Asia Times: The shortcut to ruin


	September 12, 2001	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

HEY, JOE
The shortcut to ruin
By Ted Lerner

MANILA - The road that traverses Manila's North Harbor port area offers drivers a shortcut in their efforts to leave the city and head to the northern parts of the Philippines. Escaping grid-locked Manila in a car often requires a Herculean effort, but this road can save about 30 minutes of travel time.

The problem is - and perhaps the reason why the road is often less jammed than other thoroughfares - is that driving through North Harbor takes the commuter past a rather astonishing sight; some of the most incredibly vast and grinding poverty that has few equals anywhere on earth.

Driving, you bid good-bye to the lush green grass of Rizal Park and the majesty of the famous Manila Hotel, as if they were old friends. For within moments reality Philippine-style hits you square in the face. Tin patched shacks, shanties and boxes that serve as homes for as far as the eye can see, all piled on top of one another, looking as if one stiff breeze will send them all crashing to the ground; impossibly thick, teeming crowds of people moving about the gray, litter-strewn streets, dodging noisy container trucks or just hanging out of windows, or on the street, bathing and doing the washing right on the road; dirty, half naked children scurrying about, oblivious to their decrepit surroundings.

Occasionally, you drive by run down concrete apartment buildings with literally thousands of ugly electrical wires careering in different directions, and apartments that look as if they are packed with 10 times more people than they were built to hold.

What is amazing is that this abysmal scene is not confined to just a few blocks near the port area. It goes on for kilometer after kilometer, through winding, narrow mazes of closely-built hovels and simple structures, in a swath of poverty that most certainly includes millions of people, most of whom are obviously scrounging out a day to day existence in some of the most wretched conditions imaginable anywhere in the world.

The time it takes to travel through these parts allows, for those who bear to look or consider what's going on, plenty of time for contemplation. For certainly what is on display is an urban catastrophe not in the making but already made. There are other, similar areas around this mammoth metropolis, perhaps not as big, but big enough, nonetheless, that have just as many problems. And it's all the same; every ill associated with Third World out of control urban expansion all in one place; runaway population, people living on top of people, lack of decent shelter, poor if any sanitation, pollution and garbage at levels only dogs could appreciate. Then there are the not so obvious ills, such as crime, sickness, helplessness and others that are surely prevalent on a large scale.

One cannot help but consider that the problems in the Philippines are of such a magnitude that they most certainly require some incredible sense of urgency, combined with some serious creativity, to fix. Obviously any initiative, no matter how bold, will take at least an entire generation before any results are noticeable. And yet the cold, hard reality of life in the Philippines today is that absolutely nothing is being done about any of the problems of the country.

Several kilometers down the road from this frightening urban landscape, on a large piece of some of the most expensive land in the country, sits the building from where those powerful and far reaching initiatives needed to tackle such awesome problems should be emanating - the Philippine Senate.

These days, however, nothing of the sort is happening there. This august body, consisting of 24 men and women, has failed to pass one piece of legislation since convening on July 23 after a nationwide election. The senators have just gone on a two week recess, and the prospects for anything meaningful being accomplished when they return to work appears dimmer by the day.

Instead of passing meaningful legislation, the Senate has been consumed with sensational controversies, scandals and investigations. A recent bombshell come from a military intelligence officer who alleged that high ranking Philippine police officers had links with drug lords belonging to Chinese triads operating mostly in Hong Kong.

Armed forces intelligence chief Colonel Victor Corpus triggered the probe when he alleged that former president Joseph Estrada and his then national police chief, now newly elected Senator Panfilo Lacson, stashed close to US$1 billion in overseas bank accounts from involvement in organized crime activities, such as the sale of large amounts of shabu (methamphetamines) and kidnappings for ransom. Estrada, who is currently under police detention awaiting trial for plunder on October 1, and Lacson have vehemently denied the charges.

As is typical in the often overly dramatic and at times ridiculous world of Philippine politics, the sensational, the sordid and the rumors take on more importance that any real facts. Instead of bringing his allegations to a real court by filing a case, Corpus chose to first bring his supposed findings to the court of public opinion; one of the widely read local newspapers. Once the story hit the front pages with massive banner headlines, the rest of the raucous Philippine media joined right in.

With the country once again consumed in a blizzard of gossip, rumor, tit-for-tat accusations and allegations, the Senate felt the need to take up an inquiry. Surprise witnesses were presented, bombshells dropped and the tale got more incomprehensible, more absurd and muddier by the hour. And yet through it all none of the charges laid by Corpus has been substantiated with any solid evidence that could be used in a court of law. That Lacson is widely popular with the masses, and is currently seen as the most credible bet to challenge for the 2004 presidential elections, only adds more fuel to the charges and counter charges being hurled about.

Meanwhile, with the accusations flying and the country's problems getting scant attention, business is almost at a standstill, if not outright receding. Five Star hotels such as the Makati Shangri-La and the Westin appear practically empty. At the Shangri-La the security guards might not even be there in the middle of the day to check your bags.

The Japanese business community has been warning of a mass pullout if something isn't done soon about the pressing needs of infrastructure, law and order and labor peace. Foreign investment has slowed to a trickle. Tourists, once a rising sector of the economy just a few years ago, are staying away in droves, frightened about the still unresolved Abu Sayaff problem in the southern part of the country. Resorts on the beautiful island of Palawan, where the Muslim Abu Sayaff group abducted Filipino and American tourists in May, are hanging on by a thread, with some ready to close.

The accusers and the accused trading insults in the Senate probably count themselves lucky that the masses of Filipinos are a generally relaxed group of people and have incredible well springs of patience. But it is possible that this laid back trait may be on the wane. One thinks back to the late April uprising when millions of poor people rallied on behalf of their hero, the then jailed Estrada.

The new government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, which came to power under still questionable circumstances, promised the sky. But it all seems to have been lost in a flurry of intrigue, gossip and rumor. And while the elite hurl accusations, a short drive away, the masses of poor continue to wallow in abominable poverty.

Some serious hard work needs to be done. But unlike the road shortcut leading out of Manila that so vividly bares the country's tragic soul, there are no shortcuts to finding solutions. And yet a start has not even been made.

Ted Lerner is the author of the book, "Hey, Joe - a slice of the city, an American in Manila". He can be reached via email at tedlheyjoe@yahoo.com.

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