On New Year’s eve

February 8, 2008  --  Got something to say?
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Notebook By Juan L. MercadoBy Jual L. Mercado
MANILA - On New Year’s Eve, there rises, in all of us, the itch to glimpse the future. “If you can look into the seeds of timE and say which grain will grow and which will not”, a Macbeth gripped by political lust, asked the ghost of Banquo.

That itch drives much of 2007’s crystal bowling. Everyone strains to see signs of better days ahead. Citizens are fed up with government that seems a “giant mechanism operated by pygmies,” as Balzac said.

Convicted rapist Romeo Jalosjos and pardoned plunderer “Jose Velarde” ( aka. Joseph Estrada ) gad about. Mutineer Antonio Trillanes IV stages coups whenever a five star hotel lobby is available. And the Marcoses are on overdrive to recover their ill gotten wealth, parked with cronies who now claim it is THEIR ill gotten wealth.

Yet, eight years back, Ilocos Norte Governor Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. conviction for tax evasion. became final, ex Senate President Jovito Salonga and Ambassador Sedfrey Ordonez observed. But Bongbong thumbed his nose at jailors and even won a Lower House seat. “Onli in da Pilipins.”

Contrast that impunity with how Seoul jailed Presidents
Roh Tae Woo and Chun Doo Hwan, along with 14 generals. That political
grit enabled Korea to pull ahead of us economically, starting in the
1960s. Today, Korean GDP per capita income is US$20,499 while
Filipinos lag at $4,614.

The writ of amparo now bites into extra judicial
executions and disappearances. But gridlocks still snarl reforms in
the Commission on Elections, population policy, armed forces
politicking, ecological decay, etc.

These are daunting problems. But they can be resolved,
with political will However, Malacaang, Congress, the opposition, the
military, down to puny barangay chieftains showed little backbone
in 2007.

Will it be different in 2008?. “We have two types of
politicians: the incapable and those capable of anything,” declares
graffiti smeared on a Paraguay wall. Dosen’t that describe us too.
We’re strapped into a political system that awards benefits, even
office, to the ruthless.

To “look into the seeds of time, and say which grain
will grow and which will not”, study Pampanga. Despite embedded
political warlords, Pampangenos elected a reluctant priest, Fr
Eduardo Panlilio. “Among Ed’s” reforms now jolt a cynical country.

Without raising quarry levy rates by a centavo Governor
Panlilio collected P88.6 million in 95 days. Transparent governance did
the trick. Senator Manuel “Lito” Lapid and son, Mark, as governors, took
three and half years, to collect an equivalent sum.

At this rate, Panililo will collect P354 million in a
year of 313 working days, Columnist Antonio Abaya estimates. In this
country, men kill for less. The elite here tolerate anything until
their wallets are touched. Thus, Eduardo Cojuangco’s “Brat Pack”
tried to impeach Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide. Why?
Davide ruled in favor of the small farmers in the coconut levy case.

If assassins don’t get “Among Ed” first, the
governor, by the end of his term, will have infused P1.41 billion into
Pampanga’s anemic treasury. That’s P1.3 billion more than the Lapids
managed. “Only God and the Lapids know where the difference vanished
to,” Abaya says. Maybe Pampanga’s most distinguished daughter, Gloria
Macapagal Arroyo, has an inkling.”

At a Misa de Gallo, the President extended to
Panlilio the traditional greeting of peace. That’s all. She won’t
pin a medal on the governor for boosting tax collections eight times.
That hurt her old allies’ wallets. And Panlilio “sinned” by telling
the truth about getting P500,000 in a paper envelope at a Palace
meeting .

Will plunderers get to keep the plunder? Erap did. And
yes, if Pampanga officials have their way with a wink from the
President.

Pampanga mayors scrambled for “greater control over
Quarrying”, notes Columnist Randy David in “Crisis of Cash Politics.”
Thru Ordinance 176, the provincial board would strip Panlilio of tax
powers. The fox is to guard the chicken coop By vesting tax powers
in associations of quarry operators and officials, the board asks the
fox to guard the chicken coop

This grab for loot is draped with pious claims of
local autonomy. “To become the master, the politician poses as the
servant,” Charles de Gaulle of France once scoffed..

The pols now seek to gut Panlilio’s drive to curb
lucrative jueteng. General Avelino Razon et al are giving Among Ed’s
effort to get a ramrod straight police chief Senior Superintendent
Cesar Hawthorne Binag, the old run around. Bogus reasons, including
the false one of Binag lacking a Police Commission nomination ( He
got it on 29 Aug 2007 ) are peddled

“What happens in Pampanga has repercussions, not only
for the people of that province, but of the entire Philippines ,” warns
the Catholic advocacy group Dilaab. It is mounting a signature protest
by citizens. “This is a very sad affair that puts into doubt the
sincerity of the PNP hierarchy in fighting this social menace.”
( E mail: juan_mercado@pacific.net.ph

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