Making a different mark

This is a reaction to Conrado de Quiros' article Courage published on March 23, 2006.

He was right when he said that the older generations 'always talk of how the youth of today will one day make their mark on society' but 'never talk about how society will one day make its mark on the youth of today.'

But this concern is not only true for young professionals and this batch of graduates. The society is already making its mark on successive generations of young Filipinos long before college graduation.

We have already seen how the generations of youth before us, idealistic and full of vigor then, were disillusioned by harsh realities of life and have chosen to leave the country for good. Some, who then were victims of an uneven playing field in which politics operate, succumbed to promises and perks of 'good life' and became part of the same cruel system. Others, meanwhile, opted to stay here but became the leading cynics to any possibility of change in the present order.

Yet more alarming is the kind of mark that this society, run like hell by the current government, is impressing on the youth, and even on the children of this generation. The kind of values that the government has been inculcating in the minds of today's youth is slowly sealing the same fate that has befallen our predecessors.

Slowly, we are being trained to be the inheritors of a political culture where cheating, lying and stealing are considered as the norm - a brand of politics that goes against any acceptable standard of morality.

Today's generation is being nurtured in an atmosphere of fear and lawlessness and is indoctrinated of the culture of impunity and violence. It is an environment operating on twisted concepts of democracy and justice, where dissent is a crime and peaceful assemblies and the exercise of other democratic rights are considered as rebellion.

But we have a choice - either we follow the same path our predecessors have taken or dare to walk on a different path and advocate for genuine change.

At this critical juncture in history when democratic institutions and processes are manipulated and civil liberties and basic rights curtailed, silence and indifference are the only things needed by evil to fully triumph.

"The question 'Kung walang kikilos, sino ang kikilos? Kung di ngayon, kalian pa?,' which former Philippine Collegian editor in chief Abraham 'Ditto' Sarmiento posed more than thirty years ago, continue to summon today's youths and students to dismantle the barricades of tyranny and end the reign of immorality and greed in the government.

Now is the time act and make a stand for democracy and for our future.

Justice for Cris Hugo and all victims of state terrorism!

MURDERED BY THE ARROYO GOVERNMENT

Cris Hugo, a 20-year old Journalism student in the University of Bicol, was shot dead last March 19. He is a national council member and the region coordinator in Bicol of the League of Filipino Students.

Hugo is the 33rd activist killed this year under the present regime.

How many more critical voices will this government silence permanently just to stay in power?

Misconceptions on Machiavelli and on Arroyo being a 'Machiavellian'

This is a reaction to Mong's recent blog entry Definitely not Machiavellian.

Your blog entry is a refreshing departure from popularly-held, yet erroneous beliefs on Machiavelli’s philosophy.

Most people tend to forget that Machiavelli’s theories were formulated during the period when Italy was yet to be unified into a single nation-state and that duplicity and suspicion were the norms in the affairs of each city-state.

During that time, governance and diplomacy were games of hazard for immediate stakes. A prince (ruler) had to posses the qualities Machiavelli prescribed in his writings, and equate his personal quest for power with national interest in order to succeed.

His popular line, “the end justifies the means” was devised in the context that the prince must pursue the interest of his city-state, kingdom, nation or empire at all cost, within the powers potentially and actually available for the pursuit of this objective and with reference with that of its counterparts’.

Now on Arroyo. She is Machiavellian in the context that she is pursuing her ‘end’ whatever the cost it entails. But her pursuit for power is not to empower the state and achieve national interest but to attain selfish goals and preserve her own power, at the expense of her own people. In this sense, she is no Machiavellian.

Besides, how can she be considered a Machiavellian if she’s not even a legitimate prince?

Philippines and South Korea

Apart from Jewel in the Palace, Sandara Park and other Koreanovelas, what else do we know about South Korea?

Like our country, South Korea was recently (though the political crisis here is far from being over) rocked by political scandal and consequentially the resignation of its Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan.

Lee faced pressure since the beginning of this month after playing golf (they called it the “golfgate” scandal) with a businessman with a criminal record for rigging stock prices. He should have been behind his desk during that time which was also the start of a nationwide strike by railway workers.

But this wasn't the first time Lee was caught clubs-in-hand when he should have been in his office doing his job. Apparently, he had a peculiar talent of playing golf with a really bad timing.

In 2005, he was rounding the greens when a wildfire was raging across parts of the country and soon after was caught golfing again when most of the southern areas were under flood.

Lee, however, was not the first Prime Minister or ranking government official who resigned for being implicated in a scandal or failing to fulfill his office’s responsibilities.

In 1997, a cabinet member resigned and the ruling party chairman and then Prime Minister Lee Soo-sung offered to quit their posts after being drawn in a loan scandal with a steel corporation. Critics said government influence had made it possible for the steel corporation to avail millions of dollars in bank loans.

Another Prime Minister, Park Tae-Joon resigned after a court ruled that he had concealed ownership of properties to avoid large tax payments.

Two years ago, Yoon Young-kwan, South Korea’s foreign minister resigned to take responsibility for “failing to rein in the critical voices” against President Rho Moo-hyun’s "independent policy" with its relationship with the US.

Compared to South Korea’s experience, I could hardly remember any ranking government official who resigned out of being caught up in a scandal or for failing to do his/her job.

Here in our country, when the president or any government official is caught playing golf with Lucio Tan and the likes, it is called an out-of-town business meeting out to improve the economy.

Here in our country, when the president or any government official became inconsistent with his/her previous statement that he/she will not run again in the elections, it is called “sacrifice” or “love for country.”

Here in our country, when the president or any government official was implicated in an anomalous contract or corruption charges, it is called an “act of destabilization by power grabbers.”

Here in our country, when the president or any government official starts to arrest critics and members of the opposition and curtail civil liberties, it is called saving democracy and the republic against the “conspiracy of the Left and the Right to seize power.”

Here in our country, when the president or any government official was caught in tape talking to a COMELEC commissioner during canvassing to influence the outcome of the elections, it is called a “lapse of judgment.”

Another ‘sunshine’ industry?

After call centers, the government has again set its eyes on yet another futile attempt to salvage the economy.

The Department of Tourism has recently launched Medical Tourism Philippines (MTP) to attract foreigners to visit the country for their medical and leisure needs – from cosmetic surgery to luxurious spa facilities. Wikipedia describes ‘medical tourism’ as the act of traveling to other countries to obtain medical, dental and surgical care, which lately became popular due to the high cost of health care industrialized countries.

There’s actually nothing wrong with the idea. It may give the country’s tourism industry a little boost, a departure from the usual WOW Philippines formula of culture commercialization and bastardization. But what the proponents of MTP have failed to realize is the startling contrast it entails - with aliens enjoying the best medical and leisure amenities the country can offer while the vast majority of its people can’t even afford to avail much-needed health care.

A survey conducted by the health alliance Kilosbayan para sa Kalusugan and the Alliance of Health Workers in 13 public hospitals in 2004 revealed that:

89 percent of the patient respondents had to wait from three days to one month before they were admitted to the hospital;

most of the respondents, or at least 61 percent said they had no money to pay for admission fee;

another 17.3% said there were no beds available;

some even had to wait for one to two years to be admitted;

poor patients cannot get treatment even for emergency cases in public hospitals if they cannot shell out P500 to P2,000 for admission fee;


The dismal state of healthcare in the country can be largely attributed to the government’s outright abandonment of its responsibility to deliver basic social services such as healthcare and education.

For the past eight years, the health budget has steadily dropped by about 40 percent. In fact, the government is spending a measly P114 per person on health or 37 centavos a day. We can’t even by a generic paracetamol tablet with that amount!

This also explains why the Philippines ranked 126th place (out of 191) in the World Health Organization's (WHO) Health Development Report (HDR) 2000 in terms of "level of health." We were even surpassed by Fiji and Palau!

The minimum prescribed standard set by the WHO on healthcare spending is at least 5 percent of a country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

But the Philippine government only spends an equivalent of 3.4 percent of its GDP on healthcare, similar to what the governments of Swaziland and Eritrea in Africa are doing. Furthermore, percent share of health in the country’s total public expenditures is only 7.2 percent. In 1997, the Philippines’ public health expenditure per capita was just US$48, a dollar less than Albania's and only US$2 more than Kyrgyzstan's.

These figures and the MPT simply show what the priorities of this government are. It highlights the growing disparity between the affluent and the indigent and further reinforces the colonial and exclusive nature of healthcare in the country.

But I guess the bigger predicament that MTP proponents face is the fact that most (and the best and the brightest) of our nurses, doctors, medical technologists and staff have already left the country.

References:
Kilosbayan para sa Kalusugan
Alliance of Health Workers
bayanmuna.net

‘Miseducated’ Educators

Few weeks ago, I gave a discussion on the current education situation in a forum held in the University of Baguio (UB). Also invited were the representatives of NEDA, a city councilor and the regional director of the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) in the Cordilleras, Dr. Magdalena Jasmin.

I’ve already heard how several CHEd officers conduct their discussion on issues like the education budget and the unabated tuition and miscellaneous fee hikes and the common denominator was, they cannot do anything (beyond monitoring the annual tuition and miscellaneous hike reports). But never did I encounter a ranking CHEd official as blatant and intransigent as the higher education head in the said autonomous region. To give you an idea, here are some of her quotable quotes:

“Higher education is not a right.”

“Higher education is not for everybody.”

“A school is a business, we can’t deny it.”

“Education is also a commodity.”

The other speaker from the Baguio City council, who happens to be the head of the City’s education committee added:

“If we want quality education, we must be ready to pay for it.”

On the contrary, the present Constitution states:

“The State shall protect and promote the right of all citizens to quality education at all levels, and shall take appropriate steps to make such education accessible to all.”

- Section 1, Article XIV

Moreover, Section 17 of Article II provides that it is also the responsibility of the State to priority to education.

Historian Renato Constantino, in his book The Miseducation of Filipinos, said that education is a vital tool to every nation’s economic and political development. Similarly, academician Dr. Paul P. Zwaenepoel in his book Tertiary Education in the Philippines emphasized the importance of tertiary education as the building blocks of every nation.

These, unfortunately, are the basic principles that our government and education officials have already (and deliberately) forgotten.

If this is the kind of thinking our education officials have, then this country will never graduate from its decade-old problems and can never advance to the next level of economic prosperity.

Challege to NYC

The deletion of Section 13, Article II of the 1987 Constitution is just one of the major blunders that we could find in the proposed Charter Change.

I am not really expecting the National Youth Commission (NYC) to go against the proposed Charter Change since its new chairman is part of the Cha-Cha advocacy commission (which Malacanang formed) and the Commission itself is under the Office of the President.

But if it is really "doing its best to protect the interest of the sector" and is "aiming to strengthen its national youth policy," the first thing that the NYC should do is to change its position on the Cha-Cha issue.

Certianly, the removal of the protectionist measures in the Constitution and the opening up of the whole economy and national patrimony to 100 percent foregin ownership and control undermine the economic, political and social security of today's generation and the ones to come.

The position of the NYC's current leadership on the proposed Cha-Cha will determine what kind of policies it will formulate and implement in the future and the kind of service (or disservice) it will give to its constituents.

NYC's Response to my LTTE

24 February 2006

MS. LETTY JIMENEZ-MAGSANOC
Editor-in-Chief
Philippine Daily Inquirer


Dear Ms. Jimenez-Magsanoc:

Greetings from the National Youth Commission!

We would like to appreciate the observation in last Tuesday's Letter to the Editor (20 February 2006) by Mr. Carl Marc Ramota about the deletion of the provision pertaining to the youth (Section 13 of Article II of the 1987 Constitution) in the proposed new Constitution submitted to Congress by the Consultative Commission on Charter Change.

During the January Council of State meeting, which then Chairman Bam Aquino and the undersigned attended, we were given the opportunity to point out the deletion of key provisions pertaining to the youth in the revised Constitution being proposed.

We also had the opportunity to talk to Chairman Jose Abueva of the Consultative Commission for Charter Change during the meeting and were able to give him our point of view regarding the deletions.

The undersigned has been appointed as member of the Charter Change Advocacy Council created through Executive Order 495. The Advocacy Council, which is composed mostly by former members of the Consultative Commission, passed a resolution recommending to the Congress to reinstate the said deleted provision.

We are also conducting a series of consultations with the youth on the Charter Change and other youth-related issues in key areas of the country with the aim of strengthening national youth policy.

We recognize the vigilance of the youth in this particular issue.

Rest assured that the NYC is doing its best to protect the interest of the sector. We hope that with our collective effort, we will be able to work this situation to the advantage of the Filipino youth.


Sincerely yours,



RICHARD ALVIN M. NALUPTA
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
National Youth Commission
Commissioner
Charter Change Advocacy Commission


cc: Carl Marc Ramota


Proposed Charter undermines youth’s role in nation-building
(Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 21, 2006)