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.

• 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
• They all remember Ninoy, too
• Public Eye: Amid the fighting, the clan rules in Maguindanao
• Young guns, young terror

• I want my MDGs
• Whither the MDGs?
• Toilet trouble
• An island slakes its thirst
• Naga City’s class act
• A school board makeover
• Making sure Mama makes it
• No cure for costly medicines?
  Draft law affirms patient rights of drug firms
• Arroyo fails COA audit: Fairness of President’s books ‘doubtful’
• Gloria’s spending spree: Travel, ‘donations’ top Palace expenses
• First Person
  Still reeling from military junta, Burma a mess after cyclone
• Perspective
  An absolute privilege

THIS early, some politicians are already gearing up for 2010. But there’s another year that’s worth keeping in mind: 2015, which is the deadline for countries that signed the Millennium Declaration to meet the Millennium Development Goals or MDGs.

We confess: our eyes glazed over and we had to resort to copious amounts of coffee while plowing through papers explaining the MDGs. The goals, after all, are broken down into 18 “quantifiable” targets “that are measured by 48 indicators,” as the United Nations put it. Read that as a list of statistics and paragraph upon paragraph of U.N.-speak.

But behind those statistics and numbing jargon are people — millions of them, in fact. Some are part of the government bodies and international development institutions that are supposed to work together to reach the MDGs. The bulk, however, is made up of the world’s poorest who are the target beneficiaries of the 15-year global effort. Considering that the Philippines is not only among the Millennium Declaration signatories, but also has about a third (although it feels more than that) of its population deemed poor, the MDGs should be on almost everyone’s radar in this country. Yet even those who were supposed to have been given the task to meet the specific targets seem clueless when asked about these, let alone the MDGs.

Last October, the Philippine government came out with the midterm progress report on the goals. Its assessment is that the country is doing fairly well in terms of meeting most of the targets, but it also admits there are some sore spots that need to be looked at and addressed. In the piece that opens i-Report’s latest series, which focuses on the MDGs, former National Treasurer Leonor Magtolis Briones asserts that the picture becomes even less rosy when the national figures are broken down to local levels.

The next few weeks will have us visiting places up and down the country (and maybe even your very own hometown) to see how local governments are faring with the MDGs. As you can already guess, the reports on their performances will not all be glowing. But we do hope to show you precisely why 2015 should be tattooed especially on politicians’ foreheads.

In this issue

• Make (beautiful) noise
• Soundtrack of a nation
• Video: The season of protest songs
• Music and the machines
• Living rhythms
• Conquered by videoke
• The business of making music
• Name that tune’s price
• Perspective
  Executive privilege versus public interest

SO we’re just a couple of weeks away from Holy Week, and music might not exactly be the regular topic of choice during Lent. Then again, we do have the tradition of the pasyon during cuaresma — which just goes to show that even a week without some kind of music would be hard for Pinoys, and even if not all of us are gifted with enough talent to carry a tune or play an instrument. Of course, many of us are contented just to listen, but the urge to belt out along with the professionals is simply too much for some to resist (alas).

Music is among those things that take us from cradle to grave, from the uyayi (lullaby) that helps send us to sleep as babies to the punebre (funeral march) that accompanies us to our final resting place. We remember significant moments in our lives with the help of a particular song, which is why there are curious scenes like people bursting out in tears upon hearing “Bikining Itim (Black Bikini)” (“I flunked the bar even though I had on my lucky underpants”) or suddenly looking gleeful when “Saan Ako Nagkamali” is played (“I have an announcement to make: I’m having a sex change!”). We listen to a song, and we identify with it. Sometimes we even start thinking it was written just for us, even though the songwriter is a total stranger living thousands of miles away.

This is not a completely Pinoy phenomenon. But there is something about the combination of words and melody that captivates Filipinos so, stirring emotions as rich and as thick as tsokolate eh. And we express ourselves through music as well; it is part of this nation’s being, and has become so identified with its people that it is almost illegal — almost unnatural — for a Pinoy not to be able to sing.

Thus as the strains of “Bayan Ko” are again heard on the streets, i Report turns an ear toward Himig Pinoy, which will run throughout March. We begin with the musings of singer/songwriter Noel Cabangon on contemporary Philippine music, and his views on Pinoy pop songs through the years.

Cabangon, who used to be with Buklod before going solo, says the essence of music is to “make people see things differently, to create images, see the world from a new perspective.” And while he says there are some types of music today that fail in this aspect, he believes the present political turmoil may yet result in a body of musical efforts that will encourage reflection and some soul-searching even long after the songs have been sung.

Money does make many of us mad, as in angry and insane. The lack of it especially drives us to both conditions (although having a surplus of lucre is not necessarily a guarantee that one would always be in control of one’s faculties). A human invention meant to contribute to societal order (by way of assigning a more definite value to goods or services), it has given rise to conflict and violence, even as it helped nations develop and individuals realize their dreams.

British novelist and journalist James Buchan was even moved to observe some 10 years ago, “As a means, I saw that money was almost absolute: it could realize every fantasy of creation or murder. It could even give life, in the sense that hundreds of millions of people would not be alive today — could not be fed — but for the pattern of world trade made possible by money.”

But he also noted, “(At) this moment of extreme abstraction, it was transforming once again: into an absolute end. Money was valued not for its power to fulfill wishes: rather it was a goal of all wishes. Money was enthroned as the god of our times.”

For the next couple of weeks or so, i Report will focus on the pieces of metal and paper that have been said to make the world go ‘round (and Pinoys to go overseas). We will look at some of the effects of having no money, which is the more familiar situation for many Filipinos, and how some people have tried to address or cope with those effects. There will also be stories on people’s attempts to make money, while an expert or two will try to explain things like why many of us feel so poor even as government officials insist that the economy is improving.

It’s time to admit we are mad over money, in more ways than one.

THE ESTRADA plunder trial is truly unprecedented. It is the first time that a president, the most powerful official of the land — and, ironically, in Joseph ‘Erap’ Estrada’s case, probably the most popular ever — to be accused of a heinous criminal act. Estrada was the first Philippine president ever to be impeached. He was also the first to be placed under detention (albeit in a golden cage of Tanay), the first to undergo a full-blown criminal prosecution and now, the first to be convicted.

For all his faults though, and despite the verdict of guilt, the Filipino people owe Estrada some debt of gratitude, if only because he allowed democratic institutions to function. Lesser mortals would probably have used the power of their office to completely evade the wheels of justice, or perhaps simply skipped town a la former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn ‘Joc Joc’ Bolante. But Estrada stayed, took the witness stand, and confronted his accusers.

While it is indeed the function of the judiciary to determine guilt or innocence, it is still up to the sovereign people to accept the legitimacy of any and all judicial pronouncements. Surely, Edsa I taught us that it is when people lose their belief in the judiciary that they exercise their sovereign prerogative, toppling even the strongest regimes. It is in this light that the following summary of evidence was prepared: to guide the people in the exercise of their sovereign prerogatives in passing their verdict on the legitimacy of the Erap decision. After all, the exercise of sovereignty should be based also on reason, not just on passion.

We start with energy, with our discussions including a look at the law that privatized the local power industry. But we take up the issue of energy with an eye mainly on its impact on the environment, and with the thinking that — to paraphrase the International Energy Agency (IEA) — since power has been part of many environmental problems, including climate change, then it must be part of the solution. Some of the stories we have lined up thus explore renewable energy resources like wind power, as well as what environmentalists like to describe as more “efficient” uses of energy by corporations and by individuals.

We then move on to scrutinize how else we have managed to muck up our environment (and consequently have jeopardized our health). Obviously it’s not going to be a very pretty picture that we will be presenting, but for all we know, it’s a picture that might actually prompt some people to start checking if they have ecologically questionable habits of their own, or have them consider joining groups or activities that promote green practices. In any case, we promise to have some good news, if only to show that while we may be our (and the environment’s) own poison, we are also our own antidote.

Here’s a bit of early good news: After years of acting as if its member countries were unaffected by climate change, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has finally begun talking about the issue and has put it among the top items in its agenda for its upcoming summit in Singapore in November.

Then again, we really don’t have to wait for those in power to act for change to happen (although that would obviously help a lot). Even physicist Amory B. Lovins, cofounder and chairperson of the U.S.-based environmental “think and do tank” Rocky Mountain Institute, says there is no dearth in the things an ordinary person can do to promote energy efficiency that can help nurse the earth back to health.

According to Newsweek, Lovins himself lives “in a house that can run on the same amount of energy as a conventional light bulb.” Ever the optimist, he also told the international newsmagazine recently, “I think we will look back in a few decades and wonder what all the oil fuss was about because…we will have made this product obsolete. Oil is going to become, and has already become, uncompetitive, even at low prices, before it becomes unavailable even at high prices. So we will leave it on the ground. It’s very good for holding up the ground, but it won’t be worth extracting.”

Yet this is a country where far too many people continue to view gender issues as trivial, leading to the flouting of laws and rules that are supposed to ensure the rights of women. There is still little sharing of tasks between the sexes at home, with women getting the most of the burden (but usually receiving no thank-you’s). And while women may have reached positions of power in the workplace, their paychecks have yet to match those of their male counterparts.

In the Bible, Eve came from Adam’s ribs. The Pinoy version of the creation of human beings, however, had Malakas and Maganda emerging at the same time from a bamboo split in half. We do seem to have higher regard for women than peoples of several other countries till now, but why does it seem like we have wound up quite far away from that nice arrangement that was so apparent with Malakas and Maganda?

And so beginning this week and throughout the rest of August, i Report will focus on the gender that appears to have gotten the short end of the bamboo stick. But just to show how far the Pinay can go despite any odds stacked against her, we open with a profile of a woman who has already lived a life so full, yet has still to call it quits.

We have also lined up a piece on the Filipina through the decades, a look at laws affecting women, and that certain time of the month and its impact on the environment. There will be discussions on dads and daughters, as well as on mothers and sons. We will talk about sex and what Pinoy men look for in their women. And the lone male in the PCIJ office will weigh in on how it is to be swimming in seas of estrogen at work and at home (he spawned pretty little beings who have no Y chromosomes).

This is not our version of “Oprah,” but it sure is going to be all about Eba.

When no one was looking, Koreans came by the planeload, and now they seem to be all over Metro Manila, Baguio, and God knows where else. Every year, there are always hundreds of Indian nationals applying for immigrant status while Chinese is the mother (and only) tongue of many of the stall owners at 168. There is a significant number of Nepalis enrolled in our universities, many of the collegiate basketball teams are starting to sound like a United Nations roster, and in Boracay, the population at the beachfront is usually predominantly Caucasian. It seems people from elsewhere find the Philippines attractive enough to visit — and some of them wind up staying put — even as Filipinos keep leaving this country in droves. If not for our high birth rate (we rank fourth in Southeast Asia, after Laos, East Timor, and Cambodia), it probably wouldn’t be long before we would begin looking like that Disneyland attraction, ‘It’s a Small World.’

This is nothing new. Even before Ferdinand Magellan sailed into the waters off Cebu and was turned into shish kebab by Lapu-Lapu, these islands were already among the usual landing spots of traders from other lands. Unlike Magellan, they were welcomed by the natives and were treated to the precursor of our now well-known hospitality. In fact, some of them must have felt so at home they decided to establish roots here. Or, perhaps just like British writer James Hamilton-Paterson, they were just curious to see how it was to live in such a “strange and wacky place.”

Of course, we haven’t been always nice to newcomers. (Magellan’s organ failure by way of a very sharp weapon thrust through his insides was just one example of what can happen when we turn nasty.) Then again, neither have we been nice at all times to people whose forefathers most probably set foot before ours on what would later be part of Philippine soil.

For the month of July, i Report looks at the aliens in our midst, including those who have been around for generations. Some of them have actually ceased to be strangers, really, but others are still painfully so. Yet while the reports may well be a reintroduction to this country’s past and present outsiders, they may also end up taking the Pinoys among our readers on a journey within.

In an essay that opens i Report’s June series on Literature and Literacy, former education undersecretary Juan Miguel Luz explains why we are a country that does not read, and how this fact has rendered us uncompetitive in the global economy. But he makes clear first that while literacy and reading are related, “literacy is a level of competence, while reading is a skill. One can be literate but not necessarily a reader because reading, as a skill, requires the development of a habit that must be exercised daily if it is to be retained and enhanced. If left unexercised, the skill becomes rusty and can even be lost.”

Luz also has a mouthful to say about our literacy rate, but it might be best if you check out the rest of his piece (the better to exercise your reading skill).

For the rest of June, our reading menu includes a look at vernacular literature, as well as discussions on chick lit, comics, and children’s books (but not in one article, of course). Because this is the age of technology, we will also explore the impact of texting on our language skills. To complement all that reading, we’ve prepared podcasts of local poets reading their own works, too.

Filipinos, however, may still be volumes away from having an attitude like Marx — Groucho, not Karl — who once said, “I find television to be very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book.”