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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| GMA Revolution Stalling By Antonio C. Abaya February 9, 2003 In the first general assembly of the 12:30 Movement last January 11, called by civil society groups supportive of President Arroyo�s �revolution in the way we think and the way we do politics and economics,� her eight-point program for the next six months was dissected and discussed. These included such vital and immediate concerns as increasing government tax revenues, strengthening small and medium enterprises, addressing the problem of rampant smuggling, stimulating investments in agriculture and jump-starting housing, as well as more project-specific concerns such as reducing the cost of shipping from Mindanao to Luzon, making Makati an urban tourist destination, making the reclamation area on Roxas Blvd a tourism complex. Included, also, was the presidential concern to have clean and honest elections in 2004. This was, to repeat, an initiative of civil society to support the government, not the Arroyo Government telling civil society what it can do. Several Cabinet members � Mar Roxas, Lito Camacho, Dinky Soliman � were present to answer questions and keep the discussions focused. As is usual in gatherings like this, there were the usual advocates of diverse issues trying to insert their own pet advocacies into the discussions, which wasted a lot of time and kept MC Don Songco busy trying to fend them off. Which is why I have my reservations about the efficacy of these gatherings. I realize that these are in the nature of �democratic consultations� to give grass roots organizations a sense of participation in decision-making, even if that sense is often more illusory than real. It seems to me that if one were to wage a revolution, the chief revolutionary and his/her immediate revolutionary council should have a clear idea of what they want to achieve and how they plan to achieve it. Their �democratic consultations� should be in the nature of assigning the role that each individual or group that wants to participate can play in that revolution. Kicking the details back and forth to accommodate the eloquence of unemployed lawyers is a waste of time and dissipates the thrust of that revolution. The revolution should also be focused on only a few key issues. Relatively minor matters such as making Makati or Roxas Boulevard a tourist destination or lowering the shipping costs from Mindanao are not �revolutionary� concerns and are best be left to the bureaucracy to work out, albeit within the context of a revolutionary plan. The lack of focus in the way Filipino superbeings think was most apparent during the Estrada years when Roberto Avantejado was assigned to oversee 187 �flagship� projects. You cannot have an armada with 187 flagships. If the 4,000-ship Allied flotilla, massed off the English coast for the Normandy invasion in June 1944, had 187 flagships, some of those naval squadrons would have sailed for Norway, others for Iceland or Greenland, still others for North Africa or South America, merrily colliding with each other as they tried to follow 187 different flagships. You have to have focus. ***** There were four workshops during the 12:30 Movement assembly and I chose to join the workshop on Housing because I believe housing is or should be the central focus of any social revolution in the Philippines. The lack of decent housing for the vast majority of the urban underclasses is the most glaring example of the failure of government. Correcting this failure in a dramatic, even theatrical, manner would be the most effective way to start and maintain a social revolution. But I was dismayed to learn during the workshop that the Arroyo Government has a yearly target of only 30,000 units of socialized housing for the poorest of the poor. The thrust of its housing program is heavily in favor of the middle class, as it was during the Aquino, Ramos and Estrada presidencies, presumably because the middle class have jobs and thus are able to pay the monthly amortizations through automatic deductions from their paychecks. I argued that it is the poorest of the poor, those who live under bridges and in pushcarts parked on sidewalks and in shanties along the railroad tracks etc who need decent housing the most, and there are at least three million of them in Metro Manila alone. A yearly target of only 30,000 housing units would simply not make any dent on the problem at all, especially since more than that number probably arrive every year from the provinces to seek their fortunes in the cities and end up swelling the squatter colonies. The traditional methods of providing housing for the middle class are simply inadequate to provide housing for the poorest of the poor. President Arroyo must come up with more creative solutions. During the 1992 presidential campaign, I told the workshop, Candidate Miriam Defensor- Santiago asked me (I didn�t volunteer) to draw up her programs of government, which I did. While we had programs for curbing corruption, developing export industries, promoting tourism etc, our ONE flagship project was building decent housing for the poorest of the poor. We were going to capitalize on Miriam�s tremendous popularity with the young people then to issue a call for them to join volunteer brigades for one to three months a year with the sole mission of building housing for the poorest of the poor. We were also going to ask the help of other sectors: the construction industry for training and technical advice, the armed forces for the use of heavy equipment, the business community for seed money, the Churches for identifying the beneficiaries; the wealthy villages for food for the volunteers, even the showbiz industry to drum up awareness of, and support for, the housing program, etc. The idea was to have as many sectors as possible involved so that the synergy would transform the program from a mere producer of a social good �a summum bonum in itself- into a vehicle for nation-building. It would have been a case of the whole becoming larger than the sum of its parts. And I hasten to add here that the housing beneficiaries would not have been getting anything for free. They would have had to pay for their housing. To help them pay their monthlies, they were going to be organized into manufacturing co-operatives to produce items for which there is a real need and market, starting with the very components that go into housing itself: nails, screws, nuts and bolts, rebars, hinges, door knobs, hollow blocks, window screen, doors, windows, jalousies, roof trusses, electrical fixtures, plumbing fixtures, furniture etc. I drew up a list of 42 such items, most of them being imported then, which could all be manufactured here, with modest investments in machines. By turning the unemployed and the underemployed into producers of economic goods, we also make them consumers, thus enlarging the market base of capitalist enterprises and invigorating them; another synergistic effect. ***** But all this became academic, of course, when Miriam lost the elections, even if many still believe that she actually won in the voting but lost in the counting. Before the First 100 Days of the succeeding Ramos Government were up, two of FVR�s lieutenants, separately, talked to me and asked if I had any ideas that the new government could adopt. (What�s this, I asked myself, after less than 100 days, Ramos is already running out of ideas?) I verbally gave them my housing program. But that was the last I heard from them. At any rate, as conceived, the program offered little or no opportunity for anyone to earn fat commissions from it. Could President Arroyo be convinced to adopt a similar program? I don�t know. She has one handicap, though: neither she nor any of her lieutenants has the personal charisma that Miriam had in 1992, especially among the young. This is true of the other 2004 presidential wannabes as well. In trying to convince millions of people to join a social revolution within a democratic setting, charisma is vitally important. ***** Barely a month after she proclaimed her �revolution in the way we think and the way we do politics and economics,� President Arroyo�s revolution is stalling. And it is not only because of a palpable lack of focus. She has flip-flopped on at least two issues in 30 days. She started out boldly to suggest a government program of population control, only to retreat a few days later when the Catholic bishops put their collective feet down. She was initially negative to a shift to a parliamentary system of government, then declared herself open to it, only to finally reject the idea. Of such vacillations on key issues is a revolution not made. Then there is the matter of her recent appointments. It is difficult to discern any revolutionary purpose in shuffling Cabinet members around in a game of musical chairs, or in forming a �communications group� to refurbish her public image, or in appointing recycled trapos like Sonny Alvarez and Peping Cojuangco as presidential advisers. Her critics would interpret these as preparations for a re-election campaign in 2004. And if she does not come up with some grand initiative soon that can overshadow these petty moves, her critics would be proven right and her revolution will go the way of Edsa 1 and Edsa 2, into the dustbin of history. President Arroyo should pay heed to the unsolicited advice from business consultant Peter Wallace, whose influence with the foreign business and investor community is enormous: �She needs to articulate a vision that inspires people to follow. And where necessary she may need to force those that won�t follow to do so. �We are used to the right words being said in the Philippines. What is now needed is action to back the right words. That is what revolution is all about�..There has to be a shock to the system. And this is where the President�s pronouncements so far are lacking. The shock is not there. One gets a sense of ad-hoc decisions as someone thinks of them, not of a well thought-out plan to put in place fundamental change that will set the Philippines on a new path�..� ***** Part of this article appears in the March 1, 2003 issue of the Philippine Free Press magazine. |
| OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �GMA Revolution Stalling� GMA MADE her decision on Dec. 30 consulting only God. It's hard to wage a revolution that way. Even the greatest intentions when embraced by one heart alone, will go only so far. Vicente C de Jesus (email address on file) February 17, 2003 ������������������������������ GMA IS FINISHED. There is no hope in her becoming any different. Even if she tried, it would be too late in the day. She is just not made of the right stuff that the Philippines needs. She is the person in the wrong time in the wrong place. Gras Reyes. (email address on file) February 17, 2003 ������������������������������ NICE ARTICLE. Like you, I believe in Housing. Gem (Carague) thinks the same way. In fact, he told me that the Government can afford NOT to have a single squatter in the country. As a former DBM Secretary, he should know his figures. Rick B. Ramos. (email address on file) Bacolod City February 18, 2003 ������������������������������ VERY TRUE, indeed! Eduardo H. Yap. (email address on file) February 19, 2003 �����������������������������.. REMEMBER CONG Dadong's rhetoric on "Unfinished Revolution"? Same thing. Deja vu. Daughter Gloria is even worse. She has a rustic intonation, worse than the ex-poor boy from Lubao. I am amazed that with all her years at Assumption and abroad for graduate work Gloria sounds like a peasant from Lubao. Maybe that's teleology, CF: Padre Nudas from Ateneo and the Jesuit Seminary. Ross Tipon. (email address on file) Baguio City February 19, 2003 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |