Smuggling’s domino effect

John Berthelsen connects the dots in Rice Smuggling Threatens Indonesia, Philippines:

The Philippines’ massive purchases of rice at sharply increased prices from its neighbors are creating a fast-buck opportunity for traders in Indonesia, where prices are controlled, to smuggle the commodity out through Singapore for eventual sale in the Philippines.

Rice in government-controlled storage in Indonesia sells for US$436.80 per tonne at a time when the Philippine government and rice traders are offering up to US$1,000 per tonne in Vietnam and Thailand. The skyrocketing rice price and the attendant smuggling opportunities are generating political concerns in both countries, with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last week ordering government officials to prevent rice smuggling to other countries.

A top political source in Jakarta last week said the government is increasingly worried that rising rice prices and potential shortages could cause political unrest. “This is rice, and that means trouble if it goes wrong,” said the source. Yudhoyono has also sent a letter to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urging him to take measures to ease speculation in commodity markets.

Meanwhile, in Manila, Senator Loren Legarda earlier warned of the possibility of social unrest and political instability for Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s already shaky government, which has endured a continuing series of coup attempts and impeachment moves fuelled by corruption scandals. Both countries are facing rising deficits on the amount of funds they must pour into adjusting subsidies to control rice prices. The Philippine National Food Authority said it could post a loss of as much as US$1 billion for 2008, compared to a US$762.1 million deficit last year.

Here’s another interesting thing in the same article:

… it is debatable how real the global rice shortage actually is. Much of it is due to a complex set of factors, including hoarding, speculation and decisions by some rice-exporting nations, notably Vietnam and India, both of which have announced different forms of export restrictions to protect domestic consumers. On Monday, Thai exporters said they wouldn’t participate in a Philippine rice tender next week because Manila said it wouldn’t guarantee contracts. Exporters appear to be holding onto stocks at a time when importers like the Philippines are desperate to bolster their stocks. Hoarding – including by growers and traders in the Philippines itself – has added to the problems.

The article concludes with praise for our farmers but concludes that population growth is the ultimate problem:

But according to an IRRI spokesman, the Philippines doesn’t do that bad a job growing rice. Productivity is quite high, the spokesman said, with Filipino farmers producing 3.4 tonnes of rice per hectare as against Thai farmers, who produce only 2.4 tonnes per hectare. And the quality is high.

“Although it is not widely known, Filipino farmers receive a much higher price for their palay (unhusked rice at harvest) than do farmers in neighboring countries,” according to the book, “Why does the Philippines Import Rice?” published by IRRI. By and large, they live in better houses, and are more likely to have electricity, running water and hygienic toilets than other farmers. They hire the majority of labor that works their farms, spending about 18 days a year per person at the fundamental task of growing rice.

The Philippines’ problem boils down to land and people, the IRRI spokesman says. They have too little of the former and too many of the latter. The Philippines is an archipelagic nation of 7,105 islands, few of them with estuarine areas ideal for growing rice. As in much of Asia, the possibility of increasing planting areas is nearly exhausted. Yield increases have begun to slow as well. Added to that, the Philippines population is perhaps the fastest growing in the region and one of the fastest growing in the world.

In Global Food Crisis and Corporate Titans, Alice Poon looksat the debate scientists are having on the causes of the rice shortage:

…the most proximate reason for the skewed rice supply is that a nasty epidemic of disease and pests has struck Vietnam, which is called the “rice bowl” of Southeast Asia as it is the world’s third largest rice exporter. The general global jump in food prices, though, is mainly attributed to the skyrocketing oil prices.

But is there a more deeply-embedded reason for the yield shortfall of rice, a food staple for half the world’s population, or of any other food crops for that matter? For Devlin Kuyek, author of the new book titled “Good Crop/Bad Crop: Seed Politics and the Future of Food in Canada”, there certainly is.

Kuyek told Roslin that the rice crisis is just an example of the food-related calamities that we can expect in growing numbers due to a combination of “crop monocultures” and global warming.

Kuyek went on to explain that Vietnam was one of the major recipient nations of the 1960s monoculture craze under the guise of the U.S.-sponsored “Green Revolution”.

“The Green Revolution provoked a sea change in centuries-old farming practices worldwide. It meant dropping millenniums-old farming practices of planting diverse fields of frequently rotated, native-adapted crops that evolved as local soil and environmental conditions changed. Those methods based on diversified seed varieties and varied crops were developed during the earliest days of human farming in order to prevent plant diseases, pest infestations, and soil degradation. Now governments would subsidize farmers to grow vast tracts of single crops from uniformly produced seeds.”

As the lab-produced new monocrops are poorly adapted to local conditions, they need vast amounts of water, fertilizers and pesticides for their sustenance. It leads one to wonder whether it is pure coincidence that the world’s largest seed companies like Monsanto, Syngenta and Dupont are also chemical manufacturers. Today, half a dozen large seed companies control the bulk of the $30 billion U.S. annual seed business world-wide and their aim is to maximize yield, rather than nutrient values.

But contrary to what the Green Revolution set out to achieve, i.e. maximizing yield, crop yields have been declining at an alarming rate, with tremendous loss of biodiversity being a by-product. Apart from a big jump in crop diseases brought on by crop monoculture, monocrops also deplete soil of key nutrients, thus reducing soil productivity 18 times faster than the normal farming method can rebuild it on average in the U.S., according to John Jeavons, a California-based author and farming researcher.

These concerns can be seen playing out in here:

Seeds, the high end variety that is, I am told have been suspiciously missing since there are tons of Gloria’s “hybrid” variety rotting away in some NFA warehouse government is pushing Central Luzon farmers into buying. The natural course is that the regular seeds will demand higher prices OR they buy the cheaper but riskier hybrid which, when attacked by virus, kills wide tracts of palay-planted farms in a matter of days.

Next, irrigation. Farmers have been complaining about the cost of electricity used to pump water into their fields. At P9,000 per hectare, this amount reflects very high energy cost per hectare compared to our neighboring countries. Fuel price increases is one of the culprits here. Another is the incompetence of Napocor in managing its assets that is pushing maintenance costs sky-high thus, more expensive power.

We go now to fertilizers. Sulfur and pyrite (fool’s gold) are abundant but unmined. Sulfur mining in particular has been somewhat restrained after 9/11 since large volumes of sulfuric acid may be considered WMD. We have huge stocks of Nitrogen, Phosphate and Potassium. Especially phosphate, since we have the whole phosphate rock-island Republic of Nauru supplying us with the raw materials should our own resources get depleted. Hey, we have even convinced them to relocate in that building at the corner of Buendia and Makati Ave. should the 5,000-man island-nation sink down the Pacific due to over-quarrying. We have Joe Concepcion, as Cory’s Trade Secretary, to thank for (for once) for securing our phosphate supply for at least half a century. I don’t understand why we have a shortage in urea, though. Putting plastic containers in Bayani Fernando’s disgusting pink urinals all over the Metro would be enough to gather urea raw materials. I think.

Post-harvest. The same effects that the high cost of energy have on the service charge of paddy hullers, dryers, separators and polishers. I won’t be surprised farmers would go back to the primitive bilad-bayo-tahip method just to make a modest return. We can also include here the cost of renting hand-tractors or even just the cost of maintaining one, if they own it. Or cheaper still, get a carabao!

Ditto for transporting the crops.

What this all sums up to is a gi-mongous cost increase in rice production amidst a steady NFA buying price of P14.00.

The farmers won’t survive in this situation. I’ve just been to Subic the last weekend and judging by what I saw all throughout Bataan, Zambales, Pampanga and Bulacan, the farmers are in no hurry to prepare the soil for the May planting season. They’d probably wait for the rains before plowing and harrowing to save on tractor rental and irrigation cost.

Wow! We’ve just been teleported back to the 19th century!
[From Small Farmers Won't Be Planting Rice Soon]

So did the President throw money at the problem, allowing the Law of Unintended Consequences to run riot?

Meanwhile, Jed Yoong says Psst, Malaysia’s Got a New Rice Bowl. If Marcos were still alive, he’d probably want to rehatch his plan to conquer Sabah! Will GreenPeace dare send environmental activists to disrupt the clearing of forests?

Limbang district, which is situated between two parts of Brunei on the island of Borneo, appears destined to become the site of Malaysia’s newest gigantic project. This is an area ceded by Brunei to the famed White Raja, James Brooke, and even today the sultanate would like to wrest back the fertile estuary and the rainforest which lie upriver. More recently, Limbang came under the international media spotlight when indigenous nomads protested against logging companies in the late 1990s.

Malaysia, however, has identified the river estuary as one of the sites for large scale rice cultivation as part of an ambitious RM4 billion project to turn the rainforest-covered state of Sarawak into a new “rice bowl” to make Malaysia self-sufficient in face of the global food crisis. What it mainly has done is raise concerns among environmentalists and NGOs that it will generate another land grab on Borneo on the magnitude of the Bakun Dam.

Details are sketchy and the plan seems to have been pushed through with little forethought. Land Development Minister James Masing, the Sarawakian politician who was in charge of resettling native tribesmen from the site of the Bakun Dam, reportedly said that parts of Sarawak’s 5 million hectares have been identified for rice cultivation, mostly in the central coastal areas and river deltas in the north. The area identified for cultivation is close to half of Sarawak’s total land mass of about 124,450 square km.

Quick rice-related readings

Even as Farmers fleeing ancient centre of Philippine rice,government tries to look busy and at the same time give the impression it’s not lurching from one policy to another:

It seems the NFA bought some very expensive rice from bangkok last week. and a rice trader there says if we buy more, we’ll end up driving the price of rice further up. iran and indonesia too. were now the top importer of rice. how the mighty have fallen. hahahaha. for a country that was once an exporter…now buying from a country that was once an importer.
[From FROM RICE TO MEAT]

Malacanan says that yes, the president did give an interview to the asian wall street journal over the weekend. Press secretary Ignacio bunye says the president was asked if the nfa’s role will change in the rice procurement program. The president he says, gave a conditional answer, that if the prices of rice continue to rise—-then they may have to boost local production and that means that yes, the nfa role will change. However bunye says that is talking in the long term. In the short term, bunye says the objective is to put food on the table and that is where NFA will play an important tole now. However pgma also quoted some analysts as saying that the price of rice will temper in the coming months of the second semester because eof talks that export restrictions will be lifted and that there is every indication that the harvest is good here. [From SAILING…]

Here’s an interesting tidbit:

And could this be true, Filipino-Americans are doing their fair share of hoarding in response to the crisis, even going so far as buying up rice in order to send to family members back in The Philippines? [From U.S. Stores Rationing Rice, Filipino Americans Hoarding?]

While the skeptics argue,

I too wonder if there really is a shortage as a friend from the north told me that rice is abundant and that if I would like, he would buy rice in the province for me. If what my friend is true, then we have all been taken for a big ride. The other scenario would to incite panic among the populace. With the prices of basic commodities reaching the stratosphere and with utilities costing more, clamor for Gloria to take extreme action could be pushed by unscrupulous allies. Talks of emergency powers are now being floated and for what reason we really cannot tell.
[From Faking And Exploiting Crises]

Examine the Rice Trading Centers Map. Why, for example, are rice prices the highest in Iloilo, when it’s in a favorable position to import its needs and the Visayas, officials have said, is self-sufficient when it comes to rice?

See Arroyo eyes cutback in gov’t rice subsidy and NFA told to keep buying price of palay at P17 until December.

Practical solutions time:

What is this holistic approach?

First, we need information. There are already discrete databases scattered across our country, which needs to find focus. PAGASA for instance is one such important point-man in this ever escalating race for Food Security, environmental cat and mouse game. While it is true that they’ve been provided with new equipment— like a new Supercomputer, this is still not enough. This country needs better climate modeling solutions. PAGASA need not only better equipment but these scientists, we need to take care of. We need to know how much and when rainfall will strike at greater accuracy and precision.

That said, we need an even strong coordination and focus from the realm of the academics. We need our environmental scientists from every university in this country to have access to all these discrete databases and be able to correlate that information to practical use. We need realtime correlation of information from our environment— from weather to soil condition to sea to everything. We need our scientists and PAGASA to be talking and working more so today. And we need this information available publicly, in easily accessible and understandable databases, wikis, etc. This information can be used by businesses, by communities, by farmers, by fishermen, by every Filipino to be able to work with the environment.
[From Of Food and Men]

Over at Global Voices, Mon Palatino provides a roundup of rice-related news, see Southeast Asia: Rice and food price crisis. Additional regional perspectives: see Cambodia Will Become A World Largest Rice Export Country and the following:

30 Years Ago Haiti Grew All the Rice It Needed. What Happened? The U.S. Role in Haiti’s Food Riots

and,

Higher food price means more income and more incentive to farmers to increase their production capacity. But its bad for the macro-economy especially inflation. Higher food price means higher inflation, and higher inflation hurt the poor by deteriorating their purchasing power. The problem is nearly 50% of Indonesia people life with 2$ a day, and also nearly 60% of the poor, around 23 million of 37 million, live in rural area.

The condition above create an anomaly in policy making. In one side the government must keep inflation and food price low enough so its does not hurt the poor. But on the other side the government must maintain a reasonable high price to give incentive to farmers to increase their production and increase rural welfare.

Is there any policy to achieve both objective above? Yes! Give high subsidy to the farmers like the Developed Countries do. But the problem is our government does not have the money to do it. Then they turn their head to the consumer, Cheap Food Politic.

The principle of Cheap Food Politic is as long as the food price cheap, the majority (poor) will keep silent. This policy is simply urban bias. Cheap food price is good for poor urban (the 40%), which main source of income is service and manufacturing sector. But bad for poor rural (the 60%), which main source of income is agriculture sector. Lower food price mean lower income and also lower welfare for rural area. The government sacrifice the rural for the sake of the urban. Why? Because poor urban is more attractive politically than poor rural.

[From Youthful Insight: Consumer or Farmer First? Anomaly and Inconsistency in Indonesia Agriculture Policy]

and,

[Asian] Rice laws and regulations are going in the wrong direction. It takes one back to the British Corn Laws,” says [Steve] Hanke.

“These mandated the virtually complete government regulation of British agriculture at the start of the nineteenth century.

“Fortunately, that yoke was removed in 1846. Thanks to the efforts of Richard Cobden, John Bright and the Anti-Corn Law League, the Corn Laws were repealed.

“This resulted in the promotion of free trade, the importation of cheap food and a major surge in British standards of living.

“What rice needs today isn’t more government meddling but a modern version of the Anti-Corn Law League.”
[From Indonesia's Economy Blog - Sarapan Ekonomi]

and,

In yesterday’s China Daily there was an article titled “Pledge not to stop rice exports lauded.” The article states that COFCO, China’s leading grain, food oil and food import and export group – which apparently exports rice equal to 1% of the volume of internationally trade rice – will not cut rice exports. Given China’s own food supply problems, this is a commendable move if true because, as far as I understand, the supply of rice is close to crisis proportions in many Asian countries. And of course it doesn’t make China’s own food supply problems any easier, although my back-of-the-envelope calculation is that this probably affects less than one-half of one percent of total Chinese rice production. I suspect that a number of major governments along with the appropriate agencies – perhaps the World Bank and the Asian development Bank – are going to need to organize some coordinated response to the rice problems. Perhaps China can take the lead here.
[From Rice and margin]

and finally,

The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) already has a base to build from in serving as a framework for multilateral dialogue and collaboration in the management of food supplies and prices. ASEAN members include two of the world’s leading rice exporters, Thailand and Vietnam, as well as the leading rice importers, the Philippines and Indonesia. In the wake of the food crisis of the early 1970s, ASEAN has been, in fits and starts, organizing and tinkering with the ASEAN Food Security Reserve—an agreement among members to set aside and share rice stocks for situations just like this. It’s high time these discussions be accelerated and implemented.
[From In Asia » Blog Archive » Averting the Impending Food Crisis]

Rectal discombobulation

Think about it: Burgos family still searching one year after.

Think about it: Pinoys believe Lozada claims on NBN-ZTE deal, SWS says.

The PCIJ reports, Malacañang is No. 1 agency with excess exec hires — CSC. Meanwhile, the scuttlebutt on the upcoming round of cabinet musical chairs is that the expected appointment of Gen. Esperon to the Defense portfolio’s being opposed by the current holder of the portfolio (see Ellen Tordesillas).

In two entries, Malacañang 2010 hopes and Cha-cha thrust, counter-thrust, Mon Casiple points out that people haven’t really noticed the Palace trial balloon of reviving constitutional amendments proposals having been shot down by the Senate.

The Inquirer editorial today, Bitter medicine, points to a multimillion-dollar insurance scam perpetrated by a Philippine doctor.

Speaking of doctors, my column for today (with some help from The Philosophical Dictionary), An intrinsically disordered response, begins with a reference to The Cebu Posterior Surgery Scandal and Its National Implications, as the Warrior Lawyer puts it (and he makes a good point about the morbidly humorous aspect of the tragedy). My column also makes reference to the following, which Joseph Gonzales wrote in his Cebu Freeman column, and which I’m reproducing in full because the Philippine Star group’s online people don’t understand the concept of permanent links.

LOOKING ASKANCE

By Joseph Gonzales

Sunday, April 20, 2008

I guess everyone in Cebu must know by now what happened at the Vicente Sotto hospital, where a gay patient who had a spray can extracted from his rectum was subjected to ridicule, by jeering nurses and doctors, and reportedly, even at the hands of outsiders, by the video-taping of his ordeal without his knowledge, and by the uploading of the video into YouTube, where the whole webbed world could witness his suffering.

To a large extent, I’m happy with the public reaction – all the possible groups that could have weighed in on the issue have weighed in, with uniform condemnation of the incident. Spokespersons for the Philippine Medical Association, the Department of Health, the Philippine Nurses Association, the Professional Regulation Commission, and the Human Rights Commission have indicated that this behavior by the hospital staff is unacceptable.

Even the local Integrated Bar and the Office of the Ombudsman (this being a government hospital) and, surprise, surprise, the Archdiocese of Cebu, have taken a position criticizing this blatant disregard for the sensibilities of the patient.

To all these organizations, I must say commendations are in order, for standing up for what is right, speaking out, and most importantly, for their surprisingly ability to look above and beyond the gender issue.

It could have been so easy for all these organizations to have their reactions colored, even shaped, by heterosexual revulsion. After all, look at the circumstances surrounding the medical procedure. The reports have it that the complainant is gay, he hired a male prostitute, he paid money for sex, and had sex with the guy. After insulting the prostitute for being ill-endowed (again, another sensitive issue for male heterosexuals), the florist went to sleep and woke up with the spray can lodged in him.

Even the supposedly liberal press could be accused of bias, coloring the facts by characterizing the occasion as happening after a bout of “kinky anal sex,” in all probability eliciting an even more negative reaction from its readers. Anal sex is already anathema to this deeply religious nation. But “kinky anal sex”? It’s the same as saying a person is not just ugly, but butt-ugly (but worse).

(Possible discussion point for a journalism class: when does anal sex transform from non-kinky to kinky? Is there a gauge or a barometer that can be used to determine, “ooh, that’s bordering on kinky!”)

Yet, despite the homosexuality, the ‘kinkiness,’ the fact that the complainant is from an underprivileged community, despite all these, the essential abuse suffered by the patient was driven home, and understood by all those in positions of responsibility. Seemingly as one, the community is speaking and declaring that this behavior is not to be tolerated.

If there’s one good thing that comes out of this incident, it will be that future patients can be assured that their medical information will be better protected. As of now, there’re already so many serious breaches of this so-called right to privacy, where doctors not only swap stories with fellow doctors about the results of HIV tests, but in fact, even share it with non-professionals. It’s actually become normal for those with the means to avoid being tested in Cebu, since they know that any positive result will most certainly be broadcasted in the local community. With the scandal and the outcry now on-going, it can be hoped that the professionals will be more circumspect in their treatment of medical information.

It’s certainly a black eye for the profession. I remember when all these doctors and nurses were up in arms just because Teri Hatcher’s line in Desperate Housewives said something about making sure that her doctor wasn’t a graduate of “some med school in the Philippines.” Well, hello. No need for Teri Hatcher or the show to defend themselves, when these doctors and nurses have just so ably demonstrated how low they can sink. And we expect to promote medical tourism in this country?

Ultimately, we should be thankful that despite the humiliation involved, that patient still spoke out. To that patient, thank you for your courage. In my books, you qualify as a hero.

Two news items used:So were the doctors whooping it up when they extracted that spray can? Duque rues missed glory in rectal surgery video. How about this? Cebu priest: Real issue in video is gay sex. Oh, spare me. I’m not keen on how media handles medical emergencies, etc., in general; the reportage is usually lurid.

CAFFiend in Cebu thinks the patient got his just desserts (and the doctors, too); The Four-eyed Journal tackles the whole thing from a Human Rights perspective, as does smoke, who objects to the identities of the doctors being revealed. Bakla Ako, May Reklamo? reproduces Ang Ladlad’s statement. Journalism student SWEET SADNESS: The Sands Chronicles noticed the response was slow in coming.

Incidentally, The Ayson Chronicles points out:

The Philippine Daily Inquirer seems to be taking some technology lessons from George W. Bush. GW has been credited for inventing the term “the internets” (probably during one of his more confused moments) as a new term for what we know as the Internet. This in turn has morphed into the often used term “the interwebs”. In a similar fashion, the PDI appears to have coined the term “the YouTube” when refering to the popular video sharing site.

D’oh!

Overseas, a tart entry, Why people hate Antonin Scalia in The Economist’s Democracy in America blog, worth reproducing in full:

DURING an interview with “60 Minutes”, to be aired this Sunday, Antonin Scalia, a cantankerous Supreme Court justice, was asked if the Bush v Gore decision that decided the 2000 election was political. After calling the claim “nonsense”, Justice Scalia added, “Gee, I really don’t want to get in, get over it. It’s so old by now.” Ah, right, because we’re not feeling any repercussions from that decision still today.

Bingo!

A fascinating (as usual) examination of current American politics, from the perspective of past political contests: see History Unfolding:

Previous posts have focused on the parallels early in the civil war crisis, asking whether this election will be remembered as our 1856 (in which Compromiser/Artist James Buchanan defeated Transcendental/Gilded cusper John C. Fremont, largely because of fears that the election of the Republican Fremont would break up the Union) or that of 1860, which really kicked off the crisis. But 1932 offers some interesting parallels as well, both politically and with respect to the state of the country, and thus a brief review of that year is also in order.

The Democrats in 1932 faced a one-term incumbent whose popularity (then unmeasured by polls) must have sunk to about where George W. Bush’s is today, and who insisted, like Bush, that his policies were sound and that history would vindicate them. They were fortunate, as it turned out, to have three, not two, major candidates–and the rivalry between the top two, Alfred E. Smith, the former Governor of New York and 1928 standard bearer, and his successor Franklin Roosevelt, had something of the same emotional tenor as that between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Ten years older than FDR, Smith had been four times elected Governor of New York, and had gone down to a crushing defeat against Hoover, largely because of his Catholic religion, in 1928. In that same year he had hand-picked Roosevelt, whom many in New York politics had always seen as a dilettante and a lightweight, to run for Governor, only to see Roosevelt very narrowly elected while Smith, who never struck most Americans as Presidential timber, lost his own state. During the next four years Roosevelt made a good impression as governor and carefully cultivated Democratic leaders all over the country, all the while declining even to ask Smith’s advice on questions of policy or patronage. Smith however remained as determined to be the first Catholic President as Clinton is to be the first woman, and he felt just as entitled to the nod, feeling vindicated by the events of the last four years. The third candidate, Speaker of the House John Nance Garner from Texas, competed with Roosevelt for support in the South and West, while the two New Yorkers battled it out in the Northeast.

Had three candidates remained strong in this year’s race, the third one would now be able to decide the outcome. That is what happened at Chicago in 1932, when Garner, backed by William Randolph Hearst, switched to Roosevelt Democrats still needed a 2/3 majority for the nomination in 1932 (FDR had the rule changed, fortunately, four years later), and Roosevelt began on the first ballot with 666 votes, just 104 shy of the nomination, as Smith polled 202 and Garner 90. Garner switched on the fourth ballot in exchange for the Vice Presidency–a decision he bitterly regretted for the rest of his life and in 1960 urged Lyndon Johnson not to repeat. Smith was never reconciled to the party’s choice (and actually opposed Roosevelt in 1936), but that had little effect on the outcome.

Essentially the Democratic Party in 1932 had everything going for it.

In the blogosphere, I’m back to blogging over at Inquirer Current. My entry for today is on The Top 100 Public Intellectuals contest being held by Foreign Policy.

The Big Event was, of course, iBlog4 last Saturday (scroll of honor over at Philippines Election Journal). A comprehensive account is in The Journal of the Jester-in-Exile. Bloggers Inside a Bum’s Mind and realcutie: that’s me also summarized the proceedings: Zen liveblogging even, courtesy of On Site. Stories and reactions from bloggers abound, see Arbet.log:

There are certain things to do when attending blogger events. Basically, you should expand your network by meeting new bloggers. You listen to talks, take down notes. Bring calling cards, or anything that will leave a good impression on everyone (chicken costume, anyone?); a calling card will do. If there’s a chance to broadcast your URL (the open mic session), grab it.

I did none of those things at iBlog 4.

And from Last Leaf Designs, this gem:

During the talks, there was a moment of stupidity for me (someone’s supposed to be surprised right about now, I’ll be happy even if it’s just make-believe), that was before Pinoyblogero’s talk. After he was introduced, I was mildly surprised because I was expecting him to look like his avatar. LOL What kind of person in their right mind would actually think of something like that, right? I mean, seriously. Oh man, how stupider can I get?

And more stories and responses from Rebyu, Sweet Perceptions, 214, My corner, bloggin’ in Asia, cafemom and Random Snowflakes. And a critique of the after-party from sexynomad (I have to sympathize as I have a horror of party games).

Thanks to SWEET SADNESS: The Sands Chronicles for jotting down notes on my talk (see her notes on Luz Rimban’s and Janette Toral’s talks, too). There was photo coverage, see Adventures and Stories of Azrael in his Merryland and Shari Shari Shari and even Video clips, too!

It was nifty seeing familiar faces like Here’s to Life, and Touched by An Angel, and meeting bloggers like Life with Ria (better known to me as Alleba Politics), The Marocharim Experiment, The McVie Show, Season Seven, Pinoy Life At Large, Prudence M.D. and Cokskiblue for the first time.

And the calling cards of bloggers (see Vaes9) swiftly changed hands. Until recently, I never had calling cards so was loathe to collect them; also, even if I have them, I’m highly disorganized so they just pile up. But for the record, here are the cards that ended up in my shirt pocket, which means it was nifty meeting these bloggers, too: Magikel, PinoyTech.TV, subtleoasis, The D Spot, The Yogini from Manila.

And you may be interested in signing the Online Petition for the Passage of the Cheaper Medicines Act.

The “Great Fear”

As chronicled by John Markoff in one essay in “The Rise and Fall of the French Revolution (Studies in European History from the Journal of Modern History)” (University of Chicago Press Journals)“ the Great Fear was paranoia in the rural areas, as a political crisis engulfed France in 1789. Rumors began to spread that the King, bandits, merchants, what have you, were going to swoop down on farmers to take their grain. The farmers formed militias; urban residents panicked. The government panicked.

We are experiencing our version of the Great Fear. A vicious cycle involving dramatic moves by the government, magnified by a media out of any really big stories (NBN-ZTE, Spratleys, etc. all fizzled out by Holy Week) and the combination of the two brought out panic combined with opportunism on the part of the public. Its early glimmerings were reported by Bong Austero in his March 24 column, Averting the impending rice shortage.

Yesterday, the Inquirer editorial, Hoarding, pointed to the Great Fear among local governments (For background, see: Davao will hoard rice, and Bumper rice harvest expected in Mindanao and Govs of provinces in Panay say rice enough for Visayas and Panay has enough rice to feed entire Visayas and

My Arab News column for the week is Fixing the Rice Problem Leaving Others Unattended. Since the modern presidency began, presidents have obsessed about rice: and cultivating rice, literally, has been an image eagerly cultivated by our presidents. See The Presidency as Image, in the PCIJ.

In my Arab News column, I pointed to inflation as one of the unattended problems, and to get a better view of that problem, and other related ones, see this analysis in Global Property Guide: Gloomy days ahead for Asia’s housing markets. Two charts from that analysis are particularly relevant:

The in-house economist of Global Property Guide, Prince Christian Cruz, was the guest on my show and he had some interesting things to say. The rising price of oil last year already put pressure on income, but was offset by the appreciation of the Peso. However, with the rise in rice prices, Filipino families have been subjected to a double whammy and thus, rising inflation. See also Gov’t to cut growth target for 2008 Rising food prices to curb GDP expansion.

Government data says the top three expenses of Filipinos are food, transport, and rent (more or less in that order, but food always being at the top, and ranging from 40% to more than 50% of income expenses), so a rise in oil and rice prices bloats the three, and from his perspective (focused on the property market) this will mean families have to consider moving to cheaper accommodations or defaulting on their housing loans; and that’s only from the point of view of the domestic economy. Add to this a downturn, economically, overseas, and the problems increase, as Filipinos overseas have to set aside purchasing homes (which fuels the construction industry) as their families at home have to spend more for food, transport, and rent…

The other week, I asked a worker how prices had been affected since Holy Week. A serving of vegetable viand went from ₱15 to ₱25, for meat dishes, ₱30 to ₱40, a cup of rice from ₱7 to ₱14.

People have had to adjust their grocery budgets, which up to now had been fairly stable for a few years. See Opinionated Banana:

If UN has an emergency food summit, well our Household also had our own emergency food summit. My mother, who’s in charge of the hardcore accounting and shopping shared that before a sack of sinandomeng rice would just cost at around 1,400-1500 pesos, but as soon as the crisis hit the fan, she ended up paying for 2,000++ pesos for a sack. With just a couple of male species and one diabetic in our household, we’re really not dependent on rice. But still, it calls for attention. We would experiment now on mixing food viands with mashed or baked potatoes, which I’m looking forward to, or develop our skills with cooking pasta. Yes, we’d still cook rice, but in smaller quantities now. It may result to healthy and positive effects, just as long as rice is still an option and not a form of deprivation. We’re all willing to adjust.

This leaves less money for the various service-oriented businesses that rely on people having disposable income. So the immediate problem, for now, is it’s not that there’s no rice to be had, but that purchasing rice is more expensive and won’t be going down in costs significantly in the long term. And we aren’t creating the kinds of stable jobs we need.

A backgrounder on where we were, prior to the Rice Problem hogging the headlines.

From Cielito Habito, PDI Talk.ppt and Michael Alba, economic briefing.ppt (see also philippine economic growth revised.pdf” I’ve snipped some slides. The white ones are from Alba, the colored ones, from Habito.

In 2006-2007, both were looking at the growth taking place in the country (being proclaimed as a new Golden Age by the administration, if you remember) and pointed to where it was really taking place, and where it wasn’t:

Alba had been pointing out that productive land was being lost to the booming property market, and what was worse was government wasn’t even properly keeping track of the development. Both he and Habito were also pointing to the dangers of lopsided growth, since the sectors growing weren’t labor-intensive (Habito pointed to the collapse in manufacturing-related jobs) and a fall in domestic investments, which would be magnified by a fall in foreign investments.

See also The Grand Deception by Perry Diaz. He calls the Palace to task for trumpeting its economic record, and how it brushed aside questions concerning the statistics and where the growth was taking place. He also zeroes in on smuggling as one issue that has hounded the administration -and which, I think, explains why public skepticism has hounded its every move in attending to the Rice Problem. In Thads Bentulan’s PPT, there’s a footnote (see the notation with the asterisk, below) where he raises the question of smuggling, because there’s a gap in the official statistics:

This actually came up during the Senate hearings before Holy Week, but the vacation prevented people from focusing on it. The discrepancy was between what the Philippines claimed was the value of its trade with China, and the values China itself declared. The Philippines claimed something like 8 billion dollars in trade while China said the value was 30 billion dollars. Immediately, during the hearing, some senators began asking if the discrepancy wasn’t a sign of smuggling. Although one senator later explained the discrepancy could be a case of arguing apples and oranges: the Philippine figure may be trade with the People’s Republic of China only, while the China figure may be “Greater China” including the PRC, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (and even the Binondo traders) but also revelatory of “technical smuggling.”

As it is, the rise in rice prices has led to demands for salaries to be raised, see Hefty wage hikes to spell economic troubles for RP–bank. Even the Inquirer editorial warned of the consequences of government allowing itself to be stampeded into raising wages: see Immediate need.

Which brings us to my column for today, which is Rice per minute. It discusses Thads Bentulan’s provocative An Analysis of Rice Prices in Three Countries: Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Philippines (as of April 20, 2008) . You can also download his Hyperwage Theory book.

People in business immediately dismissed Bentulan’s proposal: if it were adopted, one person texted me, “jobs will simply disappear.”

Bentulan says the minimum wage for a domestic helper in Hong Kong comes out to 18,637 Pesos per month. Ask yourself what work or position would pay a similar salary in the Philippines. Many people I encounter who are business owners complain that there are lots of jobs available -only, there are no Filipinos qualified to fill those jobs- but you have to wonder, the jobs remaining unfilled (mid-level managers, bookkeepers, etc.) are at salaries that makes it a competitive choice for a qualified person to seek employment overseas.

Moving on to the politics of it.

There is a novel by Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, which appeared in 1990 but has a strangely contemporary ring to its title: “The rice conspiracy: A novel”. What is interesting to me is how students from the UP School of Economics on my show last Tuesday asked if we really had a rice crisis or if it was a politically-manufactured scenario. They are not alone in being suspicious, see The Multiplication Table of The Jester-in-Exile from April 10:

My suspicion is this: the “rice crisis” is a fabrication, a scare tactic to draw attention away from the assaults on the squatter in Malacanang. With the public focused on this apparent rice crisis, the media will spend very little airtime on the motion for reconsideration that the Senate has filed with regard to Neri vs. Senate, on Jun Lozada and his plummetting visibility, on Atty. Harry Roque and the Quedancor issue, and the Magdalo officers’ conviction for coup d’etat, among other things.

Heck, I’m fairly certain that this rice crisis issue will be milked for what it’s worth, and then the public gets blindsided by yet another impeachment complaint decide to shield GMA.

This was tackled by Mon Casiple in Rice politics and governance:

Of course, it has been a policy of the government for sometime to import rice directly as the sole importer. In theory, it is supposed to sell the imported rice to small retailers directly. In practice, it is the cartels–with connivance from corrupt government officials–who divert these into their own control. A variation on this tactic is to substitute imported high-quality rice with local inferior rice.

The connivance–if not the direct hand–of government officials in rice smuggling from NFA warehouses is underscored by the dearth of direct rice smuggling from abroad. Somebody or somebody’s group is making a killing on the supposed “rice crisis” and the expected panic which drives prices still higher.

In the medium- and long-term, there really will be a rice crisis, as well as a general food crisis globally. At the same time, global rice prices will continue to rise as rice-producing countries increasingly curtail and secure the need of their own population. A lot of factors also contribute to this, such as high population growth, slow scientific breakthroughs, climate change, and higher per capita consumption.

However, in the Philippine case, a major factor is the short-sighted government policy definition of food security as consumer-oriented securing “food on the table.” This policy contradicts the common-sense notion of securing your staple food through sustainable production. The illogical policy of tolerating population growth when it outstrips resources complements this disastrous rice trader-friendly policy. Failure to complete the land reform program and prevent land conversion schemes of prime agricultural lands also contributed their share to the government’s failure in achieving real food security.

P43 billion is a drop in the bucket and a palliative when seen against the backdrop of governance failure by successive administrations in the rice and food sector. The GMA administration shares some eight years of it.

Rice, rice everywhere – but not enough to eat, says a news article. Ricky Carandang, in Why Rice is So Expensive, says an overlooked factor is manipulation of the Futures Market in foodstuffs:

As all this hot money goes out of the US, fund managers are looking for other places to put their money. And they’re going into commodities. They’ve seen how oil and precious metals have gone up and continue to go up. But with oil and gold hitting record highs, there’s a sense that the upside may be limited so they’ve focused on commodities that they believe could have a greater short term upside. And that means corn, wheat, soy, and rice.

Yes, there are real supply and demand factors driving up rice prices, but one must concede that a big chunk of the increases in the prices of oil, gold, and rice, are due to speculation on the international commodities markets.

As it is, in Cebu, at least, Rice prices start dropping. The decrease in prices being due to decisions by the traders, it seems, and not because of government’s intervention!

Frisco Malabanan, director of the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (Golden Bountiful Harvest) Rice program, said that as of Tuesday, farm gate prices of wet palay in Nueva Ecija have been monitored at around P14 to P14.50 a kilo.

He said that commercially, this farmgate price should translate o about P30 a kilo of milled rice, lower than the current prices, which have been hovering around P32 to P34 a kilo.

Malabanan attributed the low farmgate prices of palay to the decision of traders to stop buying in the meantime.

“This may be a strategy for them to bring down prices of palay,” he said.

Some things on the chart above taken from The Rice Problem site: the wide disparity between the farmers’ price (light green) and what the wholesalers’ sell it for (orange); and the relatively small margins of the retailers (light blue).

The wholesalers, though, also need that wide margin because it represents the inefficient costs of distribution in our infrastructure-challenged country. But it also shows the opportunities for maximizing profits, for example, when NFA Rice is then mixed with commercial rice or repackaged entirely by wholesalers and retailers.

Back in April 9, Philippines Without Borders warned that since government, by its nature, is slow to act, by the time its policies actually start having an effect, it could screw up what should at least be a bonanza for our farmers:

Now, based on Business Mirror reports, its seems Malacanang is simply telling the private sector to import what is allowed under the minimum access volume (MAV)…. Crazy!

The fact is that the MAVs have been there all along and no one dared importing much lately simply because tariff is high (50%). Who would be encouraged to import rice that are already expensive in the world market and pay 50% on top of it, thus making the landed ones so expensive? If I’m the importer, I’ll wait for local prices to really move up the heavens before I even thought about availing of the MAVs. That’s what is happening now.

So the supposed policy pronouncement about “allowing the private sector to import rice” was a bogus one—a deception. Or probably it was real, only that government, as usual, simply backtracked, nay backslided. My goodness! Now, the private sector is saying they will only import rice at zero tariff, and given the government’s very slow decision making process, we might end up having those imported rice landing our shores when the farmers are already harvesting their palay. Some of them has actually started harvesting now. That will be tragedy.

Another matter.

We shouldn’t discount, too, as the effects of people being able to game the system, as smoke points out in Malthus got this one right:

You see, some well-off families have been gaming the system. When you reach a certain income bracket, people eat more often at restaurants than at home. For these people, the rice they buy is mostly for the house-help and the pets. Ironically, in the circles I know, these are also the largest purchasers of cheap rice. With most of these upper-income families employing at least two – up to six – house-help, they are able to buy more at those street side selling points.

First thing they do is they go quite a distance from where they actually live. When they find a selling point, the helpers line up with everyone else, only they are spaced about two-three people apart. Most of the time, they’re not noticed as strangers. But when they are, they just say they’re from so-and-so depressed community and that that place ran out of rice. They then give the sob story about having had to walk or travel far just to find rice. It’s clever, really. This story reinforces the notion that there is a shortage, and sets people a-twitter. In short order, they forget that their are strangers among them.

Once they get their quota of cheap rice, these helpers walk walk walk. Eventually, they all meet up, get in the re-conditioned van they use for going to the market and drive on home.

People would go to localities where NFA rice was being sold, even if they’re not from the area and not necessarily the target market of rice relief -the idea being a habit as old as the Japanese Occupation, which is to hoard when things are cheap and simply pull one over the authorities.

Roving rice-buyers aren’t just agents of the well-off. This is where having many family members -and idle ones- comes in handy: you can line up, anywhere, even far from home; and when supplies are limited per person, multiply the number of persons and you multiply the family’s total share. And the strategy is validated by events: even mentioning that the NFA may be forced to raise prices increases the determination of people to hoard now.

Politically, whether manufactured or not, the Rice Problem affords as many opportunities as it presents risks. See Manila’s Arroyo treads risky path with rice campaign. Amando Doronila takes a dim view, saying that Low credibility bodes ill for Arroyo riding out crisis. I’m not convinced the public mood will sour the way he thinks it will, or could. Definitely, as Mon Casiple says, in Malacañang 2010 hopes, the Palace will be sniffing around for opportunities -or trying to create them, as RG Cruz amplifies in an entry. Or, simply try to move fast to take advantage of any that may arise; more so, if it can claim credit for heading of an emergency. House to call Yap on P250-B plan setting the stage?

The Warrior Lawyer has a trilogy of entries, starting with The Politics of Rice then Rice Crisis Relegates the ZTE Broadband Scandal to the Background and On Corporate Rice Farming and Other Notes on the Rice Crisis . Which brings us to issues raised and some readings.

I. Government agricultural policy

Rice: a policy blind spot says Randy David. On the National Food Authority, see Soaring World Food Prices Exacerbate Challenges Across Asia…Especially in the Philippines in the Asia Foundation blog. See also The Bottom Seed: Notes on the Philippine Rice Crisis by Martin Perez.

See Bohol rice farmers ‘forced to eat camote’:

Catarata said that in planting rice, farmers need to spend for one hectare at least P18,745: P900 for the rice seeds, P6,000 for 14-14-14 fertilizer, P4,900 for urea, P30 for the transport of fertilizer and P500 for chemicals against pests, and P6,415 for labor.

Catarata said that if the P1,080 for thresher and blower and P1,800 for irrigation fee is added, the total rice production cost of P21,625 will be shouldered by the farmer, who is able to harvest only 60 sacks of palay worth P28,800.

Because the farmer has to share one-fourth of his harvest, equivalent to P7,200, to the landlord, he stands to get only P21,600 as gross income. After deducting the production cost, she said, farmers end up with a loss of P25.

But this situation can only be compounded by what Ellen Tordesillas says is a Looming fertilizer shortage.

See also P5M full subsidy for rice farmers and Herrera proposes full subsidy of rice seeds.

II. The World food situation

Earlier, Food crisis grows by Paul Krugman and then from Time.com: No Grain, Big Pain. From the Asia Sentinel, recently, Will Rice Depart from Asia’s Tables? The region’s most important food staple may be going into permanent decline.

See RP may not be able to secure more rice from East Asia.

See Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club limits rice purchases.

III. Biofuels

See Let Them Eat Bio-fuels by Tony Abaya, and Biofuel not to blame for loss of rice lands — senator. He’s right, I think -but there’s the question of corn (and inefficiencies: it’s cheaper for hog raisers in Luzon to import corn from Thailand than to ship it in from Mindanao), which is being allocated for biofuel production.

The Arab News editorial, International Problem, says European farm subsidies have been very successful and advocates some sort of international body to manage subsidies for agriculture on a global scale:

Biofuels are not the root cause of the price hikes; they and the high price of oil are simply the straw that broke the camel’s back. The real villain is the phasing out of subsidies in so many parts of the world at the behest of the IMF and the World Bank. More land has been taken out of food production as a result than any shift to biofuels. It has hit poorer countries particularly hard because they are the ones that have most needed IMF and World Bank support. Without subsidies, farmers in countries such as Ghana or Gabon — West Africa has been particularly affected — could not compete against cheap imports from the big producers, and gave up. But no one realized a crisis was brewing because cheap food imports continued to arrive. It is only now, with prices rocketing, that poorer countries find they do not have enough local producers to fall back on.

Then again, we can focus on growing meat without having to grow animals -see Tastes Like Chicken in Slate.

IV. Population

See Juan Mercado’s look at population from a regional perspective in 2010 dividend. And Manuel Buencamino’s Earth Day blues. Blogger smoke is also in Malthusian mode in C-rice-is.

And finally, a brief survey of the blogosphere:

April 9: see: The Left Click, Arbet Loggins @ Multiply, Life As I Know It and The Unlawyer. A particularly interesting look back at previous rice problems in A Simple Life:

In the slums of Iloilo City, circa middle of 1970s, back when the NFA (National Food Authority) was still known as the NGA (National Grains Authority), “NGA” was synonymous to an inferior variety of rice – dark-grained, 50% broken, and had a chemical-like smell.

Therefore, I am surprised that unscrupulous traders nowadays can repack NFA rice, which retails at P18.25 per kilo, and pass it off as commercial rice, now selling at up to P34 per kilo as of posting time.

As a child, I remember Nanay occasionally taking home with her a brown paper bag containing a ganta (about two and a half kilos) of NGA rice. Those were hard times. Those were the times when Ferdinand Marcos rationed rice to just a few kilos per family.

A few months into the oil-rice crisis of the 1970s, the NGA resorted to rationing rice mixed with corn grits. Although the yellow corn grits-white rice grain mixture looked good, either cooked or uncooked, swallowing it is another matter. The discriminating Ilonggo palate just does not have the tolerance for corn as the staple. We may eat corn during snacks – on the cob, steamed or broiled, or as popcorn, but not when cooked as rice.

I did not remember exactly how long the corn-rice blend lasted in Iloilo, but I can still recall that the Ilonggos did not enthusiastically receive it. We survived and outlasted the rice crisis by subsisting on “binlod” (Tagalog: binlid) – 90 to 100% broken rice grains. Normally, binlod should be chicken feed, but undoubtedly, it fells better on the palate than corn-rice. Binlod is best eaten as “lugaw” or porridge. Sometimes, Nanay would be lucky to obtain some “laon”, which was only slightly better than NGA rice, and we would feel blessed.

Yes, we survived the rice crisis then and we can survive it now.

April 10: see Every man is guilty of the good he did not do…Voltaire, Poolah, Daily Musings, mackybaka! , www.CCLozano.com and Prospect Avenue:

My mom’s having a hard time ordering rice right now. She said the price of rice has risen twice over the week. She’s called all her friends and our relatives. One is selling a sack for 1,500 pesos, our aunt (who owns a stall in a public market) is selling hers for 1,800 pesos. Rumor says that a sack would cost 3,000 pesos in a few week’s time.

I don’t think there is a rice shortage at the moment. People are just getting greedy and hoarding the sacks out of greed and paranoia. It’s mass psychology at work. The rice crisis is a self-fulfilling prophecy that is slowly coming true.

Mom’s thinking of sending our workers out to buy NFA rice. It’s cheaper (18 pesos per kilo versus 35 pesos selling in the market). But you have to line up pretty early in the morning (around 5am) to buy the rice (shop closes at 10am). Each buyer can only buy up to two kilos of rice. There are cops (or soldiers) standing guard, making sure that everyone gets a fair share of the NFA rice.

April 11: see Splice and Dice:

That is the part where a morally bankrupt regime purports to be the moral buttress of the nation. That is the part where a Garcified leadership pretends to wrestle with the liars, cheaters and thieves in this nation when that leadership has nobody else to wrestle other than themselves. That, too, is the part where a gloriafied regime sees everything else as investments, owing largely for its economic eye, while failing to understand the basic difference between what is legal and what is just.

I’ve always believed that what is legal does not necessarily equate with what is just. While we may have laws, and we do have laws, there remains the sweeping thought and feeling that we lack justice. Invoking an executive privilege may be legal, but does it bequeath us any justice? Well beyond all that there is to be truly disappointed about, sanctifying that executive privilege, one which has truly become a privilege in the strictest sense of the word, by the prostitutes of the law corrodes the fists of justice. It’s a case where a distorted defense of a privilege which the constitution does not even explicitly provide tramples upon the written forces of truth and transparency, the gravity of which pins us back to a crisis worse than one plaguing our rice supplies.

Organic vs. Programmatic

In his column, Marvin Tort looks at the scuttlebutt concerning the latest round of executive reshufflings:

With Ricardo Saludo moving out, the position of Cabinet secretary becomes available. Coffee shops are also rife with rumors that outgoing Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon is likely to be appointed to the Defense post, while Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro (a nephew of Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco) will likely move to the Interior department. Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno, meantime, will reportedly move to the Palace as executive secretary, while Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita will either be posted abroad or moved to the state gaming regulator Pagcor.

Another version of the rumor has Environment Secretary Lito Atienza moving to the Interior department, considering his long-time experience as a local official, first as vice mayor and then as mayor of the City of Manila. Other potential vacancies in the Cabinet are from the possible replacement of Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, who may be moved back to the Palace as Cabinet secretary in place of Saludo; and Finance Secretary Gary Teves, who may be either posted abroad or named to head either a government financial institution or a government-owned and -controlled corporation.

There seems to be some issue with some Cabinet performances, particularly those of Yap and Teves. Yap, who is reportedly intending to run for the Senate in 2010, is getting plenty of undeserved flak nowadays because of the escalating prices of rice and wheat as well as corn and livestock, while Teves is reportedly being made to account for the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s (BIR) collection shortfall for 2007. In the latter’s case, a party-list congressman who sits in the powerful Commission of Appointments already voiced his intention to ask Teves to explain the shortfall the next time the Finance secretary appears before the commission.

The Agriculture and Finance posts are obvious hardship posts, more so now with the brewing problems involving food security as well as limited government finances for much-need infrastructure and public spending. In this sense, it may be highly unlikely for the Palace to attract “new faces” to assume these posts. But it can choose to rehabilitate older faces, including former representative Butch Pichay, who may yet be interested to give Agriculture a go after failing in his bid to “plant” himself in the Senate. As for Finance, on and off several names have been bandied about, including those of Trade Secretary Peter Favila and Education Secretary Jesli Lapus, who were both at one time bankers in their respective professional careers. Also rumored to be considered for the post is the Development Bank of the Philippines’s Reynaldo David. Prior to joining Finance, Teves was also a banker, serving as chief executive of Land Bank of the Philippines.

What a deep bench!

History Unfolding makes an interesting comparison between Richard Nixon and Hillary Clinton, but finds her wanting, in comparison to Nixon, in one respect: party loyalty. This bears reading in the wake of Clinton’s victory in Pennsylvania (what does her winning margin mean? “Not a ringing endorsement,” says History Unfolding. See Slate’s Trailhead).

Back in 2007, I pointed to this entry, Samsung Slush Fund Scandal (via Global Voices). The drama came to a head with the results of an investigation that found the head of Samsung should be indicted for tax evasion, etc. but stopped short of pinning him down on the original allegations of maintaining a corporate slush fund to influence the government. No conviction, mind you, just a finding of cause for prosecution. Still, over the past few days, Korea’s Samsung Faces a Revolution Over Resignation, Scandal:

As a result, the company faces a continued crusade by the its former legal affairs chief, Kim Yong-cheol, to bring the chaebol to justice on allegations that it maintained a massive slush fund to pay off politicians, judges, journalists, civic groups and scholars and, so Kim claims, just about anybody else it needed to bribe. Kim and two civic groups – the Solidarity for Economic Reform and The People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy – said they will file appeals to the nation’s prosecution to reinvestigate.

The giant conglomerate also faces the continued animosity of the Catholic Priests Association for Justice, a 30-year-old association of priests that played a unique role in the drive for democracy in the 1980s and continues to serve as the nation’s conscience; Kim brought his allegations to the clerics last October before going public with them.

On another Korea-related note, see A Hanjin Heavy construction project inside a protected forest raises a storm of protest.

On to the blogosphere.

A story related by a friend in the bureaucracy.

A highly Americanized Secretary of Foreign Affairs was appointed and he decreed that it was high time the bureaucracy dispensed with typewriters and computerize its operations.

Studies were made; orders were placed; greater and greater heights of efficiency would soon be reached.

The time for budget proposals came and various underlings filed into the SECFORAF’s office, equipment requisitions in hand. They boasted computers and the necessary appurtenances thereto; but then, the boss noticed that there was still a budget provision for the purchase of typewriters.

“Goddamnit,” the Secretary of Foreign Affairs thundered, “I thought I told you to get rid of these damned things!”

A bureaucrat nodded, took the paper, looked at his boss, and quietly said, “brownouts, Sir.”

The SECFORAF grabbed the requisition papers and signed.

This story was brought to mind by Power Not by Desire, But By Right , in which cocoy continues the dialogue that’s been taking place between himself and various bloggers, and the group discussion that’s ensued. He has a key insight in comparing the debates on moving the country forward to debates between advocates of science and defenders of religion. The science-versus-religion debate is one that irks me, because it is essentially futile.

I never tire of asking people to read Stephen Jay Gould’s essay, Nonoverlapping Magisteria, much as it explains my own views of religion and science dealing with things that are really separate departments in our lives (an interesting critique of this, from the point of view of those interested in actually reconciling science with religion, is in A Separate Peace: Stephen Jay Gould and the Limits of Tolerance).

Religion and science deal with different Truths. Randy David was telling a group of people at a book launch recent of an Italian Marxist intellectual who is Gay and a practicing Catholic. How could he reconcile all these, he was asked. In a Postmodern world, he said, all things are possible. But that is already straying into the idea that there is no such thing as Truth.

The question of science and religion matters though, when religion is put forward as a problem in society, and therefore, politics, and when politics, it’s proposed, should be approached in a more scientific manner. Both represent dangerous situations.

Both science and religion, for example, have been used to promote the persecution of minorities; the solution to the dangers posed by both is a pluralistic, secular, but not atheistic, political order of some sort.

It would be wrong to demand of someone that they commit one of the ultimate crimes in religion -apostasy- in the name of science; it would be equally wrong to let science run rampant without ethics; but it would be wrong to confuse ethics with religious morality. Such a puzzlement! Hence my view that these are achieved only by trial-and-error and evolution, and not by attempts at social engineering -which all political revolutions are.

There is this impatience with religion, and anything non-scientific, as -well, to use the term with delicious irony- something anathema to progress, sanity, most of all, Reason with a capital “r”.

Since the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, people have tried to approach human behavior from a scientific point of view; the scientific method informs our behavior far more than we usually think; and up to the 19th Century -think of the Germans and their reduction of the Art of History into the History as one of Social Sciences- it seemed science would rule all and triumph absolutely. cocoy’s Elliot Maggin quote could just as well have been written by the revolutionaries in France who gave the world the far more rational Metric System. But the French and other revolutions also tells us that there is nothing new about the desire to topple superstition except the superstition that such desires are new or that they can be accomplished in willful defiance of a society’s norms.

Where did his and subsequent Five Year Plans get him or the Russians? His successor, Stalin, had to (temporarily) rehabilitate the Russian Orthodox Church, and appeal to the Motherland and not Glorious Socialism to inspire the Soviets to resist the Germans; he also had to restore military ranks, gold braid, and decorations to motivate the military. And the result is the rebuilding of Orthodox Churches throughout Russia after Scientific Socialism collapsed, because it proved to be a religion like any other.

Same with Mao, Pol Pot… There is no Final Solution for society, though there was once that effort to achieve a lasting “solution” to the “Jewish Question.” Yet how did that turn out? Israel was established after the Third Reich was consumed in the flames of shelling and fire bombing.

Robert MacNamara pioneered the use of computers for strategic bombing during World War II; his attempt to wage the Vietnam War in a scientifically rational manner, as Barbara Tuchman described it, placed that American effort as part of a continuum -“The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam”- that includes the Trojan War and its famous horse.

Randy David pointed out that in terms of society, we are undergoing a crisis of modernity. The crisis is being exacerbated by our political class, which finds itself uncompetitive in terms of public expectations and its own narrow interests. Society, too, is torn between modern attitudes and values and yes, fear of upsetting the status quo, which is to put it mildly, imperfect but at least, predictable.

Another sign is part of a larger trend, which is, that official wrongdoing is measured according to the past (i.e. Marcos) and if it isn’t an exact duplicate, then it’s nothing to worry about -but governments around the world have realized they can be more subtle about repression that past regimes, and subtlety lies in a “legalistic approach” to challenges to authority. What is this “legalistic” approach? The mantra of the administration, “bring it to court,” and say, Sweden, where two officials resigned over a firm they were formerly associated with, turning out to have exaggerated earnings; a year previously, the trade minister resigned over allegations of tax evasion.

In Sweden I was told sixty years of Socialist rule was broken only twice, most recently in the last election; observers won’t be surprised if in the next election blatantly racist party representative’s end up elected; reason, order, equality, have their limits. In the end, one Swede told me, they voted against the Socialists simply because they were tired of the same old faces, never mind if the Conservatives kept many of the policies and programs of the previous regime. We are men and women and not machines.

Postmodernism is beyond my ken but it seems to me that cocoy’s approach is true to his nature as a programmer. That requires a particular mindset, a way of ordering data and problem solving.I can only guess at what, precisely, separates a programmer’s way of thinking from, say, mine.

I cannot use the terms he takes for granted with any sort of precision. Reboot? Debug? Both point to the same Operating System? Replace the OS altogether, but will it be better? Are these even the proper terms or analogies?

Not necessarily and probably not; but will focusing on the rapidly changing face of technology and how its changing society, and basing political proposals on that be new -or as innovative as we might think? New Order, New Society, all old, old, old. Even Marx has been criticized as essentially pining for a return to what? Rousseau’s State of Nature?

For those, like me, who view things organically, is there any fundamental clash with the cultural programming other people propose? Only in terms, I think, of frames of reference. An organic development is something the British point to, their last revolution having been in 1688, and it was a (fairly) peaceful one, though it involved foreign conquest. Yet revolutionary changes have taken place, most recently when the Death Duties were imposed and took the aristocracy out of politics. But you are speaking here of looking at things in terms of centuries, generations, not nanoseconds.

But returning to things here at home. I think everyone dissatisfied with how things are, expresses dissatisfaction with the absence of competition.

Or put another way, what are perceived to be unfair competitive advantages for some. Say, the Catholic Church in population policy.

Condemning practicing Catholics or their clergy for medieval-minded approaches to population is futile because it requires apostasy of believers. On the other hand, the scientific method can be used -or what passes for it in terms of studying society- to determine if certain assumptions are valid. We assume the Church has political clout. Does it? But more importantly, in what ways, and what, if any, are the limits to its political influence? What are the views of the general public in the case of religion’s faith and morals and how they are applied in real life? Do religions wield a positive or negative clout, are they better at proposing, or more effective at opposing, policy? And so on. A scientific approach to competition solves the problem with requiring or wasting time on getting people to denounce their religion.

Incidentally, good to see Benign0 is blogging. He brings up the question of trust; there are institutions in the Philippines that do function, and function in the public interest, or at least, which come close to doing so (it may sometimes be subdivisions of particular offices, such as portions of the National Archives, or say, the government office tasked with preparing maps, even some parts of the Office of the President, or even much of NEDA or some sub-offices of the Department of Education, for example) but the problem is the ramshackle approach that permeates everything else -and it goes beyond government, and includes the private sector.

Which is not to say changes aren’t taking place. They are, and those changes are, to my mind, profound -the end of the “old obediences” (see Charisma versus routines. the genesis of this in comments I wrote on August 21, 2007 and August 22, 2007) This is actually a revolutionary change, to my mind; but it cannot be accelerated although it will have the tendency to accelerate changes. But there is a difference between believing you can push it along and working to harness the momentum such changes have already produced.

Someone deeply involved in the peace process told me that you need a decade of peace for it to really sink in and alter people’s behavior, so that development takes place. At best, 2010 can only be the first glimmerings of a Reform Constituency and a realistic expectation, assuming we retain the current setup, is for that constituency to be poised to take power in 2016. Therefore if one of the goals is to exact justice for the crimes of the past few years, forget about it. And my suspicion is, this desire will actually hinder the coming together and the gathering of the momentum for that change in leadership and attitudes to governance in 2016. Because it will only lead to current wounds festering beyond 2010.

Anyway, do read If you ran this country… by Jim Paredes (I agree with practically all his proposals) and I am Change, Are You? by Harvey Keh.

Just a tidbit: didn’t realize, until I reviewed my June 10, 2005 entry, that the admin’s fondness for the Mabuhay Rotonda dates to the early days of the crisis.

It doesn’t compute (revised)

My column for today is An unnecessary breakdown in distribution. I have been trying to keep up with The Rice Problem (GMANews.tv has a microsite going, too, The Price of Rice). See in particular, Long lines for rice not the first time in RP history.

But (as an unpublished entry for this blog, postponed and repeatedly revised indicates) it’s tough going. Maybe mañana! For now, what puzzles me is that the government, according to some people who formerly served in it, engaged in mapping the poor areas of the country, with food and patronage in mind. Why then, has government been stumbling around since the Rice Problem began?

Right now, as the Inquirer editorial for today, Immediate need puts it, the political pressure’s increasing for wages to be raised, in response to the Rice Problem.

At the sidelines of the conference I attended, people were quite curious about the Philippines and quite surprised to hear such a big percentage of the population was abroad.

“Why?” they would ask.

“Poverty and the absence of social mobilty,” was my short answer, which would then lead to a longer answer (if there was time).

On to something that occured in my absence.

I read with interest in Ambeth Ocampo’s column, that Rizal translated Déclaration des Droits de l’homme et du citoyen du 26 août 1789 (Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen) into Tagalog. This is of course one of the great historical documents of Western (and World) civilization and brings me to a question asked by in frustration in reaction to my recent column, Resistance isn’t futile.

In his entry Because We Can in FilipinoVoices.com, cocoy (big mango, a blog I’ve often referred to), speaks of the need for a “New Political Party.”

This is, to my mind, actually the formation of a Reform Constituency, which I’ve discussed at some lengths in my March 4, 2008 entry Dodging concrete demands, (see, in addition, Minimum and maximum from February 20, 2008) to wit:

I believe, in light of the above, the urgent need is for:

1. The middle forces to consolidate and pursue a consensus;

2. And having forged that consensus to consider that while some are more focused on the President, and others on longer-lasting and more wide-spread reforms, the two are not incompatible if their goal is a Reform Constituency that can challenge the Right and the Left not just now, or 2010, but beyond.

(And reference to John Nery’s column, as to the role protest, etc. plays in building this constituency; as well as links to the constituencies other people have identified; see also Randy David’s What Among Ed’s victory means -and it did not mean a grassroots revolt; the danger is it might represent the Last Hurrah of the old elite and middle class of Pampanga).

I mentioned the need for a Reform Constituency in my column, The civic imperative: a reflection (which appeared during Holy Week, oh well) on March 19, 2008:

The challenge proposed in the pastoral letter of Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales is whether citizens can cultivate the kind of civic spirit that keeps up the fight day in and day out, and turns a temporary victory in the streets into a triumph of the public good.

In other words, the cultivation of a Reform Constituency, which helps officials by keeping them on their toes, protects gains achieved for the public good, and offers up prospects of preserving what has been built, but extending and enlarging those gains, as well…

The clarion call of our times, then, unites faith with reason. To rebuild a civic culture. To have a common ground in shared values based on a shared belief in how the system ought to work. Our particular political objectives are secondary to this. It is our generation’s mission.

And as I discussed in a reply to a comment also on March 19, 2008:

those who want the president to go, but do not accomplish it before 2010 -but along the way, make it impossible for her to perpetuate herself in office beyond that, then that is an achievement that makes the vigilance from 2005-2010 worth it. if it results in lakas-kampi being trounced at the polls, better yet, come 2010, or if it results in the beginning of the end for them, politically, and the rise of a reform constituency that may not win in 201[0] but begins to flex its muscles and does even better by 2016, then that’s great, too.

If this requires refighting old battles and re-stating old issues again and again, even if it drives some people up the wall, because some things have to restated until properly internalized, then so be it. One big difference in perspective: in his April 18th, 2008 5:42 pm comment, cocoy speaks of “aging 20th century playbooks,” and if your perspective believes a mere 100 years is, indeed, enough to make ideas obsolete, then of course the frustration will be intense. But a few centuries here or there don’t invalidate ideas, to my mind, just as generations passing serves to underscore certain basics about human behavior -including the behavior of those with power and those challenging power and the way it’s wielded.

But it may be that the battles that need to be fought today -and they need to be fought, sometimes along tried and tested lines but also, recognizing that people change and what worked yesterday won’t work today, I’ve also pointed out often enough why this is happening- make some people think that the Reform Constituency isn’t coming together.

It is, and there are tangible signs.

The most tangible of which is Anti-graft bloc, law schools to catch big fish (this effort goes beyond catching big fishes; it’s also establishing the good will and sense of a common cause that will bear fruit in other projects, too; I’m involved in a sub-project that aims to produce charts and diagrams that will help make sense of evidence as its gathered, and also, help illustrate to school kids and citizens how government institutions and procedures ought to work, and show cases where they haven’t worked, or have been subverted by officials).

The Jester-in-Exile has more about it (well, the launching activity, at least) in The Right to Know — Shall We Exercise It, or Shall Our Blindness be Voluntary? and with videos, too, in Filipino Voices — Speak Up. Be Heard. (Else, remain silent and be damned yourselves thereby.)

Responses to my column include The Marocharim Experiment writing of “hinanakit,” but it’s cocoy who really got people thinking: see The Jester-in-Exile’s Because We Must, and Rom’s (aka smoke) Must we? Which, in turn, led to a riposte by cocoy in Because We Can Change the Dynamics of the Game. cocoy expands his views on a New Political Party in Empower Tomorrow (essential, accompanying reading in this vein is A Comprehensive Proposal for an EDSA Reform (edited) by Writer’s Block). As a side note, perhaps we also differ, deeply, in our attitudes towards parties. By instinct, I oppose the idea of political parties, period, because I believe by their nature parties exist to secure jobs for their members, and you have centuries of human behavior and party histories to prove this. In the Philippines’ case, see my Arab News column, The Same Mistakes Eventually. I am more inclined to Making political parties obsolete and exploring Partyless Democracy as a concept (as some people from India are doing), and tying it all together as much as possible, see Politics is a continuum:

1. Politics is a continuum.

2. Politics is about both issues and personalities.

3. When an government is subjected to a referendum the totality of its actions are what’s being judged.

The differences in opinion, I’d suggest, boils down to whether cocoy’s belief that old methods must simply be scrapped, or whether the reason they exist points to their efficacy and efficaciousness; and whether the priority can be binding the nation’s wounds, on the basis of letting bygones be bygones because a larger, more abstract, problem needs to be attended to. The abstract problem, after all, has a pretty big consensus behind it: that it exists, and that what exists is a political system out of whack because society’s out of whack. Can you nudge it back into shape? There’s the rub. Of course the most extreme view, and a large part of the problem, are those expounded by New Philippine Revolution: that elections are a sham, that no change has taken place; the justification for revolution by insisting there’s no such thing as evolution.

Or we can simply Blame it on the heat.

In other matters,Conrado de Quiros calls attention to Chess prodigy Wesley So, and how we do well in only three sports: boxing, billiards -and boxing. So three cheers for Wesley! Note how Chess is a popular pastime among many Filipinos, even if public attention isn’t paid to that fact. I admire Chess players, particularly since I’m extremely lousy at it.

Why the Pope wears red shoes was quite unsatisfactory. An infinitely better read is Vintage Vestments: The Philosophical Threads Woven Into Papal Garments or From the House of Benedict, Tradition as Chic in The New York Times (2006) and the full summary of the source, The House of Benedict: The Full Summaries (see older entries still, like Camauro Here Often?) from the must-read blog on everything Vatican-related, Whispers in the Loggia.

Baler in the American period

Baler During The American Period: The Reign Of Quezon by me. Among the Baler, Aurora Book Exerpts Online @ Aurora.ph.

Conference Notes

Notes from Big Brother and Empowered Sisters: The role of new communication technologies in democratic processes, Uppsala, April 16-17. See Also the ICT for Democracy blog’s entries. Related sites are Sida and in particular, Spider.

For bios of speakers, see here.

Day One

I. Introduction: Mia Melin & Helena Bjuremalm

In Tanzania, Civil Society, citizens engage and monitor schools using cellphones: is there a school in the first place? As many classrooms as officially announced? Are teachers showing up for work? Bathrooms? ICT + grassroots.

II. Helen Belcastro: What’s New about New Technologies?

From Sida’s ICT for Development Secretariat

ICT: supposed to foster: poverty reduction/democracy/empowerment enhancement.

Poverty includes lack of information, possibilities, and power.

No technology inherently good or bad.

Technology used reflects dominant groups’ priorities.

Definitions:

ICT= technology used to process info. and speed info. Cells, Internet, GPS, TV, Radio (computers vs. mobile phones)

Contextually relevant info. + Open Source

Choice of tech. shapes organization & ideology of society.

= transparency, etc. should guide it

3 Levels of ICT:

i. Gov’t = e-gov’t:

-increasing gov’t ICT can lessen individual rights; rule of law is crucial

ii. People & Gov’t:

-strong state + powerful tools requires vigilance; personal integrity needed more

-electronic pub. of bills

-electronic election systems

-community info. centers

iii. ICT for Empowerment:

-citizens as consumers vs. citizens as agents

-horizontal networking

-Power and independence of nation-state has been reduced by ICT

-Internet can play intermediary role: debate, protest, monitoring and reporting (e.g. Burma, Belarus, Malaysia: SMS for mobilization)

What’s New?

-created opportunities in prov. info:

1. Personal integrity & Information: need to be addressed: risks of abuse of public info.

2. Use for hate

3. Access makes them effective; transform. from passive to active user/producer

-Unprecedented citizen-journalism:

-transient single-issue involvement; global collective action; whimsical; nation-states weakened; unbound by borders; fragmentation of discourse & debate = affects quality of discourse

-increased possibilities to participate

-intensify existing biases; permanent who is in and out

-collect & structure

-importance of trust

-IPR vs. Open Knowledge/Open Source Frontier:

1. the new social movement exists beyond physical boundaries

2. are they replacing old social movements?

3. producing social involvement?

Can ICT become a Trojan Horse for democracy?

See: ICTs, the Trojan horse for democracy and development?

III. Anriette Esterhuysen: Empowered Sisters –Strategic Uses of ICTs to Promote Social Justice and Equality

From Association for Progressive Communications

-Apartheid resistance efforts: South Africa, Philippines Civil Societies connected by e-mail (cool!)

-Solidarity Networks in Global North vs. direct from-the-ground sources: e-mail!

-Access to Knowledge Treaty:

i. IPR and activists

ii. share, collaborate

iii. multilingualism

-collective vs. individual action: ICT’s make possible microactivism ➝macroactivism

-interesting: thrives when there’s repression; but also thrives when there’s freedom; traditional activism emerges when there’s a common enemy – ICT allows more sustained activism

-not just issues, but systemic change

-Digital Opportunities Task Force: Donor community believes media powerful for democracy but not ICT: donors fear ICT, believing it can be used disruptively

-Universal Access Fund

-case study: TakeBackTheTech:

*(women RP, Malaysia)

*controversial image in Africa for African men

*Women to take control of ICT and use vs. VAW

Note: everyone in Business Class are men!

*postcards: “If I could communicate, I would not feel as trapped”

*telling digital stories = sharing & healing

Note: Malaysia = used ICT’s, Woman’s Candidacy Initiative

See: Don’t you wish your MP was fun like me?

IV. Robert HÃ¥rdh: Big Brother and Freedom of Expression

From The Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights

-lawyers can help promote subversion of the Law!

-wrong for people to assume problems are elsewhere (esp. Sweden must recognize it’s capable of violations, too)

-Fighting impunity: bringing Russia to the Int’l Court of Human Rights over Chechnya

*evidence provided by Russian soldiers videotaping abuses, uploading, not realizing they were providing evidence

-danger of private companies working with government (e.g. vs. pedophilia): safeguards purely w/ professionalism of police and ISP’s

-Big Brother and his fears:

Repressive governments want to indoctrinate and control populations

*cat & mouse: regimes vs. civil society

*disturbing production & use of mass information

*Belarus 2006: KGB sent SMS saying there would be a bomb to disrupt attempts at People Power (N.B. like home!)

-Countries in Transition:

*low quality of media and journalism

*poor education

*limited access to information for public/journalism

*corruption (bureaucracy)

*media market dominated by state media

*political groups & organized crime own media

*demographic problem: “technical Taliban” (senior people in orgs. that are tech. ignorant)

*dysfunctional market: difficult for independent media to be self-sustaining

*low participation of citizens in issues

-Sidestepping Big Brother:

i. how to transmit (in the past, meet in apartments, simplest)

ii. cheaper, available to more, and less risk: facilitates mobilizing

iii. access: even if small percentage have access to ‘Net, still larger than would have had access to indep. media

iv. for Donors: hesitance in investing in these methods, if illegal in that country

*case study: use of political graffiti in Belarus

*LGBT rights in 3 countries

*rock concerts, theater performances + use of CDs

-Russian human rights: “Internet will prevent Russia from returning to Soviet era.”

-case of British girl, abducted: posted pics on Facebook, Italian police then used Facebook to investigate (pics from party she was at moments before disappearance; people in photos brought in for questioning)

*privacy issues

*fake Facebooks

*emphasizes works only if professionalism on part of investigators

V. Alice Wanjira Munyua: Cooperation for Empowerment: Civil society groups and national ICT policies

From The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet)

Clash in perspectives on ICT policy:

private sector = liberalize to universalize

civil society = sector-driven to universalize

government = Secrecy Act, non-sharing behavior dominated

Inherent tensions in any similar effort to get partners to get together

South Africa: Internet research kiosks during elections

Senegal: Rwandan genocide example encouraged clampdown on live broadcasts of elections

Kenya: “mobile reporters” using cellphones to report on elections; Kenyans trusted blogs/SMS more than foreign media

Succesful: Kenyan gov’t wanted to shut down SMS; instead, nationwide crusade to spread Peace Messages (reconciliation; send such messages free!)

-Digital Villages: Telecenters?

A kiosk based in school or district commissioner’s office; enables to access government services, incl. submitting taxes.

-e-democracy/e-governance

-Concerns:

*Apathy

*Democracy better at fixing things but;

*Democracy is slow

See: Text wars or SMS for peace?

VI. Sasha Costanza-Chock: New Social Movements in the Network Society: Implications for Democratic Processes

-Twitter: schock

-Political economy of communication

-New Social Networks

-Access to Knowledge Initiative

-On line activism: too much concentration on adding members and turning them into sources of funding, and systems to do this

-Participatory Technology:

1. State does use tools

2. Interface b/ween state & Civil Society

3. What can Civil Society do to use 1 and 2?

-Civil Society:

*community based org’s; geographically-based networks

*NGO’s: range from real to business and gov’t fake NGO’s

*unorganized social movements (counter power)

-Think about:

A. Access Inequality: between different layers & actors; how increased access to one may deprive access to others

B. For each of the Players: To what degree is each player internally democratic? Accountable inside?

-Social movements: collective actions that are purposeful (outside State)

-The introduction to action on the Internet: backspace.org (see An Introduction to Activism on the Internet)

*Tactical Communication: to communicate during crisis points

-Direct Action Online: electronic civil disobedience

*case study, cyberactivists vs. Puerto Rico U.S. military base (Vieques); used hack of autofill form to destabilize USN recruitement site; largely symbolic impact; opposition to the USN base in Puerto Rico was widespread and cross-sectoral (RC Church, etc. involved). (N.B. see Vieques, the Navy, and Puerto Rican Politics, and Navy-Vieques protests in Wikipedia)

-Horizontal comm. by Social Movements

*GIS = mapping tools

*games = Games for Change

*video = PEWS Center: 20% young Internet users (18-25) producing and uploading video

-Key Findings:

*Access Assymetry: w/in and b/ween Social Movements.

*Multimodality: cross-platform media use

*Localize ICT Tools: people need to be trained to use tools

*Face to Face: ICT skills transferred at mobilizations

-Social Movement impact of ICT: in past, mass media hits measure of success; in new space: important part is participation in the creation of media, not just how outsiders reacted

-Access inequality:

*1.5 billion Internet users, as of 2007: 10% in dev. countries vs. 60% in developed world;

*USA (2005) broadband, 40.4% urban, 20% rural; lowest use, 12% Latino vs. 40% for Asian-Americans;

*Among Social Movements: poor-led movements barely on-line (mainly e-mail by bosses)

-Movements that connect can draw away resources from local organizations, sidelines and deprives of resources by transnational movements

-High connectivity does not equal democracy

Ex. Singapore has more broadband but weaker political movements than Malaysia

-To address inequality of access:

1. Start developing measure of inequality, e.g. Gini Coefficient for access to ICT

-Mobile phones:

*3 billion mobile subscribers

*only connectivity for social movements

*MobileActive.org

-Partnership & Accountability:

*Access inequality is crippling:

i. democracy

ii. government

iii. Civil Society

*More sophisticated analysis needed: accountability includes proposal-making

*N.B. community-based orgs. get equipment but not funding for staff

*What is the accountability mechanism? To ensure it, what do you do?

-Gimmick activism?

-“Social Movement Application Service Providers” -merchants of membership-management systems

*danger in increased specialization

-Case study: MST peasant movement in Brazil: in schools, program for ICT training w/Open Source ICT training

N.B. For both HÃ¥rdh and Constanza-Chock see: Side stepping big brother

Discussion Notes:

-Traditional view:

Internet = excluding effect

Mobile Phone = including effect

But does internet effect more democratizing effect unlike mobile phone?

-Connectivity is the issue

-Transform user, expectations, attitudes, even language of democracy and behavior

-Experience in Sweden:

Multimodal = old methods, many issues, therefore, more sustainable.

Single Issue: new style, harder to sustain.

-In Africa: opposition to Internet backbone led by cell phone providers (commercial interest blocks community interests)

*to grab poor market: cell phone providers building consumers who can only afford basic handsets: creating a cellular phone underclass

*Open Platform/Open Source: need to be refocused and revised

*Pricing policies:

Latin American recommendations:

i. regulators to force per second billing, including prepaid, and also to buy Microamount: savings by poor people up to 30% of telephony costs; up to 25% of income goes to telephony so savings would be great

ii. bring down prepaid costs: like corner store more expensive than drive-to supermarkets.

-New Media influence: up to 20 people influenced by one mobile phone, so numbers have to be interpreted according to some new means to calculate access and use.

-3 problems of Development:

i. Lack of power & influence

ii. Lack of opportunity

iii. Lack of resources

-Egypt:

*15.7% internet penetration

*concern with breadline began with idea on Facebook: everyone ended up knowing stay-home strike to protest bread lines; became national issue covering all classes; can be an arena to make people act

*amazing it was a woman affecting politics

-Ghettoization of Internet:

*Why does ICT have to have a noble/good purpose?

*first build it and let people innovate based on what they want

*do not Balkanize

*people just want to have fun, enjoy; do not stay in ghetto of noble ICT use

Day Two

I. Walid Al-Saqaf: Freedom of the Press and Political Activism

(N.B. was offered to be honorary Philippine consul in Yemen)

-YemenPortal.net: invented so as not to use so many bookmarks; better than relying on news.google.com

-presented charts of government-produced propaganda; it produces very few views online

-blocked.arabiaportal.net

-freeyemenportal.org

-AccessFlickr!: enables Iranians, Chinese, to access Flickr. developed own version for Yemenis.

-Yemen government:

*cybercriminal law

*electronic websites law

*harassment of Walid

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the perseverance to continue that counts.” -Churchill

II. Johan Hellstr̦m: Mobile Democracy РThe role of mobile phones in democracy processes

-In Uganda, many politically-active people use two phones, for dodging government surveillance (like Philippines!)

-FrontlineSMS: free download for NGO’s; group alert, fixed communications

1. Democracy as a concept as something that involves access, empowerment, participation

*involving competitive elections

*involving party-based opposition

2. Democracy is slow, ICT is quick – can the two be put together?

3. Donor’s role?

*sustainable role in ICT/democracy

*distribute free mobile phones?

-Mobile applications, mobile phones

*comment: ICT can strengthen inequality in society

-Half of world’s population uses a mobile phone

*3% in Kenya

*11m out of 38 m in Uganda

-Who owns what?

*more likely a man in a city has a handset than a woman in countryside

*Mobile Divide

-Cost/Affordability: barriers to phone usage

*cost (Uganda: $25 new phone, SIM card, $0.50 load; $1.00 SIM card; prepaid: $2 = 2 minutes, 20-25 SMS messages)

*who is paying for low price? mobile manufacturers in China, Indonesia working 72 hours per week, very low salaries; plus harmful materials

*peer pressure for prestige handsets

*”If you don’t have a phone, you’re out of the game.”

-Discussion: in Cuba, $130.00 for SIM card, 1/2 year’s salary; long lines for SIM cards

-Is there any killer application?

*how has behavior changed once mobiles are in people’s hands?

*disappointment w/time and institutional response?

-3 A’s:

*Access

*Affordability

*Applications for Democracy

III. Workshop

A. China: Yu Zhang

From Independent Chinese PEN Center

In China:

-210 million Internet users vs. 115,000 in 1995

-50% online at home; 30% in Internet cafes

-83 imprisoned writers since 2004 (39 still in jail); 2/3 related to Internet writing

-Since 2000: 65 arrests of dissidents; 1st Internet case was in 2000: Huang Qi; latest, Hu Jia (just sentenced)

-Number of convictions: 60 since 2000: Guo Qinghai (in 2001); in 2007: Hu Jia

-Convictions of cyberdissidents only for Internet expression: 28 since 2001

-Charges:

*”disturbing social security”: Ma Yalian (for complaining online)

*”spreading false & terror information”: Li Changqing (for reporting outbreak of disease ahead of authorities)

“inciting subversion of state power”: Li Yuanlong: convicted for jokes (1/2 year for each joke; 3 jokes)

-Shi Tao: arrested with the help of Yahoo! Sentenced 10 years (Yahoo! later apologized, paid compensation; set up foundation for people arrested, $10m USD)

-Huang Jingiu: convicted of subversion; formed political party; sentenced 12 years

-Note: not that there are fewer arrests, and so, better atmosphere: instead, speedier surveillance of citizens in effect, who are then warned and self-censorship ensues. Surveillance of citizenry more thorough and efficient than before.

-China Internet Police: est. 1996 “Special Police for Internet Security Inspection”

*1998: Public Information Network Security Inspection Bureau, Ministry of Public Security

*2002: more independent special task force: nationwide, provincial, city contingents

*2006: Virtual Police: started staging online, 150 cities; patrols every 30 minutes; Jingjing & Chacha icons. Ex. Beijing Internet 110 Virtual Police w/cyberalarm: anyone surfing can send information on people/websites

*50,000 cybercops, one per 4,000 users; more than 500 cybercop websites

*2004: more than half of Internet cafe’s shut down; surveillance software installed in the rest recording names, addresses, ID Numbers, enable cybercops to centrally monitor and control Internet activities.

*More journalists simply fired; not even arrested; sends warning to others in the profession.

B. Philippines: Manuel L. Quezon III

Presentation in PDF format uploaded at OurMedia.org or at Archive.org.

(Discussion Notes)

N.B.: The innovative use of mobile applications in the Philippines – Lessons for Africa and InciteGov, esp. Crossover Leadership in Asia.

ICT:

-Magnifies top down; hierarchy

-Push for niche marketing in keeping with Zeitgeist but incompatible with collective action; frustration/hopelessness leads to apathy

-In battle for individual hearts and minds, resources are with the government

-Government websites plentiful but not updated

-ICT problems

* legislation hasn’t kept up: e.g. Administrative Code requires answers to citizens by officials within given period; but not implemented in terms of online comm.

*barriers to information arising in keeping with larger themes: i.e. executive privilege

*Favila, DTI, to Donors: “If you are only going to complain, we don’t need you”

-The dominant ideology: Development vs. Democracy; ICT is a business tool for efficiency and profit, not for accountability and democratic participation. Note dominant ideology of efficiency etc. promoted by ICT. Effects on:

*corruption and accountability

*social mobility: effects on citizenship, of Call Centers, Outsourcing: beneficial and harmful effects on society

-ICT used for different ends:

*government: money-making (fees), prestige, power; QCT to most: another racket, $120-$340m NBN-ZTE deal;

*public: entertainment and not citizenship

*NGO’s: prestige, money-making, networking (power) but not substantive: lack of publication and information, of dialogue

-Law: not keeping up; old laws being used to establish control over New Media

-Discourse: how can it enable participation? Communication & advocacy vs. stunts

-Public: bridging the diaspora

-Propaganda: gov’t playing wiretapped tapes after opposing their use

-Note: Sweden’s Official Gazette: compare with Philippine experience

IV. Conclusion of Conference: Helena Bjuremalm

Need to go beyond basic description of democracy, focus on rules, outcomes

Democratization:

1. More than 50% live in democracy of some sort; but only 13% in full democracy; 40% under authoritarian rule. This will not change any time soon.

2. Stagnation: growing authoritarian backlash, but regimes less likely to resort to traditional repression. Instead, legalistic tactics and economic pressures being pursued: use of tax police, advertising pressure, restrictions on foreign aid (N.B. or alternative sources, e.g. China). Donor & creditor responses naive or cynical.

3. Global trend: loss of momentum in democracy; unique regional trends: disappointment in Latin America; strong central state in Russia

4. Democracy not widely accepted as only game in town: deficit between the unempowered and how authorities have monopolized, abused, rules of the game in democracy. Rules defunct, even if institutions in place!

5. Rise of oil and gas -increased prices strengthened antidemocratic govt’s; punished democracies w/ weak economies.

-Art of “Muddling Through” more characteristic of democratization. Why?

*About changing power relations, b/ween those pushing for it and those resisting it;

*expect longer time scales: 10-15 years for changes

*democratization after effective state and rule of law in place? Democracy is destabilizing?

V. Other Notes:

-Conversation with HÃ¥rdh: “Sweden gave the world the institution of the Ombudsman -but it only works in Sweden. That is because it was an institution that developed according to a situation peculiar to Sweden, where you can expect an investigation by officials appointed by the authorities to be investigated.”

On Civil Disobedience

My column for today was inspired by Mahar Mangahas’ column, The important right of civil disobedience, which had these interesting findings, based on the 2004 Survey on Citizenship of the International Social Survey Program, which makes possible a comparison of Filipino attitudes and behavior to that of other peoples, particularly in our part of the world. As Mangahas digests it,

In a recent talk on “Surveying the Social Volcano” for CEOs and other opinion leaders at the Inquirer, I presented cross-country data showing Filipinos with: (a) a high score in seeing widespread corruption in the public service; (b) a very low score in seeing elections as honest; (c) a very low score in having personally joined a public demonstration; and (d) a very high score in putting importance to the right of civil disobedience…

…The outstanding finding from this survey of democratic rights is that, whereas we Filipinos, compared to other peoples of the world, care slightly less about a minimum living standard, the rights of minorities, the right to equal treatment, the right to be heard, and the right to participate, at the same time we care much, much more than others do about the right of civil disobedience.

Only four countries have higher scores than the Philippines on the importance of civil disobedience, all from the Eastern bloc: Bulgaria (79), Poland (72), Slovakia (71) and Latvia (65). Russia’s score is 57. Germany’s high score of 52 may be due, said a German visitor, to the national memory of having acquiesced to immoral government policies in Nazi times.

Will the social volcano erupt? In my Inquirer seminar, I said that the eruptions of 1986 and 2001 proved that “the social volcano” can be awakened. During “Juetenggate,” President Erap was (slightly) popular, while then-Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was unpopular for having deserted him. Public opinion on Erap was still divided during the impeachment trial. EDSA People Power II was triggered by the unscripted refusal to open the “second envelope,” which nine out of 10 Metro Manilans saw on live TV. The “Hello Garci” crisis is worse. For three years, President Arroyo has been very unpopular, while her VP has been (relatively) popular.

The ISSP citizenship-survey data suggest that a social explosion would be driven less by the Filipinos’ inclination towards rallies than by their insistence on the right of civil disobedience. The timing of such an explosion, like that of any volcano, is unpredictable.

Therefore, plan for the Black Swan moment! Wuzzat? Read Fear of a Black Swan: Risk guru Nassim Taleb talks about why Wall Street fails to anticipate disaster, which will spare you having to buy the book (but you should, anyway).

Relevant readings are Basic Concepts of Satyagraha: Gandhian Nonviolence and What is Satyagraha? both of which I quoted in my column.

Also, extracts from Letter from a Birmingham Jail, in which Martin Luther King laid out non-violent resistance:

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: 1) Collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive. 2) Negotiation. 3) Self-purification and 4) Direct action.

Concerning the last, he wrote,

You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc.? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. I just referred to the creation of tension as a part of the work of the nonviolent resister. This may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word tension. I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need of having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. So the purpose of the direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. We, therefore, concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in the tragic attempt to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

He then discusses, at -beautiful- length, the question of the law, the dilemma at the heart of civil disobedience:

One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: There are just and there are unjust laws. I would agree with Saint Augustine that “An unjust law is no law at all.”

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority, and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. To use the words of Martin Buber, the Jewish philosopher, segregation substitutes and “I-it” relationship for an “I-thou” relationship, and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. So segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, but it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Isn’t segregation an existential expression of man’s tragic separation, an expression of his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? So I can urge men to disobey segregation ordinances because they are morally wrong.

Let us turn to a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself. This is difference made legal. On the other hand a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. An unjust law is a code inflicted upon a minority which that minority had no part in enacting or creating because they did not have the unhampered right to vote. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up the segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout the state of Alabama all types of conniving methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters and there are some counties without a single Negro registered to vote despite the fact that the Negro constitutes a majority of the population. Can any law set up in such a state be considered democratically structured?

And he then says,

…There are some instances when a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I was arrested Friday on a charge of parading without a permit. Now there is nothing wrong with an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade, but when the ordinance is used to preserve segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and peaceful protest, then it becomes unjust.

I hope you can see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law as the rabid segregationist would do. This would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do it openly, lovingly… and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was seen sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar because a higher moral law was involved. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks, before submitting to certain unjust laws of the Roman empire. To a degree academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience.

As did Rizal. And he then says, of those praising the police for their non-violent handling of protesters,

It is true that they have been rather disciplined in their public handling of the demonstrators. In this sense they have been rather publicly “nonviolent”. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the last few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. So I have tried to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Maybe Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather publicly nonviolent, as Chief Pritchett was in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of flagrant racial injustice. T. S. Eliot has said that there is no greater treason than to do the right deed for the wrong reason.

Then what? The problem, it seems to me, is that we have yet to fully comprehend non-violent resistance, because civil disobedience for us consists in thumbing our noses at officials but not pursuing collective action. We will gladly puncture the pretenses of the powerful but in as risk-free a manner as possible; sustained confrontation, on the other hand, we leave to others to pursue.

Including, ironically, institutions.

I didn’t encounter it at the time, but Rep. Teodoro L. Locsin’s advice to the Supreme Court last year, which you can read in Just Do It, is interesting, taking the era of Martin Luther King into account:

IMAGINE a situation where killings and disappearances are taking place. The victims form a distinct and disliked, though by no means unpopular political grouping. In fact, they have the most populist agenda of any other. The victims are not prominent members of their persuasion. They are not even zealous militants or even militants at all. They are mere rank and file; social workers in short. The crimes show a pattern pointing to security agents as the perpetrators. More than a pattern, it is the conclusion of a presidential commission. The authorities are reluctant to investigate the murders and disappearances. More, the authorities are openly dismissive of the problem. Gratuitously, yet with a knowing air, they deny the crimes are taking place. Yet, contradictorily, they blame the crimes they deny are taking place at all on the victims themselves, adding that in a sense the victims have only themselves to blame for adhering to a cause detested by the military. “They are begging for it” is heard from their lips. And yet the Constitution that covers both victims and suspects protects freedom of belief without any distinction; the last distinction having been erased by the repeal of the antisubversion law.

Alabama in the 1960s? No. US President Johnson sent in US marshals to protect the victims and enforce their rights. The hypothetical situation might well be the Philippines today under a government that, out of complicity with or fear of the perpetrators, will do nothing, leaving only a newly elected Congress, already too absorbed in its forthcoming perks to pay back the cost of its recent election, to take any serious notice let alone action. Leaving a Court anxious not to say alarmed but constrained by the passive role to which judicial tradition and the constitutional text confine it.

And he then delves into the problem that arises when the law is in the hands of those unwilling to enforce them:

If we supposedly live under a rule of law but the principal laws are not systematically left unenforced in key cases by those principally charged to enforce them, why have the Supreme Court at all? The Nazi courts are said to have had a near fine record in purely commercial cases, unmarred even by anti-Semitism since all the Jews had already been relocated. These Nazi precedents may still be standing and, if not openly cited, nonetheless consulted for their illumination on commercial and civil laws. Precedents from Japanese Imperial courts are deeply respected. Yet neither society, more vibrant and coherent even than the democratic ones that succeeded them, is yet deemed to have had a genuine rule of law or judicial system.

Strictly speaking, this is not a problem for the passive receptacles of cases, as the Court modestly describes the judicial function—when and if, that is, the executive brings them before the courts. But the problem is precisely an executive that sits on its hands and thereby stains them with these crimes. As a result, by the Court’s own initiative, the weakest and least dangerous branch of government must pit itself against the most powerful and lethal; the circumspect power of deliberation against the brazen power of the sword, with the petty power of the purse counting pennies on the side.

To be brutally honest, Congress can have no fruitful role to play in this dilemma, if it were expected simply to craft more new legislation to curb violations of constitutional rights. From where I sit, thickening the thicket of legislation may confer a passing comfort for the small shade that the shrubs may give, but it will not result in the smallest progress in addressing the utter disregard of such legal safeguards as the Constitution and past congresses have already put in place.

The solution, Locsin proposed, was judicial activism:

What seems to be doable is for the judiciary to be quicker and more aggressive in addressing human rights cases even under existing rules where legal standing and actual controversy exist. Give the executive no leeway to tell the families of the victims, “So sue us and see how far that gets you.” A recent Court of Appeals decision shows how far. Or rule quickly and with finality—as the Court just did after almost a year—on the validity of the arrest and detention of Leftist lawmakers; and use the occasion of its ruling to express in the strongest terms the Court’s uneasiness if not alarm over the human rights situation in the country. There is a limit to circumspection and the Court can, in practical terms, really, do no wrong.

In short, strike down offensive executive actions as fast as they are correctly protested—I emphasize the qualifier “correctly”—and the executive will get the message and the citizenry, feeling reassured that effective recourse lies somewhere, will be further emboldened to do what is firstly their responsibility and not the Court’s: stand up for their rights. That will answer the criticism from the groups representing the victims that to protest is to step forward and hang around with a bulls-eye painted on one’s chest.

Besides, if the Court became aggressive, on whom would discredit fall if the Court’s orders are ignored—the Court which makes no pretense of power or the executive which willfully neglects to use its power as the Constitution mandates?…

…In this regard, I invite the Court’s attention to the literature on the judicial activism of the Israeli Supreme Court which has established constitutional norms where none existed —such as freedom of expression, press, association and public assembly, as well as equality regardless of Palestinian race and religion; going to the extent, according to a paper by Ariel Bendor, of enforcing good government. Even in cases of national security, the Israel Court has proscribed coercion and torture and the detention of a Muslim community in negotiating the release of Israeli hostages. “The policy of the [Israeli] Supreme Court in the sphere of [legal] standing and justiciability [is] based on giving preference to the rule of law;” i.e., the need to protect and preserve the rule of law itself “as opposed to the institutional interest of the court” to steer clear of political issues that invite retaliation from the political branches of government. “This is because without judicial imposition of the law,” says Bendor, “the law would not be upheld” at all.

Which explains why the Supreme Court being under fire, at present, is pregnant with meaning.

Blog entries I quoted in my column were: The Marocharim Experiment and Brown SEO. See Secondthoughts also.

ICT and Democracy

Am in Sweden now, attending Big Brother and Empowered Sisters. The role of new communication technologies in democratic processes, a conference organized by the Collegium for Development Studies, Uppsala University.

This will be my PowerPoint presentation: uppsalafinalmlq3.ppt

Next Page »