This is a re-posted opinion piece.
A great leader is single minded, he has a vision and sticks to it. Regardless. President Benigno Aquino III has that vision; he is determined to rid the country of corruption. This is an incredibly ambitious task at which he won’t succeed. But he could well make a severe dent in it, make some major steps toward dramatically reducing it to bringing the Philippines into the middle of the pack , or even into the upper half in Asia rather than at the bottom where it is now. By 2016, we could actually have the Philippines in the top 100 of little corruption, from 134th today.
That would more than do to put his mark on history, to serve as an admirable legacy. I wish him well in this task.
So I fully applaud the president and his single-minded determination to weed out corruption and do not see it as vindictive at all. In the event former President Gloria Arroyo is innocent, she can prove it in court. And if she is innocent, this is what she should be doing, rushing to achieve a verdict of “innocent.” Not using every wile to have cases annulled, or to flee the country. If she successfully gets the Supreme Court to agree with her and have the case thrown out, then the matter remains unresolved and she remains under suspicion. If it were me, that’s the last thing I’d want, I’d want to prove I’m innocent and for everyone to know it.
I have a list of 16 scandals perpetrated under her rule, none resolved. All brushed under the rug. This leads to only one logical conclusion: Guilty. Or can someone (from her camp?) explain to my logical mind why this is not so.
A 12-0 vote in Maguindanao in 2007 senatorial elections when the rest of the country voted 8-4 (with two of the 4 not affiliated with either the Genuine Opposition or the Team Unity) the other way is so hugely improbable as to defy belief. As former senator Miguel Zubiri gallantly agreed, and as now Senator Aquilino Pimentel III so assiduously proclaimed for four years. While in 2004, “Hello Garci” wasn’t a fabricated tape, it was a real life conversation. Gloria needs to explain it in court.
If the justices agree with her, to dismiss the case, then as far as I’m concerned, they are complicit in the crime. But the president must go beyond just his predecessor and her minions. He must throw in jail two or three (or twenty) of the top tax evaders and smugglers. The message must be: You can’t get away with it anymore. If he successfully does this he need do no more. We will have a vastly reformed and improved society come July 1, 2016. It will matter little that there was a moribund economy, it’s a price worth paying. The next president can concentrate on getting the economy moving—from a more honest base.
There has to be a shock to the Philippine system, a revolution that truly reforms. The last two didn’t weed out corruption even though they said they would. Corruption continued, even worsened, after Edsa 2. Here’s a different way to revolt that can succeed.
The Philippines is at the bottom of the Asian heap. Corruption is not the only reason (other countries are corrupt too) but it’s a major reason. If South Korea, a dynamo of an economy, can put two presidents in jail for corruption, surely we can put one. If she’s guilty. Let’s find out the truth, not run from it.
•••
Well, the Philippines has fallen again. When will it ever stop? This time it’s on paying taxes by business. It was 124th out of 183 countries, bad enough. But now it’s 135th, down 11 places. In all three criteria it slipped: placed 155th in terms of number of tax payments from 149th (the Philippines requires 47 tax payments from companies per annum, higher than the global average of 28.5); dropped two notches to 72nd in the “Time to comply” category (local firms spend 195 hours to pay their taxes, still lower than the world average of 277 hours, but businesses in Malaysia and Singapore spend less time in settling their tax obligations at 133 hours and 84 hours, respectively); and placed 129th in terms of total tax rate from 118th last year (taxes cover 46.5 percent of the Philippines’ businesses’ profits versus 45.8 percent last year and the 44.8 percent world average in 2011).
On top of that, two more Philippine airlines were banned from flying to Europe because they were considered unsafe. Admittedly they’re only small airlines—Interisland Airlines and Aeromajestic—but the message is there. We aren’t running safe airlines. And anyway, it’s not just the small ones, PAL and Cebu Pacific are there too. In fact there’s a staggering 49 Philippine airlines (I didn’t know that many existed) in the 273 from 20 countries that are banned from flying to or in Europe. What it confirms is what I’ve harped on for decades, ever since I first ran a factory here. And that is the casual, almost careless attitude to maintenance and doing a job properly.
I was horrified the other day visiting construction of a new major multi-story building to see the contractor plugging bare wires into the power outlet to power his grinder. A plug costs 27 pesos. But it’s the attitude that worries me. The “Bahala na” approach just won’t do in today’s modern, technical world.
As one of my favorite signs says, this in a submarine: “There are more planes in the sea than submarines in the air”. Planes can crash from the tiniest of mechanical errors, 50-story buildings can burn down from the heat created by two wires twisted together. Four people died while around 1,500 families lost their homes in a slum area in Quezon City last week due to a fire I can almost guarantee was started by faulty wiring or poor LPG connection. Simple casualness that takes lives. It’s time to be perfection minded.
How many bus accidents due to faulty brakes or shredded tires at high speed will occur? We saw a truck do exactly that on the South Luzon Expressway recently. The tire tore apart, hitting following cars and putting the truck out of control. By sheer luck, there wasn’t an accident. Then there’s the horrific record of shipping—either overloading, going out in a storm or poor maintenance. All related to a too casual approach.
•••
It’s 732 days since the worst massacre in the country’s history. Two days past its second anniversary. A crime so horrific, so blatantly ruthless for the pettiest of reasons (stopping someone from filing to run for public office) that it is almost unimaginable. And what is happening about it? Nothing. And few seem to care, least of all the courts where justice should be served.
There should be public outrage on a massive scale. There isn’t. There should be a judge censuring the defendants’ lawyers, led by the inhuman Fortun, for their dilatory tactics. This is not law, it is a travesty of it. And the Supreme Court doesn’t step in and demand the swift justice society demands. Why doesn’t it?
==============================================================================
By: Peter Wallace – Like It Is
Source: Manila Standard Today, Nov. 25, 2011
To view the original article, click here.
Subscribe to the Arangkada NewsRoom via RSS
Comment here