Norwegian Would

Oil goes a tumbling

2008-07-24T03:18:00.004+08:00

My fears are being confirmed. Way back in February, I thought that speculators were hyping up oil as a financial instrument and were instrumental in the past and coming price spikes. In that period, vodoo economists such as CNN's financial editor were saying speculation had nothing to do with the prices. True, the general upward trend had to have some basis in fundamentals (supply and demand), but the spikes had more to do with hype than with anything else. Now oil prices are going down and so is the confidence of investors in alternative energy (but more on this later).

If you recall, when Todd Benjamin was defending the speculators, each fear of a supply disruption was hyped up to ridiculous proportions but there was never ever any mention of what the supply curve looked like (much less the long-run supply curve). So now I'm happy that the 'long' speculators are getting burned. But I worry about the alternative energy investors.

Davao War Diary

2008-07-13T01:58:00.004+08:00

Concerto (Davao War Diary) is simple storytelling of a family’s travails just before the end of the Second World War in Davao City, which had a significant Japanese migrant population prior to its outbreak.

Ninety five percent of Filipinos today were born after the end of that war (in 1945), and thus most of us know of the Japanese occupation and eventual American reoccupation only from accounts of grandparents and great grandparents and from whatever coverage was devoted to the subject in high school and college. The Japanese were the villains who committed all sorts of atrocities and the Americans were the so-called liberators.

But the war wasn’t that simple, especially for the family depicted in the film. Who was friend? Who was foe? In the wide gray area between collaboration and resistance lay the day-to-day prerogatives of survival. Yet, the struggle for survival was also a fight for humanity and humaneness, shown in part by the subjects and retreating occupiers’ love for music.

It is said that history is often written or told by the victors. But one of the most rewarding experiences in the production was the active participation of the young Japanese cast (all Philippine residents) in reviewing history through contemporary circumstances.

This war drama, inspired and based on true incidents in the director’s family, is a challenge for independent (read low-budget) film-making, and it is to the credit of Paul Morales’s skills that we will not be a disappointed audience.

In her introduction to Diary of A War which she edited and on which the film is partly based, Virginia Yap Morales reveals her fears over the continuing conflict in Mindanao. To most Filipinos, war simply can’t be a distant memory.

Concerto is an entry to the ongoing Cinemalaya Film Festival (CCP, July 11-20).

Disclosure: Paul is a good friend.

Rushing to conclusions on power reforms

2008-07-04T02:18:00.003+08:00

Here's an example of how foreign observers get some things fundamentally wrong on the Philippines. Greg Rushford's piece on the Philippine power sector was published last week in the Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal. While many of his observations---especially about the petulance and childishness of the Philippine Senate were correct---he was wrong on one important conclusion. He mistakenly thought that amending the power sector reform law to make open access possible even with a lower threshold for NPC assets privatization (50% instead of the 70% in the current law) meant the country was backtracking on privatization. I wonder how he arrived at the conclusion. As long-time observer and participant of and in the power sector, I find his recklessness appalling.

Undercover in Poipet

2008-02-15T13:36:00.002+08:00

What could an old man like me be doing in a karaoke room with two young Khmer men and four young Khmer women in their early to late 20's? Helping a friend by going under cover. My mission: to see if the karaoke ladies are actually technically sex workers or more bluntly, prostitutes, by posing as a 'regular' costumer, whatever that means. The friend is doing research on the effects of 'empowerment' on sexual behavior, specifically the reduction of risk in contracting HIV.
Where's Poipet? It's more than 400 kilometers west northwest of Phnom Penh and is the border town with Aranyathrapet on the Thai side and used to be a base of the Khmer Rouge that mined it before retreating. It is bustling with economic activity, linked in part to cross-border trade and the influx of tourists from prosperous Thailand, who flock to a special entertainment zone of hotel-casinos, modest duty-free shops, and restaurants. The workers in the zones are Khmers and the patrons are generally Thai, and ordinary Khmers are not allowed in.
Was the mission a flimsy excuse for voyeurism and worse? Not exactly, but you be the judge. My friend's study requires a sample of sex workers---direct and indirect---who have and haven't benefitted from anti-HIV programs. The problem is with the so-called indirect sex workers because one can never be sure that there may indeed be legitimate karaoke joints as there are in Manila. And very likely, these joints occupy a gray area. In addition, the friend was trying to determine how many of the 'peer leaders'---sex workers recruited into an anti-HIV program in the past, remained in the area. But that was the job of her assistant.
Lulled into a reverie and thinking how the Khmer woman in the music video looked like former Philippine tourism secretary Gemma Cruz, cavorting with a fully clothed old-fashioned Khmer whose idea of romance was staring into a woman's eyes and occasionally touching her face while strolling in the paddies, I suddenly felt the 25-year-old girl squeezing my left thigh and stroking the hair on the lower leg. I didn't really freeze, but then she started massaging my head and back and arms and telling the research assistant my legs were comparable in size to her arms, with a laugh. I was all skin and bones, she said, and the fact that the assistant tried to soothe my ego by telling me repeatedly that I had a resemblance to Manny Pacquiao didn't help my ego one bit. Then she leaned to rest her head on my left shoulder.
In the meantime, Phine the tall and dashing driver was James bonding with the 22-year-old and singing a love song. His phone rang and when he came back inside his demeanor had become somber. (It was only the morning after that I learned his wife had been taken to hospital for labor. She gave birth to their first child, a girl, at six in the morning.)
How not to break my cover? I said I had to go out for a cigaret and didn't want to inflict any secondary smoke on anyone. But the prettiest, the 29-year-old went out to insist that I should just smoke inside. At this point I felt I was already between a rock and a soft place, between being called a snob or a prude, for I am neither. Perhaps better to be thought of as gay?
The ladies were disappointed when we left shortly after ten, for we obviously weren't the type of customers they are accustomed to.
Mission accomplished. And one inescapable conclusion is that the sex workers here have much more dignity than the political prostitutes in the Philippines. Since she has not hacked being an economist and president, perhaps Gloria Macapagal Arroyo should consider a change in career as a karaoke girl in Poipet, but only after serving her time in jail.

The Trial of Nuon Chea (Khmer Rouge 2)

2008-02-12T20:40:00.000+08:00

Last Monday, February 4, was the first public pre-trial hearing on the bail petition of Nuon Chea, the administrator of Tuol Sleng, where thousands were tortured and murdered systematically during the rule of the Khmer Rouge in 'Democratic Kampuchea' from April 1975 to January 1979.

Because one of the foreign lawyers (both Dutch) of Chea was not sworn in by the Cambodia Bar Association (and thus could not practice in the country), and the other allegedly could not book a flight from the Netherlands owing to 'short notice,' his local lawyer, and even Chea himself, pleaded with the pre-trial chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)---established especially for the leaders of the Khmer Rouge---for a continuance of the proceedings. Just so his rights would not be violated---the rules of the ECCC entitle the accused to at least one local and one foreign lawyer--- the pre-trial chamber granted the request, to the dismay and consternation of Cambodians and foreign observers who had flown in just to witness the start of the proceedings.

I myself was extremely disappointed, but if the move really was in respect of the rights of the accused, that was okay. I was the third person to arrive at the Central Rail Station in Phnom Penh, where, I had been told, a bus would ferry foreign and local observers to the ECCC buildings on National Road 4 about 30 kilometers away, between 7 and 7:30. The bus arrived past 8:30 a.m. but the trip was without incident.

To my knowledge, I was the only Filipino observer there. After getting my security pass, and having my electronic belongings and other banned items receipted (no cameras, phones, cigarets), and passing the metal detectors, I was stopped by the sentry who frisked me. He was looking at and pointed to my thighs. I wished that he had merely wanted to compliment me on my skinny legs, but no, he shouted “shorts!” and thereupon the foreign sentry who had already waved me in earlier suddenly said I should show some respect for the courts. I had asked members of foreign human rights organizations back at the rail station whether shorts were allowed and they replied sure, they knew of no dress code. After concluding that it was pointless to argue any further, I got my belongings back and hopped on a motodup to buy a pair of pants at the nearest public market. National Road 4 is notorious for its lawless driving and my situation was aggravated by a driver who neither spoke nor understood English. He was driving fast and furious merrily back toward Phnom Penh and I had to tap both his shoulders rather violently so he would stop. It was only after I had succeeded with sign language and other gesticulation that I wanted to buy a pair of pants at the local public market that I allowed him go forward again. It was just my luck that the market indeed had a dry goods section with men's pants (the pair I bought presumably fake for $8---I am retarded about such things---I put on shielded by a towel in front of the sales girl). Had I not found a suitable pants, it would not have been beyond me to buy a palda instead, and with hair down, insisted on being allowed in as a dignified cross-dresser, to skirt the issue altogether. So I made it back to the courts just a few minutes after the proceedings had started.

During the break when the judges had retreated to chambers to deliberate on Chea's plea, I had the chance to exchange some words with Helen Jarvis, with whom I had been acquainted way back in 2002 and now head of ECCC public affairs---on the comic affair. She was friendly but unsympathetic. “Are shorts allowed in Philippine courts?”, she asked. Well, I thought, I may not be an anarchist but I am not one for rituals and the visible signs of respect for institutions and individuals, and if they weren't, then they should be. Helen also joked about by pro-cannabis shirt and wondered why the guards allowed that to pass, In addition, I was wearing strapless leather slippers. Is it too much to ask for some respect for my irreverence? As far as I'm concerned, all respect for institutions and official positions need to be earned and should not be accorded automatically.

Move on? I've no objections

2008-02-10T20:37:00.000+08:00

Phnom Penh---Saturday night some Filipinos here met to discuss recent events in the Philippines, especially the 'Lozada Affair'. After lunch today, they came out with the following statement for circulation and signatures among like-minded Filipinos here:

Move On and Move Out!
An Urgent Request to the Arroyo Administration
in Light of the Jun Lozada Abduction and the
continuing coverup of the ZTE-NBN and other scandals and abuses:

The abduction last week of Jun Lozada, resigned president of the Philippine Forest Corporation, to prevent him from testifying on the aborted $329 M ZTE-NBN contract before the Philippine Senate, could be just one more episode indicating the administration’s overriding principle of governance: criminal self-aggrandizement complexed with an almost unlimited capacity for self-preservation.

But it is not. In fact, the abduction and the subsequent coverup, the lie after lie after lie, big and small, the use of the bureaucracy, the national security apparatus, and the abuse of the state’s monopoly of force, to prevent the truth from coming out, represent by far the most painful insult to the people because of the brazenness and silliness of the acts, and the assumption by Malacanang that it can continue to bribe and spin and intimidate and to conduct business as usual despite the very public and very obvious unraveling of its conspiracies.

In the coming days, we anticipate a worsening of the crisis of confidence and legitimacy of the administration. As its lies grow bolder, it will become more and more difficult to sustain its aura of invincibility.

We, members of the Filipino Community in Cambodia---eking out an honest and decent living, and concerned about the standing of the country in the international community---alarmed, ashamed, and disgusted by the recent events, renew our call to Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her top officials, civilian, police and military, to resign en masse to pave the way for new and clean snap elections and a smooth transition, and to prevent any new power grab by adventurist undemocratic elements.

We do not and cannot buy the argument or the illusion that only Mrs. Arroyo can propel the country’s economy forward. But even if that were true, we do not believe in a tradeoff between economic prosperity and social justice and human rights.

We say it is not too early for change. We should not wait for the 2010 elections. It is also not too late for Mrs. Arroyo and company to rediscover a modicum of decency and civility. She should not wait to be handcuffed in 2010; she can always turn herself and her husband in at the police outpost closest to the Palace. After all, as Joseph Estrada has shown, there is life after the presidency and there is life after prison.

Mrs. Arroyo, it is time to move on and to move out, so the country can finally move forward!

Pinoys in Cambodia
Phnom Penh, February 10, 2008

Pol Pot's ghost

2008-02-02T18:38:00.000+08:00

t had been a tiring day in August sixteen years ago and I wanted to retire early. I could have but for a knock on the door before eleven.

It was the comrade from Bangkok next door. "I'm so Thai, damn." "I'm just so Thai," I heard again. So you are. You really really are, I should have said. The third time, I was awake enough to get the sense of his weariness from our day's journeys. So I had to open a few badly brewed bottles of Vietnamese beer.

It is difficult to recount all the details. But I remember that that day, we had been to Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, not so far from the border with Thailand. One of the world's wonders was being preserved and restored by Indian experts paid by Unesco even while it was under threat from mortar attacks from the Khmer Rouge. It was defended by youths, one of whom, not more than thirteen in my reckoning, had an RPG slung on his shoulder, had asked me for a cigaret. I even lit it up for him, perhaps because he was nursing an AK-47 with both hands besides.

Earlier, we had visited a farm where, our hosts claimed, the Khmer Rouge had tortured the more 'dangerous' threats to its rule. After extracting confessions, the so-called liberators of that Indochinese land would throw their captives into the pits filled with hungry crocodiles.

In Phnom Penh for two days, we visited the many torture chambers and mass graves. Pits filled with bones from which it was difficult to assemble even just a few skeletons.

I was a delegate to a 'solidarity' conference organized by a part of the international Left to lend or shore up legitimacy to the government of Heng Samrin, installed with the aid of the Vietnamese, in December 1979. At the time, the United States, with the active support of China, had succeeded in isolating the new government. But there were of course the independent-minded who thought that ideology and geo-politics should never get in the way of one's humanity.

There were various relief and project missions by the Swedish---I remember echoes of ABBA at the airport; Japanese delegations; Indian scientists. There was, too, Julie Andrews bringing goods for the children at an orphanage; we missed her by a few minutes. There was even a Boholana working for a religious mission---World Vision---who arranged for a meeting with me.

I cannot tell you now how I ever got there. Or how the Thai comrade managed to elude authorities in his country, who was not only harboring but also actively supporting the deadly triumvitate of Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, and Pol Pot.

The story of the Khmer Rouge is not really unfamiliar in this century, full of mad men who wanted to do good to their fellows, even kind men who wanted some crude egalitarianism to reign forever. If not by transporting all of them to the countryside, by evening out opportunities for many six feet under.

At that time, the leftist sect that I belonged to, on the other side of the Sino-Soviet divide, had distanced itself from the nightmare of Pol Pot's dreams. But there are still people who have not even explained their support for that "revolutionary project" up to now.

As I write this, I am no longer even with the sect I was with. I was "expelled" after I had resigned more than seven years ago; and for that I have no regrets. I now know that the road to hell can look so idyllic, especially if one has ideological blinders on.

My Thai comrade, then in his fifties and writing for a Bangkok paper, could not sleep. He had been told by a room boy he was sleeping in the room Pol Pot used to occupy. The next morning, after confirming the allegation, I too, suddenly felt so Thai. Haunted by the man's ghost way before his death, we just couldn't sleep.

(The essay above was published in the Manila Times in May 1998 (when Malou Mangahas was chief editor, I'm back in Cambodia for the third time partly to update myself on efforts to take the remnants of the Khmer Rouge to account. I was here in 2002, 20 years after the first visit, when the land was still recovering from the ravages of Pol Pot.)

science and politics 1: Nobel physicist David Jonathan Gross

2008-01-29T19:45:00.000+08:00

During the holidays in January, I had the chance to exchange a few words with Nobel physicist David Jonathan Gross during his visit to Cebu. One of his more striking observations was that the lifestyles in the West (the so-called developed world) were not sustainable in the light of the growing evidence that human activity is in the main responsible for global warming of recent years.
But what struck me more was his observation that politics often trumps science but that the major problems of the world could not but be solved through politics (broadly defined), ultimately.
The visit was not covered well in the press, national or 'provincial'. That's why I'm publishing here my feature which was published in Cebu Daily News Jan. 21.

Hard Science not enough to solve mankind's contemporary problems---Nobel physicist

In a country where hard science is usually trumped by political 'science', the lecture by David J. Gross, one of the Nobel laureates for physics in 2004, on “The Lessons of Science” at the University of San Carlos College of Architecture and Fine Arts (CAFA) Jan. 11 was not only appropriate but serendipitously helpful. The lecture was part of a series under the auspices of the “Bridges---Dialogues Toward a Culture of Peace” program of the Vienna-based International Peace Foundation headed by Dr. Uwe Morawetz.

We say appropriate and helpful because protagonists in two major developments in Cebu and environs--- the offshore oil exploration in the Tañon Strait, and the proposed Cebu trans-axial highway--- are resorting to 'scientific' arguments to buttress their positions. At the national level, a debate is raging over the net environmental impacts of the widespread production and use of biofuels, and Filipinos are finding it difficult to sift through the so-called evidence and claims in regard to the Glorietta blast in October last year. In all these cases, preconceptions and political biases get in the way of objective evaluation of phenomena and the indentification of cause and effect.

But Dr. Gross himself accepts the limits of hard science and the need for politics in addressing mankind's most challenging contemporary problems, among them widespread hunger and the potentially catastrophic consequences of human-induced global warming. Far from being the stereotypical 'mad scientist' people tend to associate with genius, the well-groomed physicist looked more like the John Lithgow character in Third Rock from the Sun, often incredulous at the practices and beliefs of earthlings. The global character of these problems, he said, required internationalism and effective global government envisioned by Albert Einstein.

The Lessons of Science

The announced title of the lecture was “The Coming Revolutions in Fundamental Physics” but Dr. Gross thought that the time allotted would not do the subject justice. Also, he was unsure about the nature and interests of the audience. The core of the scientific method, 'discovered' about the same time USC was established over 400 years ago, according to Dr. Gross, is observation and experiment, and the only authority scientific ideas 'bow' to is agreement with nature itself, and not to “political power nor religious faith.” “All theories are provisional...(and are refined by continuing verification guaranteed) by 'making findings available to all.' The implications of the scientific method go beyond scientific research because a healthy scientific culture requires an open society. Science promotes tolerance and democracy because in scientific inquiry, all are considered equal, he said.

In his one-hour lecture, Dr. Gross briefly traced the development of science and emphasized how young its branches are: physics, 400 years; astrophysics/cosmology, 100; biology, 150.

Perils, predictions, and guarded optimism

The standing arsenals of nuclear weapons with the potential to end all life on earth within hours constitutes a continuing scandal, Dr. Gross said in response to a question on nuclear proliferation posed by this writer during a press conference shortly before the lecture. Checking the spread of nuclear weapons remained difficult if the superpowers held on to their stockpiles which, he said, were utterly useless. The physicist reiterated the nuclear threat in his lecture, where he warned that science can and has been used for both good and bad.

But the overwhelming theme of the lecture, however, was optimism over the future of mankind. Dr. Gross boldly predicted that in the next 100 to 1000 years, the human lifespan---which has doubled in the last two centuries--- would be ten times what it is now and that human life would spread to other areas in the universe. Closer to the present, he said, the behavioral sciences would achieve the status of 'real science' in the next 50-100 years.

It takes a Nobel-class physicist to re-inspire awe in what is already well accepted in the scientific community: that humans are puny creatures in one planet revolving around a sun which is one among a 100 billion in our galaxy, which is among 100 billion galaxies in the universe that is said to have started with the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. What was behind the Big Bang? When and how did time begin? Dr. Gross would not hazard a guess as to when these questions would be answered. Science, after all, continues to leave us with “informed, intelligent ignorance,” “We' ve learned that all of our concepts are provisional...subject to continuing questioning, challenging...and improvement.”

A feather for San Carlos

Dr. Gross, together with David Politzer and Frank Wilczek, received the Nobel for Physics for his theory on the strong force, the nuclear force that binds quarks, the smallest buildiing blocks of matter, and that binds the nucleus of the atom. He was conferred the San Carlos Borromeo Award by Fr. Roderick Salazar in behalf of the University.

The 400 year-old USC was one of two venues outside Metro Manila (the other was Ateneo de Davao) chosen by the International Peace Foundation for its continuing Bridges lectures,which promotes international understanding, among others, through visits by Nobel laureates that share its vision. Prior to the recent series in the Philippines, all of the lectures were held in Thailand. When USC president Fr. Roderick Salazar was first contacted by Dr. Morawetz, elation readily gave way to organization. It was Fr. Rod who chose Dr. Gross from the foundation's roster. It is not well known that science, physics and chemistry in particular, is a flagship program of USC. The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has in fact recognized USC as a center of excellence in chemistry. Fr. Rod told me that preparations for the lecture begun early last year and that the university was asked to shoulder the business class tickets of Dr. Gross and company. The exposure of Cebu academia to Nobel-class high theory, and not just the prestige for USC, was well worth the expense, Fr. Rod said.

Two internationally recognized Filipino physicists, Christopher C. Bernido and Maria Victoria C. Bernido of the Research Center for Theoretical Physics at the Central Visayan Institute Foundation in Jagna, Bohol were on hand for the lecture. Christopher introduced the guest speaker while Marivic moderated the open forum. The CVIF is known for putting the Philippines on the world map in theoretical physics and has brought a number of Nobel physicists to the Center without fanfare.

The Bridges 2008 lecture series resumes in the Philippines February 4-8 with Prof. Finn Erling Kydland, Nobel economics laureate 2004, slated to discuss “Peace and economic development in the age of globalization” February 8 at the same venue in USC.

(Our thanks to N-ding Mission of the USC Library System for providing us with dvd's of the lecture and open forum. As USC apparently has no plans of transcribing the proceedings, I will take the trouble of doing that myself. The transcripts wil be made available here in due time).

Customer Care

2008-01-20T00:19:00.000+08:00

I'm starting the year with a new blog on customer care, dedicated to readers who are tired of the crap from business, government, and even so-called non-government and non-profit organizations. More than ten years ago, I told Ceres Doyo that the Philippines lacked a genuine consumer rights movement, but the discussion did not lead to anything tangible. The new blog is my contribution to address the problem.

Local 'psychics' accept challenge of skeptical subversive

2007-12-19T01:17:00.000+08:00

In a post on November 2, we discussed our doubts on the remote-sensing and spoon bending tricks played by members of the local Psychic Entertainment Network on ANC. The PEN has invited us to witness their tricks under 'laboratory' conditions or conditions we ourselves will specify so as to preclude any foolishness. Nomer Lasala of PEN has told me that Jaime Licauco will also be invited to vet what should be a public demonstration. We're meeting on Thursday and we'll keep you updated.

Bali high, Bali low: engaging the Rizalist on global warming and prematurely melting snow

2007-12-16T21:14:00.000+08:00

Is global warming the new Y2k bug without a deadline? Dean Jorge Bocobo asks. His post on climate change has the promise of reason, but quickly degenerates into a polemic against environmentalism, the media, politics, and Al Gore.

First, we agree with Dean that on any issue, a fair amount of skepticism is always healthy. But skepticism must be followed by due diligence, that is to say, an articulation of the reasons for skepticism. Otherwise it is simply contrarianism and obscurantism.
We also are, like him, uncomfortable with science by consensus, and this discomfort has support in the history and the philosophy of science itself. Listening to the chair of the IPCC with Al Gore with CNN's Jonathan Mann made me squirm in my seat a little. Pachi sounded like a bureaucrat/propagandist who could tolerate a little dramatization of 'facts' for the purpose of 'raising consciousness.'
Lastly, we think that any scientific assertion has to have a null hypothesis falsifiable under Karl Popper's definition.

Dean proceeds to ask:

But is the price of further human progress the end of the world? Have we made war on the Earth itself, as Al Gore suggests and are locked in a relationship of Mutually Assured Destruction? Al Gore does not say this at all and never has.
Can a tax save the earth from the laws of economics and thermodynamics, as well as close the Gap between the Rich and the Poor? Do the rich nations of the world owe pollution reparations to the poor nations, and do poor nations have an equal right to pollute the atmosphere, at least for a while until they have both sinned the same amount against Gaia? In fact, for a tax to be effective, it has to be designed with the use of economic theory, and theory does suggest that taxes can be used judiciously to narrow the gap between rich and poor.
Is green the new yellow journalism? Is global warming the new Y2K Bug without a deadline? Well, media is always susceptible to yellow, regardless of the issue, and it is up to critical bloggers like Dean to help enlighten us.

Dean then calls our attention to the letter of Freeman Dyson and others "urging adaptation instead of futile attempts to 'fight' climate change with sin taxes." Adaptation is one of the options for mitigating global warming impacts and should always be on the menu, and sin taxes to punish polluters is an entirely different issue.

Economic theory suggests that markets cannot be relied on to bring the most efficient outcome in the presence of so-called 'externalities,' to which the phenomenon of air pollution belongs. If an individual does not consider the effect of his or her action on others, how can that bring efficiency indeed? The post also revisits the problem of the commons first elucidated formally by G. Hardin. But then Dean draws the wrong conclusion:

"An important conclusion about problems involving public commons is that there is no "technical solution" to the basic problem. It's like the game of tic-tac-toe. There is no way to win once all players become familiar with the game. Keeping the "commons" publicly accessible inexorably leads to the destruction of the commons. The only solution is to turn such commons into private property. I don't know how we do that to the global commons."

In fact, economists since Hardin have proposed many effective solutions to the 'commons' problem and a rich theoretical and practical literature has blossomed since then, from where political acts followed. To cite a few:

Particulate matter pollution, addressed with economic measures guided by technology. In the Philippines, we took lead out of and reduced aromatics in gasoline, reduced sulfur in diesel, enforced emission standards on vehicles and factories.
Water and solid waste pollution, similar measures.

" I am also not sure yet how Gore's ideas fit into this framework. If the new CO2 tax he is proposing is likened to a sin tax, we only have to look at the continued prevalence of gambling, drinking and smoking to wonder if this is the right way to go. On the other hand, if it spurs the development of new technologies that don't have the problem of discharging CO2 into the atmosphere, could a case not be made for such taxes being beneficial?"

Sin taxes are not meant to eliminate bad behavior, bad to reduce incidence. The reason sin taxes are superior to income taxes is simple: the latter punishes effort, the former discourages 'sin.' In fact, the argument is independent of how the proceeds are eventually spent, but if these are spent for the 'public good,' so much the better.

Notes:
I didn't go to Bali thinking I had better use of my time. But the conference did redound to some good.
I have no pretensions of being an 'environmentalist,' but with my white hair and limited experience, I have successfully passed myself off as an 'environmental and energy economist' and have contributed to some national legislation.
In the summer of 1993. I attended an environmental economics policy course in Harvard at a time when climate science still had a lot of room for doubt. The call at that time was for no-regrets policies, which meant addressing problems with clearer impacts but had the side effect of reducing GHG emissions. Since then, there has been sizable progress in the theory. But that does not mean skepticism is no longer warranted.
On the eve of New Year's eve 2000, I missed my train to Grand Rapids from Chicago and had to pay an extraordinary amount for an ordinary room in the windy city.
In a future post, I will try to discuss the political economy of the issue.

Why a win-win outcome is unlikely: Sumilao (3)

2007-12-14T22:37:00.000+08:00

Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has agreed to meet with the Sumilao farmers on Monday, after the agrarian reform secretary issued his earth-shaking decision: status quo! What's on Mrs. Arroyo's mind? I asked the spouse of a cabinet secretary. Nothing really. She just wants to listen, or to appear to listen. What should we advise the farmers? Go to Malacanang and have merienda, it is their right, after all that's supposed to be the hall of the people.

But is a win-win outcome possible? Yes, but highly improbable. Based on the legal briefs I've studied, the land rightly belongs to the farmers. If San Miguel Foods claims that it can put the land to much better use, and for the benefit of not just the Mapalad farmers to boot, then it should first make a decent proposal to compensate the farmers for the land, to include the foregone income for the past 10 years or so. Instead, it has evidently chosen the tack of divide and rule, dangling the prospect of income for the non-claimant farmers in Sumilao, after probably having bribed the governor and father of this dubious character in the senate, who is full of crap about biofuels blah blah blah and advocating without understanding, and Sumilao town officials. This much was evident to me when the San Miguel Foods cabal, including Jess Arranza of the Federation of Philippine Industries appeared in Korina Sanchez's show last Wednesday. She was apparently not well-prepared and did not ask the right questions of the farmers who were on the show earlier.
I'm not an advocate of national food security because I believe millions more Filipino consumers deserve the best prices for staple and other food. Agrarian reform is a means for asset redistribution and not to tie farmers to the land forever. What they want to do with the land is up to them. The greater and more realistic aspiration is income stability, security, and mobility. I am not sentimental about land, but if the farmers are, that is their right.

Notes:

I don't really know what the liability of Norberto Quisumbing Jr., whom I worked for in the 1980's, is. I hear from Cebu that he's busy trying to leave a legacy, and has just sued a columnist for The Philippine Star.
After having been barred from entering the compound to deliver their position paper last Monday, the farmers relented and had it received at the gate. Such law-abiding and humble citizens in contrast to the officials of San Miguel Foods. Yesterday, all they could do was stage a sit-down strike and noise barrage against the status quo order, which is not a good idea; they'd only ruin their eardrums and get 'kubal' on their 'lubot.' A better idea is to stalk Nasser Pangandaman and invade the privacy of his home.
In my visits to the Soviet Union and the East Bloc in the 1980's petty or small-holder farmers were looked down on with great suspicion as lacking in revolutionary spirit in contrast to the real proletariat. I have since then taken a more liberal view.
I've got nothing against Korina Sanchez. In fact, I really like her program, especially when she's absent and Pia Hontiveros or Twink Macaraig or Pinky Webb sub for her.

DAR's gift to the Sumilao farmers on Human Rights Day (2)

2007-12-11T23:54:00.000+08:00

The Department of Agrarian Reform celebrated Human Rights Day by betraying the human rights of the very farmers whose existence is its very reason for being. As the farmers prepared to go up to the offices of the DAR secretary, they were barred from entering the compound by about eight security guards, on orders of the secretary himself. . Minutes later police from Camp Karingal arrived to keep the peace, very likely the peace of mind of San Miguel Foods’ Danding Cojuangco and Ramon Ang, whose well-paid lawyers pleaded ignorance about the laws of the land they have so obviously violated. Where were the born-again stars in national politics?

How do I know all these? Simple, I was with the farmers from two in the afternoon up to almost eight in the evening. And why did I feel obliged to lend my support in body and not just mind? Never mind, but you can read the previous entry in this blog. I will not go into the chronology on the issue. If you are concerned, there’s enough material on the web. Among those are the essays of Winnie Monsod, who discussed the latest findings of Arsenio Balisacan, my professor almost 20 years ago in agricultural economics; and Joaquin Bernas, as my atheism does not bar me from admiring Jesuit scholarship. Here, I would rather discuss what has not been reported in the mainstream media, including the Philippine Daily Inquirer and ABS-CBN.

Earlier in the afternoon, the farmers and their leaders inside their talipapa camp just outside the gates of the DAR discussed the position paper the DAR secretary had asked them to submit by the end of Monday. They felt they really didn’t have to anymore as their positions and petitions were already known not only to the guards of DAR but also to the lizard population on the ceiling of Nasser Pangandaman’s well-appointed office. (Much as I would like to sympathize with Pangandaman who has been busy counting the white hair in his nose and daydreaming about Christmas lechon, he makes me want to go vegetarian). But they did, like lowly farmers who obey the laws of the land. Or wanted to. The rule of law? Whose law and whose rules?

At around five, the guards suddenly padlocked and chained the gates. Then a receiving clerk appeared and said she was authorized to accept the position paper.

“Why don’t you relocate your office to the gates then?” the farmers asked. The clerk said those were her orders.

“Has San Miguel submitted its position paper?” lawyer Marlon Manuel asked the clerk. She didn’t know or would not say.

“Where is the secretary?” A few minutes later a young man who claimed he was from the secretariat explained to ‘Kaka,’ a coordinator for the farmers, “We don’t want any trouble.” “And neither do we,” Kaka said.

“Who gave the order to lock the gates?” I asked the guards. “We don’t know,” they replied.

After more than an hour, the farmers decided to cool off and celebrate mass with priests and nuns from Mindanao. At the risk of being excommunicated from my own congregation, I stayed. When I left before eight, it wasn’t clear whether the Sumilao farmers would be home for Christmas.

Notes:

· I was impressed by niece Charo Logarta who interviewed the leaders of the farmers in fluent Cebuano. Because I know my cousin (her dad) had left Cebu as a child, I assumed the daughter would know only English and Tagalog. I was wrong. Noel Cabangon came to sing a few songs in solidarity and I could not hold back tears. Someone let out air from the left rear tire of my car, but a farmer who also drives a jeepney in Bukidnon took care of it. There are Cebuano words which can’t be expressed in Tagalog or English: Pastilan! Intaon! Lechong baboy! Lecheng yawa! And that was exactly how I felt).

· It may very well be that the San Miguel plan would be better for the economy overall, but this a question of social justice and law and not of gross domestic product. It’s not jiust the economy stupid! It’s human rights and justice. If our national life were to be dominated by just economic efficiency, we would reopen the debate about democracy,dictatorship and development. Nyet! But more on this in the next post.

The rights of the Sumilao farmers (1)

2007-12-10T02:35:00.000+08:00

Among the strange coincidences in my long life are that in some way I had been associated with the anti-heroes in the struggle of the Sumilao farmers for land:

After graduation (chemical engineering) in 1980, I was appointed executive assistant to the president of the Norkis Group of Companies, a certain Norberto Quisumbing Jr.
About a year later, a certain Ruben Torres interviewed me for a job in the Ministry of Energy.
In 1993, I was asked to comment on proposals in the Senate to make agrarian reformed lands fungible by a senator considered close to Fidel Ramos.

Last Friday I paid the farmers camped in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform a brief visit. I hope to be able to converse with them again today. They have my undying support.

Get well Rene Saguisag

2007-11-08T11:17:00.001+08:00

The memory just can't be erased. Rene Saguisag was one of the finest symbols in the fight against dictatorship in the 80's. He saved many lives and suffered many indignities. Of one thing we can be sure: he remained true to the call to protect the down-trodden. Get well. Our condolences on the passing of Dulce.

By the way, we find this joke a bit too early in the telling to be funny.

Open those gates!

2007-11-08T10:24:00.000+08:00

Had I run and won for captain in my barangay, one of the first things I would have done was to open the gates. In the neighborhood I live in (Teachers Village, UP Village, Sikatuna Village) many roads, maintained and lit by taxpayers, have been expropriated by homeowners, including my favorite senator, Miriam Defensor Santiago, who have carved for themselves private enclaves on public property.
All one has to do is have a petition on grounds of barangay and national security approved by the village council. Howard Calleja, whose English and logic leave much to be desired, was just interviewed by Ricky Carandang on the subject. If it's private property then there's not much controversy, but the state still can exercise right of way. But public property! (hey we don't need more legal analysis; what happened to Dean Bocobo's show?).
Because of these gates, one has to go through long detours at night, contributing to unnecessarily to climate change.
I wonder why the so-called 'progressive' and 'left-wing' and 'pro-poor' groups don't bitch about this. Maybe their leaders live in these villages?

The captain of my barangay

six paradoxes and a little candor

2007-11-07T20:37:00.000+08:00

According to some pundits, the fabric of our society is about to be shred to pieces, even if there is no sign of any thread which can be woven to clothe us while we try to find a warm home henceforth.

Poverty and discontent are widespread, as is confusion. Let me cite some paradoxes:

The economy is improving while average family incomes are declining;
Average family incomes are declining even as more and more are going abroad to remit incomes to their families;
Remittances are increasing while real incomes are decreasing;
The people who go abroad are unhappy but continue to keep ties with the country;
They continue to keep ties with the country but their families remain unhappy;
They are unhappy but they continue to tolerate GMA.

More than ten years ago, a friend who spent more than six years in Moscow to study cinematography shared this joke with me:

The 6 paradoxes of socialism

there is no unemployment but nobody works;
nobody works but everybody gets paid;
everybody gets paid but the shops are empty;
the shops are empty but all get what they need;
they all get what they need but remain unhappy;
they remain unhappy but they all vote for the communist party.

The comparison might be a little stretched, but there are a few parallels. Let me be candid. I took part, as a communist then, in securing a scholarship for the friend above in Moscow. I have many unanswered questions about what may come next if we kick out Gloria. But I can't stand the lying that passes off as governance.

My goodness, Ambassador Kristie Kenney!

2007-11-07T07:45:00.000+08:00

If you were quoted properly in this Inquirer report US envoy backs 'accidental gas explosion' theory, you should immediately issue a clarification.

BAGUIO CITY -- The Philippine National Police’s “accidental gas explosion” theory has found another backer in US Ambassador Kristie Kenney, who said American experts had also concluded that the Oct. 19 blast at the Glorietta 2 mall in Makati City was “a tragic accident.”

Kenney, who was in Baguio for several engagements, said those saying otherwise should realize what a terror attack in Metro Manila would mean to the country as a whole.

“[An accident in the heart of a city] is never a good thing … but it is much better than having it [turn out] to be a bomb,” the ambassador said Tuesday.

“If there was a bombing at a shopping mall in the middle of Metro Manila, I want you to think about the kind of travel advisory America would have to put out and the devastating impact that would have on business,” she said, adding:

“I don’t think investors worry about an accident,” although the business community would “obviously want to know why it happened.”

You should realize by now that your unfortunate remarks just add fuel to the fertile minds of local conspiracy theorists who will now say you're in cahoots with authorities in a very complicated cover-up, because the logic of your statements is this: better think about the effects of a theory borne out by the facts, because they can be more devastating than the blast. Better to tailor the 'cause' to the 'desired effect' is what you seem to have said.

This is how the embassy release should read:

"We support all efforts to let the evidence speak for itself."

Publish this and you can gracefully shut up.

Snared in Pinky's Web

2007-11-05T11:26:00.000+08:00

Helplessly trapped in Pinky's web on ANC this morning was the arachnophobic Rep. Prospero Nograles, who confessed on the Malacanang meeting last Saturday. Naplantsa na ang gusot. All's well in the family known as the Mafia in Sicily.

Jose de Venecia to Gloria: There's nothing you can do to change my mind about you...
Gloria: Buang man ka dong. Pakusia kos imong bugan bi.

Pakistan and the Philippines: Notes on variations on a theme of oft-sung songs dictators sing

2007-11-04T23:38:00.001+08:00

After hearing the news on Pakistan yesterday, I asked an American colleague whether he could imagine GMA taking a leaf from the best-selling song hits of Musharaf. After a few glasses of wine we listed the following observations about dictators:

They are infected by a virus called messianism. They want to save us from ourselves.
That they claim they can do so because they know something we don't.
And when we ask for the info we don't know, they say we shouldn't even know what it is we don't know.
They have info we don't because we can't handle it soberly.
They can handle the info better because, they don't really want to rub it in, they are superior.
They are superior, because, not having been breast-fed, they steeled themselves drinking milk from the bottle.
But most of all, they were not born with sin, having been immaculately conceived inside the womb of their parents' cow.
Moo! You know nothing about national security!
They get invited to international conventions of solipsists and we don't.

All dictators spring from the old obscurantist tradition that they hear things from the creator reserved for true believers.

As oil prices poise to breach a hundred per barrel, energy secretary Angelo Reyes does the right thing: Nothing.

2007-11-04T06:21:00.000+08:00

Reyes is doing right by not announcing any populist moves. After all, at least as far as I'm concerned, the oil deregulation regime has been doing just fine. If we were in the late '80's or mid-90's, the scandal-ridden administration would already have been ousted by a coup by right-wing adventurists, who, in those times, timed their moves based on the movements of prices in the world oil market.

It is now close to a decade since we finally smashed the old illusion that oil price subsidies were pro-poor, perpetuated for a long time by the middle and upper class leaders of so-called 'people's organizations.' Note that at that time nominal prices were below 20 dollars per barrel. Now the high is about five times. But we don't hear of any outrageous manifestos that the increase is caused by the local ruling class in conspiracy with foreign capitalists, do we?

I have a list of measures the energy secretary might consider, but none of these will lower gasoline prices for the middle class. In the meantime, he should just stand his ground.

Here's a list of easy energy saving tips promoted by Iran's revered president.

Barangay elections and how Abalos is laughing now...

2007-11-04T06:14:00.000+08:00

If you're reading this, you're probably one of those who didn't bother to vote in the barangay elections. You can be excused because most in the middle class don't appreciate what village officials really do, aside from ensuring our homes and cars in our 'exclusive' villages, some situated on streets actually maintained and lit by the taxpayer at large.

But this new scandal at the Comelec cries out for attention.

To ANC's Marieton Pacheco: did they bend your rmind?

2007-11-02T04:32:00.000+08:00

Members of the Psychic Entertainment Network were featured in ANC yesterday. One remote-sensor, a mind reader, and a telekineticist. The mind-reader begged off from displaying his skills. Yes, the trio were careful to describe the abilities as 'skills' rather than as special powers.
The remote-sensor, with a metal blindfold, was able to pick milk from a set of five glasses; the other four contained water. In his commercial act, he said, the four would have contained acid.
The fork bender impressed Pacheco because after quick hand-wringing movements, he seemed to have bent the teeth and even the handle. Had I been there, I would have re-arranged the tests to eliminate loopholes in the demonstrations.
I would have placed a black hood on the remote-sensor and a plastic sheet in front of the bender.
Here's an informative video from Michael Shermer, my favorite skeptic, on spoonbending.

Here's my challenge to Marieton. If you claim you were not taken in for a good ride, let's invite the PEN at my expense and at a place and time of their choosing.
If they pass my tests, good. We can hire them to lecture to all the bloggers out there, brimming with self-importance, to hone their skills enough so that we can finally concentrate on GMA, and force her to leave Malacanang telekinetically. Deal?

Mukha Mukasey; implications for the Philippines

2007-11-02T02:57:00.000+08:00

The Democrats, because of attorney-general-nominee Mukasey's amiable face, are inclined to confirm him, except for this one fly in the ointment: Mukasey refuses to say whether waterboarding constitutes torture.
In a previous post, I pointed out that a senate Democrat mentioned the case of a US soldier who was prosecuted for using waterboarding on a Filipino insurgent. The effect of the method is to make the captive feel he is drowning. Now, if that is not torture, I don't know what is.
In his speech at the Heritage Foundation yesterday, George W. explained his tortured logic why Congress should just confirm the nominee immediately:

If the menu of methods in interrogation were to be published, suspected terrorists could adopt mitigation measures. How? By bringing scuba gear or snorkels all the time, during suicide missions, especially, I suppose. And Osama might send his trainees to explore the rich marine life in the Philippines in aid of proper certification as a torture-proof and dead terrorist. That makes sense and would be good for Philippine tourism. (How about this Ace Durano and GMA? Why don't you testify bravely against your idol?)
Mukasey has not been briefed on the method and could not possibly make a judgment. So brief him immediately then.
The whimpy Democrats, ever soft on national security, are just making political hay.
Finally leading to his pitch on the "war on terror", soi-disant, the US should employ all means to accomplish the ends of his foreign and phallic fallacy.

The New York Times explains Mukasey's refusal better: the administration does not want to open the door to prosecution of those who used the method before it came to public attention.
Does this debate have any implications for the Philippines? Are our definitions of torture rigorous? What are these?

Ruben Carranza Jr., formerly defense assistant secretary under Erap, recently reminded me that since EDSA 1, no one has been prosecuted successfully for torture. What a shame.

A new voice on ANC?

2007-11-02T01:42:00.000+08:00

At dinner last Sunday, my guest revealed that DJB_Rizalist would soon have a variety/talk show on ANC. That would be a fine addition to the channel's steadily improving menu. The guest, a mid-level Palace official, said there were just a few more hurdles before this new baby of Twink Macaraeg could be delivered by Caesarian bisection. Hail,hail! I will not reveal her identity on grounds of national security, on which Dean is notoriously obsessed.

The Dean, the most famous , opinionated, outspoken, and sometimes bullying 'neocon' blogger from the Philippines will now have access to a greater audience, or, should I say, we will now have greater access to his independent and sometimes courageously outrageous opinions.
The Philippine Onion's media critic, The Small and Medium, has the complete story. Tim Sebastian rejects ANC offer.