The Republic

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Part of The Republic

Title: The Republic
Issue Date: The Republic No.4 (14 April 1973)
Year: 1973
Language: English
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extracted text: NO. 4 14 APRIL 1973 MANILA Development programs in full blast Infrastructure, as one economist correctly points o'lit, is not just a new bridge, a new highway, or a new schoolhouse. It is more than these and a host of other projects taken together. In its totality, and as the prefix implies, it provides the basic, necessary support for a country’s Coverall development. } It is in this context that the infrastructure program is today a sustained, continuing effort in the Philippines. Government agencies involved in the program are now putting into shape the various plans that will facilitate the activities of those contributing directly or indirectly to the ^ nation's growth - from* the farmer trying to bring his goods to market, to the factory owner in an island with inadequate port facilities, to the foreign businessman who has just plowed into the economy millions of 4 Manila construction project: beating the deadline before the onset of the rainy season. pesos worth of investment. Work is proceeding apace. At the moment, construction work is going on in at least nine categories: high ways, airports, telecommunications, portworks, waterworks, flood control and drainage, schoolhouses, govern ment buildings and hospitals, and shore-protection projects. These projects will cost P872.7 million, complemented by $34.7 million in foreign loans, during the current fiscal year alone. While the infrastructure program has definitely gained momentum, the government is also aware that there are still kinks to be ironed out, weak areas to be strengthened. Thus, complementary measures are on the drawing boards or being readied for implementation. Last week, for instance, the Pres ident, citing the need for hastening the full development of Manila Bay as an international seaport and tourism center, directed the Department of Public Works, Transportation and Communications to submit to him -Within two w<<eks» an ‘ integrated program for the bay’s development. He said the program should aim at meeting the requirements of trade, commerce, industry, tourism, and health and sanitation in the next 20 years and should include the following features: • Development of the Manila coastal road that would extend southward to Cavite and northward to Bataan. This calls for the reclamation of foreshore areas along the bay. • Modernization of piers, ware houses, slipways and other port facilities. • Development of tourist centers in the areas to be reclaimed. These would include beach resorts, at least one south of Manila and another one north of the city, and a complex for yachting, skiing and other sports. • Establishment of plants for the treatment of industrial wastes and setting up of other facilities to keep the bay area free from pollution. “A country like the Philippines,” the President said, “with limited resources but moving forward as aggressively and as forcefully as it can, must learn the lesson early and well, and that is, that those resources must development and planning. One can not disperse these resources too thinly. Otherwise no favorable effects will follow.” Integration, maximum utilization of resources — these are the major guidelines in current developmental efforts. Foreseeing the logical “side-effects” of growth, the President has seen to it that ecological safeguards are incor porated into any infrastructure under taking. He said that the Manila Bay complex must now be re-studied, re-planned and restructured. Now, it is government policy to prohibit the setting up of factories within a radius of 30 kilometers from Manila’s City Hall. The objective is two-fold: to lessen the effects of pollution and to disperse industries outside Greater Ma nila, where they are at present con gested. Under the four-year developmental program, priorities are given to proj ects which would boost industrial and agricultural activities, facilitate trade and commerce, bolster education and culture, and enhance the health and welfare of the people. It will involve a total outlay of P6.8 billion for the entire period, ending in 1975. portation and Communications, ex plains the program thus: “The 1972-75 plan does not reflect the total cost of the projects but rather the utilization of the project investments during the plan period. Some on-going projects previously started are carried forward to the four-year plan; others are to be started within the four-year period and some to be completed beyond the program duration.” Considering that the development program gives emphasis to infrastruc ture development to support the planned expansion of the agricultural and industrial sectors, he said it was necessary therefore to attain the following objectives: • Provision of an extensive and efficient transport network consisting of truck highways, regional seaports and airports, supported by feeder roads and satellite ports, for the cheap and fast movement of passengers and goods. • Harnessing and control of water resources, through power systems to propel industries; irrigation to boost agricultural production; waterworks to meet industrial and domestic needs; flood control and drainage to protect urban settlement and agricultural areas. • Establishment of an integrated country-wide backbone telecom munications system for effective transmission of information among major centers of population and economic activities. • Provision of an adequate physical plant to house essential governmental services such as schools, hospitals and administration buildings. Underlying all these objectives and plans is the government’s desire to bring about a better life for the Fili pino masses who, in the past, had to content themselves with palliatives and piece-meal reforms. The cVation FOREIGN RELATIONS Laying the groundwork for extradition treaty One of the principal irritants in Philippine-American relations in the past was the seeming disregard of Philippine laws by Clark Air Force Base authorities. There had been several occasions when US airmen facing criminal charges before the local courts were allowed to leave the country with the tacit consent of CAFB authorities and in violation of the RP-US bases agreement of 1946. On some occasions, the US sent back these airmen following strong protests from the Philippine government. On other occasions, it refused to do so. It was to avoid future friction that the Philippines first suggested the forging of an extradition treaty several years ago. A few months back, the Philippines renewed its proposal for such a treaty in the wake of the flight to the US of both Filipinos and Americans involved in criminal acts here. Again, this need was emphasized when US Vice President Spiro T. Agnew visited the Philippines last February. President Marcos showed Mr. Agnew evidence, including confes sions, against persons now in the US who were involved in a conspiracy to assassinate the President and stage a coup d’etat. Two months after the Agnew visit, ........., ........... ...... „o_. ^^wr^if€fejgn office-jannounc>d^"_! the -WRmters, hmd-*.nationp on an internal tional scale. The first widely accepted theory is that a State is under no legal obligation to surrender a fugitive from justice in the absence of an extradi tion treaty. If such a state decides to surrender an individual despite the absence of a treaty, it does so only as US had agreed to start negotiations on the proposed extradition treaty. The Philippine panel will meet with its American counterpart soon, Padre Faura said. Groundwork for such talks has been completed and a draft of the treaty prepared. This will be the first extradition treaty ever to be negotiated by the Philippines with another country since it regained independence in 1946. Extradition has been defined by one legal authority as “the surrender by one State to another of an individual convicted or accused of having committed a crime within the jurisdiction of the demanding State, for trial and punishment.” In a sense, extradition is the surrender of power over an individual within the jurisdic tion of the State of refuge, and the latter under obligation to deliver up such an individual to the demanding State if there is a treaty binding the two States. There are two main types of extradition treaties. The first is the classical type, which specifies the offenses for which extradition is provided. The second is the modem type, such as the Montivedeo Con vention on Extradition of 1933, which contains no list of offenses, but provides for extradition in all cases where the offense is punishable in both the demanding and surrendering States. There are a number of fundamental principles governing extradition and which, in the view of some legal President Marcos, US Vice President Spiro Agnew with US-RP officials: reexamination of existing agreements, negotiations for extradition treaty. a matter of international comity. The second is that the person extradited can be tried in a demanding State only for the offense charged in the extradition proceeding and for a crime mentioned in the extradition treaty. The third is that religious and political offenses are not extraditable, while the fourth specifies that the crime committed must have been perpetrat ed within the jurisdiction of the demanding State. Under Philippine law, it has been held that penal acts committed by Filipino citizens are territorial in nature, so that the local courts have the power to try cases committed i within their territorial jurisdiction^. Hence, if a crime is committed by a Filipino national in Philippine ter ritory, and the accused flees the country, a Philippine court can try him once that person comes under its jurisdiction. This is where the need for an extradition treaty comes in. It may be apropos to state that other countries are also interested in forging such treaties in view of the propensity of criminal elements, avail ing themselves of modem transporta tion facilities, to seek refuge in other lands. The US itself is faced with the problem of extraditing American criminals who have fled to countries** with which the US has no extradition'*^ treaty, as in some parts of South America, to escape punishment. Ger man World War II criminals have also used South America as a sanctuary against prosecution. Nobody can predict how soon an -extradition treaty can be Jrsrged between the Philippines and the US. But there seems to be a consensus that such a treaty can help remove some of the irritants in Philippine-American relations as well as enable either country to punish criminals who seek refuge in the other. PERSPECTIVES Justice to all By VICENTE ABAD SANTOS Secretary of Justice Today, more than ever before, we stand close to an approximation of the political ideal of justice, under which every man will be allotted his due. We work and fulfill our duties under a govern ment conscious that it is the potent and omnipre sent teacher. Recent events have helped us to realize clearly that for good or ill, the government teaches the whole people by its example. Under the Old Society, a segment of the government became a law breaker and thus it bred contempt for law; it invited every man to become a law unto himself; it invited anarchy. In the end, we had to learn that chaos serves no social end. Yet our government then, defective as it was, contained within itself the means of securing the execution of its own laws against other dangers than those which occurred every day. Fully in accordance with the 1935 Constitution. President Marcos pro claimed martial law not only to save the Republic, but also to reform society. As he did so, he taught his countrymen that the science of government is the most abstruse of all sciences. Indeed, we might question whether it can be called a science, since it has few fixed principles, and practically consists in little more than the exercise of a sound discretion, applied to the exigencies of the state as they arise. In the ultimate analysis, government is the science of experiment. Secretary VICENTE ABAD SANTOS At the genesis of the New Society, timid doubts were expressed as to the state of our liberty. Would it be curtailed? Would it suffer diminution? Sub sequent developments have provided the answer: li berty implies the absence of arbitrary restraint, not immunity from reasonable regulations and prohibi tions imposed on the interests of the community. For to be free is to live under a government by law. To be enjoyed, liberty must be limited by law, for law ends where anarchy begins. To the voices of anarchy, we reply that liberty is a term of two hundred definitions, and the one we adopt for our own is that which does not give a right to every man to do just what he pleases but that* which consists in an equal right to all the citizens to have, enjoy, and do, in peace, security, and without molestation, whatever the equal and constitutional law of the country admit to be consistent with the public good. The French say, Le ley est come apparel, que alter ove le temps — the law is like apparel, which alters with the time. In a famous essay on the growth of the law, this parallel thought was enun ciated: Existing rules and principles can give us our present location, our bearings, our latitude and longitude. The inn that shelters for the night is not the journey’s end. The law, like the traveler, must be ready for the morrow. It must have the principle of growth. And since every age should be mistress of its own law, it was only fitting that on January 17, 1973 we ratified a new Constitution which became effective that same day. Thus did we follow the principle that the center of gravity of legal develop ment lies not in legislation, nor in juristic science, nor in judicial decision, but in society itself. The program of reform embodied in the new Constitution emphasizes the spirit of discipline and sacrifice. Let us pay heed to the wise exhortation that democracy in any sphere is a serious under taking. It substitutes self-restraint for external re straint. It is more difficult to maintain than to achieve. It demands continuous sacrifice by the In dividual and more exigent obedience to the moral law than any other form of government. In the Department of Justice, we answer the call to national discipline by insuring that we dispense swiftly equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political. After all, justice is the end of government and of civil society. Echoing the immortal Magna Carta, we say that to no one will we refuse or delay right or justice. Page 2 14 April 1973 THE REPUBLIC 1 YOUTH PROGRAM Beyond the classroom Something funny happened at the launching of the summer Youth Civic Action Program (YCAP) two weeks ago. At once, the pictures taken of the activity told the whole, and only a part, of the story. The whole, from the limited view of the launching itself; and just a part of it, since the YCAP embraces students at all levels. Obviously, however, it was the very young who had the run of the show. Wielding brooms and spades, grade school children of the public schools in Greater Manila heartily took to the task of adding luster to relatively well-kept city streets. Impressed by the response, Undersecretary Narciso Albarracin of the Department of Education and Culture concluded that the day’s activity was generally a" success. But he had to temper his elation with the observation that the response of universities and colleges in Greater Manila was “rather weak and unimpressive.” The observation of the DEC under secretary was quite unclerstandable, considering that over 90 percent of the total college population is in private schools and many of these Schools are in Greater Manila. Besides, more than the grade-school children, the summer YCAP will affect the collegians with greater immediacy. More particularly for college juniors, Students cleaning the streets: a sense of community participation. participation in the summer YCAP will spell the difference between getting their diplomas in time or not. The DEC has ruled through De partment Order No. 53, issued on December 29, 1972, that college juniors have to put in a minimum of 120 hours of civic action prior to graduation. This new prerequisite takes affect beginning next schoolyear (1973-’74) so that even college seniors expecting to graduate by the end of the first semester are not exempt from it. Neither are foreign nationals; nor those who are married. For compelling reasons, like an army draft or serious illness, a student may ask for deferment until the next summer YCAP. Heads of schools, however, may exempt working stu dents on a case to case basis, according to the Bureau of Private Schools. The summer YCAP involves more than just the cleaning of yards and streets. The DEC emphasizes food production in this year’s program of activities. It has also suggested three broad areas of civic action for college ’:dsnts: (1) orientation of the community to the goais of the New Society, (2) environmental sanitation and beautification, and (3) solution of community problems, like drug addic tion and population control. School authorities themselves have to determine what particular projects their students will undertake. As far as possible, schools are urged to fit individual inclinations, talents and disciplines of students to particular projects. A Physical Education major, for instance, may be asked to organize a sports program for the community; or, an Education major may conduct a class in adult education. In the field, school authorities are enjoined to exercise “the diligence of a good father to prevent danger” to their students. Credit for participation in the YCAP need not be earned exclusively from participation in YCAP activities of the school where a student is enrolled. Should the student elect to do it in his hometown, he may do so and be credited for it provided he can present a certificate to the effect with the proper validation of any of these officials: the elementary or high school principal, the district super visor, the superintendent of schools, the area supervisor or the project consultant of the YCAP. While the summer YCAP is pri marily designed for college juniors, college freshmen and sophomores are not barred from participation. They may earn advance credit for such participation. Students of secondary and primary schools jure also encour aged to join on a voluntary basis. Teachers ID the public schools whose services are needgd t0 coordinate or OTluUiO uliXCiCllv VUU1BCO supervise the activities witr be to the rural areas and young service credits for it too. *- -* ’ - ---------• -j -----The summer activities are not all there is to the YCAP, though. As early <as the reopening of classes after the Christmas break, in January, the YCAP had already become an integral part of elementary and high school curricula. Depending on the subject being taught, teachers now either plan their lessons around community prob lems or lead their students in un dertaking civic projects. In certain cases, some schools have adopted the 50-50 formula where students devote half of their time to academics and the rest to actual civic action. Definitely there are still many rough edges that have to be smoothened in the implementation of the YCAP. Many of them are but to be expected in the initial stages of any program. Nonetheless, even at this early stage, some things already mark it out as a major reform strategy. A rundown of the objectives of the YCAP sheds light on some of them: • “To imbue the youth with social and civic consciousness and social responsibility; • “To involve the youth in the development of their communities; • “To give more meaning to school experience through the actual ap plication of learnings in the solution of community problems; • “To guide the youth in forming a more realistic perspective of life.” In sum, the YCAP is expected to introduce relevance and meaning to the educational system. By seeing for themselves and working on solutions to community problems, students will have a clear picture of the conditions in the community and, ultimately, the country and will be better prepared io discharge the functions of citizenship. The YCAP is only the first step along this line. In his recent speech before the graduating class of the Philippine Military Academy, Pres ident Marcos has hinted that other programs of a similar nature will be implemented in the near future. .Seniors in different courses will be profession^’..- will be required to serve the poorer areas rough. a National Youth Service, according to the__ President. ( In the final analysis, programs of this kind will redound to the mutual benefit of those who serve as well as those who are served. More so the former. As the President put it: “The young professionals themselves will be the ones most benefited because they will develop a new moral and spiritual dimension in their lives as Filipinos and as servants of mankind.” JORGE V. ARUTA FULBRIGHT PROGRAM A bridge of understanding It has been said that one of the functions of education is to provide a bridge of understanding between peo ple of diverse political, economic and cultural backgrounds. One project that has been successful in building that bridge is the Fulbright Program in the Philippines, which marked its sil ver jubilee celebration late last month. This program, established on March 23, 1948, is one of the first of the educational exchanges between the United States and more than a hun dred other countries. It was named after Senator William H. Fulbright, principal sponsor of the bill which became US Public Law 524. It is administered by binational founda tions or commissions, jointly com posed of representatives of the US and the co-sponsoring countries. In the Philippines, the implementing arm of the program — the United States Edu cational Foundation in the Philip pines — was officially established in THE REPUBLIC 14 April 1973 1948, by virtue of an agreement signed by then US Ambassador Emmet O’Neal and then Vice Pres ident (later President) Quirino. Since then, for a quarter of a century, about 2,000 Filipino and American scholars, professors and researchers have been exchanged be tween the two countries. Although the promotion of mutual understand ing remains as the primary goal of the program, academic excellence is a major factor in the selection of parti cipants. The bulk of the grants made avail able thus far to Filipinos, is in the field of education with a total of 137, followed by the medical sciences and engineering which totalled 90, social sciences with 89, and language and communication arts with 84. The pur suit of the different disciplines was made in 131 American institutions of higher learning. The Fulbright Program has played a significant role in the training of outstanding professional men and women in the country. For instance, approximately 25 percent of the reci pients of the awards for The Out standing Young Men (TOYM) of the Philippines since the annual selec tion was launched in 1959 are former Fulbright grantees. Many of the recog nized leaders of various professional fields in the country today pursued their advanced professional studies un der this program. Among those who have been Fulbright grantees, to name only a few, are the present chairman of the National Economic and Devel opment Authority (NEDA), a former secretary of education, four bureau directors and ten superintendents of schools, six presidents of universities and colleges, 15 college vice presidents and 45 deans or heads of academic departments, three presidents of busi ness corporations, seven executive di rectors, three newspaper editors, one district judge and one senator. NEDA Director General Gerardo P. Sicat, one of the participants in this program, says that, “from both the quantitative and qualitative angles,” the program has made a substantial contribution “to the national develop ment of our country.” The program, however, has not been a one-way affair. While many Filipinos have gone to the US on Fulbright fellowships, a substantial number of American scholars have also come to the Philippines to teach or pursue further studies. The Ameri can scholars not only engaged in their fields of specialization like the teaching of English, sociology, educa tion, agriculture, child education, pol itical science, public health, an thropology, economics, international relations, biology, geology, history, drama and the theater, but also fa miliarized themselves with Filipino culture and national problems. Thus, in the words of Mr. Sicat, “they returned to the United States with a wider perspective of our country as a whole.” President Marcos, in a message on the 25th anniversary of the program, said he was happy to note “that periodic reassessments and measures adopted to strengthen the Philippine Fulbright Program toward the realiza tion of its primary goal of promoting international understanding have equally emphasized the critical needs of our country’s development.” For his part, US Ambassador Henry A. Byroade said the “need for cultural and educational cross-fertilization is unending.” Page 3 SHOE INDUSTRY of cooperation Marikina’s eighth shoe trade When fair ended last week, the nation’s “shoe capital” was marking not just another milestone. The fair, in a very real sense, was celebrating the efforts of an entire industry to free itself from the stranglehold of alien hands. It was also telling the story of how hundreds of homes engaged in the same cottage industry could pool their meager resources, overcome the ruin ous effects of fragmentation, and turn out a line of products now highly regarded here and abroad. Nearly a decade back, shoemaking in Marikina (population: 120,000) was a struggling, if not a dying, industry. Although it had been in existence even before World War 11, it was highly disorganized and, in such a state, became easy prey to ex ploitative middlemen, mostly aliens, who supplied the industry’s require ments and handled the marketing of its products. Working individually, the shoe makers found themselves at the mercy of these middlemen. No matter how hard they worked, they could never seem to get enough for their efforts. Capital was hard to come bv nj £ouid "Commission only be had at usnHGas rates. Con sequently, production methods renamed crude. T|ie whole industry suffered, and the logical result of all this was dormancy, if not deteriora tion. In 1963, the Marikina municipal government conducted a survey of the production and marketing aspects of the local shoe industry. The findings in that survey led to a decision to form a system of collective marketing through a trade center or trade fair. The first trade fair was set up in 1965 under the auspices of the Junior Chamber of Commerce of Marikina. A second one was held the following - year. Locally made shoes. In 1967, a decision was made to turn the Marikina Shoe Trade Fair into a permanent establishment for the promotion of locally made foot wear. In that year too, the Mf^tkilia municipal council passed a resolution _creating_ tj}e -Lankina Shoe Trade _____ “to help, and possibly subsidize the shoe industry, to in crease and promote its welfare, so that tfyose dependent on jt may increase their income.” The commission has since played a significant role in modernizing the shoe industry, helping manufacturers obtain raw materials, and establishing more ef fective outlets in both the domestic and foreign markets. Today, Marikina Mayor Osmundo de Guzman, one of the men behind the industry’s success story, can justi fiably claim that the “tables have been turned.” Aliens can no longer dictate shoe prices as Marikina retail groups have expanded to as far as Baguio City in the north and Legazpi City in the south. In Greater Manila alone, mar keting of Marikina shoes is handled by six retailer groups and commercial firms. Aside from these retail outlets, the Marikina Trade Shoe Commission has initiated shoe trade fairs in several provinces in the Visayas and Min danao. It still has other problems, but the Marikina shoe industry without doubt provides the most striking example of how a fledgling industry thriving in backyards or residential basements can be turned into a highly productive enterprise that gives a substantial con tribution to the nation’s economy. As much as 70 percent of the country’s total footwear production today is turned out by shoemakers in and around Marikina Valley. Involved are more than 600 manufacturers employing some 35,000 workers. And serving as the industry’s principal “dis play window” is the Shoe Trade Fair situated near downtown Marikina, 20 kilometers east of Manila and just a few minutes’ drive from Quezon City, the country’s new capital. The Philippine shoe industry as a whole has an annual productive cap acity of 29 million pairs of leather shoes, leather slippers, and rubber shoes, boots, slippers, and sandals valued at P72 million. This is based on the production figures for a thfe&=yea/ period, 1368-1970, as reported by the Central Bank of the Philippines. The rate of production growth has been spectacular. More than a decade ago, in 1961, the output was only 6.8 million pairs, four times less than current production figures. While they still have to_capture a^~_xesult, a good portion of the leather large share of the foreign market^ - -rm ~ Philippine-made shoes are beginning to catch the attention of customers in the United States, Canada, Hongkong, Indonesia, Guam, and Thailand. The Philippines now exports an average of over one million pairs annually. In 1970, footwear exports totalled 1,363,558 pairs valued at $1,084,965. Of these, 85 percent or 1,103,835 pairs went to the United States. A study conducted by Urbano A. Zafra, a consultant at what was then the National Economic Council (now absorbed by the National Economic and Development Authority), showed that there is still much room for improvement in the Philippines’ foot wear exports, which pale in com parison beside those of three other Asian countries. In 1970, for instance, Japan exported to the US $92,975,000 worth of shoes; Taiwan, $ 39,9 73,000; and Korea, $12,965,000. Aware of this disparity, the govern ment has placed the shoe industry on the list of priorities for the country’s export program. At present, the groundwork is being laid for the es tablishment of the Integrated Shoe, Inc. factory, the first export-oriented enterprise scheduled to operate at the free trade zone in Mariveles, Bataan. Teodoro Q. Pena, administrator of the Export Processing Zone Authority, said that “although the project is medium-sized, it is labor intensive with an initial employment of some 500 skilled and semi-skilled workers.” Another area of concern is the modernization and integration of the manufacture of high-quality shoes for export. Along this line, the Marikina Shoe Trade Commission plans to es tablish a P4 million shoe factory, equipped with the latest shoe-making machinery and capable of producing large volumes of high-grade shoes fory~J export. Sixty percent of the cost will come from subscriptions by several shoe manufacturers, the rest to be borrowed from financial institutions. Still another problem is the in adequacy of leather and other raw materials used in shoemaking. As a <x good pOidxOii Ox tiic ivdtliOr used locally is^still"being" 'b<yught"~v~~ abroad. In 1970, leather imports to talled P2.5 million. The shoe industry undoubtedly has still many problems to overcome. But the fact that it has hurdled several immediate ones and even increased its production four times over within a decade should be a source of pride to those who have cast their lot with the industry and, more importantly, have kept their faith in the capacity of the Filipino to strike on his own and make a creditable account of himself despite the odds. US MISSION For more investments An investment of $3.25 billion for the next two decades is vitally needed for transportation and communi cations in the Philippines and seven other countries in Southeast Asia. To cope with the region’s growth and requirements, three-fourths of this amount, or $2.44 billion, has to be invested before the current decade is over. The possibilities of this investment proposition, outlined in a regional transport survey a few years back, are now being studied by some 50 American corporations. The corpora tions, which have banded their re sources together in the Southeast Asian Transportation and Com munications Conference (SEATAC), have sent a 57-member mission on a tour of Southeast Asia to find out possible areas of investment, with emphasis on transportation and com munications. US executives & Filipino welcomers. Its first stopover was Manila. The high-level mission, composed of board chairmen, presidents, executive vice presidents, and other senior corpora tion officials, held talks with President Marcos and members of his Cabinet. In a dinner for the business execu tives at Malacanang, the President welcomed their visit as the “beginning of a new, vigorous and vital partner ship between the private sector in the United States and the Filipino people bound by understanding for the mutual benefit of both peoples.” He invited the visitors “to be wit nesses to what is happening now in the Philippines, the changes that we have brought about that should en courage this partnership.” Reiterating the present Philippine policy on foreign investment, the Pres ident said: “We have no misgivings or second thoughts in inviting more in vestors who are willing to assist in the restructuring of our society.” He assured the visitors stability of their investments, citing the marked improvement of peace and order con ditions and the other factors that have brought about a favorable climate for the entry of foreign capital into the country. Before the President’s speech, William J. Bird, vice president of Kaiser Industries Corporation and head of the delegation, expressed ap preciation for the hospitality shown them by Filipinos. Mr. Bird said that, apart from find ing out possible areas of investment, the mission was trying to increase friendship between the American private sector and the peoples of Southeast Asia. After their meeting with the Pres ident, members of the delegation were given a top-level briefing by Cabinet and other officials, including Secre tary of National Defense Juan Ponce Enrile, Secretary of Finance Cesar Virata, and Central Bank Governor Gregorio Licaros. The government officials apprised the mission of various aspects of the Philippine situation today. The visitors showed particular in terest in the new government policy liberalizing the rules regarding re patriation of profits and investments. Also described to them in detail were the many and varied incentives avail able to both local and foreign com panies. Toward the end of their visit, the American business executives ex pressed the hope that aside from their own possible projects, they would be able to attract other investors who had not yet known about the poten tials of business in the Philippines. They said there was a “great poten tial and sincerity of purpose in coping with the country’s problems so much so that we hope to be part of the overall picture.” From Manila, the visitors split into three groups and flew separately to the other Asian cities in their itinerary. 14 April 1973 THE REPUBLIC Page 4 The Economy ELECTRIFICATION More than just light for the countryside Electricity may well be considered the fourth basic need of life — after food, shelter, and clothing. Lack of it, more than anything else perhaps, ac counts for the stagnation of many a rural community which has been living literally in the darkness for generations. Conversely, its avail ability brings to a community untoldbenefits. This truism is never more valid than in a developing country like the Phil ippines, where only 11 million or 27.5 percent of a total population of 40 million enjoy the benefits of elec tricity. Of the 11 million, a great majority — seven million or 63.6 per cent — are residents of urban areas. The remaining four million are in the rural areas, where 30 million Filipinos or 75 percent of the total population live. With this great disparity, it is not surprising that industries and other propellants of growth are concentrated in the cities, while very little change, if at all, is observable in the towns and barrios even after several decades. r It is because oFtfiisTopsidedness that the government is today giving high priority to rural electrification in the Philippines, hand in hand with other development projects, including the dispersal of industries to the rural areas. Now under implementation is a nationwide program that is expected to bring adequate, reliable, and lowcost electricity to all the 1,421 towns and more than 35,000 barrios of the country before the decade is over. A novel approach used in the pro gram, not to mention the pace with Electric poles in Catanduanes: pillars to illumine the darkness. which it is being pursued, gives little reason to doubt the realization of this goal. Unlike the previous setup in which electrification was left to individual franchise holders and thus became a fragmented effort, the National Elec trification Administration — the main implementing agency — is conducting the program on an “area coverage” basis. This arrangement will enable an electric system to serve not just one town as what happened before, but from five to 10 municipalities, in cluding their barrios. The “area coverage” is made pos sible with the organization of electric service cooperatives. Such coopera tives, as described by NEA officials, are “incorporated, locally owned, pri vate, non-profit enterprises, democratically organized by a group of people and supplying electricity to members at the lowest possible cost.” The cooperatives, therefore, will not be run and operated by NEA or the government, but by the people themselves in the area covered. The NEA only assists in the management of cooperatives on a “need basis.” This assistance will be reduced as the cooperative management gains ex perience. So far, 42 cooperatives have been organized. Of these, 36 have been re gistered and incorporated. All but one of the registered cooperatives have signed loan agreements with the NEA. The loans add up to P600 million, part of which came from a loan grant ed to the Philippines by the US agen cy for International Development. Construction of electric plant facil ities is now going on in three pro vinces — Capiz, Ilocos Norte, and Ley te. Work on seven others will start in the next few months. The designs fr>r the facilities of another lour have been completed while designs for 17 others are nearing completion. The NEA hopes to establish at least one electric service cooperative in each of the country’s 68 provinces by 1976. In the past, most electric franchise holders provided services only to densely populated sections of their franchise areas. Thus, in spite of the big number of franchise holders in the country, the actual service reached only a small fraction of the areas they were supposed to cover. The old setup may also have been partly responsible for the concentra tion of adequate, reliable, round-theclock, and low-cost electric service in Greater Manila and other large cities, outside of which electricity was avail able only at night and hence was not adequate for industrial purposes. Another reason for the inavail ability of electric service in most parts of the country was that a large major ity of the power plants were lowcapacity (less than 500 kilowatts). This entailed high operation costs and, consequently, service was available on ly to consumers within their imme diate vicinity. The approach used in the present rural electrification program is the result of experience gained in two pilot projects started in 1969: the Misamis Oriental Rural Electric Serv ice Cooperative (MORESCO) in Min danao and the Victorias-CadizManapla Rural Electric Service Coop erative (VRESCO) in Negros Occi dental. The first cooperative serves 10 mu nicipalities between the cities of Ca gayan de Oro and Iligan. The second serves four large municipalities. Both systems today serve a total of 27,000 families. The pilot projects were devel oped with technical assistance from the National Rural Electric Coopera tive Association (NRECA), an associa tion of nearly 1,000 rural electric systems serving more than 25 million consumers in the United States. If the whole program succeeds, electrification will be bringing more than just light to the Philippine coun tryside. It will hasten the cbopcrcaLof industries, an activity now being pur sued with vigor by the government. At the same time, it will revive longdormant industries, which have thrived to this day only because of the ingenuity and the persistence of the Filipino villager. It will revolutionize agriculture and without doubt quick en the country’s stride toward indus trialization. Finally, it will mean a new life for the Filipino common man who, through a fourth ingredient, will be able to achieve more than just sufficiency in his three basic needs in life. After the tax amnesty deadlines, another amnesty period is about to end — this time for employers who have been lagging in their remittances to the Social Security System (SSS), representing 3.1 million privately em ployed individuals in the country. The failure of many employers to remit SSS contributions promptly had worked against the interest of their employes, especially with regard to loans and other benefits. Under Presidential Decree No. 24 amending the SSS law, employers are condoned from the payment of a three percent penalty if they update their remittances within a six-month period starting October 19,1972. The deadline originally was set for April 19 this year, but because this date falls on Holy Thursday, SSS Adminis trator Gilberto Teodoro extended it to April 23. The remittances consist of monthly contributions of both employes and employers to the System — equivalent to two and a half percent and three and a half percent, respectively, of the employe’s salary. After April 23, delinquent em ployers will have to pay the penalty of THE REPUBLIC 14 April 1973 SOCIAL SECURITY Last chance for delinquent employers three percent of the amount due each month. They will also be criminally prosecuted and will be liable to suffer the penalties for estafa prescribed in the Revised Penal Code. The condonation policy covers these two categories of employers: • Employers who had paid or up dated their delinquent contributions before the effectivity of the amenda tory decree, that is before October 19, 1972, but had not paid the three per cent penalty for late remittances. • Employers who remit or update their contributions within the sixmonth grace period. Broken down further, these categories include the following: em ployers with pending cases either be fore the Social Security Commission, the courts or the fiscal’s office involv ing collection of contributions and penalties; employers without pending cases but are delinquent in the pay ment of contributions and penalties; employers with approved plans for installment payment in so far as the penalties for payment made before the deadline are concerned; employers against whom judgment had been rendered either by the courts or the SSC, but have not yet complied with the judgment; and employers who have not yet registered with the SSS all or some of their employes. In case an employer fails to remit contributions after these have become due and demandable, the SSS shall as sess their liability on the basis of their highest monthly remittance, unless the employer can show within 15 days from notice of assessment that he is liable for a smaller amount. The updating of contributions can only redound to the benefit of the members of the SSS, which has just completed its 15th year of existence and which, in the words of Adminis trator Teodoro, has rendered “an im pressive record of service to the na tion.” In a report on the System’s opera tions, Mr. Teodoro said that the SSS started in 1957 with only 224,221 workers in its membership. In its first year of operations, the SSS paid out P7 5,437 in benefits and had P6,081,000 in reserves. Today, the membership has grown to 3.1 million, with benefit payments now totalling P359 million and the reserve fund, Pl.5 billion. With millions of pesos paid out each year as "benefits and an equally huge amount channelled into the economy as investments, the SSS has become a major participant in the country’s economic development. At present, the SSS is working for an integrated scheme of benefits, in cluding Medicare, workmen’s com pensation and maternity privileges, as a step towards realization of the modem concept of social services that cover virtually every aspect of an in dividual’s life — “from the cradle to the grave.” Page 5 Science & Technology NEW INVENTIONS Crowd drawers of the week For seven days since last Sunday (April 8}, thousands have flocked to a government compound on Pedro Gil Street (formerly Herran), comer Taft Avenue, Manila. The crowd drawer: an array of quality products and devices created by Filipino inventors, many of them self-taught. The display was set up on the occasion of Inventors Week, observed annually since 1967 to give recog nition to the works of scientifically^ inclined Filipinos and to induce them’ to use their creative energies for the benefit of the country and her people. Sponsored by the Philippine In ventors Commission, a technical agency of the National Science Devel opment Board, in coordination with the Filipino Inventors Society, the week-long affair is highlighted by the awarding of P57,000 in cash prizes to outstanding inventions in four cate gories: mechanical, electrical, chem ical, and general. Featured in this year’s exhibit are 130 inventions, utility models, and illustrations of creative researches. At the compound of the National Science Development Board where these were one could see a wide variety of articles and devices: from ah im proved water heater to a three-wheeled motor vehicle, from a multi-purpose thresher to a multi-purpose dryer of agricultural products. The yearly exhibit-contest is only one of the means adopted by the commission to promote creativeness and encourage result-oriented inven tions. The commission hopes that the inventions will revolutionize fields of activity that have been previously dominated by more expensive and imported machines or devices. Many of the inventions featured in the A Filipino inventor: relentless, resourceful. exhibit eventually are manufactured commercially with the assistance of the commission. Since the commission started operating in October 1965, two years before Inventors Week began to be observed, it had received nearly 1,000 applications for the commission’s as sistance. Once an application is approved, the inventor gets grants-inaid from a special science fund, which now amounts to Pl,120,000. Because of this assistance, scores of inventions are now being produced commercially through the Philippine Inventors Mar keting Center, the commission’s marketing arm. One such commercially produced invention is the compact Kono rice mill, or “Konopak,” a 405-pound portable rice mill designed by Sofronio Sian and which eventually may replace the imported but less efficient “Kiskisan” huller. This can only mean foreign exchange savings for the coun try. A winner of the Presidential Medal of Merit in 1969, the portable rice mill has been subjected to field tests under various operating conditions with successful results. A test report of United Nations experts with the Grain Industries Development Center of the defunct Rice and Corn Ad ministration (now the National Grains Authority) indicated the highly effi cient performance of the mill and the pivotal role that it could play in the economy of developing countries. It was found that the performance of the Konopak rice mill is very similar to that of a large commercial mill. The total rice recovery is around 67 percent compared with the 55 percent in the Kiskisan. The Konopak can mill between 60 and 80 cavans for 12 hours, and unlike a large mill, can handle even a few kilograms of palay at a time. Its maintenance cost was also found to be much lower than that of the Kiskisan. The Konopak inventor estimates that under the most common form of milling rice in the Philippines, the amount of rice lost is .3 million tons, or six percent of the country’s total yield of 5 million tons. With the Konopak, this loss can be reduced considerably, he says. Another invention that benefited from the commission’s assistance is the multi-purpose and economical miracle cooker manufactured by the Kamias Cottage Industries. Composed of a cover, a steamplate, an inner container and a main container, the cooker can steam vegetables, cook rice and boil meat or beans all at the same time. The cooking time, depending on. the size of the cooker, ranges from 30 to 40 minutes. Still another one is a hollow block molding machine that is now popular among small-town hollow block manufacturers, building owners and contractors. Called the Fibri-firme portable combination motor and manual operated hollow block machine, it is the only Philippinemade and patented machine that does' not need special foundation nor ex pensive pallets. It is easy to operate and turns out clean-cut and sturdy concrete hollow blocks. It is manu factured and distributed by Firmeza Engineering Enterprises. Also now commercially manu factured, by the Fadrig, Inc., is the P25,000 garbage disposal system com posed of one trailer and 20 boxes that can be operated by only one man and is equivalent, performance-wise, to that of a P60,000 dump truck operated by six men. Other inventions and products com mercially produced are the vegemeat, an excellent substitute for animal meat; an auto fish catcher; the Oliva Wine, made from Philippine fruits; a gas vaporizer, a gasoline-saving device which can save up to 25 percent gasoline; an emergency auto light; a lawn mower which cuts grass in any direction and can be operated even after rain or on soft soil; a do-ityourself battery; and scores of others. These can be availed of at the Philip pine Inventors Marketing Center at 1424 Quezon Boulevard Extension, Quezon City, with telephone numbers 98-24-41 and 98-24-42. What are the functions of the Phil ippine Inventors Commission and how does it operate? It extends technical, financial, legal, research, promotional and marketing assistance to Philippine inventors and r creative researchers, irrespective of race or nationality, provided they are Philippine residents. It examines the utility, patent ability and workability of an inven tion, prepares technical parts of patent applications, designs and fabricates working models. The legal division prepares and no tarizes required oaths and contracts and legal parts of patent applications. It prosecutes the application at the Philippines Patent Office or patent offices abroad and handles infringe ment and other patent cases. The commission, through the Phil ippine Inventors Marketing Center, ■ displays and promotes inventions and receives orders for the inventors. This assistance is given at no initial cost to the inventor, but subject to certain terms and conditions. EMILIO U.MACASPAC AGRICULTURAL BOON Handy pump for farmer Small farmers long burdened with the high cost of irrigation water pumps can now look forward to acquiring one that is both handy and inexpensive. Costing only P200, the new kind of pump can draw water from irrigation ditches, open channels, rivers, and shallow wells. Unlike most other pumps, it can handle water containing mud and other impurities with a minimum of wear and tear. The pump was designed by a Filipino agricultural engineer, Nestor Navasero, employed at the agricultural engineering department of the Inter national Rice Research Institute in Los Banos, Laguna. It was developed at IRRI last year under a research contract with the US Agency for International Development. Called the “IRRI Bellows Pump,” it is foot-operated and can be carried by the farmer from one portion of his land to another, depending on the irrigation needs of his crops. The prices of water pumps now available in the market range from Pl,000 to P10,000 and are beyond the reach of the great majority of Filipino farmers. They are much heavier too and can be moved only by three or more persons or with the help of a car or a truck, thus entailing additional expense, time, and effort for the farmer. The main parts of the pump are two canvas bellows reinforced with metal inserts. The whole device, together with its handle, weighs 20 kilograms, less than half the weight of a cavan of clean rice. It can pump 50 to 60 gallons of water per minute to a height of one to two meters. The Kalayaan Engineering Co., the firm authorized to distribute the foot pump, hopes to mass produce the pump before the year is over. Because of its simplicty, main tenance cost of the pump is very negligible. It is so simple that its repair can be handled by even small machine shops. Repair work may even be rare because, aside from simplicity, the pump has the added virtue of durability. “The IRRI Bellows Pump is easy to operate,” according to its distributor. The farmer simply stands on the two foot-rests and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. This compresses one of the bellows, sucking the water in and forcing it through the outlet THE REPUBLIC Published weekly by the Bureau of National and Foreign Information, Department of Public Information, with business and editorial offices at the 8th Floor, Beneficial Life Bldg., Solana st., Intramuros, Manila. Telephone Nos. 40-18-91 to 95Locals11 & 18 and 40-78-68. Amante F. Paredes, Managing Editor; Rustico Otico, Copy Editor; Alberto M. Alfaro, Zenaida Seva-Ong, Section Editors; Emilio U. Macaspac, Luis P. Veneracion, Pablo A. Tariman, Jorge v’ Aruta, Staff Members; Jose Dungo and Pablo Guilas, Staff Photographers; Eduardo Velasco and Tito Villasin, Staff Artists. valve. By alternately shifting his weight in a rhythmic manner, the farmer will be able to pump a continuous flow of water from an irrigation ditch, river or shallow well to his cropland. The range of the water flow may be increased by connecting a long rubber hose to the pump. By setting the price of the pump at P200, the distributor hopes that “this badly needed device can be availed of by small farmers, especially the thousands benefited by the land reform program.” Aside from irrigation purposes, the pump can be a handy tool in draining shallow fishponds or swampy lots being prepared for construction. It can also be used to drain the basements of houses in case of floods. Because of its varied uses, the pump, now on display at the National Science Development Board compound at the comer of Pedro Gil Street and Taft Avenue, is attracting the attention not only of farmers but also fishpond operators, lot owners, and buildipg contractors. Page 6 14 April 1973 THE REPUBLIC The ‘Arts PHOTOGRAPHY Panorama of the war A photo-journalist is a recorder of history in the making. His photo graphs depict the momentary event which become the index and the document of things past for us to ponder and remember. One such lensman who in the estimation of his colleagues has few peers is Carl Mydans. As one of “Life” magazine’s first photographers, he has mirrored for more than three decades the life and times of his generation. His work had also brought him to the Philip pines, where he recorded, vividly and dramatically, momentous events during the war years. For four days this week, in recognition of his talent in covering a US prisoners of war. “period of trial and triumph in the (Filipino) Nation’s life” and on the occasion of Bataan Day, three govern ment agencies and two private or ganizations sponsored an exhibition of Mr. Mydans’ works at the Ramon Magsaysay Center Memorial Hall. The photographs brought back clear, if bitter, memories of those who experienced the war in the Philip pines. To viewers who were not yet bom when the pictures were taken, it was most likely a discovery of the grim aspects of the war they never saw. The exhibit provides a documen tary of the war, from the jungles of Bataan in 1942 to the “liberation” of Manila in early 1945. The photo graphs portray the terror of civilians caught in the war, the determination and raw courage of Filipino and American soldiers in the battlefront, the desolation and the ruins left in the wake of bombings and shellings, and the hope expressed in the faces of Filipinos anticipating better, happier times. Not only are the unforgettable scenes of war preserved in Mydans’ photos. Famous places and personal ities in the Philippines at the time were also recorded by his lens. To name a few: Manila Bay, Gateway to The Death March in 1942: the picture speaks for itself. Intramuros, Manila Hotel, Lingayen Beach and Defenses, American Bomb er Pilots in Clark Field, all taken in 1941; Tacloban airfield, 1944; Balete Pass and Camp O’Donnell; prisoners in the University of Sto. Tomas, 1945; President Osmena on his return to Manila; and General MacArthur re establishing the Commonwealth gov ernment in Malacanang in 1945. Mydans and his wife, Shelley, were covering the Philippines for “Life” magazine when they were captured and imprisoned for 21 months — first, in the University of Sto. Tomas internment camp and later, in the Chapel Prison Camp in Shanghai. They were eventually released and in 1943, Mydans returned to the United States. The following year, he was accredited as one of the four cor respondents to join General Mac Arthur’s Command and cover the re taking of the Philippines. Several awards attest to Mr. My dans’ artistry. These include the U.S. Camera competition grand prize, which he won in 1940, and the Gold Achievement Award in 1950. In 1960, he received an honorary degree in humanities and, the following year, was designated the Ernie Pyle lecturer at the University of Indiana. Now based in Singapore as a freelance photographer for Time Pub lications and Reader’s Digest (since the demise of Life last year), he continues to cover with sympathy and insight events in Asia. BOOKS A revolution from within OTHE DEATH OF THE FAMILY by David Cooper 145 pages, Vintage House September 1971 The Death of the Family, a series of eight essays by South African psychia trist David Cooper, qualifies as a minor time-bomb, useful for planting in the staider pastures of sociology and psychology departments as Philip pine universities know them. Taken in parts, the book registers several telling protests against that most intimate of threads with which society is inexor ably woven — the family. Taken as a whole, Death is a call to arms, to rip apart the whole fabric and allow the emergence of the New Man, described with some poignance as a rootless fa milyless being who only in this state can be loyal to his dreams, his sense experiences, his telling psychotic dis turbances, in a word, his precious hu man existence. “Blood is thicker than water,” Dr. Cooper writes in chapter one, “only in the sense of being the vitalizing stream of a certain social stupidity.” “The blood of consanguinity,” he writes in chapter last, “has already flowed through the gutters of suburban fa mily streets.” Impetuous wordplay is the main weapon of the metaphorical logic Dr. Cooper employs throughout the book, a technique that undoubtedly owes a debt to the uncharted seas of the hu man mind encountered in his psychia tric practice. The result is a book one THE REPUBLIC 14 April 1973 reads uneasily, a marriage of the poetry of rebellion and the traditional straight-jackets of theory — psychia tric, philosophical, political theory suddenly spouting what looks like a lot of inspired nonsense. If you can wade through a welter of seemingly disconnected thoughts for what Dr. Cooper is probably trying to get at, then Death becomes very sti mulating indeed. It becomes an ad venture for both of you, in fact, be cause the man himself admits that in using a language he finds archaic and essentially discrepant with his think ing, he finds that he has to play tricks, “until finally we generate a certain vertigo in ourselves through which words, falsely assumed to transmit knowledge, lose their apparent mean ing, and a more real discourse is pos sible.” To his credit, the book’s lan guage and the book’s thesis travel on the same radical wave-length, form fol lowing function in the assault on Fort ress Tradition. And what of his main thesis? Well, simply that the family is nothing but the “ideological conditioning device to perpetuate an exploitative society.” If anyone protests that Marx has said as much, and Freud and Marcuse and Norman Brown in their turn, Dr. Cooper seeks to offer new insights by way of psychoanalysis, an area he has mined with R.D. Laing, that most re cent of counterculture heroes. What the two of them, as practicing London psychiatrists tuned to the wheezing of the Old World and its institutions, come up with are countless examples of personality distortions wrought by the traditional family unit: • Because the family is merely a “gluing together of people based on the sense of one’s incompleteness.” • Because “the family specializes in the formation of roles for its mem bers rather than in the laying down of conditions for the free assumption of identity.” • Because “the family, in iia function as primary socializer of the child, instills social controls in its chil dren that are patently more than the child needs to navigate his way through the world.” • Because “there is an elaborate system of taboos instilled in each child by its family.” We have maladjusted children and broken homes, anomie for whole societies and untruth in human rela tionships, a criminal narrowing of pos sibilities for a personality to discover and explore the spectrum of its po tential. And so to begin again, says Dr. Cooper, the beginning being with oneself, a revolution from one’s cen ter. To realize that one’s life and destiny go far beyond family through prebirth and postdeath. To un derstand that the self one thinks one knows is only one of the many other selves, suppressed or unrealized, one carries around in a seemingly finite, limited existence. Beside this, the most radical of revolutions, bomb throwing demonstrations and with drawal into quietistic eastern reli gious become mere mime. True mys tics, he says, have always been intense ly aware of the nature of circumam bient society and, in this sense, have been truly political men. To bring about this revolution, however, entails nothing less than ruthlessly throwing two sacred no tions into the impersonal, irreverent dustbins of history. The first is mar riage as it is currently practiced. “A man marries a woman whom he will never leave, and because she knows he will never leave her, she will never leave him. She accepts the conditionality of her situation because there is a social bribe built into it, in the sense that her husband can only opt out of the conditional sys tem if he, as the apparent initiator of the whole scene, accepts guilt that may be lethal or nearly lethal to him.” A social inability built on fear can on ly perpetuate a tradition of unfree dom, a lack of respect for the human potential that chafes uneasily under artificial controls. The other institution that must go is the current educational system as it is practiced. “Education is nothing less than a self-totalizing movement of interplay between the person’s unend ing formation of his self and the formative influences from other peo ple acting on him throughout his life.” Education, therefore, covers a time span that starts from intra-uterine ex perience to that of death. Anything less than this is a waste of time. Throughout the book, Dr. Cooper has left a lot of loose-ends that per chance someone else may tie together. In lieu of marriage and formal educa tion, for instance, he only has vague suggestions of what other structures can fill the vacuum. He talks of com munal living, he talks of free universi ties but refuses to be specific on how precisely they are to be set up on a wide scale. But Death of the Family, true to its style as half-rave and half-rap, is really not the place for a scholarly, orderly presentation of options to replace the holy order of things. Because it makes a claim to original vision, one easily justifies its pell-mell recitation of con ditions that will make a New Society wherein will dwell New Men: • Where solitude will be a human right. • Where all men will register each other with total attentiveness and deepest respect. • Where all teachers will be pro phets, looking into all our pasts and all our futures. Wherever anonymity and conformi ty threaten, the beginnings of Utopia are always welcome. SYLVIA L. MAYUGA Page 7 Travel & leisure FUGA ISLAND Like an unwrapped present from Heaven “(It) was like an unwrapped present from God. It’s typhoon country, and the Pacific and China Sea currents converge there, but the scouring and intermingling of water creates great clarity and a teeming underseas big game preserve. We kept finding all the elements necessary for the perfect new Underwater Explorers Paradise: shallow virgin wrecks, coral reefs marching from the shore out to drop off ledges, giant turtles, lobster vil lages, mystery caves, millions of^ exotic fish — and no dynamiting, no’ sharks.” This passage did not come from a book on an imaginary island-paradise. It was part of a recollection by Prof. Albert A. Tillman, considered one of the world’s leading authorities on scuba diving, after a visit to Fuga Is land — the biggest of a three-island group in northern Philippines, 22 nau tical miles off the Luzon mainland. The waters surrounding Fuga and its two satellite islands — Barit and Mabag — are indeed a diver’s and an angler’s paradise. The area may well be the “last frontier” in underwater wilderness, for fish of all shapes and colors abound in the clear waters. The beaches around the islands are carpet ed with white sand, m turn sprinkled with multi-colored crushed corals and seashells. Fuga’s underwater lure is such that it is drawing sports enthusiasts from as far down south as Manila, nearly 700 kilometers away. The island has an area of 92 square kilometers and has a port called Murur, three fathoms deep, where vessels can seek refuge during inclement weather. It also has z The ruined church in Fuga: a blending of the past & present. an airport, two and a half hours away from Manila. Unknown even to many Filipinos, the three islands occupy a place in Philippine religious history. In Fuga can be found the ruins of the “Church of the 11,000 Virgins,” once the cen ter of Catholic missionary work that extended to as far as China and Japan. It was built during the Spanish regime by Fr. Jeronimo Morer, first vicar of the Catholic mission in Cagayan province. The island was named The white beaches of Fuga: nature’s gift to fabled island. “Fuga” after the Spanish word “to flee.” Legend has it that its inha bitants deserted the island when pirates swooped down, destroying the villages and the church. Only a few hardy souls ventured to live again on "the island. Eventually, its ownership passed from one family to another. The present owner is a Filipino busi nessman, Alfonso Lim, who maintains - a cottage there, equipped with all the conveniences of modem living. The owner himself makes a visit on ly now and then. The few people who actually stay there are mostly tenants tending rice and other crops. It is an idyllic place; life is almost sedentary and perks up only when there are visitors from the mainland. But Fuga’s appeal is starting to be noticed even outside the Philippines. A Japanese firm is studying the pos sibility of developing it into a tourist center. Fuga was visited recently by a delegation from the Kokusai Kogyo, a Japanese firm engaged in developing tourist resorts and hotel construction. Plans call for the construction of a 500-bed hotel with a complex of shopping and other facilities. Also proposed to be set up are deep-sea fishing facilities, an oceanarium, a golf course, and a sports center for pelota and tennis. To make it more accessible from Manila, the island’s airport will be ex panded to accommodate modern air craft. While in Manila, the Japanese de legation, led by Kenji Osano, went to Malacanang for a courtesy call on President Marcos. They were accompanied by Ambassador Roberto Benedicto, Philippine envoy to Japan. The Pres ident told the delegation that foreign investors were always welcome to do business in the Philippines. Aside from the Japanese group, some European investors-are -alsfr-iap—-— terested in developing Fuga into a tourist attraction. If plans do not miscarry, Fuga, which now lies serene amidst the wa ters of the Pacific and the China Sea, may soon be “invaded” by both foreign and local tourists. But the “in vasion” will be so planned that the conservationists’ loss will be minimal j and tourism’s gain, considerable. PEOPLE She visited Manila in January and had lengthy interviews with Pres ident and Mrs. Marcos. She also saw at close range the rapid and pro found changes that had taken place in the Philippines since September 1972. Last week, word reaching Manila was that journalist Beth Day Ijad signed a contract with M. Evans Company, an American publishing firm, to write a book on the new Philippines. Miss Day has written 23 other books and contributed to most major publications in the US. She plans to return to Manila to gather additional materials for her latest work, which she will write in collaboration with Secretary of Foreign Affairs Carlos P. Romulo. In the meantime, her interview with the President will be the subject of a cover story for the April 14 issue of World magazine. Her interview with the First Lady is also sched uled as a cover story for Ladies Home Journal in its May 21 issue. “I apologize to the Filipino peo ple for the behavior of my son.” Thus said 86-year-old Tanejiroo Onoda on his arrival from Tokyo ^^n^pril^^v^of^ataar^Da^The words came appropriately at a time when the wounds of war were fast healing and two former enemy na tions had entered an era of peace and friendship. Unfortunately, the message was yet to reach his son, Lt. Hiroo Onoda, who is still holed up on Lubang Island, Mindoro Oc cidental, 28 years after the end of World War II. From Manila, the elder Onoda flew to Lubang to join a combined team of Japanese Army and Philippine Air Force personnel who have been scouring the island for the straggler since early March. One of them, at 35, is the first Filipino to become Provincial of the Dominican Order in the Philip pines. He has also introduced the non-graded school system which promises to revolutionize elemen tary education in the country. Another is deeply involved in youth leadership training, particularly in the southern province of Cotabato. Another has written a tome on local contemporary art, considered “the first and only comprehensive survey of the subject” ever publish ed in the Philippines. Still another, at 27, is the youngest under secretary in the government. They ar£ among the 10 Filipinos chosen to receive this year’s TOYM (The Outstanding Young Men) awards, sponsored annually by the Philip pine Jaycees. Since 1959,118 other young men have been so honored for “exceptional contribution to the welfare and well-being of the country, their respective communi ties and their fellowmen.” This year’s crop: Fr. Rogelio B. Alarcon, education; Carlos A. Arellano, busi ness; Alberto L. Ayupan, youth leadership development; Inocencio C. Bolo, agricultural extension; Manuel D. Duldulao, art; Joseph E. Estrada, public administration; Jose Pardo, education; Vioquelin C. Pas cual, veterinary medicine; Bernardo M. Villegas, economics; and Ro naldo B. Zamora, law and public of fice. They were chosen by a panel of judges headed by Secretary of National Defense Juan Ponce Enrile. ♦ ♦ * Most of them had been away for as long as 20 or 50 years, and like many others abroad, they probably had heard the worst about their country during all those years away from home. Last April 3, some 65 Filipino expatriates came for a visit and found out many changes had taken place since they left — and definitely for the better. “Martial law brought us back,” said Oscar Casasola, one of the leaders of the tour group. He said what probably makes Filipinos abroad these days decide to visit their homeland is the realization that “it is now safe back home.” The group will be staying here for a month before returning to various points in Canada and the United States. * * * “I am very happy in Rochdale,” said 23-year-old Priscilla Amio, smiling from behind an enormous bouquet of flowers presented to her when she won over 19 British girls to become this year’s beauty queen of the Alderglen Manufacturing Company in Rochdale, England. Rochdale was the scene of a recent controversy over the working con ditions of 100 or so textile workers from the Philippines. The contro versy obviously has been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction — except for three who decided to come home. Miss Amio scored her triumph at the annual dance of the garment factory where she had been working as a machinist for three months. She received a silver trophy and a kiss from Cyril Smith, the Liberal lawmaker representing the industrial towns of northwest ern England in the British ParPage 8 14 April 1973 THE REPUBLIC