A case for political fact checking in the Philippines

I was wondering how social media or the new media could help improve the debates in the 2010 Philippine presidential elections until I came across Factcheck.org. This site, being run by a non-partisan and non-profit group from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, monitors the factual accuracy of the statements, ads, speeches, interviews, and news releases by major US political players. The g goal is “to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding.”

It's motto: "Holding politicians accountable."

Recent example: “Obama says his health care plan will garner large savings – $120 billion a year, or $2,500 per family – with more than half coming from the use of electronic health records. And he says he’ll make that happen in his first term.” The group says that statement is “overly optimistic, misleading and, to some extent, contradicted by one of his own advisers. And it masks the true cost of his plan to cover millions of Americans who now have no health insurance.” Then the group proceeds to explain and analyze why Obama is wrong.

There’s also a lot fact checking stuff on John McCain, and Hillary Clinton policy pronouncements.

We need something like this for the 2010 presidential election. In fact, we need it to enhance and advance democracy in this country. Who should do this? Suggestion: why not our universities like UP, Ateneo, LaSalle, UST and others form a consortium for this? They should gather a pool of experts, researchers and a secretariat for this effort as soon as possible. Local and multilateral institutions who care about “governance” may contribute money to finance its operations.

This way politicians and decision-makers would be forced to study and think through the issues before they could even think about opening their mouths.

What do you think?

Let's tax the Church!

Should we tax the Church? Why not? It’s high time!

Church officials—bishops, ulamas, pastors, priests—based on their rhetorics, are always holier than thou, especially when it comes to failure of government to provide economic opportunities for the poor. But does the Church really do something about it besides prayers and few charities? If they want to help the country, the poor, the best thing they could do is pay taxes for the Church properties, lands, and universities to generate resources for economic and social development. Church-owned schools charge the highest tuitions fees in the land, thus accumulating so much money. Since they don’t pay taxes, they hardly give anything in return to society.

The premise about separation of Church and State, about religion and politics, has always been fiction. The Church—be it the Catholic Church, Iglesia ni Cristo, El Shaddai—has always been a very active political animal in the country. When told not to meddle in politics, the Church authorities would say, they can’t help it because the realm of politics has moral dimensions, which the Church has a lot to say. Well, every thing has moral dimension.

Middle class getting back to the protest business?

I just had an hour or two with finance guys this morning in Makati and know what—they are joining the anti-GMA rally in Makati. I thought all along these money guys hate joining such activities. But they are and, I guess, it all boils down to what I call “middle class values.” The core issue of course is corruption that reaches up the highest echelons of government, and corruption is certainly bad for business. Yeah, its high time the middle class should be part of this struggle for a better society. Mabuhay kayo!

Is Mar Roxas really a reformist? I dont think so.

I’m puzzled by this story going around that cause-oriented types are now warming up to Mar Roxas hoping he will pursue “policy reforms” once he captures the presidency come 2010. As far as I know, Mar has never been associated with any progressive policy agenda. Mar doesn’t seem to have the knack for speaking for or against anything even when time demanded so. We never heard him talking about agrarian reform or agricultural modernization. He never knew him being passionate about human rights and political killings. He was never truly pro-Erap nor was he really anti-Gloria. He doesn’t seem to have clear stand on anything: environment, globalization, foreign debt, gender, deregulation, Doha round of talks, etc. He never spoke against monopolies and oligopolies. Maybe he behaves this way because he is just consistent being pro-Mar Roxas.

If there’s one thing he is associated with, it’s with Corina Sanchez, and the buzz about them simply faded after he won his Senate seat. Now, that he is angling for the Presidency are we going to see him with Corina again? And why does he have to do that? What is he trying to cover for?

Mar says he is Mr Palengke (markets). But he never had any legislative proposal for expanding or freeing Philippine markets. He is probably even anti-market.

Consider this: In 2001, Roxas caved in to the local cement lobby that was then complaining about “injuries” caused by rising cement imports and was forced to slap additional duties (about P20 per bag) on them, thus significantly raising cement prices in the local market and penalizing the local construction industry. In response, the Tariff Commission conducted an investigation and found out that Roxas’s decision was totally baseless, as local manufacturers maintained an 80-percent share of the domestic market. The report also stated that there was no injury to speak of, nor was there any worker losing his job because of the rise of cement imports. The industry, in fact, improved its productivity as a result of the rising foreign competition. But Mar Roxas simply brushed off the Tariff Commission study in order to shelter the cement industry from foreign competition.

Mar, who are you really? Show us the real stuff you are made of.

The middle class and the rule of law

I was expecting to see retirees and middle aged guys when the boss told me I should show up for the Entrepreneurs’ “networking night” in Greenhills. That was last Tuesday, the second day in my new job. But I was surprised to see young boys and girls in 20s and 30s, many of them barely out of college. And my goodness, they were all talking about “doing business’ and making money! In my time, we were all about “social engineering,” “social change,” and revolutions as if we knew what we were talking about.

Is a new ethos taking over? I hope so. It’s about time. If we want the country to move faster into the lane of progress (whatever that means), we should have more entrepreneurs in our midst. And its not only because of its positive economic impact, its also because the growth of the middle class is the surest path to political stability. Fareed Zakaria in “The Future of Freedom” said so. Francis Fukuyama (in his “The End of History”) said so. And of course, they are not the original guys to have said so. It was Aristotle who theorized about this long time ago. And I guess, the reason is simple: the middle class, especially the entrepreneurs have a stake in stability and order.

Why? Consider this: if you are really rich, filthy rich, if you are an oligarch, you don’t really need “the rule of law.” In fact, you want the law (or rules) to be opaque so that you could buy it anytime when it suits your end. And the really poor, those who have nothing, don’t care much about the law, the rules, either because they don’t have a stake in the system. Sometimes they have to bend the rules to maintain their existence. Or at least, that’s what some of them think.

But when you are a budding entrepreneur with a little money, you have a stake in the system. Yet you can’t afford to buy the bureaucracy, so you desire for proper societal rules to work for you. You want to be protected from predatory actions of the super rich and the protection from those who will rob your of your wallet. You desire order, stability, transparency, predictability, and fairness. And these are foundations, the values, of a functional liberal democracy that we crave for.

Hmmm, seems like I got an interesting job here.

Why the Trillanes caper failed

Why the Trillanes caper failed? Simple: the success factors are not there.

First, Trillanes and company failed to consider the 2010 factor. Politicians these days are now looking at the 2010 election as the reference point for their short-term political decisions. Hence, they would look with discomfort any action or event that deviates from that, especially something that’s being pushed by the likes of Trillanes. A junta that would emerge from a military rebellion is anathema to the presidential ambitions of bigwigs like Senator Villar, Senator Ping Lacson, Mar Roxas, Loren Legarda, to cite a few.

Second is the economic growth factor. The Philippine economy grew by 7.1 percent in the first nine months of the year. Big business engaged in real estate and construction, mining, outsourcing, electronics, finance, telecommunications, etc are now raking in money. So are the technical, professional, and managerial classes supporting these fast-growing sectors. With the increasing globalization of labor markets, even the lower middle classes have options other than becoming pawns in political games. So these people—crucial to the success of previous “people power” cum military revolts—now have a stake in the relative “stability” of the system.

Third, we Filipinos have probably learned some lessons from our previous “people power revolutions.” We probably have realized that we need to develop constitutional liberalism in this country if we want to mature as a nation.

How to stage a coup like a jackass!

On the same day that Senator and His Most Incompetent Putchist Antonio Trilanes launched his ill-fated “coup” at a five-star hotel, the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) announced that the Philippine economy grew by 6.6 percent. The incident seems to remind us just how the dynamics of the Philippine economy has decoupled from our rambunctious politics. Nice trend, shall I say.

The numbers says it’s actually a pretty broad-based growth, with agriculture, industry, and services contributing altogether. With a 7.3 percent growth in the first quarter, 7.5 percent in the second, and a possible surge in the fourth quarter, we may yet grow close to or higher than 7 percent.

We sneer at these growth numbers, of course. They have yet to translate into lower poverty numbers. True. But we have been at this growth rates quite recently, after hovering at 5-6 percent in the last three years. Experience by the Asian tigers showed they grew 5-7 percent consistently for ten or twenty years before they started licking poverty. This means we have to growth at this rate or higher in the next ten years before we can see substantial reduction in poverty. So it’s a start, and its better late than never.

GMA has nothing to do with this. These improving growth numbers are legacies of the first wave of reforms done following the Edsa Revolution. So the credit goes elsewhere, especially Cory and FVR, and of course, to OFWs, the farmers, business, and entrepreneurs. Had GMA proved to be a better president, we could have achieved higher growth rates, probably at par with Vietnam and India (7-8 percent).

Certainly, she should go, and go to jail (for scandals like NBN, fertilizer scams etc), but can’t we wait two years for the 2010 election? That’s a better option than “taking over” a hotel and making us the laughingstock of the world.

Now that Trillanes is in jail, the latest rumor says he is planning to write a book entitled How to Stage a Coup Like a Jackass!

Trillanes and his five-star hotel revolutionaries forgot to read Wikipedia on the basics of coup d'etat

He he he! It seems like our five-star hotel revolutionaries forgot to read the coup manual by Edward Luttwak before going on to launch their luxurious coup. Or if they are really so busy, they should have read Wikipedia on the basics of the coup:

Tactically, a coup usually involves control of some active portion of the military while neutralizing the remainder of a country's armed services. This active group captures or expels leaders, seizes physical control of important government offices, means of communication, and the physical infrastructure, such as streets and power plants. The coup succeeds if its opponents fail to dislodge the plotters, allowing them to consolidate their position, obtain the surrender or acquiescence of the populace and surviving armed forces, and claim legitimacy. Coups typically use the power of the existing government for its own takeover. As Edward Luttwak remarks in his Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook: "A coup consists of the infiltration of a small but critical segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder." In this sense, use of military or other organized force is not the defining feature of a coup d'État.

Since the French coup of 1851, the world has witnessed 99 coups, 17 of them failed. Eleven of these failed coups were in the 80s onwards. This information may indicate the growing difficulties of grabbing power through a coup, probably because of several factors, including the effectiveness of peaceful people-power revolutions as an alternative; and the continuing tide of democratization worldwide. Wikipedia says coups rarely solve the social economic problems of developing countries hence it has become less attractive to military leaders. Currently there are 13 serving leaders who came to power through coup.

One day, I'll buy this book (in the picture), have it xeroxed and give the photocopy to Trillanes and his luxurious five-star hotel commandoes for their own entertainment inside the cells.

Or should I send Harry Potter books instead?

Trillanes surrenders to avoid the "loss of blood"-- his blood

It’s 5:10 pm and Senator Trillanes and General Lim decided to walk out of the hotel and surrender to avoid the loss of lives—their own. With the APCs and the SWAT troops moving in, there’s really no other option for them but to surrender. It was so stupid of them to initiate a “coup” in the first place. You want a coup and you launch it in a hotel?! My goodness! Such incompetent fools!

First, you don’t launch a “revolution” on a rainy day. Edsa I and II were done on a clear sunny day. And you don’t launch it on a five star hotel.

You want a real revolution? Learn from the lessons of Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Joseph Broz Tito, Garibaldi, and Michael Collins. These guys launched it in the real battlefield; not in five star hotels. Mao said a revolution is no picnic and he succeeded.

But Trillanes and Lim would rather have their revolution in the comfort of a hotel. And when they started to feel the discomfort of a tear gas, they chickened out. Funny guys!