promise to arrive, but something happened inside and that there was shooting.”

He refused to say that Ninoy was killed, and merely appealed to the restive crowd to calm down and pray for Ninoy’s safety. He then directed the people, who had grown in number to about 20,000, to proceed to the Redemptorist Church in Baclaran.

Laurel, Tañada, and former senators Eva Estrada Kalaw and Francisco ‘Soc’ Rodrigo also brought the distraught Doña Aurora to the Baclaran church, where they staged a prayer rally. I had to return to the office because the editors were readying a story conference, and Recto and I had to brief them on what had happened. I noticed that our editors were frantic and angry over what had happened to Ninoy. I then got a call from reporter Cecilio Arillo, who had just arrived at Camp Crame. He, too, was complaining that they could not get confirmation of Ninoy’s assassination from the Constabulary.

On Palace’s cue

Later I saw the helplessness in the faces of our editors as they waited for instructions from the Palace on how to handle the story. The deadline for our provincial edition came and went, but there we were, still waiting for the edited version of our reports.

It was Arillo’s byline that appeared the next day (Aug. 22) in the Journal’s banner story “Aquino shot dead.” The story quoted then Metrocom chief Maj. Gen. Prospero Olivas as saying that Ninoy was shot dead by an “unidentified gunman,” who, in turn, was killed by the Avsecom.

Olivas also said, “Aquino was being escorted to an Avsecom van when the gunman dressed in the blue uniform of an airport maintenance man, slipped through the security cordon and shot him from behind with a cal.357 Smith and Wesson Magnum revolver.”

The government had warned Aquino about possible plots on his life, Olivas said. ”We asked him to defer his trip because of this reported assassination attempt,” he added. “We did not give him travel papers precisely to discourage him at this time.”

My report, “’I can’t believe it,’ says Ninoy’s ma’,” and Recto Mercene’s “Newsmen hear shots as ex-solon debarks” also hit the front page. Yet while our Malacañang reporter Vicente Tanedo’s report “Marcos condemns Aquino killers” was on Page 1 as well, it merited only one column.

Bloodstained suit

Ninoy’s body was finally brought to the Aquino residence at 25 Times St. in Quezon City shortly before 6 a.m., August 22. As suggested by his sister, the film director Lupita Kashiwahara, he lay in state in his bloodstained white leisure suit. Thousands upon thousands filed past his coffin — a simple, open wooden casket draped with a Filipino flag — in eerie silence.

Ninoy’s widow Corazon and their five children had yet to arrive from the United States. Lupita said her brother had intentionally left his family in Newton, Massachusetts, because of the threats to his life. “He was so concerned with his children more than anything else,” she told reporters.

I was pleasantly surprised that on Tuesday — the day Ninoy’s family was scheduled to land in Manila — the Journal’s banner story was my report on the opposition’s call for a non-violent political struggle. The press conference had been held late Monday afternoon, and I thought that since it was coming in late, it would be relegated to a less prominent spot in the paper.

At the presscon, Laurel, speaking as president of the United Nationalist Democratic Organization (Unido), had challenged the government to work for “genuine national reconciliation founded on justice which Aquino had advocated.” The opposition also criticized the lack of security for Ninoy.

By Wednesday (Aug. 24), however, the Journal was back to giving Malacañang stories priority on the front page. That day’s banner story: “Foreign media urged: Be fair.”

President Marcos had appealed to the foreign media to be more fair and objective in reporting on the Aquino assassination. The strongman was quoted as saying, “For the best interests of all concerned, this attitude of objectivity will better inform the people and tone down any partisan passion.”

Above the banner was an “umbrella” on how the Washington Times said in a Monday editorial that jumping to conclusions over the killing of Ninoy Aquino “would be as stupid as the crime itself.”

Surge in protests

Malacañang was reacting to the sudden surge in street protests, with tens of thousands of people paying homage to the slain opposition leader. It even saw it fit to black out the news in the major dailies about the protests and the throngs visiting the dead Ninoy.

It took Ang Pahayagang Malaya, a hard-hitting fortnightly alternative paper, to come out with the headline “Nation mourns.” The lead was, “Benigno S. Aquino Jr. now belongs to the people.” The story went on to detail how thousands of mourners “came from all over the Philippines to claim him as their own, these solemn, grieving, dejected Filipinos, at the Aquino residence…where the body of the martyred former senator lies in state.”

The Journal put the story of the arrival of Ninoy’s family in the inside pages on August 25, or two days after Cory and her children landed in Manila. But it did recount how Cory Aquino refused the VIP service offered to her and the kids. The story noted that like the other passengers, the Aquinos lined up to have their passports checked.

The widow did not utter a word. Only the youngest Aquino daughter Kris, then 12 and the only one in her family dressed in white, spoke up, telling a reporter that her mother could not answer questions because she was tired from the long trip.

Sharing the page with that story was my piece on the transfer of Ninoy’s remains from the family home to the Sto. Domingo Church in Quezon City. I reported that the Aquino family would lead the three-kilometer march that would start at eight a.m. that day.

A million mourners

Close to 800,000 to a million people joined what would later be called the “people’s march,” but that story was downplayed in the mainstream media. So, too, were those on the tens of thousands who lined up the streets when Ninoy’s remains were later brought to his hometown in Concepcion, Tarlac, the mourners shouting, clapping their hands, and waving yellow ribbons as they watched the caravan of some 300 cars.

Instead, most of the crony papers like the Journal focused on the five-man commission of jurists that Marcos had formed to investigate the assassination, and the president’s offer of a P500,000 reward for the arrest of the perpetrators of the crime.

Subsequent main stories included those on the alleged plans of subversives to attack military and police installations, as well as on the report of Maj. Gen. Olivas — which no less than Marcos announced — confirming the identity of the alleged assailant, Rolando Galman y Dawang, 33, a native of Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija, but who later transferred residence to San Miguel, Bulacan.

The president said that he was prompted to make the announcement himself “because of speculations in media and other sectors of the country about Aquino’s killer.”

Crony, ‘mosquito’ press

Marcos was apparently irritated that while his political operators had effectively gagged the mainstream media on the protests, the so-called “mosquito press” and the independent radio commentators were having a field day reporting the public perception that the strongman had a hand in the killing, if not being the “mastermind” himself.

It was not that we in the mainstream media were sitting on our hands. Just like other enterprising journalists who covered the wake, for instance, we got the reactions of the political opposition and prepared feature articles on how people from all walks of life were paying tribute to the slain opposition leader. But those stories never saw print.

The people saw through the stories in the crony press. They knew the reports about planned attacks by subversives were part of the Palace’s desperate efforts to sow fear, to dissuade angry mourners from attending spontaneous protest actions that were organized initially by leftist groups, but were attracting even members of the elite.

By then the “parachutists” — the foreign journalists based in Hong Kong and as far as the United States and Europe — had already descended on Manila, covering the spontaneous demonstrations. They reported to the rest of the world that the public outcry was no longer just justice for Ninoy Aquino, but also for the resignation of President Marcos and the restoration of democracy. For us in the local press, it hurt that people were now relying on the foreign media for news about our own country.

We also became targets of the public’s outrage. As my team and I prepared to return to Manila after covering the convoy to Tarlac, a group of young men blocked our service vehicle. The men began hitting our Land Cruiser, demanding that we report the “real news,” that we all get out of the vehicle. I told the driver and photographer Johnny Villena to just stay inside, while I did the “negotiating.” Luckily, the youths allowed us to leave after I asked them to give us as chance to do our work as newsmen. But as we drove away, we could hear them shout, “Sa totoo lang (Be on the side of truth)!”

If only we could. On the eve of Ninoy’s burial, we confronted the desk about the local press being seen as villains and pawns of the powers-that-be. We wanted to believe the desk was sympathetic to our plight, but we knew our paper was getting instructions from the Palace and that the Presidential News Desk was screening all our articles and deciding which could come out the next day.

History turns a page

When we heard that the funeral procession would be a protest march from the church to the Manila Memorial Park, we from the local press agreed to cover the event as a group, in part because we knew we had become unpopular with the people and may well be lynched by a furious mob. But no harm came upon us and we were proud to have been part of the millions upon millions of rain-drenched Filipinos who walked the entire 26-kilometer route to pay respect to Ninoy Aquino.

Malaya publisher-editor Jose Burgos estimated that more than seven million people escorted Ninoy, whose coffin was placed on an elevated platform on a 10-wheel truck bedecked with yellow chrysanthemums and sampaguitas, to his final resting place. The day after the funeral, Malaya carried a piece by Burgos in which he observed, “Unity, yes, the stricken sea of humanity which paid homage to Aquino was obviously capable of demonstrating but yesterday, it was a sense of unity that could no longer be suppressed but rather had to be poured out defiantly, albeit peacefully.”

Malaya columnist Antonio Ma. Nieva also wrote, “I know, as surely as I believe in fate, that history turned a page that day in a way that inexorably altered the lives of 42 million Filipinos. The day is huge and vast, and awesome in a very real sense, and I try to etch it in mind: The vast throng jammed, in some areas 50 abreast, along a 10-kilometer stretch at the heart of Manila, the sober faces, the unspoken grief.”

My paper mentioned the funeral as well, but only briefly. It was in the lead paragraph of a Page 1 story that was spread across three columns. The piece, with the headline “Lightning kills 1, injures 9 at Luneta,” began: “An overseas job applicant was killed and nine others were injured yesterday when a lightning bolt struck an acacia tree where people were perched to get a better view of the funeral cortege of former Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr.” It was accompanied by a photo — not of the funeral march, but of the victims of the freak accident.

It was a “scoop” by the Times Journal and its sister tabloid The People’s Journal. Nobody else bothered to report the incident.

The piece was a tragedy in itself. And after 25 years, all I can tell people is that I did not write it.

Joel C. Paredes comes from a family of journalists and had worked with various newspapers in the Philippines and abroad. He had also served as president of the Brotherhood of Media Unions in the Philippines and co-founder of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines.

In this issue:

• Gloria’s inglorious record: Biggest debtor, least popular
• The economy
  Misplaced government spending worsens woes
• ‘Dubious’ oil price hikes hurt the poorest most
• Romulo L. Neri: Can golf, realpolitik work at SSS?
• Perspectives
  That bumpy ride called democracy
• First person: August 21, 1983
  A million came for Ninoy as reporters battled with censors
• On the 25th year of the Aquino assassination
  Noynoy, Nene, Joker remember Ninoy
• They all remember Ninoy, too
• Public Eye
  Amid the fighting, the clan rules in Maguindanao
• Young guns, young terror

GLORIA MACAPAGAL-Arroyo will go down in Philippine history as the president with an inglorious track record, at least, on two counts.

First, her popularity rating has hit the pits of negative 38 percent, the worst scored by a president since the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Second, in just six years in office or until 2007, Arroyo has incurred a record P3.54 trillion in domestic and foreign debt, more than twice the combined total borrowings of the three presidents before her. This is the aggregate amount of debts Arroyo incurred based on official foreign exchange rates, according to the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), a nongovernment anti-debt advocacy group.

When Marcos assumed the presidency in 1965, the Philippines had foreign debt of less than $1 billion. He fell from power in 1986 and left a total debt stock of $28 billion, or at the exchange rate of P20.38 at the time, just P570.6 billion.

In a span of 14 years, the Aquino, Ramos, and Estrada administrations contracted a total of P1.51 trillion in debts, P2.03 trillion less than what Arroyo has borrowed in her first six years in office.

Under Arroyo, the FDC estimates that based on 2007 interest and principal payments, taxpayers carry a debt servicing burden of P1.2 million every minute. Today, the FDC adds, every Filipino man, woman, and child owes creditors P42,819.42.

But when Arroyo delivered her eighth state of the nation address before the joint session of the 14th Congress last July 28, she made much of the fact that the current global economic slowdown triggering runaway surges in oil and food prices “did not catch us helpless and unprepared.”

Arroyo harped about the strongest economic growth the Philippines posted in the last 30 years anchored on the 7.3-percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate in 2007 characterized by low inflation, a strong peso, and creation of a million new jobs. These, she said, were the results of the tough choices she made, and which she now claims are shielding the country from the worst effects of the global crisis.

The economic growth, Arroyo said, had almost made the dream of a balanced budget within reach. But more importantly, she emphasized, it enabled the government to “retir(e) debts in great amounts, reducing the drag on our country’s development.”

Prepaying debts

On the strength of such macroeconomic fundamentals, the Arroyo government has been resorting to prepaying some of the country’s foreign debts, including at least US$220 million of debts claimed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and US$72 million owed to the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

During the 12-month period ending March 2008, prepayments as recorded by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) totaled US$1.2 billion. Nearly the entire amount, or US$1.16 billion, were for obligations maturing beyond 2008.

As a consequence, the BSP noted in June the continued improvement of the country’s major external debt ratio in the first quarter of this year, indicating an improving capacity of the Philippines to service its maturing foreign obligations.

Total outstanding debt as a percentage of aggregate output (GNP), the BSP reported, declined to 32.4 percent, from 35 percent in 2007 and 40.8 percent in March 2007.

In terms of GDP, the external debt ratio also improved to 35.5 percent — from 38.1 percent in 2007 and 44.2 percent in March 2007.

By the end of March 2008, the Philippines’s outstanding external debt (as approved and/or registered by the BSP) stood at US$54.6 billion. The figure is slightly lower than the end-2007 level of US$54.9 billion, but is actually higher than the US$54 billion recorded a year ago as of end-March 2007.

What has caused the debt stock to decline by only US$327 million, the BSP explained, are the foreign exchange revaluation adjustments as a result of the continued weakening of the U.S. dollar against the Japanese yen and the euro.

By the close of the first quarter of 2008, the adjustments amounted to US$2.4 billion, almost negating the impact of large net principal payments of US$2.8 billion. During this period, prepayments totaled US$322 million, US$298 million of which pertained to maturing debts in 2009 and beyond.

Year-on-year though, the foreign exchange revaluation adjustments reached US$3.4 billion to surpass net principal payments of US$2.8 billion, causing the debt stock to rise by US$565 million.

Notwithstanding the higher debt stock, the BSP said that no immediate impact on the country’s external debt payments is expected since most of the affected accounts are Japanese yen-denominated with very long repayment terms ranging from 20 to 40 years.

A ‘Ponzi’ game?

Such improvements in the debt situation, however, do not hide the fact that since 2001 when Arroyo came to power, the country’s outstanding external debt has actually risen by US$3.7 billion, even reaching a high of US$57.4 billion in 2003.

While it declined to US$53.4 billion in 2006, attributed to the weakening of the U.S. dollar and Arroyo’s prepayment strategy, the external debt again increased by US$1.5 billion last year.

The Arroyo government has justified its practice of prepaying maturing debts, saying this saves the country several millions of dollars in interest payments. Yet, whatever slight decrease in the debt stock had been registered has just easily been offset by government’s continued heavy borrowings.

Economists have even likened Arroyo’s aggressive borrowing to repay maturing principals of old debts to a Ponzi game (commonly known as pyramiding) that can only be sustained as long as interest rates for new loans are lower than the previous ones.

No less than the ADB has pointed out the unsustainability of this core debt management strategy in a study in 2006.

What is worse, the FDC says, is that Arroyo’s borrowings have always exceeded the budget deficits.

In the FDC’s view, Arroyo has achieved two major fiscal records: Of four Philippine presidents since the 1986 EDSA people power revolt, she is the most aggressive borrower, and also the largest payer, of debts. From 2001 to 2007, the FDC reports that the Arroyo government had paid out P3.8 trillion to foreign and domestic lenders. This is more than double the combined debt service payments of P1.8 trillion of her three predecessors from 1986 to 2000.

And contrary to what her government would want the public to believe, the FDC warns that the debt problem is not yet over.

The P42,819.42 debt burden on every Filipino citizen does not include the national government’s contingent liabilities that by end-2007 has amounted to P484 billion, according to the FDC.

These are potential debts as a consequence of government’s expressed or implied commitments to directly assume the liability of other entities should these fail to honor their obligations. Much of these contingent liabilities are foreign-currency denominated amounting to P419 billion.

Abuse of power?

Economists like Dr. Benjamin Diokno have been questioning the legal basis for prepaying some national debts which are not yet due and demandable. The practice, says the former budget secretary under the Aquino and Estrada administration, undermines the power of the purse of Congress.

“The executive department has probably abused the automaticity of debt service payment by prepaying public debt without congressional imprimatur, and creating indebtedness — which translates into money to be paid out of the Treasury in the future — without prior approval of Congress,” says Diokno.

“Under certain conditions, it is also poor economics,” he argues. “For example, the government incurred huge losses when it prepaid foreign loans when the peso exchange rate was P50 to the U.S. dollar say two years ago, when we could pay now at P41 to the U.S. dollar.”

Debt servicing has remained a top priority of the Arroyo government; it has consistently and fiercely upheld automatic appropriation for debt service — money that critics say should have been spent on the urgent needs of the people instead of the government resorting to giving meager doleouts.

Freed funds from the debt service, according to FDC, should be enough to cover whatever revenue shortfalls would result from the reformed value-added tax (R-VAT) on oil and electricity.

In defense of VAT?

In her eighth SONA, Arroyo defended the continued imposition of VAT on petroleum products and power. Lifting this, she said, would turn back the fiscal reforms in place and would be tantamount to “strip(ping) our people of the means to ride out the world food and energy crisis.”

But Lidy Nacpil, FDC vice president, dismisses Arroyo’s claim as “deceptive.”

“It deflects from one of the fundamental reasons why we are so vulnerable to the economic crisis, which is the country’s enduring debt burden,” she says, adding that the amount of debt service eclipses all other expenditures, including all the subsidy programs of the government.

“A moratorium alone on interest payments is more than enough to cover for the expected revenues for ‘General Sales Tax, Turnover, or VAT,’ pegged at P204.9 billion,” points out Nacpil.

This year, payments allotted for the principal amortization of debts actually total P328.3 billion, and for interest payments, P269.8 billion.

In the first four months of 2008, P306.7 billion — P119 billion in interest payments and P187.7 billion in principal payments — have already been spent to service maturing debts.

There would have been less expenditure on debt service had Arroyo not vetoed the special provision in the P1.227-trillion General Appropriations Act of 2008 prohibiting interest payments amounting to P25.9 billion (out of the total P269.8 billion) for what Congress considered to be “tainted, fraudulent and useless loans” pending their renegotiation or condonation.

It was the first time in a decade, and under Arroyo, that Congress had passed such special provision.

In her veto message after signing the three-months delayed 2008 budget in March, Arroyo evidently deemed the country’s credit rating in the global community more paramount, noting “with grave concern” the proposed congressional prohibition on interest payments.

“While Congress may have been impelled by the best of intentions this restriction is a clear encroachment of the constitutional guarantee on non-impairment of contracts,” she stressed.

Controversial deals

Not enrolled in the Congress list are the recent concessional loans from the Export-Import Bank of China for projects deemed illegitimate as these were contracted under allegedly unfair and onerous provisions, and attended by bribery and overpricing.

These consisted of the North Luzon Railways Project (NLRP), South Luzon Railways Project (SLRP), the already scrapped National Broadband Network (NBN) Project, and Cyber Education Project. Including the US$329-million NBN project, the Chinese loans amount to US$2.2 billion (or P91.1 billion).

Arroyo has maintained that the constitutionality of treating debt service as automatically appropriated is both established and unequivocal. “Servicing of public debt, whether foreign or domestic is automatically appropriated to ensure that the required amounts are available when they become due,” she said.

But while legislators expected the veto considering the continuing effectivity of automatic appropriation for debt service, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, chair of the House of Representatives committee on appropriations, laments how the Executive forefeited the “strong political endorsement from Congress for the renegotiation or condonation of odious and wasteful loans.”

Justifying the provision, Lagman says these loans are “in the improvident league of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) indebtedness which the government has fully paid despite the mothballing of the nuclear facility which was errantly supplied and installed from a tainted loan.”

The mothballed nuclear plant cost the country a total of P64.8 billion — P43.5 billion as principal amortization and P21.2 billion in interest payments — from 1986 up to last year.

‘Spending compression’

With the huge amounts flowing out of the country in debt-service payments, it is therefore no surprise that in the last seven years there has been what Diokno calls a spending compression — the underfunding of education, health, and public infrastructure.

Education, which should receive the highest budgetary allocation as mandated by the Constitution, only got more than a fourth (P164.1 billion) of what the Arroyo government automatically appropriated for debt service (P612.8 billion) in 2007. Spending on health was even more atrocious — at P18.4 billion, this corresponded to a measly three percent of what the government spent on debt payments.

For this year, the education budget was even lower at P138.2 billion, while health got only a meager increase at P19.8 billion.

Many are wont to blame Arroyo, an economist, for the problems besetting the economy, but Dr. Walden Bello, FDC president, would rather put things in perspective. Arroyo, she says, is “not the problem, but part of a bigger problem that extends far into the recent past.”

A noted critic of the current economic globalization model, Bello assigns collective responsibility on the last five administrations for the Philippines’s economic malfunctioning, noting the stark difference between the country’s economic growth record from 1990 to 2005 and the rest of Southeast Asia.

Within that period, the country’s GDP per capita growth averaged 1.6 per cent per annum, according to the latest Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

“(It’s) the worst in the region,” says Bello, pointing out how even all the so-called lower-tier ASEAN [Asssociation of Southeast Asian Nations] countries have significantly outstripped the Philippines — Vietnam (5.9 percent), Laos (3.8 percent), Cambodia (5.5 percent), and Myanmar (6.6 percent).

Bello rejects overpopulation, corruption, strong protectionist policies, and the issue of higher, non-competitive labor wages as explanations advanced by some analysts for the country’s continuing underdevelopment. Instead, he says the real culprit is the crisis of investment that begun in the mid-1980s, out of which the economy has never really recovered.

The ratio of investment to GDP plunged to 17 percent during that period, from nearly 30 percent in the early 1980s, and stayed at 20-22 percent in the early part of 2000. The impact of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund-imposed structural adjustment programs in the 1980s and 1990s — decades of international recession — marked by radical tariff liberalization coupled with monetary and fiscal tightening measures further led to the downward spiral of private investment.

But instead of picking up the investment slack, the fledgling government of then President Corazon Aquino succumbed to pressure from international creditors to a “model debtor strategy” in order for the country to continuously enjoy access to the global capital markets.

By virtue of Executive Order No. 292, Aquino affirmed “automatic appropriation” for foreign-debt service from the government budget every year as laid out in a Marcos decree, Presidential Decree 1177.

Aquino’s executive order institutionalized the said policy in the Revised Administrative Code of 1987, in particular, Section 26 (B) Book 6, allowing payments for both principal and interest on public debt to be automatically appropriated sans any comprehensive review to determine if these debts were legitimate.

Bello could only describe the huge financial resources — amounting to US$30 billion (eight to 10 percent of GDP) between 1986 and 1993 — that flowed out in debt service payments as a “catastrophic failure.” This, Bello says, made the country a “net exporter of capital to the North.”

From seven percent in 1980, interest payments as a percentage of total government expenditures rose to 28 percent in 1994. Under Arroyo, the share of interest payments has hardly changed, averaging 27 percent and registering highs of 31.1 percent in 2005 and 29.7 percent in 2006.

If payments for principal amortization, which are off-budget items, are included, debt-service payments actually have taken up almost 60 percent of national government expenditures in the last seven years.

Why paying off principal amortization of our debts does not form part of expenditures boggles the minds of anti-debt advocates. In Arroyo’s “perverted logic,” the FDC says, what she is telling the public is that the government has to refinance its old debts through more borrowings.

To the detriment of social spending, post-Marcos governments from Aquino to Arroyo have made debt servicing the topmost national economic priority, but which has taken a more vicious turn under the present dispensation.

Argentina’s ‘political courage’

Given such priority Arroyo has accorded to repaying the foreign debt amid an economy in crisis, Bello could only look to Argentina with marvel and envy for President Nestor Kirchner’s “courageous act of essentially defaulting on most of that country’s foreign debt and channeling the money saved to domestic investment.”

In his first year in office in 2003, Kirchner declared that Argentina was defaulting on its external debt (about $93 billion), regarded as the largest sovereign debt default in history. The government’s firm stance consigned the country to a pariah in the global financial markets but eventually paid off as it allowed the restructuring of 76 percent of the defaulted principal, offering approximately 30 cents per dollar face value of old debt to its creditors, said to be the largest sovereign restructuring in history.

In 2005, the Argentine president announced the cancellation of the country’s debt owed to the IMF by issuing a one-time payment of US$9.8 billion — an act that was meant to gain independence from the structural reform impositions of the lending institution.

As a result of these tough measures, Argentina was able to reduce its external debt burden to US$118 billion by September 2007. Moreover, the Latin American country of 41 million people has been enjoying a remarkable surge in real GDP growth — 8.8 percent in 2003, 9.0 percent in 2004, 9.2 percent in 2005, 8.5 percent in 2006, and 8.7 percent in 2007 — after the crippling recession years of the late 1990s up to 2002.

Of the Philippines’s policy of automatic debt appropriation coupled with weak revenue generation (particularly in customs collections) as a result of its adherence to trade liberalization measures as radical tariff reductions, Bello says: “It requires no special intelligence to realize that the massive amounts of money that have gone to paying our creditors to service our constantly mounting external debt was money that could not go to development.”

As such, anti-debt advocates like FDC have been clamoring for nothing less than the repeal of the automatic appropriation law. FDC has also been pushing for the creation of a congressional commission on debt audit that would investigate all public-sector debts and contingent liabilities, as well as review all government policies regarding borrowings and payments of debts.

The proposals have the support of legislators like Rep. Lagman, who led Congress in reducing the debt service several times and allocating the reduced amount to social development during the Aquino administration. The Bicolano congressman has also been filing bills to repeal or amend the automatic debt servicing provision as far back as the time of the Ramos administration.

As it had done on many occasions past, Congress failed to assert its power of the purse more forcefully with respect to the debt problem.

Confronted with a presidential veto the last time, anti-debt legislators have been consigned to hoping that the Executive will conduct a thorough audit of loans challenged as fraudulent, tainted, and useless before effecting payments for principal amortizations and interest payments.

Hence, with this “suffocating policy framework” in place, Bello can only concede: “As long as it remains this country’s basic paradigm, it is difficult to see the Philippines emerging from its long night of stagnation.”