Tuesday, April 22, 2008

CORRUPTION KILLS

After browsing through with this column, I can't help but repost it here (without permission, but with due enthusiasm and understood permission from its writer) to put emphasis on the same line of views that I share. I'm very keen on adopting articles, ensuring that they are in lined with my persuations and set of beliefs, at the time being and this is one perfect and simple example. Given the undeniably painful genocide inflicted on the Filipino people via the rice shortage, we simply cannot ignore the glaring reality of having corruption in both ends of that seemingly futile crisis in the country's staple food. As I put it in my status messages (YM) recently, a simple equation for a natural method of genocide is, Corruption + Globalization = RICEssion. And given the scenario stated herein, I can't help but to rethink again of a fishy rollercoaster ride on the crisis itself, to redirect the attention of the people from the corruption scandals that consistently hound GMA's administration. I won't be elaborating more on this, I still have to buy rice for lunch.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Theres The Rub

By Conrado de Quiros

"A pickpocket or snatcher is cornered in Quiapo or Cubao and he is beaten black and blue by an irate crowd. Why then do we not react the same way to thieves in government?"

The rice crisis may yet do something for us. That is to give a face to corruption. That is to make us grasp the crushing weight of corruption. That is to make us see that corruption kills.

For several years now, I’ve written about a problem we’ve always had. That is problem of why we are angry at petty thieves but indifferent to big-time ones.

We do not lack for violent feelings against thieves. Whether it’s the Tagalog word “magnanakaw,” or the more explosive Visayan word “kawatan,” it carries with it the weight of contempt. The “violent feelings” is often literal. A pickpocket or snatcher is cornered in Quiapo or Cubao and he is beaten black and blue by an irate crowd. Half the time he cheats death only by the skin of his teeth. We do loath magnanakaw and kawatan, and we punish them with the harshness their crime deserves.

Why then do we not react the same way to thieves in government? Political and Economic Risk Consultancy has classified us as the most corrupt country in Asia for the last two years, and yet we do not seem sufficiently roused by it. The national broadband network (NBN) scandal has just unfolded before our eyes, the size of the “bukol” [bulge] or what is being stolen from us running into billions of pesos, and yet we do not seem sufficiently incensed by it. Of course, we’ve expressed our indignation and held rallies over it, but at the end of the day we’ve done nothing about it comparable to beating up a pickpocket or snatcher within an inch of his life.

The explanation I’ve come up with for this behavior consists of two things. One, the bigger the theft, the more abstract it becomes. Snatching a woman’s purse is immediate and hits us in the guts. Stealing a billion pesos is remote and hits us in no particular place. Snatching a purse is theft. Stashing a billion pesos is—a bank transaction.

Two is that the bigger the theft, the more we imagine we are not the victim. Someone snatches a woman’s purse and we join others in chasing the snatcher, feeling victimized ourselves. A public official steals a billion pesos and we shrug our shoulders, feeling the crime is against the residents of Timbuktu. We do not see that corruption is just a fancy way of saying, “They’re goddamn stealing our money from us!”

The rice crisis offers an opportunity to educate the public in this respect. It offers an opportunity to show a hungry populace that corruption is just a fancy way of saying, “They’re goddamn stealing our food from us!

This opportunity comes not least from government’s own efforts to make thieves a special object of hate by the public. That is what the warnings against hoarders and the periodic raids of grain warehouses are meant to do. It is meant to show that hoarders are magnanakaw and kawatan who are completely monstrously plucking the food from the mouths of the hungry. Of course, it is also meant to show that government is heroically trying to save the public from them.

It is a huge gamble. Government is obviously banking on the principle above that the small is easily seen and the big is not, that petty thievery directly harms us while epic thievery does not, that things like hoarding rice make people hungry while things like the NBN do not. It’s a dangerous ploy, and one that’s bound to explode in government’s face.

That is so because the rice, or food, crisis is no ordinary one. It is quite literally a gut issue, “malapit sa bituka” [close to the gut], as we say. It is a matter of life and death. Of course, lack of classrooms is a matter of life and death too, but that is too subtle to be appreciated by the poor whose lives revolve around more urgent needs. Lack of medicines, or costly medicines, is a matter of life and death too, but not everyone is sick at the same time and in desperate need of them. It’s the lack of food, or worse having food but not being able to afford it, that is a matter of life and death and affects everyone at the same time. That is especially so since this crisis is not a temporary or cyclical one. Thanks to government’s insane policy of importing rice instead of producing it presumably because it’s cheaper, that crisis threatens to be one of untold length and severity.

You are waiting your turn in a long line under a smoldering sun to buy a kilo of rice, you are going to feel personally victimized by all thieves, whether those are the thieves that hoard rice in their secret granaries or the thieves that hoard cash from the “kaban ng bayan” [public coffers] in their secret pockets. If the hypocrisy of threatening small rice traders with imprisonment and promising big crooks with aggrandizement doesn’t immediately strike you, you can count on the NGOs, the farmers’ groups, and everyone who stand aghast at this cheekiness to help you see it.

Frankly, I don’t know why those of us who fulminated against the NBN and Malacañang distributing half a million pesos to bishops and congressmen on Palace grounds have not yet mounted a campaign to show how those sums alone translate into the number of farmlands that could have had irrigation, the quantity of seeds that could have been made available to farmers, the amount of subsidy that could have allowed government to buy dear from local farmers and sell cheap to consumers. I don’t know why we have not yet mounted a campaign to show that if the impact of hoarding by unscrupulous traders has been to raise rice prices by so much, then the impact of all the crooks returning the people’s money to the people would be to lower rice prices by so much. I don’t know why we have not yet mounted a campaign to show how corruption is the worst form of hoarding there is: it does not just hit Juan de la Cruz in his head and heart, it hits him in his stomach, it does not harm “other people” it harms us.

I don’t know why we haven’t yet mounted a campaign to show corruption kills.
---------------------------------

Reference: PDI

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20080423-132092/Corruption-kills

Monday, April 21, 2008

STOP JPEPA!
STOP GMO!
STOP CLIMATE CHANGE


Adlaw sa Kapupud-an.

Araw ng Inang Kalikasan.
Earth Day.
Mea Culpa, Mother Earth.


GMA's alter ego is new Civil Service chief

Ano ang mapapala ng sangka-burokrasyahan at ng mga taong gubyerno sa pag-upo ni Sec. Ricardo Saludo sa Komisyon ng Serbisyo Sibil. Matatandaang mainit na tagasuporta, tagapagsalita at tagapagtanggol si Saludo ni GMA nang bumulaga ang mga anomalya sa Hello Garci!, Fertilizer Scam, at ZTE Deal. Kahit pa sabihing quasi-judicial body ang CSC, hindi maiaalis ang bias sa mga polisiya ng kanyang kasalukuyang amo at nag-appoint pa sa kanya. Nagbabadya rin ito ng dagok maging sa mga vocal at naninindigan na mga empleyado ng gubyerno tulad ng COURAGE, Health Alliance for Democracy at maging ng Alliance of Concerned Teachers sa pamamagitang ng panggigipit at persekusyon. Ang sistematikong pagkontrol ng mga kaalyado ni GMA sa mga sangay ng pamahalaan ay patunay ng kanyang pagkagahaman sa kapangyarihan at walang kawalan ng delicadeza sa mga mga mas karapat-dapat na mga career officials sa CSC. Eh kung tutuusin, hindi nga siya career official at pawang political appointments pa ang posisyon niya sa gubyerno, papano pa niya maiangat ang morale ng mga rank and file employees at third-level position personnel kung heto't ang mismong namamahala sa civil service ay hindi lubusang kwalipikado pero naging administrador. Slogan ng CSC, "Mamamayan muna, Hindi mamaya na!"....asa pa.

LINK: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=115689

Reference: abs-cbnnews.com

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Stand Out


StarBucks Coffee stand tall over its competitors in the local market.Highly favored. Infamous. High Priced. Personifies,

Imperialism.

Jeers.

A Literal FEETish






Feetishness, literally. .
Hindi ko alam kung papanong nagkaroon ako ng pagkahumaling sa parte ng paa. Nagsimula siya ng maglitrato ako ng aking paa in sepia, at kung merong kung anong pagkagusto ko sa paa simula noon. Kaya't regular ng subject ng mga kuha ko ang mga paa, lalo na ang paa ko. Maaring may dahilan ang pagkahumaling na io, marahil ito ay nauugat sa teoryang siko-analisis ni Freud, na tumutukoy sa mga kasanayang may direktang kinalaman sa mga gawi mo noong musmos ka pa lang. Ano kaya ang ibig-sabihin nito sa buhay ko? Verum est, totoo ba ito?

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

"I’d rather eat rice than drink oil": Rethinking the Bio-Fuels Act

Over the news, Sen. Rodolfo Biazon has called on the suspension of the Bio-Fuels Act (BFA) of 2007 as a preemptive measure to put a halt to massive land conversion to the detriment of rice farming. Enacted in January last year, this brainchild legislation of then Rep. Miguel Zubiri (Bukidnon) now senator was applauded and it's even at the forefront of his campaign en route to the upper chamber. Although doubts and counter-arguments against the Act have mushroomed following its eventual ratification, it was only recently that serious calls for its abolition, or at least suspension were ejaculated from various persuasions due to the rice shortage phenomenon.


If we may recall, early last year, Zubiri and Sen. Miriam Santiago has come in bad terms following uncalled remarks from the latter regarding the inviability and unpromising venture into bio-fuels. Later on, several experts in agriculture published a critic on the Act citing inefficiency and implications to food security and the environment. However, Zubiri dismissed these as mere persuaded opinions, and there were even accusations pointing to oil companies as behind the campaign. I am fortunate enough to have known one of those courageous subject matter experts who come into open to reveal his side of truth , based on research and scientific projections.


Dr. Teodoro Mendoza, scientist and professor at the College of Agriculture, UP Los Banos decried earlier claims by BFA proponents on the promises of the program. He also cited recommendations in addressing the loopholes in the law and or in the program. And from what I remembered, at the height of its deliberations and debates in Congress, Sir Ted had been discussing to us (under AGRI 121, Ecological Agriculture) his position and due alternatives to the supposed fuel efficiency agenda behind the Act. But then, given the promises of Bio-Fuels, lawmakers submitted to it. The same lawmakers, even GMA (applauded the legislation and I think certified it as urgent), who now calls on stopping land conversion activities all over the country.


As second thought, indeed, sometimes, we get to see only the promising side of things, like the projected benefits of bio-fuels. We, or at least some Filipinos are attuned to reactionary terms of affirming policy perspectives like energy security and efficency, and bypassing its eventual implications to other industries or even to nature. We consider immediacy over domino effect-laden venture like propagation of bio-fuels producing cash crops such as Oil Palm and Jatropha. For one, we have partly 'mis'-inspired the success of bio-fuels in Brazil and in other Latin American countries cum largest producers of ethanol and other bio-fuels since these countries are literally large in terms of land area. Brazil for instance (the 5th largest? country in land area), has to clear thousands of acres within or adjacent to the Amazon forests to give way to bio-fuels production. Besides,they aren't largely dependent on single crop like rice, as staple food.

Still, given the triumph of Brazil on bio-fuels, this only fueled another apparent environmental crisis in the country pertaining to the massive clearing of lands, that even recent official reports from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned of uncertainties in bio-fuels production in that region. This is apart from projections on the effect on climate change, since propagation of bio-fuel crops takes in high quantity inputs (fertilizers, pesticides,etc.).

Now, as the Philippines is confronted by a policy-driven perennial rice crisis, it is imperative and just high time to again assert that above all, Filipinos need food security, second is energy security if that's the wish of others. Sen. Biazon is right to coin, "I’d rather eat rice than drink oil". And from a retired general at that, this is a slap on the face of agriculture-proponents in congress. To recall, they are the one's who co-sponsored and co-authored the Bill, and aggressively campaigned for its passage. And in the midst of a food security disorientation, these same officials enjoin the call to halt land conversion, to increase rice production, and run after hoarders and cartel players.

At the end of the day, rice is inexcusably far from mixing with oil, just like water. The principle behind being, the rice floats in oil,and when you fire on the oil, it wouldn't cook the rice,as we it it, rather, it burns it. While we explore on sustainability and security of energy, we should never lose sight of our priorities. Not at the cost of misleading the hopes of the Filipinos for a far-from-reach benefits, while laying dead waiting.

Related Story: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=115216

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Taludturang 4D

Di ko matantya ang panahon
Dati’y isang dahop lang ay angkin ko na
Dalit ng pangamba’y naiwala pa
Dulot ay ibayong hinayang, inis, lungkot at luha.

___________________________________

bunga ng tigang at malikot na isip na hangad pa rin ay
katahimikan sa piling ng kaluluwang pinagnasaan>>>

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Bayo nga Gisi (Tattered Shirt)


Bayo ko nga gisi sanglit isa lamang (My tattered shirt,my only one)
Akon nga ubahon kay nanay palabhan (I'll take it off for mother to wash)
Akon nga isuksok daw indi makusuan (I'll wear it but it seemed unwashed)
Asta makalambot sa amon bolothoan. (Until I reach school)

Oras nga mag-recess kami mapahuway (During break time, we get to rest)
Iban nga kabataan nagabakal tinapay (Other children buy food)
Nagatulok lang ako sing masinulub-on (Sadly, I look at them with envy)
Si nanay si tatay wala ipabalon. (My mother and father have no money to spear)

Imol man ang iban nalaksan guid kami (If others are poor, we were really out of fate )
Walang sing pagkaon, wala sing pameste (We hardly get food and clothes)
Igo makatilaw kan-on tyimpo tig-alani (Only during harvest season where we get to ech much)
Kon tig-tugom gani, kayos kag kamote. (During lean season,we just eat root crops)

--------------------------------------------------

A very relative rural folks song, reflective of the nuances in the society (in Panay); mainly of poverty and hunger. While this song found its abode in the minds of the once poor people in Panay (to include my mother's family), it continuously points at pressing crisis at the moment. A reminder to me of a once unfateful community and generation coming to pass, still with no way to go until today. History haunts.

*my mother taught us this song since I was a kid.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Pagpit-os Sang Alimpatakan

Sang akon paglantaw, ara siya; (At first glance, she ws there)
Sunod ko nga pag-lili, wala na. (On my next view, she was gone)
Ginpangita ko, baw, ato gali sa pihak; (I looked for her, and found nearby)
May upod na nga iban. (With someone else)
Gakaptanay pa sing kamot; (Holding hands)

Masulub-on ako. (I'm melancholic)