Sobre la Indolencia de Los Españoles

Hoorah to the Filipino medalists at the SEA Games.

Today’s Inquirer editorial ask why the the Palace gates were closed to the Sumilao farmers. As for the farmers themselves, Patricia Evangelista eloquently tackles their plight, while Fr. Joaquin Bernas, SJ says that the original government order reclassifying the land the farmers claim, from agricultural to industrial, was based on conditions that have been unfulfilled, and left unfulfilled by the new owner of the land, San Miguel Corporation:

What were the terms of the development which were approved for the 144 hectares? I repeat what I enumerated last Monday:

24 hectares would contain a Development Academy of Mindanao consisting of an Institute for Higher Education, Institute for Livelihood Science, Institute for Agri-Business Research, Museum, Library, Cultural Center and Mindanao Sports Development Complex.
67 hectares would contain a Bukidnon Agro-Industrial Park consisting of a processing plant for corn oil, corn starch and various corn products; cassava processing for starch, alcohol and food delicacies; processing plants for fruits and fruit products such as juices; processing plants for vegetables; cold storage and ice plant; cannery system; commercial stores; public market and abattoir.

33 hectares for Forest Development including open spaces and parks for recreation, horseback riding and mini animal zoo.

20 hectares for Support Facilities including a 360-room hotel, restaurants, dormitories and housing project.

Instead, says Bernas,

The landowner failed in its commitment to make the development. Instead, the landowner sold the land to San Miguel Foods Inc. (SMFI).

Under the rules, the successor in interest to the property is bound by the terms of the approved conversion. SMFI plans to put up a piggery with 162 buildings to house 4,400 female pigs and 44,000 piglets and also to put up a slaughterhouse. Compare this SMFI project with the originally approved conversion plan. The former was people’s welfare-oriented; now it is pig-oriented! Did the DAR secretary approve the change in orientation?

What is most painful for the farmers is that they had already won Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOAs) which were registered in the Register of Deeds, only to be revoked to give way to the bogus promise of development.

On the other hand, San Miguel Corporation says it has investments in the land that dwarfs the actual value of the land. See this letter to the editor by Ramon Ang:

We convened a consultation with the farmers themselves, along with the residents and local officials of San Vicente, Sumilao. In fact, several of the farmers who have joined the protest march were in that consultation and assented to these plans. Mapalad leaders Paterno L. Tuminhay and Renato C. Penas were among the barangay kagawad who approved the barangay resolution endorsing the project.

Having secured their approval, we immediately set out to construct the facilities. To date, we have constructed 21 of 40 buildings that will make up the agro-industrial estate.

All told, our total investment in Sumilao will amount to an estimated P2.4 billion, far, far greater than any projected future value for the land itself. It’s an investment that will have near-term benefits for the farmers themselves.

Our plan will provide the residents of Sumilao a sustainable source of employment and income and we’re confident that all our initiatives will have an even greater catalyzing effect on the lives of people in this area.

If you go over the economics paper of Dr. Michael Alba, which I posted in Inquirer Current, he touches on issues raised by Bernas and which can only lead to more Sumilao-type controversies to come. He points out that the conversion of land from agricultural to industrial and other purposes is going on at such a fast clip, that no one can say, with precision, how much land remains classified as agricultural land. At best, he says, what we can have are guesstimates, because the old. more thorough system for making inventories of land, have been dropped.

My column for today is Sobre la Indolencia de Los Españoles, where a Spaniard’s observations on why his government was so fulsome in its praise of the President, leads me to reflecting that there’s not enough “complete staff work” going on in the Spanish side. And that the Spanish have the option of basing their relationship with Filipinos on hazy colonial nostalgia or on a far stronger, because relevant, commitment to the shared values of modernity, democracy, and secularism that have taken root in Spain today for the first time in its history.

I quoted him at length in my column, but a fuller extract is called for, considering how difficult it is to find his book. In his essay, “Inheritance from Spain” in the collection “We Filipinos,” this is what Leon Ma. Guerrero had to say (in the Manila Chronicle in 1953):

[F]or all the superficial disappearance of Spanish culture, the Filipino nation is still Spanish and mind and heart. The great wave of Americanization erased only the Spanish footprint on the surface of the sands, and left untouched a buried treasure… She made our soul after her own image; and the Spaniard can still understand, much more perhaps than the American, the nature of the Filipino, can discern the true character of the race beneath what Benavente called the words with which we lie and thoughts with which we fool ourselves.

The Spanish civil law permits the institution of what is called a universal heir, who must assume not only the credits but also the liabilities of his predecessor in interest. We were the universal heirs of Spain in the Philippines, forced heirs to both the virtues and the vices of the sovereign testatrix.

Thus, while Spain gave us the Catholic religion, setting us apart forever from the rest of Asia with the chrism of salvation, she also bequeathed to us an anticlerical tradition, the unhealed wound of the political conflict with the friars…

Spain, finally, laid down the basis of our democracy with the Christian teaching of the dignity of man, and our equality under God. But she shares with us the habits of hypocrisy, subservience, and civic irresponsibility that are engendered by absolute power.

The Duke of Maura, analyzing the political landscape of Spain in his Grandeza y Decadencia de Espana, points out that Spain’s greatest weakness, which we seem to have inherited, is the atrophy of the civic spirit, the lack of civic responsibility, the habit of submission to absolute and irresponsible power. As a result, the word politics has come to mean, for some the most pleasant and least demanding of professions; for others the most thrilling and expensive of sports; and for very few the art of knowing, evaluating and serving the national interest.

Political power in turn, he says, is interpreted in terms of satisfying vanity and ambition, of indulging covetousness, of being prodigal with the money of others, of expediting vengeance, of amassing a fortune, of rising in society, in short, of glutting every ignoble appetite…

It is not strange, says the Duke, that where the cacique is absolute, and the citizen servile, favoritism and parasitism should reign instead of justice and the right. nor is it strange that in this upside-down selection of our rulers, the worst should always be preferred to the good, with the horrible result that a government of incompetents is placed at the head of a flock of slaves.

Which is Spain, he asks -and we might ask the same question of ourselves- misgoverned or ungovernable? Who is to blame for the national misfortunes: the ruler without a sense of right, or the ruled without a sense of duty? Patience and resignation, he declares, are the virtues of the martyr, and the vices of the citizen. So also did Rizal proclaim that there are no tyrants where there are no slaves…

Our nation learned many things from Spain: a primitive instinct of piety that sustains us in misfortune; a sense of personal dignity, of amor propio that drives us to do things which are sometimes comic and sometimes tragic; an avid and restless amorousness which contrives to combine the idolatry of woman with a selfish and boastful carnality; an understanding of death, death as the final sanction of life, the ultimate test to be met with the reckless elegance of the torero standing on tiptoe above the horns of the bull.

Indeed, we shall not find Spain’s legacy to the Filipinos in masonry or literature or in the ceremonial compliments of chiefs of state and their ambassadors. We must look for it in the heart, the secret heart, of the nation: in the servant’s sense of honor, in the dancehall girl going on her knees in the crowded aisle to kiss the feet of the Nazarene and pray for better trade, in the venal politician dreaming of a seat in the Senate as Sancho Panza dreamed of the governorship of Barataria, and in the honest public servant who like Don Quixote, sees a princess in every maid.

See also Manila Bay Watch on this score. In his blog, Mon Casiple looks at talk that one reason the President had a large entourage during her Spanish visit, was that she used the time to plot strategy. Three options could have been debated during that time, he says:

There were speculations that plans had been hatched for a possible charter change initiative next year or, at the least, for a decisive oust-Speaker de Venecia strategy. An interesting speculative counterpoint was for the mapping out of a GMA political retreat.

Casiple has been harping on his view that the President’s problem is that her wiggle room is narrowing; he says she now has only a few months, at most, to fully explore, and pursue, some of her options, particularly if the include staying on in office past the expiration of her current term. He believes that one option that’s firmly closed off, is a Constitutional Convention, so this leaves a people’s initiative redux or a constituent assembly, but both options spectacularly failed in the past. The clincher, Casiple thinks, is emergency rule, but the armed forces remains a big question mark in this regard.

So Casiple concludes,

The options for the president is narrowing. Compromise with the broad political opposition is almost gone and her maintaining the option for term extension is riling all presidentiables–whether from the opposition or from her own coalition.

In a situation where the transition to a lameduck presidency has already begun, there is growing pressure for her to resign in order to normalize the political situation–in time for the 2010 presidential elections. Resignation, in this case, is the price she may have to pay to ensure her survival in the post-2010 period. If she choose to stick it out, the only option left for her is to throw caution to the wind and go all out for term extension. Otherwise, she may be helplessly caught in a maelstrom of conspiracies as all the other political forces fight for the high ground towards succession.

(update: any doubt constitutional amendments are back in play? See Charter change revived in House; deliberations set)

It’s significant that late last month, a new voice added to the existing calls for resignation. See Scriptorium, which reproduces Ang Kapatiran’s statement. But the last word will go to the irrepressible Teodoro L. Locsin, Jr.:

Locsin, a member of the majority coalition, said Arroyo is a lot clever than her political rivals as she has survived every single attempt to oust her.

“She is a good economist and sly politician, 10 times smarter than all her enemies combined which isn’t saying much because they are retarded,” he said.

In light of the above, there’s this piece by Vicente Romano III, a co-convenor of the Black & White Movement:

A People on Standby

As soon as the Manila Pen siege was over, there was a flurry of pronouncements from just about every political group as well as personalities from both sides of the political divide. Invariably, the statements depicted Trillanes and Lim as misguided, military adventurists, rebels, criminals, or arrogant fools for repeating the same mistakes in Oakwood and in 2006. At best, some would say they sympathized with Trillanes’ and Lim’s cause, but did not agree with their methods.

But why did they have to wait until the standoff was over before they spoke their minds? Simple. They weren’t really sure about how the incident would turn out and they didn’t want to be caught with their feet in their mouths just in case Trillanes et al prevailed.

This is the same reason why no politician of significant stature came out during the siege. Most of them were probably somewhere in Makati, on standby, monitoring how things would develop. And if it looked like regime change was imminent, they were ready to make a grand appearance, abandoning all current loyalties, reminiscent of EDSA 2.

Even more worrisome, at least to the administration, was the non-appearance of military top brass during the critical, early hours of the standoff. The most natural thing for the administration to do in order to show that it was still in control of the chain of command was to arrange for some star-studded generals to declare their unequivocal loyalty. Esperon was in Mindanao. But where were the service commanders? They, too, were on standby, caught by surprise, unsure if Lim and Trillanes had the numbers. They did not declare loyalty for either side, not wanting to be caught on the wrong side when the dust settled.

There was one text message I received from an unknown number that I found rather amusing, “Panawagan ni Trillanes na mag-aklas, dinedma! Sawa na sa gulo ang ating bayan, tama na! Magkaisa na lang sa pagsulong ng bayan.”

I think that declaration was way off the mark. How do you explain the spontaneous show of support from office workers cheering and waving, motorists honking their horns in support as Trillanes and company were marching towards Manila Pen? How do you explain the surveys showing the people outraged at the impunity and brazenness of corruption by this regime?

I get these opinions all the time — text messages, email, or even chance encounters in public places from people I don’t know, “You’re doing the right thing. Don’t give up. Keep the faith!” At times, I’m tempted to ask them, “What about you? What do you plan to do about it?” I don’t bother, because I have an inkling of what they will say, “I’m sorry, but I’m busy… busy trying to earn a living, or trying to make ends meet.”

Was Trillanes misguided? Maybe. But not in the usual sense.

I think he read the people’s mood correctly. They are outraged. They want regime change. But they’re not willing to take an active role in effecting change. They just want to be saved from this wretched regime!

I believe Trillanes was misguided, maybe even betrayed, by people who committed to give their support but did not deliver.

CHED Chairman Romulo Neri, could have been an interested party. It was rumored that he was supposed to join the group at Manila Pen to finally reveal what most people already know anyway — that after he told GMA about the bribe offer by Abalos, she asked him to ignore it and gave specific instructions for him to work on getting the ZTE project approved by the NEDA Board in time for her China trip, which was only 2 days away.

In past interviews, Neri has refused to reveal what he knows, fearing that his revelations might trigger an EDSA-like uprising. He reportedly finds the idea of regime change with the same old, recycled politicians taking over, revolting (pun intended). However, rumors abound that privately, he has intimated to being open to a post-GMA scenario that would include his reform agenda.

I do not know whether Neri has explicitly communicated these ideas to the Magdalo, but let us suppose that he did. These revelations and ideas by an official of this administration probably emboldened them to plot the Manila Pen siege. Now, the Magdalo had a just cause around which to rally the people.

Days after the standoff, there were news reports that there was possibly some unit commanders who were poised to leave their barracks to join Trillanes and Lim. They were perhaps waiting for Neri’s defection as their signal to move. Instead, they saw Argee Guevarra and JV Bautista beside Trillanes at the Pen. To the military, these are the poster boys of communism. Seeing them would have planted seeds of doubt in their rightist hearts. “Are we risking everything, just to turn it over to commies?” they probably asked. The man in the wig was the clincher, turning the whole exercise into a farce.

And so, they all decided to stand by. But they waited too long. Esperon would later report, “the other group was “pre-empted”, whatever that means. The rest of the story you already know.

Trillanes apologists will claim, “the end justifies the means” regarding his latest caper. I do not buy that. But I do believe that this administration has shut off every legitimate venue for redress.

What do you do when the major mode of making a President accountable — impeachment, is bastardized by a rubber-stamp Congress? Where do you go when an unimpeachable witness like Fr. Ed Panlilio testifies that bribery of the highest order may have occurred at the Palace involving scandalous amounts given to political allies? Certainly not to a Department of Justice headed by a GMA stooge.

When you have an administration that selectively applies the rule of law and methodically perverts it for self-preservation, you will, for the same reason always have people who will resort to extra-constitutional means to seek justice.

Personally, I think what Trillanes did at Manila Pen is not much different from what Ramos did at EDSA 1 or Angie Reyes did at EDSA 2. If EDSA 1 and 2 failed, Ramos and Reyes would have been labeled no differently from Trillanes and Lim — misguided, misadventurists, rebels, or even fools.

What a difference success makes! Even heels (remember Chavit Singson in EDSA 2?) can become heroes. Failure does the exact opposite: would-be heroes are called fools.

Digressing a bit, I heard that Manila Pen is planning to sue for damages the rebel group. Nevertheless, the hotel is willing to give a 20% discount considering the participation of senior citizens like Guingona, Dodong Nemenzo, and Bishop Labayen. It would be truly comical, were it not tragic and pathetic, to see octogenarians leading the fight against moral bankruptcy in government.

Where are the youth in all of this?

Most of them are on standby, waiting for their work visas from various embassies. This is proof of the depth of hopelessness when the aspirations of our youth are reduced to wanting to leave the country at the earliest opportunity.

Well… I think I will just join the rest of our people on standby and wait for this regime to crumble from its own weight of greed and corruption. Already, there are cracks in the alliance in Congress, they’re all fighting over the spoils. With Puno now ascendant at the Palace, the other officials will necessarily be diminished, if not completely defrocked. That spells trouble.

Greed and addiction to power will propel them to overstay beyond 2010. Already, charter change is back at the top of the agenda in Congress. I think the administration is already crafting a martial law template that will be declared at the flimsiest excuse. The unconstitutional 5-hour curfew was merely a trial balloon.

And then it will happen. It will reach a breaking point that will lead to a popular uprising. Such has been the cycle we go through in our modern history.

A new order will be established. History will be rewritten, and it will give a kinder account of the Manila Pen siege. It is merely a pre-cursor of things to come. Trillanes and company are not fools after all.

For now, all we can do is pray that God hasten the cycle of change. God bless our country.

This is Enteng Romano on standby.

Overseas, Taking on Thailand’s myths makes for fascinating reading:

Andrew Walker, an anthropologist with The Australian National University, writes that “there is little the rural electorate can do to shake off this persistent [negative] image.” He argues, however, that rural Thais vote for leaders according to a set of localized values. Vote-buying, which certainly takes place, should be put into the “broader context of the array of material assistance that is expected of political representatives and other well-resourced people seeking to demonstrate their social standing,” he writes.

Far from being a uniform group of mindless drones, rural voters engage with various competing local figures in a range of political contests, and choose the leaders that most reflect their values. Among other things, Walker writes, these values include choosing leaders that are considered local; that bring home financial gains to local communities; and prove competent at running an administration.

Moreover, rural voters often think on a level that is different from the love-hate, all-or-nothing relationship Bangkok had with Thaksin, according to Somchai Phatharathananunth from Mahasarakham University in northeastern Thailand. He cites the reluctance of farmers to join anti-Thaksin movements led by NGOs even though they had worked together for years.

“From the NGO perspective, farmers refused to join the anti-Thaksin protest because they were unable to look beyond the short-term material benefits of the populist policies,” Somchai wrote, adding that the aid workers then tried to supply the farmers with “correct information” so they could understand “the long-term damage of Thaksin’s policies.”

“Such a view implied that there could only be one political line taken towards Thaksin, and to be politically correct farmers had to adopt that line,” Somchai writes. “Such a thing was not going to happen because it ran counter to many farmers’ way of thinking. Farmers do not adopt totalistic views towards things or persons; they deal with them in a pragmatic way. They judged Thaksin on an issue-by-issue basis. As a result, whether Thaksin was good or bad depended on the issue at hand.”

And indeed, though opposing Thaksin on certain issues, many rural voters still saw him deliver them real benefits, much more so than any Thai government had done in the past. Thaksin quickly turned his campaign promises into reality, cementing and expanding the political support he formed when he convinced regional “old-school” northeastern politicians to join his Thai Rak Thai party.

“While the policies were severely criticized as a new form of vote-buying by many NGO leaders and academics in Bangkok, farmers viewed the policies as the distribution of resources to the countryside that helped farmers to address their needs,” Somchai writes. “They insisted that the rural poor were as entitled to access the government budget as were the urban rich.”

Intel, Lies, and Videotape on the American blogosphere debating the CIA destroying evidence of high-profile interrogations.

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Manuel L. Quezon III.

156 thoughts on “Sobre la Indolencia de Los Españoles

  1. In my book, the Universidad de Alcala of Spain conferred a terrible insult on the families and victims of human rights abuse, extra-judicial killings, kidnappings of activists, children in prison, children who till garbage dumps to be able to eat, the sick who die because govt cannot provide health care (because natl treasury is robbed systematically by powers that be), and even on OFWs who have to endure life away from home, forced by Gloria’s policy to go abroad and many of whom end up being molested, raped, physically battered, mentally tortured by abusive foreign employers and others killed, by discerning their Gold Medal for “championning human rights” on Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

  2. Benigno is right: “Corruption and corrupt leaders exist in both prosperous societies such as the US and Japan and in wretched societies such as ours.”

    The difference is on the scale of corruption and the way people deal with it, i.e., degree of tolerance.

    In Pinas, there is an extremely high degree of tolerance of corruption. Someone said here once that corruption has become the norm in the Philippines rather than the exception.

  3. so what happened to this generation? and whose fault was it? – devilsadvc8

    Based on the current results of the Political Compass quiz, i computed the median x-axis (neo-liberal/communist) and y-axis (authoritarian/libertarian) scores of the pre- and post-EDSA generation and this is what i got:

    y-axis (authoritarian/libertarian)
    Pre-EDSA (over 30 yrs old): -2.72
    Post-EDSA (less than 30 yrs old): -3.23

    x-axis (neo-liberal/communist)
    Pre-EDSA (over 30 yrs old): -4.12
    Post-EDSA (less than 30 yrs old): -3.25

    So with the limited dataset available, it looks like the post-EDSA generation is slightly more libertarian and noticeably less leftist than their elders.

  4. Benigno

    Ben Kritz’s blog makes me exactly wonder…what is he exactky proposing….that we elect to office a crook as long as the crook is willing to work for the good of the city???? Oh my…wait till the rest hear’s this….:=)

  5. Silent Water,

    what do you make out of this:

    “This country (or city) has no permanent friend, only permanent interests”.

    Now following your question to BeningO, Yes, people do not really care if they have a crook for a leader as look as that piece of crook take good care of his own people, damn the rest…but if that crook victimized his own, then that’s where we have a problem.

    One example, The ZTE scandal: have you heard the Chinese government lift a finger or even initiate an investigation about it? nada, because that crook if ever that allegation is true will bring bussiness to their country and jobs.

    Then going up further, Would the Americans complain about their President’s foreign policy if it will bring Economic Boom to their country?

  6. How do you explain the spontaneous show of support from office workers cheering and waving, motorists honking their horns in support as Trillanes and company were marching towards Manila Pen?

    Surveys showing the people outraged at the impunity and brazenness of corruption by this regime?

  7. “I have ordered a memorandum directing our department of education, our commission of higher education and our technical education authority and skills development to promote the teaching of Spanish in our schools and educational institutions in the country. We hope to work hard with the Spanish government in this effort to promote the Spanish language in the Philippines.”GMA speech in Spain.

    It was so pathetic to see Gloria and her bunch of junketeers groveling before the Spanish royals! Can you imagine Gloria telling her hosts that the Spanish language will again be promoted in Philippine schools! (Que barbaridad!)

    We,as a people ,should stop thinking that we are either a Latin American country in Asia or America’s 51st state.We should start establishing our correct identity as ASIANS!

    Reina Gloria : “Caminante, no hay camino,se hace camino al andar.Al andar se hace el camino”

    (“Pathwalker, there is no path. You must make the path as you walk.”by the foremost Spanish poet Antonio Machado).

  8. “not every family brian.”

    Manolo, are you suggesting we have to clinical about agrarian reform? If we do, then many, many wealthy families are going debt just on the interests on debts long unpaid.

  9. @Sparks

    Our brand of corruption is more like Africa’s.

    On the contrary it’s very Southeast Asian.

    @Devils

    take it from me. the only sibling left in the family still here. my graduating class are also leaving one by one, and their options doesn’t include returning here.

    Half of my class are now abroad. Curiously, we have five doctors in the class working abroad as Doctors (Australia, someplace in Europe and Canada) and they only went to a provincial medical school. Many are nurses abroad. Of those who went to elite schools like UP and Ateneo (I think there were twenty of us) only four are living in the Philippines, including me. One is working in the UN and wants to come back. I’m trying to convince her to stay where she is.

  10. b: a more thorough look, yes. not a problem in coconut lands, i’d think, or in rice and corn lands. sugar and bananas are another matter, perhaps, esp. in cases where the existing tenants are displaced and the dar decrees a new set of tenants can take their place. and what the economist person was saying, the rezoning of land has taken a lot of formerly agricultural land out of play and no one, he says, can do more than a guesstimate as to how much land’s been permanently lost that way.

    also, a generational problem with tenant families, as i blogged some time back, in coconut areas, harvesters aren’t being trained and a beneficiary can chop down a tree or two, buy a tricycle, or use the funds to get a place in a placement agency and go abroad.

    you have contending views of corporations running large agricultural estates vs. the idea of small holdings (never mind the traditional haciendas, they’d prefer conversion). ironically, my sense is, with ofw money creating a new kind of property owners, they now sympathize with the landlords.

  11. “Where are the youth in all of this?

    Most of them are on standby, waiting for their work visas from various embassies. This is proof of the depth of hopelessness when the aspirations of our youth are reduced to wanting to leave the country at the earliest opportunity.”

    a lot of my peers have left the country already. those who are left, us, are applying not just for working visas but permament resident visas abroad.

    the political scene is, for lack of a better word, hopeless. the article above says it all.

  12. also, the problem with doling out lands w/o at least training the farmers what to do with these lands – well, once they won it, most would just sell it back again. or others work it, but at unproductive levels.

    it shouldn’t really be about giving everyone land that they can own, but giving everyone who tills those lands compensation enough so that these farmers won’t have to wish they’d rather own the land. if they are compensated well and given lots of benefits as employees, wouldn’t you think they’d rather wish security would continue rather than venture out into their own?

  13. mari, brianb – thanks for validating that my family is not unique in its venture never to return. and that my belief (of a barren phils) has basis.

  14. The king of Spain wants Hugo Chavez to shut up but praises that little woman of a dictator? I hope someone puts it up in youtube for all to see. Maybe we can even make a ringtone out of it.

  15. And what’s with this “Your comment is awaiting moderation” nonsense Mr. Quezon, III? This is a pretty mild and moderate crowd, nobody ever writes nasty stuff here. I think you should reconsider and let freedom reign.

  16. Manolo, the problem with the utilitarian, accountant’s approach is that people who own many lawyers and accountants can forever rationalize the bottomline. Maybe if we’ve had a broad sword approach then think of the practicalities after, isn’t this more reasonable given the current situation?

  17. there are a number of reasons why your comment may have been moderated. foremost of these is if you included a URL in your post. that is almost certain to be moderated before it will show online. this is a reasonable policy, and is the standard in most blogs. this is one way of policing spam and removing any chances for hackers to introduce malicious codes in the blog.

    another more arcane reason exists in Manolo’s blog which virtually perplexes everyone (including Manolo himself). wordpress’ engine apparently screens some posts whimsically.

    try to rephrase your original post and re-post it again and see if it comes up. chances are, it will.

  18. “also, the problem with doling out lands w/o at least training the farmers what to do with these lands – well, once they won it, most would just sell it back again. or others work it, but at unproductive levels.”

    Devils, I’m sure in every founding of a nation, there is a need for a Hamilton and Hamiltonian thinking, but isn’t pride, self-respect and the honor that comes with owning land and taking land away from illegal owners more fundamental than profit?

    Pride and dignity should precede economic viability.

  19. How hopeless is the Philippines?

    I notice a trend among Filipino immigrants I know. Most of them are selling the properties they left in the Philippines instead of buying more.

  20. I notice a trend among Filipino immigrants I know. Most of them are selling the properties they left in the Philippines instead of buying more.

    Where did you get your trend? you got hard facts to prove that?

    who’s buying the condo units in Makati?

  21. but isn’t pride, self-respect and the honor that comes with owning land and taking land away from illegal owners more fundamental than profit?

    pride and self-respect can be gotten even if you don’t own the land. so long as you are paid humanely by your landlords, and given handsome benefits.

    Pride and dignity should precede economic viability

    on the contrary, economic viability, allows us to have pride and dignity.

    How hopeless is the Philippines?

    I notice a trend among Filipino immigrants I know. Most of them are selling the properties they left in the Philippines instead of buying more.

    supremo, the trend is, those who have no family left behind, do sell their properties, while those who still do, are what drives the construction boom.

    In upscale townhouses, i see more and more “for sale” signs going up. it won’t be long before the property market crashes again. land will depreciate, once it becomes apparent that more people want to sell than buy. and everyone wants to leave.

  22. who’s buying the condo units in Makati?

    artistas, politicians and their ilk, AFP and PNP officialdom…

    in short, anyone profiting from this corrupt country

    oh yeah, a few OFW families are snared in buying these condos too.

  23. what’s wrong with the website. my last comment was edited to a meaningless statement.

    How do you explain the spontaneous show of support from office workers cheering and waving, motorists honking their horns in support as Trillanes and company were marching towards Manila Pen?

    Surveys showing the people outraged at the impunity and brazenness of corruption by this regime?

    I won’t post the original comment but the thought was the same as below:

    spontaneous show of support o nandoon na talaga ang mga yon kasama yong mga bayad na rent-for-hire demonstrators.

    latest investigation showed that the lead vehicle of the march was used by ms. trillanes.

    re: surveys. that’s the problem when people believed so much in surveys. they mistake the opinions of some selected respondents to those of the total population even when the sampling method is not disclosed.

    respondents’ acknowledgment of corruption did not necessarily mean that they would approve a takeover of the government of a military junta.

  24. the cat said ‘Where did you get your trend? you got hard facts to prove that?’

    Intindihin mong maigi ang sinabi ko. Kaya nga sinabi ko ‘Filipino immigrants I know’. Hina mo naman. Kilala mo ba ang mga kilala ko?

  25. brian, perhaps. personally, i can’t forget the times i went to palawan to meet with the vietnamese refugees there. there but for the grace of god go we.

  26. supremo, our middle class are like the elves leaving middle earth.

    while a generation of retirees are actively plowing their retirement pay into buying property, and a new middle class is a-borning.

    generational and cultural shift. it’s like the way the mestizos practically moved en masse to australia after ww2.

  27. devils, a property developer told me the buying mania among overseas filipinos is genuine, and huge. one problem though no one foresaw, is that there are many condos with units overwhelmingly owned by overseas filipinos- and now, the problem of the developers is with absentee owners, no one is paying the condo dues.

  28. vic

    You actually make an interesting argument. If I understand it correctly then. For as long as the people benefits from the corruption, it’s ok?

  29. “a property developer told me the buying mania among overseas filipinos is genuine, and huge”

    Problem is that one needs to regard this amount of OFW funds being sunk into real estate are assets that essentially do not contribute to the economic productivity of the Philippines. They are assets that neither collectively (1) improve efficency, (2) increase output, nor (3) contribute to creating more value for the economy.

    Real estate traps capital. The value it APPEARS to SUBSEQUENTLY create (rising property values) is nothing more than paper value; i.e. it is not underpinned by any real tangible asset and is easily eroded by inflation and drops in overall confidence in the Philippine economy.

  30. I have debated with benigno years ago, way back in pex. i believe he has left that forum.

    benigno has his way of expressing himself. no ifs and buts. no excuses. he speaks his mind. by being such, he is as labeled as filipino basher.

    but i can see where he is coming from. the problem is us, our collective mindset. some of us may have a low level of tolerance over corruption but collectviely, our tolerance is way up there. it’s as if it is already a fact of our lives.

    entent complains about the congress being a rubber stamp but who elected these people in congress? we have the kind of people we have in congress because of our collective mindset whatever that is. a mindset will vote for a Trillanes in the senate and a pro GMA in the congress. We can blame the politicians for all our woes but at the end of the day, it is still us, our collective mindset that keeps those politicians in power.

    when Father Panlilio came out with his expose, it would have been an excellent opportunity for us to express our outrage in the kind of politics we have in this country. but where was the outrage?

    the problem with anti GMA forces is that they see things only from their perspective. they get their inspiration from surveys knowing that majority of our people are disgruntled with this administration. they hope and pray for a critical mass. a critical mass that never came. why? because no one has truly captured our imagination. everybody is just busy with their politics that they are not even aware that in order to make people move, you need to capture their imagination. unfortunately for anti GMA forces, they don’t know how so GMA remains in power in spite of the ract that she is truly despised by our people.

    influence the mindset by capturing the imagination. then things will start to move in the right direction.

  31. Devils

    Agree with your statement about just compensation for the tenants. My question again is, who will set what just compensation is? It can’t be the landlords as they will certainly set it low. And it can’t be the tenant, as they’ll set it high. SO it has to be someone neutral?

    Secondly, I think a lot of the problem with this landlord tenant relationship is due to the fact that the tenants, a lot of times, borrow money from the landlord for their needs, putting them in a world of debt. So, the main issue is, how do you get out of this cycle. Is it really redistribution of land, or is it really practical education. (by practical I mean not the theoretical stuff they teach you in school).

    REason this is my question is because a lot of times, these hardworking but unfortunately unthinking people tend to spend more than they can afford. By that I mean, even if they get a lot more money, their tendency really is to spend beyond what they have.

    Look at the OFWs. A lot of times, when they go home, they have to leave again anyway because the family has not really been able to save anything. They spent everything the OFW sent them. (At least this has been what I was told when I was talking to some OFWs I worked with before they left for greener pastures). We do have a consumer mentality rather than a saver’s mentality. Look at the Japanese and the Chinese, their tendency is to save because their mindset is to save for the next generation.

  32. benign0, i think there’s more to the mania for property buying esp. by filipino americans, there are psychic rewards, they represent the full flowering of the aspirations of the old middle class, and buying into condo and village developments represents there finally “arriving.” which is why purchases tend to revolve around high end developments and not the ole home towns because also, they want to avoid hordes of relatives.

  33. the cat said ‘Where did you get your trend? you got hard facts to prove that?’

    Intindihin mong maigi ang sinabi ko. Kaya nga sinabi ko ‘Filipino immigrants I know’. Hina mo naman. Kilala mo ba ang mga kilala ko?

    Dahil sa trend na nakikita mo sa mga kakilala mo hopeless na ang Pilipinas.

    Hina mo naman.

    Eh kung sampu lang ang kakilala mo, trend na ba iyon? At ilang beses bang ginawa nila yon?

  34. Benigno

    You are right in that capital is trapped. But in the process of building up these assets, capital HAS BEEN used productively as factories gear up to the increased demand for their construction products, electrical needs, plumbling needs, etc., etc.

    The problem, as you suggests, is how long can it be maintained? The reason a lot of the OFWs are buying these properties is because these are the OFWs who actually left in the 60s and 70s and are now ready to retire (or at least return yearly for a good amount of time) to spend their twilight years in the home country. These group of OFWs may still have their good impression of what the home country is all about, having not gone through the Marcos, Cory, Ramos, Erap and Gloria years. All they see are the physical infrastructure that has been put in place during the years they’re gone and the politics, for them, is the usual they have expereince when they were here. I suppose you can say, a Pollyanish biew of the country.

    The people who left in the late 80s to 90s may be a different type of OFW. They may not be interested in coming back. They had a different experience of what it’s like to live in the country.

  35. “Now following your question to BeningO, Yes, people do not really care if they have a crook for a leader as look as that piece of crook take good care of his own people, damn the rest…but if that crook victimized his own, then that’s where we have a problem.”

    That’s right. Which can lead one to argue that because of the stark difference between Pinoys (passive, submissive, and reliant on superstition) and Westerners (assertive, active, and logical/empirical), our tolerance for corruption eventually destroys us while Westerners’ and most Confucian societies’ tolerance for corruption is always in the context of whether or not their inherent ability to pursue their own objectives is hindered or not.

    Kung baga, for people/cultures, corruption is merely one of many challenges that needs to be fought (if winnable) or worked around (if unwinnable) to achieve their goals. Pinoys on the other hand view corruption as an EXCUSE and ultimtately a SHOW-STOPPER in their quest for prosperity.

    It’s a loser mentality on our part and a challenger mentality on the part of socieities that manage to conquer it or live with it.

    Big difference in mindsets resulting in even bigger difference in ultimate RESULTS. 😉

  36. jon mariano:

    pinoy bashing, shameless plug of his website, that’s the usual benign0 routine. you should just get used to it. part and parcel of democracy.

    i sometimes wonder though if he actually has a secretary or a program go through this entire routine every time manolo posts a thread or if he derives some sort of sick pleasure from painstakingly repeating himself every chance he gets.

    must be the latter because it seems he sooo gets off on his flip bashing and self-promotion.

  37. vic

    You actually make an interesting argument. If I understand it correctly then. For as long as the people benefits from the corruption, it’s ok?

    Silent Water, that’s the time they’ll find another name for it, like brilliant policy, daring do, or Chinese will call it, the modern Confucians. Anything but Corruption, once it brings boom and good life to all..

  38. Many condo buyers from the US are not yet retireable. It was a marketing blitz which include real property management for those who are not planning to use the place in the near future that made them buy the condos even when the building plans were still in blueprint. Investment. They buy, they sell or they have it leased.

    What is 400 dollars a month anyway if they can lease it for the same amount or lesser as long as it would help them in paying the mortgage which usually is good for ten years only with balloon payments once every year?

    Retireables prefer the gated communities in Tagaytay with amenities such as club house, swimming pools and 24 hour security.

    Even the rich with empty nest in Forbes and other exclusive villages bought condos and rented out their mansions to foreign dignitaries and expats.

    Yong mga gustong magpasikat na “they have arrived” don’t normally buy condos. They have their houses renovated or buy houses in the place where their former neighbors can see their newly-gained status.

  39. Silent Waters:

    That generation you mention (the ones who started leaving in the 80s) has mixed sentiments I believe. Some will choose to come back when they’re much older, and have moved to countries where they can maintain a dual citizenship, just so you have an option when things over here suck. (i personally plan to do that.)now that doesn’t sound very patriotic, but who is nowadays?

    As for Filipinos who are going home to retire, I say let them, welcome them. They have the benefit of having lived outside of the country and may be a force for change here, if not on a national level, maybe the local level. (They’re also old, and therefore may be given a certain amount of deference from the younger generation) My mom when she came here for a visit earlier this year was appalled with the way things haven’t changed in the small provincial town we’re from… one of the first things she plans to do when she gets back here for her retirement is to open up a school.

  40. The Cat:

    yup tama yun. case in point are a bunch of my distant relatives who lived a block away from us in the province. on the site where they used to live stands a three story white mansion with a fountain, 22 airconditioners (we counted hehehe), a satellite dish, and a pool.

  41. tonio

    I don’t have any problems at all with Pinoys coming back. It will help accelerate the process of chnage certainly. I am just saying that maybe because of the different circumstances these people were under when people left, they might have a different view when it comes to returning to the old country.

  42. Collective mindset? The vast majority of people in the Philippines are of the peon psychosis. They accept their state in life, they are happy to be mendicants as this is the type of education and schooling that is drilled into them by a backward ecclesiastical influenced state controlled by rent based elite and rent seeking bunch. They are made totally dependent on their patrons. This culture seeps down into even the government where positions are given based on patronage. The judiciary and law enforcement most of all is affected by this. We are still ruled by man.

    The so called ma’msir mentality that is predominant and prevalent in the country. These constituencies are a result of the initial unequal distribution of factor endowments and this backward system is kept in place by the establishment. This peon psychosis robs the poor of their will and they do not realize it. The main selling point of Pinay help for export is their docility, caring and their loyalty and we see explosions of rage sometimes wherein pinoys or pinays kill their employees. Indentured labor is alive and well in countries like the Philippines. Less than 25% of the total labor force earns a full time wage. Choices are very limited.

    Adam Smith pointed this out and compared the secularity not secularism of the British system compared to the ecclesiastical influence of the then Spanish and Portuguese colonies. Spain stopped the influence of the European enlightenment with harsh measures to protect the ecclesiastical based state. The American colonies were the prime example of the independent farmer owned state under the then ideals of Jefferson. The many vs. the few.

    Hence here in the Philippines one sees the contradiction between the still influential ecclesiastical sector on the state and the pull and push of secularity brought about by the advances in communication.

    You have a state that is rabid in its censorship of old media but totally ignorant of the the intrusion of the internet on the young of all sorts of of stuff on the internet including violence and pornography.

    Hence the ideas of corruption here are muted by a cultural mindset that the peons have to be looked after and anoints himself ruler and owner of the commons. The Philippine version of enclosure.

    The ancestors of landed families here simply titled lands in their names because they could do it.

    Here ingenuity, innovation and entrepreneurship are discouraged by the lack of access to factors of production and the means of production. That limits the suppliers to a few and creates a state of monopsony. The almost total dependence today on overseas labor is an accurate symptom of the disastrous economic fundamentals of the country.

    The more adventurous business man then turn out to be the smugglers.

    In practical terms they even keep prices low.

    What this country needs is the economic shock treatment of freeing the currency markets and making the peso freely convertible. It has actually never been tried here. If equilibrium economists really believe that rational man will always move in the direction of their self interest based on price information then let the markets rule.

  43. silent:

    oh most definitely, I’m hoping the culture shock will prompt them to action. think about it sir, a group of people who have enough family and friends abroad to make the government think twice about “disappearing” them. they can most definitely be a force for change.

  44. Tonio

    I myself lived in the US for 5 years. But you know what, the Philippines is still the place to live, warts and all. This is where I was born, this is where I grew up and this is probably where I’ll die.

    I think the primary reason is psychic. At the end of the day, this is where you will feel least out of place. This is where you are comfortable. (and I am not talking of physical comfort). I may be coming in and out of the country for work but most probably, at the end, I will probably look for a place by the seashore when I retire and just live out my days reading a book, tending a graden and getting all the kids together in the community and teaching them all I know. 🙂

  45. Intindihin mong maigi ang sinabi ko. Kaya nga sinabi ko ‘Filipino immigrants I know’. Hina mo naman. Kilala mo ba ang mga kilala ko?

    First, immigrants,especially if they are already non-Filipino citizens are limited in terms of ownership of real properties.

    Second, the sales of properties must have been decided because there are no reliable caretakers and the sellers don’t want to become absentee landowners.

    Third, if the properties are left without developments, the syndicates of squatter colonies could just populate them overnight. The syndicates have their powerhouse of lawyers.

    Fourth: the presence of the Nice People Around

    Conclusion: it is a moronic statement that Philippines is hopeless because some Filipino immigrants are selling their properties.

    sheesh.

  46. “I say let them, welcome them. They have the benefit of having lived outside of the country and may be a force for change here, if not on a national level, maybe the local level.”

    I’m a bit skeptical about this though. Pinoys were ruled by the Americans for five decades, and left an indelible legacy in our country.

    Right under our noses, we have fine specimens of American systems at work — Subic’s road systems and traffic rules, are an example.

    Everyday, OFW’s come home to visit (i.e. we do not have to wait for retirees to come back in droves and become a ‘force of change’). Right now that knowledge of the wondrous ways things are done overseas come in and out in the form of visiting/coming/going balikbayans.

    If we cannot learn from them and apply this knowledge already sitting under our noses TODAY, what makes us think that the knowledge we anticipate coming in from retirees TOMORROW will be applied well?

    – 😛

  47. hvrds

    I totally agree with your viewpoint. I don’t know if everybody will agree to your solution. There are people here who believes more in the state having more say in the reidtribution of the factors of production via confiscation and wealth redistribution rather than letting laisse faire prevail while ensuring the safeguards are in place so that monopoly/monopsony environments will not occur.

  48. Cat

    I may be wrong but I think if that immigrant (generally balikbayans) has dual citizenship, he or she is now allowed to own real estate property since they are also Filipino citizens.

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