“The Singing Bird”

“In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of…but in a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of”.

By JUAN L. MERCADO
December 30, 2012

”Make sure the poor have reason for hope,” Nobel Laureate Armatya Sen writes. That’s counsel worth heeding, as 2012 winds down and curtains will rise on 2013.

On New Year’s Eve, the Kitchen God’s lips are rubbed with pork, ancient Chinese fables say. That’d prod the diety to report favorably, on one’s household, to the Jade Emperor "If you can look into the seeds of time, and say / Which grain will grow and which will not / Speak then unto me,” Banquo challenges witches in Shakespeare’s 1605 play “Macbeth”.

Today, we prefer scientific surveys. “Ninety-two percent of adult Filipinos enter the New Year with hope rather than with fear”, the 4th quarter 2012 Social Weather survey, found. A parallel Pulse Asia survey reached the same conclusion. The upbeat sentiment, cuts across geographic areas as well as economic brackets.

However, “in Mindanao, New Year hope declined by nine points to 85% in 2012.” SWS observed. More (14%) Mindanaoans are fearful. That is understandable. Altered typhoon paths now slam a Mindanao, that once enjoyed immunity-from-storms status.

Typhoon “Sendong” tore into Cagayan de Oro and Iligan in 2011, leaving 1080 corpses. Up to now, “1,979 are missing. Typhoon “Pablo” clobbered Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental December 4. By Christmas Eve, “Pablo’s” death toll crested at 1,067. A “Christmas gift” of 500 coffins came a Metro Manila donor.

“Hope is the poor man’s income”, an old Danish proverb says. There were hard-nosed examples of good governance that anchored the optimism. The “sin” tax reform, reproductive-health measures, plus the new law (RA 10350) cracking down on enforced disappearances were passed.

Moro Islamic Liberation Front and government signed, on Oct 15, the “Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro”. This is a first step in beating swords into ploughshares for a decades-long rebellion. Both sides are treshing out nitty three annexes on power and wealth sharing, plus “normalization”.

MILF named four of it’s nominees to Transition Commission. “We must learn to live together as brothers,” Martin Luther King wrote. “Or we are all going to perish together as fools”.

Standard and Poor’s raised its outlook on the Philippines’ credit rating to “positive” from “stable” late December. This followed Moody Investor’s upgrade in October. That performance saw President Aquino clock a trust rating of 80%, Ulat ng Bayan survey says.

“Pnoy is not a crook,” as street jargon puts it. “Like mother, like son.” That refers to the unblemished reputation integrity Corazon Aquino brought to her grave. Pnoy must keep his escutcheon unblemished. There are no-holds-barred brawls ahead with the sleaziest of characters that politics can disgorge.

“You can never plan the future by the past”, the statesman Edmund Burke once said. But then Burke never saw our “tradpols”.

A US federal court slapped a $353.6 million contempt fine on Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. for trying to secretly ship out of the US, paintings and other artworks, from court-contested holdings. In September, Imelda wailed over government plans to auction off confiscated jewelry, notably the ‘Roumeliotes Collection’. “These are all mine,” she stressed.

Senator Ralph Recto denies he moonlights as spokesman for the tobacco industry. And in the Lower House, the Freedom of Information bill has been consistently sabotaged. Nueva Ecija Rep. Rodolfo Antonino snarled deliberations further by insisting that a right-of-reply (RoR) provision be stitched into FOI.

“The calculated incompetence of the House committee…led to the outcome it wanted all along,” Inquirer’s editorial “House Hypocrites” pointed out. “The House leadership, and the administration it closely works with, do not want the FOI cause to advance.”

“In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of,” Confucius writes in the Anaclets. “But in a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of”. These tradpols buck reform and embed poverty.

In 2012, The Philippines poverty rate was roughly the same level as Haiti. One out of every four Filipinos huddle below the poverty line: P16,841 pesos a year. Rate of decline in penury lags behind neighboring countries who experienced broadly similar numbers in the 1980s: China, Thailand, Indonesia (which poverty level lies at 8.5%) or Vietnam (13.5%). Thus, we lag in meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

Those who gave hope were not those who kapit-tuko to official posts: They were mostly self-effacing individuals, who poured themselves out for others.

Some have been recognized. A Ramon Magsaysay Award, for example, went to UP College of Agriculture’s Romulo G. Davide. He showed “passion in placing the power and discipline of science, in the hands of farmers who consequently multiplied their yields, created productive farming communities, and rediscovered the dignity of their labor.”

Many who work away from the headlines. A Cebuana physician ministers, as a Medical Mission sister, to lumads in Bukidnon. A woman-lawyer spends time giving free legal counsel to the poor.