“Uneasy are the shoulders that bear four stars.”

This is a not-too-cryptic line shared with me by a senior journalist covering Camps Aguinaldo and Crame and two military officers when I sought to reconfirm the incessant reports about Oplan August Moon.

“The rivalry between the generals from PMA Classes ’76 and ’78 is fueling the rumors even as  military intelligence investors have separately obtained leads indicating the possible involvement of the political opposition in the plot,” my  sources told me.

(L-R: IBRADO, BANGIT, VERSOZA, ROSALES)

“They are trying not to be drawn into it but Lt. Gen. Victor Ibrado and Director-General Jesus Versoza, AFP Chief of Staff and PNP chief respectively, cannot prevent their mistahs from talking.“

The two military officers said, “there’s no question about their loyalty to the Flag,” but the two other generals “waiting in the wings” are becoming the focus of intrigue because they are next in line to Generals Ibrado and Versoza.

The two being referred to are military intelligence chief Delfin Bangit and national capital region commander Roberto  Rosales.

Director Rosales, who is president of PMA Class ’78, is widely respected in the police corps ,“while Director-General Versoza “has seen his slate affected by the recent ‘Euro generals scandal and questions about his management skills.”

“In the case of Bangit, intrigue heightened when Malacanang itself announced he was the successor of recently retired CoS Jose Yano only for the announcement to be cancelled without explanation,” my two sources noted.”

That was then followed by the promotion of Gen. Ibrado as chief of staff with Yano being named ambassador to Brunei,

“The military brass, of course, respect the prerogative of their Commander in Chief (Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo) to “change her mind and undertake deep selection,” my sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.

The bigger revelation my journalist source shared is this:  a top-ranking general told me “intelligence probers are closely examining a document referring to important event/s which may take place between August and October.”

The document allegedly “makes reference to former President Joseph Estrada’s political group Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino.”

My source would not go further when asked if Mr. Estrada himself could be implicated to the so-called ‘Oplan August Moon’ except to say “we don’t know if there is an actual ‘military-format Operation Plan’ except what has been referred to verbally in the Camps.”

(This writer is trying to get the side of Mr. Estrada.)

“The improvised bombs recently used or left at the Department of Agriculture, the Office of the Ombudsman and privately-owned condominium Burgundy One Place appears to be the work of amateurs and not ordnance experts.”

(ARCHIVE PICTURES)

Note: C-4 is a high quality, very high velocity military plastic explosive.
C4 is supplied in bulk drums, in a slightly powdery form. Upon manipulation the material immediately consolidates into a rubbery fully plasticised mass which may be kneaded and pressed into any shape. The material has excellent mechanical and adhesive properties, and may be stretched into long strands without breakage.
In its original powdery form the explosive may be poured into charge containers, then pressed into intimate contact with the liner.

“We believe the C-4 explosives were not sourced from anywhere in Metro Manila but could only have come from Mindanao,” my sources revealed.

Speaking separately to journalists yesterday, Senator Rodolfo Biazon, a former chief of staff and seasoned field commander in Mindanao, said his doubts about the possible involvement of national security adviser Norberto Gonzales.

The online report of ABS-CBN News says in part:

Sen. Rodolfo Biazon on Thursday assailed National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales for contributing to the climate of instability by downplaying bomb-related incidents in Metro Manila this week.

“I’m not talking about specifics, whether administration or opposition. But to hear the national security adviser say about the need for a revolution, the putting up of a junta, the putting up of a transition government is fuelling all of these speculative conclusions,” Biazon said in a radio dzMM interview.

The senator added he could not believe Gonzales’s cold reaction to the bombing of the Office of the Ombudsman and the attempted bombing of the Department of Agriculture offices in Quezon City.

Gonzales and the military had said that the bombing attempts are part of a trend that usually happens before the President’s State of the Nation Address (SONA).

The statements were made in reaction to allegations that some people in the administration are creating a scenario that may be used to justify the declaration of emergency rule.

Biazon alleged that the real root cause of the destabilization scenarios is none other than Gonzales.

The senator said Gonzales has been advocating a revolution and the establishment of a junta to be led by President Arroyo.

He recalled that Gonzales raised this during a seminar conducted by the Center for Strategic Studies in Davao City in 2006 for junior military officers.

“Three years ago, Gonzalez conducted a seminar in military camps, and he said there is a need for a revolution, from liberal democracy to social democracy,” Biazon said.

He said the junior officers in the seminar were told that the Armed Forces of the Philippines, as the only sector with “the power of the gun,” can carry out such revolution.

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/07/02/09/biazon-hits-gonzales-view-metro-bombings

The events of the coming days or weeks can either heighten the apprehensions or ease public disquiet.

POSTSCRIPT:

I first published this article in my home blog three days ago.

Since then the squabbling joint venture partner firms in the election automation contract for 2010 are “reconciled” and are promising “a dream scenario for the elections with Filipinos knowing the results for the national officials by May 12, 72-hours after polls close.”

I’m marking that date on my ‘good news’ calender tab.

This along with the hope that any and all extra-legal plots, real or imagined, go kaput.

The answer according to the same policy paper (of Bocchi) is that while foreign direct investment has fallen since the 1990s, the local market has not picked up the slack. Big Business has refused to reinvest substantially. The World Bank blames the lack of reinvestment on lack of incentives to do so. Businesses are profiting now, so why go out of the way to reinvest capital more than necessary? The rot sets in.

BenignO has been quick to respond, quoting himself:

We pester the elite of our society with calls for acts of heroism when the burden of extra hard work in reality falls on the shoulders of the poor masses.

We Filipinos have been imbued with the idea that our hopes for prosperity lie squarely on the shoulders of the elite, the “haves,” a handful of leaders and/or a few “extraordinary” individuals. Our society has come to (or, more appropriately never matured beyond) a penchant for giving heroic labels to these “messiahs,” as if the Philippines is constantly waiting for a hero to rescue her from her dysfunction. We expect heroic efforts from the few and continued mediocrity from the majority. We expect the low product of the majority to be SUBSIDISED by the exceptional output of the minority.

When it comes to offering solutions to the Philippine puzzle, I proceed from a standpoint quite opposite to Benigno’s. Let me also quote myself to explain my point based on established historical facts:

There are historical patterns that if we care to seriously reflect on would inform us of certain repeated forces known to have driven great events, among which is this: That history is often made by people and institutions in power and by how their power is employed by them to produce goods and services for society through the development and use of science and technology or otherwise dominate other peoples and grow more power.

Great historical events are also made when people and institutions in power, perceived to have failed society, have been overthrown, thereby allowing new institutions and ideas to be developed and instituted by the succeeding power.

Powers of ordinary men, like you and me, (not to speak of the shirtless, shoeless and toothless) are often circumscribed. For example, we in FV would like to believe that we have purposeful ideas and intentions for the Philippines, but we can only carry our purposes as far as our relative position in the hierarchy of powers can take us, unless of course we succeed in creating movements to match the strength of the powers that be.

So, in the Philippines, there are men and women, being in command of powerful institutions of modern society, whose decisions and non-decisions have immense consequences to our society. We do know that these special people own the financial establishments, control major corporations and organizations and for the most part “capture” the machinery of the state or, at the very least, have the ready ear of those who occupy positions of direct power.

There are thus dreadful consequences if our economic elites, the taipans or the old oligarchs for example, are risk averse, content as they seem with operating public utilities with captured markets, or mega malls and real estate ventures sustained by OWF remittances. Their lack of vigorous entrepreneurship translates into our economic engines not being propelled to create greater wealth and employment opportunities to provide decent incomes for a growing population of ordinary or less than ordinary people.

The above postulations comport with the “power elite theory” which, according to H. T. Reynolds, “perceives a pyramid of power” and where 1) the most important decisions for everyone below the pyramid is made at the top by a tiny elite; 2) a relatively small middle level consists of individuals that one normally would have in mind when talking about government, e.g., senators, representatives, mayors, governors, judges, lobbyists, and party leaders, and 3) the masses, the average men and women who are powerless to hold the top level accountable, occupy the bottom.

The power elite model of C. Wright Mills, the most renown among power-elite theorists, as restated by H.T. Reynolds goes this way: “that single elite, not a multiplicity of competing groups, decides the life-and-death issues for the nation as a whole, leaving relatively minor matters for the middle level and almost nothing for the common person.”

Thus when “Big Business has refused to reinvest substantially” or, as Bocchi puts it, when politically-connected economic elites and corporate conglomerates in the Philippines find it convenient to not invest or invest only a portion of its revenues in-country, while sending considerable portions offshore, the consequence is slower economic growth in the country and less inclusive than it could potentially be.

I think I have had another occasion to reflect on the Philippine puzzle in a fairly recent response to a comment in FV in this fashion:

. . . why some nations have fared better than others in developing the institutions of capitalism, the late American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington . . . has pointed, among other things, to the “lack of national unity and the failure of dominant immigrant minorities (e.g., the Chinese Diaspora in the Philippines) to assimilate” and in the absence of such unity and assimilation, “there generally is no development of a legally, economically and politically empowered civil society concerned with the welfare of the entire nation and all its people.”

Citing liberal economist Jeffrey Sachs, Huntington also referred to “obstructive elites” whose interests are “vested in traditional conditions,” and “resist institutionalization of rule of law legal systems, norms of social mobility, and capitalist markets – all of which threaten their elite status.”

These insights are interesting if juxtaposed with benignO’s lavish adulation of the market dominant Filipino-Chinese community which he seems to characterize, quite naively, as homogeneous.

But here’s what Clinton Palanca, an Oxford postgraduate tsinoy, wrote on this score:

“The ideal of the ethnic Chinese who is integrated and thinks of himself or herself as Filipino while retaining Chinese cultural identity does exist, but so does the bigot who sees Filipinos as inferior and adopts a ‘sojourner’ mentality and an instrumental attitude toward the Philippine economy. These two figures form the endpoints of a spectrum along which the Chinese in the Philippines are ranged.”

Palanca however excluded the First Filipinos from his “range” (Rizal, Aguinaldo, Mabini, Bonifacio, etc who were of Chinese ancestry and the next generation, such as Osmena, Lopez, Roxas, Laurel and even Marcos not to speak of Cojuangco, Puyat, Ongpin, and the still monosyllabic Lims and Tans). The Villafuertes and Robredos of Bicol in the regional scene are descendants of more recent Chinese Diaspora but also outside of Palanca’s range.

The “Chinese” economic elites in the Philippines who own about sixty percent of market capitalization, in particular those rentier taipans with sojourner mentalities, are ultimately recipes for a lackluster national economic progress.

In another post I also pointed out that the “Chinese” in the Philippines were Hispanicized during the Friar regime and then Anglo-Americanized during Uncle Sam’s rule.

Now this again from Palanca about the chameleonic aspect of Chinese identity triggered this time by the awakened dragon or the “emergence of China as a dominant force in the Asian economy”:

“The descendants of the older Chinese mestizo classes, who had previously downplayed their Chinese ethnicity, are now suddenly rediscovering the Chinese aspect of their ethnicity. The generation of Chinese-Filipinos who had emigrated in the first half of the century in the years leading up to the communist takeover of China and their descendants are now held in higher regard. But what has the potential to become respect can easily swing the other way to distrust if the power of the Chinese-Filipinos is seen to be too dominant — or, more to the point, if they are seen not as Filipinos, but as an ethnic minority group who has gained an incommensurate degree of influence.”

I was likewise thinking of the market-dominant and oligopolistic minority when a couple of years ago I blogged about what it would really entail for the Philippines to position itself for “economic takeoff”:

Many parts of the country still retain the basic features of the so-called traditional society. A traditional society is one whose structure has limited production functions because of its incapacity to manipulate the environment through science and technology. To break from the conditions of a traditional society that put a ceiling on its attainable output, new types of enterprising men willing to take risks in pursuit of profit or modernization must come forward. The risk-taking must happen in conjunction with the appearance of institutions for mobilizing capital like banks, the investment in transport, communications, and in raw materials in which other societies may have an economic interest, and the setting up of manufacturing enterprises using modern methods. xxx

Takeoff however may not occur if the transition is proceeding at a limited stride in an economy still primarily typified by “traditional low-productivity methods,” by dated societal institutions and values, and by parochial political institutions.

The key to economic progress is somehow attitudinal too and this happens when economic men and political animals judge such progress to be good not only for the material comfort it brings forth for their pioneering spirit but also for national identity and dignity, the welfare of the next generation and the common good.

Historically, the decisive ingredient during the transition is the building of an “effective centralized national state” imbued with a “new nationalism” x x x. When growth becomes steady and normal and institutionalized into habits and social structure and dominates the society, takeoff is said to occur.

To economist Walt W. Rostow (his two seminal books are: The process of Economic Growth [1952] and The Stages of Economic Growth [1960]), from whose insights the above ideas are mainly culled, the takeoff is spurred not only by the investment in “social overhead capital” (such as in railways, ports, roads and education) and the expansion of technological development in industry and agriculture, but also by the rise to political power of a group dedicated to the proposition that the modernization of the economy is a national goal of paramount order (underscoring not in the original).

I therefore believe that the Philippines will attain “First World” status not by the action of the “ordinary schmoe” of the tingi variety (to borrow some of BenignO’s unflattering labels) but by men and women who are in command of powerful institutions of modern society. This is so, as I said in another comment, because -

. . . a nation like the Philippines attempting to modernize must first create economic surplus. This surplus will be long in coming if we follow BenigO’s formula of “culture change” first.

My route is economic take off first, then use the economic surplus created to promote and develop quality education, the ultimate telos being “democracy of the educated” to dispense with the need for “moral and intellectual aristocracy.”

I don’t see economic take off happening with  “Juan Tama” or “Ako mismo” routes, because to me these are all diversion – much like the perpetual blaming of the government, the politicians, and the supposedly culturally damaged Juan Tamad – away from holding accountable those with the wherewithal to create wealth by vigorous entrepreneurship and a great sense of country.

Now, despite the retreat of BenignO’s heroes or their less “exceptional output,” why does the Philippine economy, while not taking off, manage to chug along somehow? Well, it is because of the extra hard work of non-elites or “the poor masses.”

Or, according to economist Bocchi in his research paper -

Because its least protected sectors – the informal labor market and the non-capital-intensive activities – stimulate demand and drive supply.

- On the demand-side, work-seekers – denied entry into the formal labor market migrate massively to industrialized economies, attracted by better remuneration; the resulting remittances and transfers (which, combined, account for over 13 percent of GDP) fuel consumption-led-growth (i.e. Filipinos abroad send money to their families in country, and these spend it).

- On the supply-side, the innovative service sector and a few non-capital-intensive manufactures, still free from regulations that favor the local élite, boost exports.

To Montesquieu, what is required of a republican government to thrive is virtue which he defines as “the love of the laws and of our country.”

Virtue is taken for granted when rent seeking elites bend the laws for private gains or would rather invest offshore than in-country.

Bocchi is also blunt about it in economic terms: “To accelerate economic growth, increase employment generation, and generate public resources for social programs, rent seeking by the élites that exercise political and economic power – or ‘élite capture’ – must be addressed.”

It is that simple.

Malacanang has finally come clean on the brouhaha triggered by reports about medical procedures she underwent in the course of her two-day “quarantine”at the Asian Medical Center since she returned from abroad.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/metro/view/20090703-213654/Palace-exec-denies-Arroyo-breast-implant-fix

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=483577&publicationSubCategoryId=63

http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/209116/palace-confirms-biopsy

Pres. Arroyo’s lady deputy spokesperson Lorelei Fajardo cited the personal nature of the procedures.

Press Secretary Cerge Remonded conceded that Mrs. Arroyo called him to clarify the matter, describing the chief executive as being “irked”.

Here’s what Secretary Remonde told ABS-CBN News:

Ang nangyari ganito, as I’ve said, nagkakaroon nga ng continuous regular check-up si Presidente tulad ng pagpasok niya sa Asian Medical Center. Merong nakita na something sa kanyang breast at sa kanyan sa may groin, so nuong nagcheck na siya at this time so that’s bi-niopsy yung nakita na iyon sa breast niya at saka sa groin.

I mean you can look at her she if she is the type who has a breast implant. Makita n’yo naman kung… halata naman yung mga babae na merong implant  o wala.

Yung mga sexy actress diyan na malalaki ang boobs, yan ang mga may implant. Di naman natin masasabi kay Presidente ‘yan.

It is surely the hope, and intent, of the Palace’s spokespeople that the issue will finally subside and for things to return to normal.

They say Mrs. Arroyo’s been given a clean bill of health with the biopsied cysts all benign or non-cancerous.

A clear lesson is being drawn here: the health of our Head of State and Head of Government us imbued with public interest.

The next time around the public should expect the type of candor belatedly displayed by Secretary Remonde as standard operating procedure.

Ambeth also mentions the unsettled question about the REAL DATE OF PHILIPPINE INDEPENDENCE. While the majority of Pinoys accept June 12 (thanks to prez Gloria, weekends nearest June 12), there are some today that say that this is a comical farce and July 4 is really our independence day. For the benefit of young adults, t’was Gloria’s dad Diosdado Macapagal that issued the executive order changing the date of independence. This is what President Diosdado Macapagal will be remembered for.

Nonetheless we had a compromise making July 4 as “Philippine-American Friendship Day’ which was a supreme example of bad timing. If this were established in the 1950s, there was still enough residual goodwill to Mother America. According to my US based uncle (who’s now 87) who welcomed the American Caesar, Pinoy goodwill to America went into its inevitable decline after General Macarthur’s sentimental visit to Manila in 1961.It was the 60s for goodness sakes and even in America, rebellion against authority was the in thing. America was THE AUTHORITY in the Philippines as perceived by many of the young. So there goes Fil-Am friendship day!

We continued to celebrate FilAm day throughout the Marcos years although as we neared the end of these years, it went largely unnoticed. Marcos didn’t do much to revive interest in it probably because he knew Washington DC was about to pull the rug from underneath. In 1986 Cory Aquino was crowned courtesy of People Power and House of Sin. Cory dropped the day from the list of our national holidays soon thereafter.

And so it remained until our gallant FVR (who saved Mrs Aquino from Gringo and the brownouts) came along and on the 50th anniversary of American withdrawal of sovereignty in 1996, Pinoys and some American actors reenacted the July 4, 1946 Luneta ceremony and the day was appropriately called “Republic Day”.  I would have watched the ceremony but I was attending an ecology modelling course in Washington DC, US of A. But I got to see on CNN that the Stars and Stripes was entangled with our rising Sun and Stars. It took the actors reenacting the flag raising quite a few moments to disentangle the American flag. This lead one Pinoy to comment according to a friend who was there “Away talagang umalis ng mga walanghiyang mga ‘yan!”. Sharon Delmendo’s essay describes the whole comical scene.

Thus it is too late to salvage Philippine-American Friendship day which is appropriately viewed as a neocolonial artifact . Unlike our Dia de Amistad with Spain, there isn’t a trace of nostalgia with America. Rightly the US Embassy won’t lift a finger on an official celebration although it supports celebrations by private entities. I believe that this again is historical amnesia. We can’t have a Friendship Day with America without remembering the initial duplicity in which America entered our history. We might as well forget it. However, we have to recognize the GOOD THINGS America has left the Philippines such as 1) the University of the Philippines, 2) DepEd and public schools, 3) our science community and of course 4) our constitutional system of government. Only Republic Day can celebrate these legacies.

But I don’t think even the Americans will be interested. We are below radar detection. Perhaps the next President of the Philippines or Prime Minister may revive the whole idea. Imagine we have a Philippine-Japan Friendship Month every February and my uncle who was a medical student in the 1945 Battle of Manila tried to save as many Pinoys bayonetted by the suicidal Japanese!

Were the Americans really that bad?

Too many things have to fall into place, for the premiership scenario…

1. She wins the congressional race
2. She becomes Speaker
3. The House and the Senate agree to a con-ass
4. Con-ass shifts to parliamentary system
5. New constitution is approved in plebescite

And most important of all:

6. After June 30, 2010, Gloria will no longer be president. At best, she will be just another member of the Lower House, and a neophyte at that. Meanwhile, the new president will be The President. He will give way to Rep. Gloria? One will have to assume the new president will not want a full 6-year term, will not do everything in his power to remain in office. In short, one will have to assume he is insane.

As to the martial law scenario with the help of her PMA class…

It will be a replay of history because Gloria’s generals will have to stay on past retirement. As a result, the promotions system will have a ceiling. And that will breed unrest among the officer corps. She and her generals will have to divide and conquer the corps through bribery and intimidation. But history has shown that those tactics have their limits, Gloria will not live forever. Neither will her core group of generals. Consequently, when the question of succession looms, the whole thing will fall apart.

What is the most likely scenario after Jume 30, 2010? Who knows? Desperate people do crazy things.

But the best scenario is for Gloria to realize that there will be a lot of noise to bring her to justice but it’s going to be only noise. She will get away with it because that’s the way it is in this Enchanted Kingdom.

Is Pres. Gloria sick?

I ask this question as prayerful Filipinos are now  ‘storming Heaven’s Gates’ with healing prayers for President Cory Aquino as close relatives and friends continue their healing Novena while she remains at the Makati Medical Center.

Though described as being “in stable condition” the family has stopped all medical interventions for her and said they are “leaving her fate to God.”

In like manner, if Malacanang tells us what the true state of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s health is, Filipinos will set aside any partisanship and pray for her good health.

But instead of such a report what we have are two dispatches that raise questions about why Mrs. Arroyo went straight to Asian Hospital upon her return from Japan and Brazil.

The two reports assert PGMA sought medical help for “leaking breast implants and a growth in her groin area.”

Manila Bulletin:

President Arroyo underwent removal and replacement of breast silicone implants at a hospital in Muntinglupa City, a source told the Manila Bulletin.
Meanwhile, a Palace official announced that President Arroyo has ended her two-day self imposed quarantine “with a clean bill of health,” and is expected to resume public engagements “in a few days.”
The informant, who requested anonymity since the source was not authorized to speak about the matter, said the President was scheduled to undergo augmentation mammoplasty at the Asian Hospital and Medical Center in Alabang, Muntinglupa.
In addition, a cyst or lump in the groin area was also scheduled to be removed by surgery, said the hospital source.
A biopsy was also done on her breast, the source said. This does not mean that the President was ill. This was part of regular medical procedures, the source added.
The President canceled the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday in preparation for her quarantine. She checked in at the hospital on Wednesday.
Security measures have been tightened at the hospital during the President’s confinement. All persons, whether visitors or employees, are subjected to intense inspection, a source said.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita and Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said Mrs. Arroyo has left Asian Hospital and Medical Center after undergoing self-quarantine following her 13-day visits from influenza-infected countries, including the former British colony of Hong Kong, Brazil, Colombia, United States and Japan.
In an interview shortly after the awarding ceremony of the Ten Outstanding Students of the Philippines at the Rizal Hall of Malacanang Palace, Ermita said the President will be out of the hospital “within the day.”
Remonde said President Arroyo yesterday checked out of the hospital at around 2 p.m. in the pink of health.
“She underwent certain check ups while on quarantine and all the results were okay. She has returned to Malacañang,” he said in a text message.
He also denied rumors that the President had some silicone removed from her body.
Ermita said President’s nearly three-day stay at the Asian Hospital in Alabang, Muntinlupa has given the President a “breathing space” from her hectic schedules.
But, he was quick to add that Mrs. Arroyo remains in touch with him and fellow cabinet members, citing that she “calls anytime she wishes to.”
“The President is taking advantage of her time na nag-self quarantine siya so mabuti na lang nakakapahinga si Presidente dahil masyadong hectic naman ang kanyang byahe and many, many other out of town trips before those trips abroad so mabuting nakakapahinga si Pangulo,” Ermita said.
The President just returned from her long trip on Monday with baskets of foreign investments and employment opportunities for Filipino workers.

http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/208951/gma-medical-checkup-ok

Jarius Bondoc In the Philippine Star:

If Gloria Macapagal Arroyo can make secret a trip to Colombia, more so the real aim of her overnight stay at Asian Hospital. The post-travel self-quarantine for A(H1N1) is a handy cover for gynecological procedures. The President has been suffering dysfunctional bleeding, likely due to polyps or myoma in the uterus. She had first walked into the hospital one dawn in 2008 for D&C (dilation and curettage) and left at dusk. News then was that she had an executive check. She’s had three follow-ups this year, the last in June. Menopause is inducing abnormal tissue growth and hormonal imbalance, a source said.
Wednesday dawn Arroyo checked in again — for less serious causes. She needed mammoplastic repair of leaking breast implants done in the ’80s. Occasion too to have doctors take out an inguinal cyst (in the groin), and laser off extra hair growth in that area and the armpits. Though a bit groggy, Arroyo was set to check out yesterday afternoon.
Hospitalizing a President isn’t easy. Patients in five rooms at the VIP 10th floor had to be moved, to billet bodyguards and cooks; P4,000@, or total P20,000 a day. Arroyo was given two connecting suites, P18,000@, or total P36,000 a day, one for her, the other for the family.

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=483276&publicationSubCategoryId=64

Malacanang is issuing a wholesale denial of both stories.

But it must surely understand that the President, as Head of State and Head of Government must be fully transparent about her health.

The national interest is indubitably linked to a sitting President’s health.

Her health impacts on the entire nation’s political well being.

UPDATE:

Malacanang has now reversed itself and is admitting that Mrs. Arroyo has had breast augmentation done on her and was diagnosed with a cyst in her groin area:

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/07/03/09/arroyo-admits-she-has-breast-implants

Then came war. Filipinos and Americans shed blood on the field of battle, united, for their own reason, against a common foe. When both people stood atop the ruin of Manila, we cheered in union at victory. The ties would bind these two nations. And this brotherhood would forever tie two nations together. Then another Republic would be born. It would be a nation that borrowed heavily on the American standard. That legacy continues to this day.

Can’t you help but think that was the Dream?

There are two fundamental questions that the Filipino, consciously or not has been asking. First, why is the country’s politics is so broken? It therefore leads to the question, is the “Form of Government,” wrong? The second question: the government insist that the nation is on the path to growth and all the numbers indicate as much, yet clearly, it has not translated for many Filipinos.

The obvious response to the first question leads inevitably to corruption. While the infestation of corruption is a cancer that has spread across every strata of Philippine society, and continues to devour and gnaw at our society’s spirt, it isn’t the root cause of evil. The root cause is that Philippine politics is fueled by a closed elitist franchise. It can be likened to closed software development. Without new blood to fuel new ideas, to invigorate the system, it becomes stagnant and rot sets in.

The answer to the second question runs just as parallel. In fact, the Office of the Chief Economist of the World Bank published a policy research on “Rising Growth, Declining Investment: The Puzzle of the Philippines“. The paper noted that the Filipino economy is vibrantly open to trade and capital inflows. Market-based economic reforms were implemented. Liberalization of oil, telecommunications, domestic shipping, acceptance of foreign direct investment, the privatization of government assets and the strengthening of central bank independence were all done. Even as the numbers show that growth rate has been above population growth and though only average when compared to the Philippines’ neighbors, it has been the highest in 40 years, the paper noted.

Yet something is amiss. Why isn’t it translating for most Filipinos?

The answer according to the same policy paper is that while foreign direct investment has fallen since the 1990s, the local market has not picked up the slack. Big Business has refused to reinvest substantially. The World Bank blames the lack of reinvestment on lack of incentives to do so. Businesses are profiting now, so why go out of the way to reinvest capital more than necessary? The rot sets in.

Let’s take a leap: if this policy paper is true, then a call for “economic reform” in the constitution become moot. Because it isn’t foreign direct investment that needs to be driven, it is the domestic business that needs to be invigorated.

The policy paper recommended a three-prong approach:

To sustain development in the long term, the economy needs a competitive diversification: from the distortions induced by the oligopolistic conglomerates to a market-driven expansion of non-traditional products. To bypass the foreseeable resistance of the well-established rent-seekers, the government should follow a phased strategy:

a. First, promote the production and export of non-traditional manufacturing and services, by getting the economic zones to perform better (Box 1), and pursuing a competitive real exchange rate;

b. Second, increase revenues, to finance the needed boost in infrastructure and education spending; and

c. Third, implement gradual reforms to tackle the rent-seeking conglomerate economy, to lower the cost of strategic inputs.

Clearly the first suggestion can be done by government and well within its function. The second— to increase revenues to finance infrastructure development and education spending has utterly failed. The reason is that infrastructure isn’t being built at a faster pace. Education spending is years behind. The third, the government has failed utterly to reform in the conglomerate economy to lower cost of strategic inputs. The price of electricity is the highest in asia and remains a huge problem.

Before you continue, you might think of this as yet another attempt to say “problem”. Think of all these as… opportunities.

Let us talk about education.

In A case study of the decentralization of health and education services in the Philippines, Joseph J. Capuno recommended ten ways for the Department of Education to adapt a more decentralized policy of education based on what the Department of Health has learned:

Tenth, promote minimum service standards more than best practices. As another way to promote the quality of local health services, the DOH both tried to implementminimum service standards and to encourage best practices. Promoting best practices of course encourage innovations in service delivery and financing. Replicating the best practices in other areas however proved to be difficult partly because it is hard to standardize the practice so that they can be adopted elsewhere. In contrast, minimum service standards are more easily and widely enforced. This is what happened in the case of the Sentrong Sigla Movement. The Sentrong Sigla seal of quality proved to be enough incentive to many LGUs to upgrade their health facilities. In practice, however, the best among the SS certified facilities are also awarded and given cash gifts. Nonetheless, its unique design both raises minimum service quality and promotes outstanding practices.

With limited resources, there are ways for the government to improve services. And while that only goes so far, is there a grand strategic plan in place that uses heavily what the civil service already know that the grand scheme of the government can implement together?

Let’s talk about infrastructure development.

What exactly are we building again? The old fashioned, tried and tested “build farm to market” roads is of course most certainly on top of that list. And yet, infrastructure isn’t what it used to be. With the coming of the Internet, its penetration spreads information. New techniques in farming for example can be spread across. Businesses can be communicated online. Where once infrastructure is the providence mainly of government, telecommunication is a private enterprise. It goes without saying that that most certainly, “build it and they will come” does not apply to the farthest regions of the Philippines. Power and Water are scarce enough there, Internet and the devices that run on it, would likewise be utterly useless.

So where does this leave us?

Just as in politics, the Philippines needs to create an open, more free and enable that politics so that Filipinos can better engage in it, not just during an election but before it, the domestic economy needs to be invigorated. If this means, a reform of banks to help finance projects on the micro and macro level to spur innovation in the small and medium scale enterprise. These are the sectors that need invigorating. These are the sectors that need to be opened up to help fuel the services that government need to fund.

What’s happening now is that as government increases taxes (not necessarily make it more efficient), it squeezes too far. It becomes detrimental already to invest in building technologies in the philippines because of high cost of electricity and high cost of labor.

American CEO and Co-founder of Apple and Pixar (now Disney’s largest shareholder) Steve Jobs once gave a commencement speech before Standford University graduates. He talked about connecting the dots and how what he learned about typography in college was later applied to the mac. He talked about love and loss, how he got kicked out of the company he built, how character building that was. How he found love when he left Apple. How all the things he learned away from the company he built would later be the core of Apple’s renaissance. He talked about death and all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure fall away in the face of death and remembering you might die is the best way to avoid the trap of thinking there is something to lose. “If you’re already naked: there’s no reason to not follow your heart”, he said. That wasn’t the best advice he gave. He said:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off.

I gave the example of Jobs because, here is a guy who clearly keeps going. He’s a master of continuous innovation even when it isn’t obvious to innovate. That’s what our businesses— big or small need that in spite of the lack of incentive, it must find a way to profit and continuously change it. The same with politics.

More than a dream, we need an ideal: whether it is politics, or economics, the answer to the Philippines’ challenges is to surrender all our fears and our doubts, to design a nation that is liberal in what it receives and conservative in what it says. We have to be hungry. We have to be foolish.

*sorry forgot to give a shout out to @caffeinesparks and @mlq3 for the pdfs! Thank you for those links!

Rafanan and these officials of Smartmatic-TIM should be advised to reveal all before the public. Why? Because this is simply not a private matter anymore. This deal is now imbued with public interests. They should reveal the terms of the consortium. Otherwise, the Senate should again look into this more closely to protect public welfare.

Likewise,people are also urging Malacanang to release the executive checkup results of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. In the United States, medical checkups results of the president are fed to the media for publication to ally fears that the head of state is ailing or sick.

In the case of Mrs. Arroyo, there are reports that she underwent mammoplasty procedures at the Asian Medical Hospital for, what Philippine Star columnist Jarius Bondoc said, an operation to correct a “leaking silicone breast implant”. A cyst was also found, according to a news report in the Manila Bulletin, in Mrs. Arroyo’s groin.

If this is true, that Mrs. Arroyo went under the knife to correct a previous breast augmentation procedure, Malacanang’s spokesperson Cerge Remonde should tell us the truth to stop these kinds of news. Remonde yesterday denied the news. But, it is to the best interest of everybody for the Palace to release the medical checkup results of Mrs. Arroyo. Why? Because, like it or not, it is imbued with public interest. Some of us wants to know why Mrs. Arroyo decided to “just do it” at the Asian Hospital and not at the Belo Medical Group.;-)

Ok, I get that, esteemed people of the “Opposition”. So show me the money.

As I wrote in a recent article,

The Philippine “Opposition” has failed in the last several decades to offer an imaginative or visionary alternative to Filipinos. Instead all we continue to see is an n-th iteration of an approach to “reform”.

[...]

It continues to use 1986 thinking to battle a 2009 issue.

So what do the esteemed mouthpieces of our “Opposition” do as part of their futile quests for relevance? They look overseas to scavenge for “parallels”.

Earlier it was a search for inspiration from the unrest gripping Iran, that belligerent desert kingdom where an innocent bystander was murdered during a protest rally and then summarily proclaimed a “hero” of the moment. Some people then siezed upon it as an inspiring reminder of our own ten minutes of glory more than twenty years ago, unfortunately to the point of bad taste.

Having tried that to no avail, we then set our sights upon the Honduras whose president Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a recent military coup. Again, true to form, some bozo quips:

Kung nabasa ni Gloria Arroyo ang nangyari sa Honduras kahapon, dapat manginig siya sa takot.

[Translated: "If [President] Gloria Arroyo read what happened in the Honduras yesterday, she should be trembling in fear now.”]

Indeed, it “could serve as a stern warning” to the President and, get this folks, “perhaps an encouragement to the [Philippine] military” postulates Jun Bautista in a thinly-veiled incitement of rebellion titled “Honduras May Embolden GMA” — an article that comes across more like a lame attempt at reverse-psychology.

Dumb and dumber.

Sad and sadder.

There is nothing more poignant than the sight of a people gripped by a crisis of relevance and meaning, trying to mitigate their pathos by identifying with or drawing parallels from success stories, champs, and heroes.

Iran? The Honduras?

Those are not parallels.

But this one is:

Sports Fan Psychology

The exploits of our sports heroes on field invoke some form of primal tribalism within us — the kind that could be behind violent hooliganism often seen in spectators of soccer matches. We feel “emboldened” to “take control” as we gawk at that flying tackle, that double pump lay-up, that cross-field shot. We suddenly feel the urge to break away from, well, something.

And what is that something? As our thoughts come back to our immediate circumstances, we seize upon what we see — our humdrum day job, our obscure suburban existence, the speed limit we need to observe — things that are of our own making or are the outcomes of our own decisions (or indecisions) suddenly feel like a prison. That’s the effect that media-induced adrenaline coursing through our veins has on our minds. It messes with our perception of what is real and important.

Suddenly we cut to a commercial break where the effects of that hormonal cocktail is harvested. Someone behind the scenes is laughing all the way to the bank.

Those on the right side of the equation live happily ever after.

Those on the wrong side go on and scrounge around for other “parallels” to fill the void where imagination should have been.

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Cory Aquino, our former president, is in critical condition at the Makati Medical Center two weeks or so after undergoing surgery for colon cancer.

As news broke of her being brought to hospital, the story also said a 9-day novena for her recovery was being mounted.

It’s difficult to say this, but I know this meant Tita Cory, as everyone calls her, may be near death.

So it is in hopeful prayer and a creeping sense of grief that I write this prayer-tribute.

Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, now 76, is fighting her final gallant battle but if she does not overcome this, it will not be her loss but ours.

I remember clearly how not a few scoffed and raised   their brows when Cory Aquino accepted the challenge of running against embattled dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Marcs thought mightily that his monolithic Kilusang Bagong Lipunan would handily beat the housewife, the widow of his assassinated arch enemy Ninoy Aquino.

So Cory did fight her Quixotic battle and Marcos, in the only way he knew how, attempted and failed to steal the vote.

The wholesale fraud was exposed with the COMELEC’s own tabulators walking out.

People Power ended Marcos’s reign as Filipinos backed the revolt which began with Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos withdrawing their support for the discredited regime.

The rest is history as Cory Aquino used the powers of her revolutionary government to rebuild the democratic institutions Marcos had ravaged.

Cory Aquino could have gone into quiet, disinterested retirement after that ‘transition’ presidency.

Instead she emerged as stateswoman and the moral barometer of many Fiilipinos, taking to the streets again as her own eleted successor Fidel Ramos tried to bring untimely charter change.

Cory was also there when Joseph Estrada dropped the ball and got embroiled in high stakes corruption leading to Edsa Dos.

And even as cancer struck her, Mrs. Aquino denounced the creeping misrule of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Her own presidency was not a perfect one.

It was hobbled by several coup attempts by Gringo Honasan and other adventurist soldiers, bedeviled still by the communist and Moro  secessionist insurgencies, and intrigued by complaints about Kamag-anak, Inc. (relatives, and friends who were supposedly favored by her), and the unkind tales about friendly mag-jong sessions in Malacanang.

But in all these, Cory’s own personal integrity never came into question.

As Tita Cory now lies on her deathbed, let our prayers storm the gates of Heaven to ease her pain and lighten her final journey.

Salamat Tita Cory, salamat.