SEVEN CURSES OF A PRESIDENT

The 'seven curses' of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
Source: www.pcij.org
Posted by Isa Lorenzo

EVEN before she could deliver her eighth state of the nation address (SONA) this coming Monday, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has already been weighed and found wanting by over 80 former senior government officials.

In their own take on the state of the nation after seven years of the Arroyo administration, the former officials, who served in the four post-Marcos governments and collectively called FSGO, castigated the President for being "the worst threat to the state of our nation."

"The person pretending to tell us about the dire state of our nation next Monday," FSGO said, "is the very same same person who has done the most to destroy the very foundation of our nation, sell its future to its exploiters and abusers, and consign the poor and middle class to deeper poverty and worse despair."

The group identified seven curses that it said Arroyo has wrought upon the nation.

1. The curse of a country unable to feed its own people

FSGO noted that rice self-sufficiency was a priority in Arroyo's first SONA in 2001 and that she reiterated the promise of food on every table in her 2003 address. "Yet, in every year throughout her administration thus far, the country was importing increasing quantities of rice every year, that this year the Philippines achieved an odd milestone in rice self-sufficiency: our becoming the world's largest rice importer."

The government has also failed to implement the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization program, says FSGO. It adds that the Department of Agriculture (DA) has never received P17 billion in incremental funds provided for by law. Worse, the President "let loose" people like Jocelyn 'Joc-Joc' Bolante in the DA. A former agriculture undersecretary, Bolante has been implicated in diverting P728 million in fertilizer funds allegedly for Arroyo's 2004 election campaign.

Furthermore, the agricultural trade deficit ballooned to over P1.5 billion in 2006.

"The high food prices pushing more people into hunger and poverty are a direct result of our government's neglect of agriculture," the group added.

2. The curse of worsening poverty and increasing disparity between the rich and poor

This, said FSGO, is due to "economic mismanagement that ignores the needs of the many to serve the interests of the few." It pointed out that the ranks of the unemployed number 2.9 million, while another seven million are looking for additional work to supplement their income.

Poverty incidence increased to 26.9 percent in 2006 from 24.4 percent in 2004. This means that there are 4.6 million poor families. Elementary school attendance fell to 83.2 percent in the school year of 2006-2007 compared to 90.3 percent just three years ago.

Again, the group said, the government is to blame. "Public education's ability to rescue poor families from the poverty trap has suffered due to severe underspending by the government."

The Estrada administration had a "more constrained" budget, but it spent P5,830 per student from 1998-2001 while the Arroyo government spent only P5,304 per student from 2001-2006. The country remains one of the lowest spenders on education in Southeast Asia, FSGO pointed out. Once a leader in education-for-all indicators during the 90s, the country now lags behind Indonesia, Mongolia and Vietnam.

3. The curse of deteriorating basic social services essential to the survival and welfare of the people

"Our current fiscal state was improved, not by sold revenue effort, but by deep cuts in social and economic spending," FSGO said, pointing to the government's allocation of resources for development expenditures which has been the lowest in the region. Worse, the group said, the allocation, management and use of public funds are "marked by such greed and disregard of the public good that can only be condemned as scandalous."

While much of Visayas was being devastated by Typhoon Frank last month, Arroyo and her entourage were on a "junket" to the U.S., said FSGO, estimating the cost of the Philippine delegation visit to be at least P300 million. "In contrast, how much did our government spend on relief for the typhoon victims?" asked the group. Of the eight million people affected by disasters from 2004 to 2006, it said, only half received assistance from the government and private sector.

Meanwhile, a Global Maritime Distress and Safety System, already contracted and delivered in 1997, has yet to be implemented by the Department of Transportation and Communication.

4. The curse of the national government gripped by a metastatic cancer of corruption

The Philippines has made a dismal showing in global corruption rankings. In 2007, it was reported as the "most corrupt" among ten of East Asia's leading economies by the World Bank. In 2005, Transparency International ranked the Philippines in the category of countries perceived to suffer from severe corruption, the 117th most corrupt out of 159 countries.

"Corruption has become pervasive, persistent, prolific. And the President, instead of fighting it, has become its prime practitioner and protector," said FSGO, accusing Arroyo of corrupting "the already weak" electoral process, "the already diminished" civil service, and the "already politicized" public investment and fiscal programs.

5. The curse of wanton abuse of presidential prerogatives

FSGO said that the balance of power within the Arroyo administration between its "dark and bright sides" has tipped radically in favor of the dark side. "A new type of presidential appointee along the Joc-Joc Bolante brand dominates. The appointments of others already rejected by the electorate in 2007 will further darken the complexion of her Cabinet."

Social Security Services administrator Romulo Neri merits special mention. Neri, a former socioeconomic planning secretary and higher education chairman, "became one of the keepers of evil secrets, protected by the talisman of 'executive privilege' as long as he remains in a Cabinet position."

The government has also been packed with ineligible bureaucrats.

6. The curse of an illegitimate president

The president has consistently promised clean, computerized elections — in her 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2006 SONAs. But the group said that after seven years, she has yet to take any sure steps toward this. Nor does her recent appointment of unknown commissioners to the Commission on Elections bode well for future elections.

"President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo promised us a strong Republic. We have realized that she is running a stolen Republic. Thus far, we have seen her trying to keep only what was stolen."

7. The curse of a nation robbed of its dignity, unity and future

Aside from the country's "global reputation for pervasive corruption, " the Philippines has also been investigated by international organizations for extra-judiical killings. FSGO said that our national patrimony, from mineral resources to possible oil deposits have been peddled to foreign interests like ukay-ukay (used clothing). "The loss of our country's good international standing and credibility has been a sad victim of Arroyo's bad governance."

While the President cites the legions of overseas Filipino workers as an achievement of her administration, the group warned of the ills of a remittance-driven economy, including reduced competitiveness of manufacturing and tradeables from export and impot-competing sectors, and less demand on infrastructure, which has led to less necessary public investment.

FSGO described this type of economy as "limited and self-undermining because remittances cannot be expected to remain high and grow at an increasing rate."

In response to the FSGO statement, Presidential Management Staff chief Cerge Remonde told the Inquirer: "These people would know how difficult and how challenging governance is…this administration can stand on its record, and its record is better than how [they] managed their respective government positions during their time."

FSGO, however, disagreed. In an internal survey among its members, the former government officials rated the current administration a dismal 1.1 on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest.

Despite its bleak assessment, however, FSGO remains hopeful. It plans to continue working with political institutions as "instruments for reform and justice, not parties to anomalies and scandals," and to continue the "search for a presidency that fights the enemies of social justice instead of serving its cronies."

"We can re-imagine the nation as something far better and more capable than the one that the President will paint in her SONA this Monday," the group said. "This administration may have stolen the Republic, but it will not rob us of our hopes."

__._,_.___

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TARSIER

KAYA NATIN

Dear Friends,

Good morning!

Amidst all the problems our country is facing, there is still so much to be hopeful about especially with inspiring local government leaders like Mayor Jesse Robredo of Naga City, Gov. Eddie Panlilio of Pampanga and Gov. Grace Padaca of Isabela. I'd like to share with you an article about the three of them which came out recently at Transit, a free weekly news magazine found at schools and coffee shops all over Metro Manila, please click on the link below to read the article:

http://transit.com.ph/

Mayor Jesse, Gov. Grace and Gov. Eddie are the founding members of Kaya Natin! A Movement for Genuine Change and Ethical Leadership. If you would like to join them in promoting genuine and lasting reforms in our country and espouse Ethical Leadership, please email Kaya Natin! at kayanatin@yahoo.com or you can reach Kaya Natin! at (02) 426-5657.

Thank you for your time and I hope you can help us in promoting Good Governance and Ethical Leadership in our country by sharing this email and article to your friends

Have a good day!

Sincerely,

Harvey S. Keh

Director for Youth Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship

Ateneo de Manila-School of Government

Kaya Natin means .. we can do this...Philippines youth stand up for your future
tarsier:-

Vote for your new 7 wonders of nature

Tubbataha Reef

PHILIPPINES

Tubbataha Reef is an atoll coral reef in the Sulu Sea that belongs to the Philippines. It is a marine sanctuary protected as Tubbataha Reef National Marine Park. The reef is composed of two atolls, North and South Reefs. Each reef has a single small islet that protrudes from the water. The atolls are separated by a deep channel 8 kilometers wide. Over one thousand species, including many that are endangered, can be found at on the reef. These include manta rays, lionfish, tortoises, clownfish and sharks.

Current rank: 4

Live Ranking: see the Top 77 of today

Vote now for Tubbataha Reef

A paradise on earth

Four RP wonders still in top 10 web campaign as Pinoy votes continue

Pinoys in Belgium are overwhelmed that four of the most beautiful places in the Philippines are still in the top 10 of the 77 nominees vying to be included in the New 7 Wonders of Nature.

As of this posting, Tubbataha Reef found in Sulu Sea is fourth, followed by Bohol's Chocolate Hills in fifth spot. The Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park in Palawan remains strong at sixth while Mayon Volcano in Bicol is ninth.

Voting for the top 77 nominees will be up to end of December 2008. Of these nominees, Dr. Federico Mayor, former director of United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and other experts will choose and visit the 21 finalists. In mid-2010, the New 7 Wonders of Nature will be named.

GMA NEWS

For the latest Philippine news stories and videos, visit GMANews.TV

Mariannet Amper, commits suicide 12 years old

By CLAIRE SY DELFIN11/10/2007 | 09:15 PM

She would have completed her elementary school, but the 12-year-old girl grew so dejected that she hanged herself, and her dreams of finishing school died with her.

Mariannet Amper’s suicide last week in Davao City hogged headlines and sparked off protest rallies against the government.

Poverty has been blamed on her decision to end her life.

Under her pillow was a letter she wrote addressed to television program, “Wish Ko Lang," which grants viewers’ wishes. On it, Mariannet wished for a new pair of shoes, a bag, a bicycle and better-paying jobs for her parents.

She also left a diary, narrating her family’s difficulties surviving a life penniless in a little hut that has neither electricity nor running water.

She also wrote that she had not attended school for a month for lack of transportation fare.

“I suspect she did it because of our situation," her father Isabelo, a carpenter, told reporters in the vernacular.

But psychiatrists disputes that poverty cannot be the only factor to push someone, especially a child, to commit suicide.

“It is unfair to simply look at suicide in that angle (poverty)," said psychiatrist Dr. Ma. Luz Casimiro-Querubin. After all, many poor Filipinos do not resort to killing themselves despite their hopeless condition. And there have been cases of children born to well-to-do families who have committed or attempted suicide.

Suicide is not an instant decision, she said. It is borne out of a suicidal tendency that the child develops within himself.

Suicidal tendency, in turn, is a psychosocial and multi-factorial behavior that is developed through time when the child faces long-standing problems within himself and in his immediate environment.

Soon, the child would manifest episodes of depression, hopelessness and low self-esteem.

Although poverty is a risk factor, it can hardly stand-alone. It is the lack or absence of support system that compounds the child’s problem, leading her to lose hope and meaning in life, and eventually commit suicide.

“The fact that Mariannet has six more siblings in a family with very limited resources indicates that some of them, including her, may be marginalized," Casimiro-Querubin says.

Hence, even if she was born to a rich family, but was wanting of proper attention from significant people around her, she is prone to develop suicidal tendencies.

Lack of data
Experts, however, find it difficult to conduct research on suicide for any age group in the country because the Philippines has no central registry for recording suicide and suicidal attempts. Data gathering is even made more difficult by religious and social biases.

The latest data available is from the World Health Organization, which was released in 1993. It says that suicide rates per hundred thousand population in the Philippines are 2.5 for males and 1.7 for females.

Casimiro-Querubin agrees that suicide is rare in the Philippines, but warns that it is happening and is increasing especially with the rising incidence of parents going abroad for employment, leaving behind children with distorted support system.

“It has a high psychosocial cost to children," she said.

Child psychiatrist Dr. Agnes Bueno said that in her practice, the youngest in her files of patients who attempted suicide seriously is an eight-year-old boy.

A child below five years, she says, has no concept of death as permanent and meaningful. “Therefore, he is incapable of actualizing suicide although accident-proneness could be an equivalent in their age group," Bueno said.

She shares in her article entitled, “When a Child Wants to Die,’ published in Medical Observer magazine in April 2001 a background inventory of attempted suicide among her patients. Her inventory shows the following:

- Ten out of 10 belong to Class A economic status
- Nine out of 10 are Catholics
- Eight out of 10 are males
- Eight out of 10 are due to relationships (family and romance)
- Two out of 10 are due to clinical depression
- Two out of 10 are in an incestuous relationship with their fathers
- Ten out of 10 occurred in the home
- Ten out of 10 are students
- Five out of 10 are positive for family history of alcoholism
- Two out of 10 are positive for family history of suicide
- Three out of 10 have friends who also attempted suicide

She advises parents to immediately detect sudden changes in the child’s behavior as such are symptomatic of a suicidal tendency.

Changes in the child’s academic performance, mood swings and instances when a child hurts another child or takes away things that do not belong to him are signs that parents should watch out for. If any of these happens, parents must open their lines of communication to the child and be more sensitive with his needs.

Suicide is instinct

Lora (not her real name) recounts occasions during her childhood when she would pound her head on a concrete wall each time she would feel sad. At one time, she attempted to hang herself.

To her recollection, her suicidal tendency started when she was nine or 10 years old. And this has remained until today that she is already in her late 20s, is married and has a child.

“It’s instinct. Suicide is always an option whenever I feel depressed," she says. “It’s just right there waiting to happen."

Lora says it doesn’t even need a major setback for her to entertain thoughts on suicide. A simple spat with her husband, or getting scolded by her mother when she was a child is enough.

She considers her suicidal tendencies a dilemma, especially since she can’t even identify its source. All she remembers is that she hated her father when she was a child. She refuses to elaborate.

Taking responsibility

But in the case of Mariannet, the real reason for her suicide seems shoved away as the government has already taken responsibility for it.

“We take responsibility for everything. Because we are leaders of the government, we need to ensure that services are there," Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo immediately ordered the Department of Education (DepEd) to fast track the expansion of the alternative distance-learning program that allows a child to study and finish schooling without having to go to a formal school.

This way, Mariannet could have continued schooling without having to worry over transportation fare.

DepEd Undersecretary Vilma Labrador has also instructed teachers to check on their students and conduct home visits after a child has gone absent for three days without prior notice.

Fight vs poverty

Even prior to Mariannet’s death, the President has ordered the Department of Budget and Management to release one billion pesos to fund hunger mitigation programs.

She has also told a business forum that her economic efforts have started to bear fruit. “The common people are now feeling the benefits of a growing economy."

This was instantly met with protests by left-wing organizations and anti-poverty groups, insisting that the economic growth fails to trickle down to the poor.

A recent Social Weather Stations survey shows that about nine million Filipino families regarded themselves as poor. Many of them also said that they experienced “severe hunger" in the last three months.

Psychiatrists, however, claimed that while there is a need to uplift the financial capacity of 87 million Filipinos, doing so cannot and will not guarantee an end to childhood suicide.

They remind Filipinos that the core of problems in children takes its roots, not in their economic status, but in their family system.

Children and young people are so often forced to do things they do not want to do, just to earn enough money to feed themselves, there siblings and their parents... then i see newspapers in the United Kingdom talking about the oh! so sad footballers who are slaves , whilst they earn £120,000 per week......what a sad , sick world we live in... tarsiers comment

Child United

In the west most of us can send our children to school, what if we had to make a choice.. food or education.. what would we do for our children

CHILD UNITED

A Matter of taste.. Matthew Sutherland

The following is from a British journalist stationed in thePhilippines. His observations are so hilarious!!!! This was written in 1999.

MATTER OF TASTE by Matthew Sutherland

I have now been in this country for over six years, and consider myself in most respects well-assimilated. However, there is one key step on the road to full assimilation which I have yet to take, and that’s to eat BALUT. The day any of you sees me eating balut, please call immigration and ask them to issue me a Filipino passport. Because at that point there will be no turning back.BALUT, for those still blissfully ignorant non-Pinoys out there, is a fertilized duck egg. It is commonly sold with salt in a piece of newspaper, much like English fish and chips, by street vendors usually after dark, presumably so you can’t see how gross it is. It’s meant to be an aphrodisiac, although I can’t imagine anything more likely to dispel sexual desire than crunching on a partially-formed baby duck swimming in noxious fluid. The embryo in the egg comes in varying stages of development, but basically it is not considered macho to eat one without fully discernible feathers, beak, and claws. Some say these crunchy bits are the best. Others prefer just to drink the so-called ’soup’, the vile, pungent liquid that surrounds the aforementioned feathery fetus…excuse me, I have to go and throw up now. I’ll be back in a minute.

Food dominates the life of the Filipino. People here just love to eat. They eat at least eight times a day. These eight official meals are called, in order: breakfast, snacks, lunch, merienda, pica-pica, pulutan, dinner, and no-one-saw-me-take-that-cookie-from-the-fridge-so-it-doesn’t-count. The short gaps in between these mealtimes are spent eating Sky Flakes from the open packet that sits on every desktop. You’re never far from food in the Philippines. If you doubt this, next time you’re driving home from work, try this game. See how long you can drive without seeing food and I don’t mean a distant restaurant, or a picture of food. I mean a man on the sidewalk frying fish balls, or a man walking through the traffic selling nuts or candy. I bet it’s less than one minute.

Here are some other things I’ve noticed about food in the Philippines.Firstly, a meal is not a meal without rice - even breakfast. In the UK, I could go a whole year without eating rice. Second, it’s impossible to drink without eating. A bottle of San Miguel just isn’t the same without gambas or beef tapa. Third, no one ventures more than two paces from their house without baon and a container of something cold to drink.You might as well ask a Filipino to leave home without his pants on. And lastly, where I come from, you eat with a knife and fork. Here, you eat with a spoon and fork. You try eating rice swimming in fish sauce with a knife.

One really nice thing about Filipino food culture is that people always ask you to SHARE their food. In my office, if you catch anyone attacking their baon, they will always go, “Sir! KAIN TAYO!” (”Let’s eat!”). This confused me, until I realized that they didn’t actually expect me to sit down and start munching on their boneless bangus. In fact, the polite response is something like, “No thanks, I just ate.” But the principle is sound - if you have food on your plate, you are expected to share it, however hungry you are, with those who may be even hungrier. I think that’s great. In fact, this is frequently even taken one step further.Many Filipinos use “Have you eaten yet?” (”KUMAIN KA NA?”) as a general greeting, irrespective of time of day or location. Some foreigners think Filipino food is fairly dull compared to other Asian cuisines.Actually lots of it is very good: Spicy dishes like Bicol Express (strange, a dish named after a train); anything cooked with coconut milk; anything KINILAW; and anything ADOBO. And it’s hard to beat the sheer wanton, cholesterholic frenzy of a good old-fashioned LECHON de Leche feast. Dig a pit, light a fire, add 50 pounds of animal fat on a stick, and cook until crisp.Mmm, mmm… you can actually feel your arteries constricting with each successive mouthful.

I also share one key Pinoy trait —a sweet tooth. I am thus the only foreigner I know who does not complain about sweet bread, sweet burgers, sweet spaghetti, sweet banana ketchup, and so on. I am a man who likes to put jam on his pizza. Try it! It’s the weird food you want to avoid.

In addition to duck fetus in the half-shell, items to avoid in the Philippines Include pig’s blood soup (DINUGUAN); bull’s testicle soup, the strangely-named “SOUP NUMBER FIVE” (I dread to think what numbers one through four are); and the ubiquitous, stinky shrimp paste, BAGOONG, and it’s equally stinky sister, PATIS. Filipinos are so addicted to these latter items that they will even risk arrest or deportation trying to smuggle them into countries like Australia and the USA, which wisely ban the importation of items you can smell from more than 100 paces.

Then there’s the small matter of the blue ice cream. I have never been able to get my brain around eating blue food; the ubiquitous UBE leaves me cold. And lastly on the subject of weird food, beware: that KALDERETANG KAMBING (goat) could well be KALDERETANG ASO (dog)…The Filipino, of course, has a well-developed sense of food.

Here’s a typical Pinoy food joke: “I’m on a seafood diet. “What’s a seafood diet?” “When I see food, I eat it!” Filipinos also eat strange bits of animals — the feet, the head, the guts, etc., usually barbecued on a stick. These have been given witty names, like “ADIDAS” (chicken’s feet); “KURBATA” (either just chicken’s neck, or “neck and thigh” as in “neck-tie”); “WALKMAN” (pigs ears); “PAL” (chicken wings); “HELMET” (chicken head); “IUD” (chicken intestines), and BETAMAX” (video-cassette-like blocks of animal blood).Yum, yum. Bon appetit. “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches” — (Proverbs 22:1)

When I arrived in the Philippines from the UK six years ago, one of the first cultural differences to strike me was names. The subject has provided a continuing source of amazement and amusement ever since. The first unusual thing, from an English perspective, is that everyone here has a nickname. In the staid and boring United Kingdom, we have nicknames in kindergarten, but when we move into adulthood we tend, I am glad to say, to lose them.The second thing that struck me is that Philippine names for both girls and boys tend to be what we in the UK would regard as overbearingly cutesy for anyone over about five. Fifty-five-year-olds colleague put it. Where I come from, a boy with a nickname like Boy Blue or Honey Boy would be beaten to death at school by pre-adolescent bullies, and never make it to adulthood. So, probably, would girls with names like Babes, Lovely, Precious, Peachy or Apples. Yuk, ech ech. Here, however, no one bats an eyelid.

Then I noticed how many people have what I have come to call “door-bell names”. These are nicknames that sound like - well, door-bells. There are millions of them. Bing, Bong, Ding, and Dong are some of the more common. They can be, and frequently are, used in even more door-bell-like combinations such as Bing-Bong, Ding-Dong, Ting-Ting, and so on. Even our newly-appointed chief of police has a doorbell name Ping.

None of these door-bell names exist where I come from, and hence sound unusually amusing to my untutored foreign ear. Someone once told me that one of the Bings, when asked why he was called Bing, replied “because my brother is called Bong”. Faultless logic. Dong, of course, is a particularly funny one for me, as where I come from “dong” is a slang word for well, perhaps “talong” is the best Tagalog equivalent.

Repeating names was another novelty to me, having never before encountered people with names like Len-Len, Let-Let, Mai-Mai, or Ning-Ning. The secretary I inherited on my arrival had an unusual one: Leck-Leck. Such names are then frequently further refined by using the “squared” symbol, as in Len2 or Mai2.This had me very confused for a while. Then there is the trend for parents to stick to a theme when naming their children. This can be as simple as making them all begin with the same letter, as in Jun, Jimmy, Janice, and Joy.More imaginative parents shoot for more sophisticated forms of assonance or rhyme, as in Biboy, Boboy, Buboy, Baboy (notice the names get worse the more kids there are-best to be born early or you could end up being a Baboy). Even better, parents can create whole families of, say, desserts (Apple Pie, Cherry Pie, Honey Pie) or flowers (Rose, Daffodil, Tulip). The main advantage of such combinations is that they look great painted across your trunk if you’re a cab driver. That’s another thing I’d never seen before coming to Manila-taxis with the driver’s kids’ names on the trunk.

Another whole eye-opening field for the foreign visitor is the phenomenon of the “composite” name. This includes names like Jejomar (for Jesus, Joseph and Mary), and the remarkable Luzviminda (for Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, believe it or not). That’s a bit like me being called something like Engscowani” (for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). Between you and me, I’m glad I’m not. And how could I forget to mention the fabulous concept of the randomly inserted letter ‘h’. Quite what this device is supposed to achieve, I have not yet figured out, but I think it is designed to give a touch of class to an otherwise only averagely weird name. It results in creations like Jhun,Lhenn, Ghemma, and Jhimmy. Or how about Jhun-Jhun (Jhun2)?

How boring to come from a country like the UK full of people with names like John Smith. How wonderful to come from a country where imagination and exoticism rule the world of names. Even the towns here have weird names; my favorite is the unbelieveably-named town of Sexmoan (ironically close to Olongapo and Angeles).

Primeclass Traders