Veritas Vol. I, No. 12 (February 5-11, 1984)

Media

Part of Veritas

Title: Veritas Vol. I, No. 12 (February 5-11, 1984)
Issue Date: Vol. I, No. 12 (February 5-11, 1984)
Year: 1984
Rights
extracted text: VERITAS The ttuth shall set you fifee. VOL.1NO.12 3 SECTIONS 24 PAGES FEB. 5-11.1984 ■P- 2.50 (John 8:32) THE GOV T TAKES OHE STEP FORWARD ...IN THE WRONG DIRECTION BISHOPESCALER The Meycauayan incident Page 2 Plebiscite postmortem: Marcos got what he wanted Samar’s ‘religious radicals’ Page 8 The Constitution perverted Pages CURRENT AFFAIRS By ROCHIT TAflEDO IT WAS a clear blunder ■on the part of military authorities who ordered a stop to the “Tariac to Tarmac-Ignore the PLebiscite Run” late evening of Ja nuary 28. Unwittingly, what had . been planned by the orga nizers as a simple jogging exercise by some 300 par ticipants from Concepcion, Tariac to the Manila Inter national Airport, turned out to be a mass run from the outskirts of Meycaua yan, Bulacan, to Manila after the Saturday confrontasi' Military officials said the NPA had plans to in filtrate the ranks of pro testers, and that the run ners had no permit and that they would cause “anarchy and traffic con gestion.” For apparent support of the first argument, two suspects allegedly in pos session of handgrenades, were arrested. However, Reli German, the march organizer, revealed that four of the participants said that the persons they saw opening cars in the convoy were not the ones arrested. “In fact, we saw these same persons in the next town, following us,” German said. Butz Aquino, said that they had pointed out these men to Capt. Mallilin, who confronted them in Mey cauayan, but Mallilin al legedly refused to arrest them and said “They don’t belong to our unit.” Butz Aquino and the Tariac to Tarmac partici pants were forced to stay in the St. Francis church yard in Meycauayan, Bula can. Military operatives and anti-riot squads blodted the entrance to Meycaua yan while reinforcements of at least one company (made up of 100-150 arm ed soldiers) and three fire trucks under the com mand of Col. Miguel Fontanilla blocked the en trances to the churchyard. Fontanilla said they had orders to disperse the pro testers if they leave the church premises in organiz ed groups. The protesters were la ter joined by sympathizers from Meycauayan and nearby towns as more and more convoys from Manila created a massive jam at the North Diversion Road Sunday evening. Members of the Justice for Aquino, Justice for All announced an emergency meeting after Senator Ambrosic Padilla told the crowd in Meycauayan that he had talked with Gen. Fidel Ramos. Padilla said Ramos told him that: “I cannot do anything about this since I was not the one who gave the orders.” “We marched as peace ful citizens and the mili tary treated us like crimi nals. “All we want to do is to continue this march in exercise of our consti tutional rights but even this is too much to ask of Marcos’ repressive regime,” Butz Aquino said. The sympathizers’ emer gency meeting at the Phi lippine Columbian Monday concluded that a first wave of mass protests against the military repression at Mey cauayan be organized the very next morning at the St. Joseph’s Church in Balintawak. “The march towards Meycauayan will be either Operation Salubong or Operation Saklolo,” Butz said. However, the Manila protesters were also warned by Col. Jose Dawis that there were or ders to stop any form of mass action. It was also learned that all entrances to Meycauayan were block ed by the military opera tives leaving Cory Aquino and her family, together with former Senators Lo renzo Tanada and Jose Diokno stranded. Butz Aquino met with the mili tary commanders and ne gotiated for their entrance later on. The people that trooped to Clover Leaf crowded inside St. Jo seph’s church and listened to sectoral leaders decry the repressive military rule of President Marcos. By noontime, Monday, it was learned that the participants would be al lowed to continue their march to the MIA but the protesters said they would stay the night "to avoid any kind of infiltration” and leave instead early Tuesday morning. They began their march after some thank-you ceremo nies to the people of Mey cauayan who had gene rously shared their hospi tality, taking in the parti cipants for lodging for three nights, and also feed ing them continuously. The pack was met by welcomers who trooped to the Malanday, Valenzuela. Crowds, soon joined them at organized assembly points along the Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, starting from Malabon, Monumento, West Avenue, Quezon Avenue then to Farmers Market, Santolan Road, Ortigas and Boni Avenue, Buendia and Malibay where they were met by enthusiastic crowds offering food and drink. The heavy turn-out of wel comers was mainly due to the coverage of Radio Veritas and DZME where callers phoned in their sympathies and lamented the military’s overbearing and repressive stance on the “harmless pack of joggers clad in shorts.” It’s got to be good chocolate if it’s ) a Butz Aquino, Jiggers Alejandrino and other marchers from ATOM link hands as they leave the town. A disabled participant watches from the sidelines as main body of the Tariac to Tarmac runners passes by. Postmortem on the / plebiscite By RED BATARIO AMID political and eco nomic storms which at first blush appeared to have eased off for the mo ment, the Philippines con ducted its seventh plebis cite in 11 years to ratify four amendments to the Constitution. It was an exercise met with skepticism by keen political observers who were of one mind that elec tions under the present cir cumstances are as illegal (and therefore non existent) as the continued rule of the present admi nistration. A week after the ple biscite, this skepticism was somehow bolstered by ta bulations conducted by a respected business daily showing that the boycott movement, at least in Mettro Manila, took a big slice off the electoral? cake. The independent tabula tion showed that out of 126,105 registered voters in 296 precincts in Metro Manila alone, only 42,214 actually voted or 33 per cent of the total. Other reports late in the week revealed that votes turn out was only 35 to 40 per Contrary to govern ment and COMELEC claims that the plebiscite had a successful voter turnout, reports indicated it had suffered a severe buffeting at the precincts. Voters who actually went to the polls revealed during random surveys con ducted by this paper that they went out simply to exercise their right of suf frage without even consi dering the implications of the proposed amendments. Others said they did so out of fear of imprison ment. Some said they cast spoiled ballots. On the other hand, hourly reports received by Radio Veritas from its field correspondents show ed a very clear trend: As of 2:30 p.m. of January 27, only 25 per cent of regis tered voters in various Metro Manila localities had cast their ballots and by 5 p.m., the trend crept up to just 35 per cent. Yet despite these re ports from independent sources, television news roundups later in the even ing showed an entirely different story. Nes and Myrna Hilario, who sat as panel re source persons on Radio Veritas’ “Monitor on Ple biscite ’84,” said that the reports they received while “on board” were totally different from what they saw on television. “Comelec Chairman Vi cente Santiago even an nounced that 75 to 80 per cent of voters had cast their ballots as of 5 p.m. Where lies the discrepancy? Who is telling the truth?,” they asked. Myrna Hilario also told this paper how two Maryknoll coeds were allegedly harassed by four policemen a,t the Cu£ao Elemen tary School ' in Cubao, Quezon City On plebiscite day. She said that the two girls were on communica tion research assignment from Maryknoll and were taking pictures of the poll ing place when accosted by the policemen, who they alleged, took the film from their camera and branded them as subver sives. The policemen were identified through their nameplates by the girls as Eleda, Eslad, Ponferrada and Pagdagdagan. Other incidents also marred what was otherwise termed as a “generally peaceful” electoral e x e rBusiness Day reported that in an elementary school in Quezon City, bal lot boxes were closed right after the voting and brought to the house of the barangay captain where the counting was held. , The paper also reported that a barangay captain in Merville Park was distri buting sample ballots with “Yes” votes to voters and posting the samples in polling places. In Precinct 22-B in Can ioocan City, 20;. ballots were discovered missing while in the Sampaluka^ Elemfenf arySohoo) al.x> • Caloocan, Precinct No. 23C had 232 registered voters and 103 actual voters but the answers to Question No. 2 ran up to 185 or 82 more than the actual number of voters. In ano ther precinct in the same area, the actual number of voters was only 74 but Yes votes for Question No. 2 numbered 108. By the time this issue goes to press, the Commis sion on Elections would have proclaimed the re sults of the plebiscite Wed nesday. As of Monday, about half of the certifi cates of canvass had al ready been received by the COMELEC from 73 pro vinces and 60 cities. But even as the COME LEC is prepping up for its official proclamation of the results, political ana lysts say the plebiscite had alter all accomplished what it sought to do in the first place: give Mr. Marcos what he wants to get and show the world and the country’s creditors that he still has mass support and also tweak the Opposition’s nose that he can still dish out a final political trump card. Nearly empty classroom reflects degree of people’s disinterest in the plebiscite.. PAGE 3 VESTAS FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 | No.1 in Electronic Banking A Universal Bank. No. 1 in Electronic Banking. Statement Savings Account The no-passbook savings account. No need for a passbook to deposit or withdraw. Instead, you get a monthly Savings Account Statement just like a current account. Safe! Convenient! Worry-Free! Identicode System For Savings Accounts The instant identification system that’s forgery-proof! Eliminates signature verification. Safer and more convenient. Speeds up banking transactions at Family Bank. Instant Electronic Fund Transfers Manila-Cebu Deposit-withdraw between Metro Manila and Cebu by direct on-line computer linkage-at no extra charge. All in a matter of seconds. Electronically. Automatically. Safely. Efficiently.Directly linking 5 branches in Cebu (Carbon Market, Colon, Juan Luna, T. Padilla and Mandaue) with 56 branches in Metro Manila. Super Savings - Checking Account A savings and checking account combined. Effectively, an interest-earning checking account that pays as high as 11% p. Write checks anytime and earn interest on all your deposits all the time! PAGE 4 VERITAS Q--------------------------:-------------------FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 EDITORIAL & OPINION The Tariac to tarmac run: The government goofs again DURING the Radio Veritas coverage of the now historic Tariac to Tarmac run sponsored by the August 21 Move ment (ATOM), a woman listener whom the studio an nouncers addressed as Connie, called in with this message: “I thank the person who ordered Ninoy Aquino assassinated, whoever he or she may be, for waking up the Filipino people. And I thank the person, whoever he or she may be, for ordering the joggers stopped in Meycauayan. He reminded the people of their duty to stay awake until democracy is restored.” No truer words have been said to describe the Philippine si tuation today. Whoever ordered Ninoy killed miscalculated grievously. For how could anyone guess that the senseless mur der on the tarmac would spark so massiye an outpouring of outrage and anger? How could anyone foresee that the Filipino people, rendered passive and apathetic by 11 years of fear and i epression, would cast off their fear and raise their arms and their voices in protest? But, as everyone now knows, the anger could not be sustain ed, and the protest fever began to subside. The last demonstra tion at Ugarte Field drew a pitifully small crowd. Small, that is, when compared to the enthusiastic and overwhelming public response in the' first three months after the assassination. The Tariac to Tarmac Run had very little going for it except its catchy name. In fact, by Butz Aquino’s own admission, he was happy that 300 runners had participated. Even the atten tion it attracted was nothing compared to the rain of yellow confetti in Makati and elsewhere. And then some genius somewhere decided that the joggers should be stopped. The reasons given were so limp they were pathetic: the joggers were obstructing traffic, they were pro moting anarchy, they had been infiltrated by lawless elements out to create trouble. So what happened? Because the joggers were forced to seek refuge at the church in Meycauayan, and because Radio Veritas kept the public informed in a non-stop live coverage of the event (the crony press had reported that the marchers had been dispersed), the public responded with enthusiasm, sympathyand generosity. Today, thanks to that anonymous genius, the spirit of pro test is alive once more. Because the government goofed, be cause it was not content to leave well enough alone, the people have a new rallying point. As one of the joggers told a Veritas reporter in the patio in Meycauayan, “With enemies like these, who needs friends?” Well put, but the protest movement still can use all the friends it can get for the struggles ahead. Another monumental accomplishment AROUND 11 O’clock in the morning of Plebiscite Day, one conscientious citizen walked over to his precinct on Kitanlad Street, off Espana, in Quezon City. He did not “troop to the polls,” as political reporters are wont to say; there was no company, let alone a marching multitude, to troop with. He foundhimself — for the first time since he came of vot ing age some 20 years ago — the lone voter on the premises. He dropped his ballot in the ballot box and, feeling both puzzled and ridiculous, went home. Did he arrive at his precinct a few minutes too early and thus missed the crowds which proved, a certain TV station was to an nounce at frequent intervals on Plebiscite Day, that the turnout in Metro Manila was “heavy” and “satisfactory”? Or did it happen, as a daily columnist was to write of the “re sidents of some Makati villages,” that the people in the vicinity - unlike our solitary voter — were“just too lazy to bother” casting their votes? Or was that Quezon City precinct - on Vice Governor Mel Mathay’s turf yet - a remarkable exception, a freakish rarity among the polling places in the four cities and 13 towns of Metro Manila? Certain facts and figures, compiled by independent me dia and citizens’ groups and published in the week after January 27, would tend to show - even assuming that the almost aban doned precinct could scarcely have been the rule -thatour lone ly voter’s experience might not have been so exceptional. • u *. thewm°V’ il *!as been fair,y estaWished, only 40 per cent of registered voters in Metro Manila took part in the plebiscite - far below the enthusiastic 80 per cent claimed by administration drumbeaters. The remaining 60 per cent apparently chose not to exercise, to echo the President, their duty as Filipinos. He who “doesn’t wish to. . .use this most potent weapon (the ballot) for our independence,” said Mr. Mar cos, shortly before using his most potent weapon, “should not consider himself a rilipino. ,, A debatable proposition, at the very least - for many citizens chose not to go to tne polls last Jan. 27 oreciselv because thev rr»ncirir»ro«4 thnmmiaMo r?:i: In the light of Truth SALVADOR P. LOPEZ BO Arrogance or insolence JL IN JUNE 1950, in the course of a bitter debate in the UN Security Council on a resolution authorizing a “United Nations police action” in the Korean War, the Soviet re presentative suddenly left his seat and walked out of the meeting in disgust. The proposal was con trary to the Charter, he had argued, and his dele gation would have no part in it. The resolution was quickly put to a vote and approved; the So viet representative was no longer there to cast a veto, and the Chinese seat was still occupied by Taiwan. Thus, the United States was able to dispatch several divisions to Korea under the umbrella of a UN police action. With the help of other Allied troops, including a combat battalion from the Philippines, the United States was able to prevent the conquest of South Korea by North Korea, the latter abetted by the Soviet Union and assisted by 100,000 Chinese “volunteers.” The Soviet walkout had proved to be a costly tactical error. They have not walked out of any UN meeting since then. If the people — in Metro Manila, the vaunted showcase of the government’s com passion and political prowess, as well as in other regions and provinces - are indeed ted up, dismayed, disillusioned, disgusted, sick and tired of plebiscites and such, the ratace, the ruling party and the Comelec can very well claim credit for it- as one more monumental accomplishment of the administration. • 11 11 long years to do •* - but alas or hooray, depending on how you view this terrible and tragic erosion of the people’s faith in the ballot, in the demo cratic process, they sure did! How many more years should they be given to undo it? That should make for an interesting question, in another plebiscite. This incident comes to mind in connection with the decision of the United States to withdraw from UNESCO because of its “misguided policies, tendentious programs, and its extravagant bud getary mismanagement.” Because she contributes one-fourth of the UNESCO budget, it is particular ly galling for the United States to find that she is often outvoted on vital issues by a solid corps of Third World countries usually supported by the Soviet bloc. This results from the one-state-onevote rule which is observed in the UN General As sembly and the specialized agencies including UNESCO. But the USA, together with the USSR, China, the United Kingdom and France, enjoys the privi lege of the veto in the Security Council, the most powerful UN organ. In addition, important finan cial institutions like the World Bank and the Inter national Monetary Fund are governed by the weighted-vote rule according to which the vote of a member state is proportionate to the size of its contribution. This rule effectively guarantees the domination of these important organizations by the powerful and affluent countries of the First World, especially the United States. There is thus a certain trade-off in the voting practices followed by various United Nations organs and agencies. The one-state-one-vote rule is observed in deliberative organs like the General Assembly or agencies that deal with policy recom mendations in the political, economic, social or cultural sphere like UNESCO. But in organs cloth ed with substantive authority in the domain of international peace and security or in the world of international finance, the affluent states led by the United States actually enjoy a preponderant influence that is commensurate with their wealth and p< >er. Since the Maldives, Mauritius, Fiji, Togo an Chad readily accept predominant United States pt er and influence in the Security Coun cil, the World Bank and the IMF, shouldn’t the United States concede to these small states in turn the privilege of voting equality in other agen cies of the United Nations? The voting procedures in the various UN or gans were the result of compromises reached when , the UN was born 38 yqars ago. It is too late and it would now be clearly unwise to question their wisdom even by implication. The one-nation-onevote rule is the practical embodiment of the great Charter principle of the “equality of all nations, great and small.” To even seem to questicn-rHn* — this late day would be graceless. It should not surprise Americans that the na tions of the Third World often vote against them in the United Nations. That is the price they have to pay for being the richest and most powerful nation on earth. The sentiment is nine-tenths envy and one-part emulation. There will always be poor nations as there will always be poor human beings, and the rich should learn to bear with equanimity the occasional rudeness of the poor. It won’t do to tell the poor: “Look, you’re mis behaving. I won’t have anything more to do with you unless and until you behave.” Exactly as you would talk to a poor peasant or worker who for gets to treat his lord end master with meek obei sance. For most of the poor and obscure nations of the Third World, it is their membership in United Nations bodies which gives them the feeling that they exist internationally and enjoy a separate iden tity. It is. the badge of their membership in the family of nations. When, during a vote on an im portant resolution, the electronic scoreboard on the wall behind the rostrum lights up to show how each of the 160 member states is voting, it does give a lift to the delegation of Fiji or Chad to see that its vote has exactly the same weight as the vote of the USA and the USSR. The feeling gets to be especially heady if it is voting against one or the other superpower. The United States withdrew from the Interna tional Labor Organization in 1977 for reasons not too different from those she has given to justify her recent withdrawal from UNESCO. Two yearelater she resumed her ILO membership. Nor is the USA the first to use the weapon of withdrawal. In the time of Sukarno, Indonesia alse angrily “resigned” from the General Assembly. But her seat was kept open, and Indonesia returned to it a year or two afterwards, without fuss or muss. In the end, it is not what member states can do for the UN that matters, but what the UN can do for them and for the world as a whole. The pro blem of course is that the latter cannot always be reduced to dollars and cents. Meanwhile, we are left to wonder which is more difficult to endure: the arrogance of the powerful or the insolence of the weak. FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 VEK1TAS PAGES Hie human factor * > Straight from the shoulder MELINDA QUINTOS DE JESUS LUIS D. BELTRAN Reconciliation: Bereft of any meaning Marcos got what he wanted LIKE MANY good things these days, the word reconciliation seems to have come upon hard times. The object or victim of media hype, its Coinage has been devalued by its very use. We hear it said by everybody and anybody, murmured as a prayerful ejaculation from the pulpit, blurted as a political expletive from the rostrum, leaving the word, and such a beautiful word it is, bereft of any real meaning. And it is unfortunate that things have turned out this way. In a predominantly Christian nation, the idea of reconcilia tion, so richly endowed with spiritual nuances, could have revealed heretofore untested instruments of national renewal and survival. Almost a year ago, Cardinal Sin first proposed the formation of a national reconciliation council, suggesting that government, church and private sec tors initiate a process of dialogue that would evolve recommendations for na tional policy. He repeated that call in the midst of the turmoil that followed August 21 and again advanced the pro posal when he spoke to the President in Malacanang sometime in September. In a statement broadcast on television . nationwide, Marcos said he was all for re conciliation but he was against people who sought power without first receiving a popular mandate. And that has been the 'only response given to the suggestion. Such a reaction, or lack of it, has served to close the door on reconciliation as it is generally understood. A recent issue of Time magazine record ed the! meeting of Pope John Paul II with the man who^mde an attempt on his life, mruimet Agca. Perhaps, the symbolism of Occasional reflections JOAQUIN G. BERNAS, S.J. The perversion of a Constitution YES, it can be done. It has been done. More and more it is being done. The original concept of a Constitution as a democratic instrument is that it has for its primary function the limitation of po wer and the facilitation of the peaceable competition of social forces in a commu nity. Its perversion consists in the concen tration of power in the interest of a per son, or of a junta, a committee, an assem bly, or a party. The words of Karl Lowen stein are worth pondering: “There is little comfort in the fact that Constitutional democracy, in defeat, scored a Pyrrhic victory: no political sys tem of today can afford to flout openly the democratic ideology that all power emanates from the people and that its exercise is legitimate only if in conformity with their will. Intellectually, at least, the ■ .lized world has graduated from authori tarianism. The nostalgic protestation of the elitist fringe notwithstanding, it is axioma tic that the people are the ultimate source of political power. Even Hitler had his Goebbels exalt the Third Reich as an “en nobled” democracy, whatever this, or simi lar semanticisms, may mean. A written Constitution imbues any political regime with a sort of respectability. The Machia vellians have come to realize that the de mocratic credo is the shingle under which they can pursue their sinister trade. The written constitution thus has become the protective coloring for the operation of that scene illuminated the Christian mes sage of human redemption and its rele vance to the deep divisions that sunder nations and communities. “In a less exalt ed sense,” Time observed, “the scene may be important because it suggests that hu man beings can respond to inhuman acts by being sane and civilized and forbearing, more decent perhaps than the killers de serve.” The question then that must be asked: Does reconciliation which presumes repen tance and forgiveness still hold political applications for uniting the leadership and the people of the Philippiijes? The answer to that question must recog nize the highly complex transaction in volved in reconcihation. In the public and social realm, reconciliation cannot disre gard or override justice. Restraint and punishment and those conditions that safe guard against the recurrence of evil are still necessary for the ordering of society. Reconcihation, both on the personal and political levels, supposes certain atti tudes that lead to the individual’s beha vioral change and consequently, funda mental social change. Anyone plotting the President’s moves and actions since August 21 would now des pair' of reconciliation as an option. The man’s grudging ‘concessions’ are only de signed to buy time, an indication that he has determined to hang tough against the people’s discontent and disaffection. The leaders of the Church must now look deeply into their tasks of evangeliza tion and discern the prophetic role that can save this sad situation from becoming a national tragedy. If only for the sake of the rest of the flock who do not live in palaces. naked power..........Autocracy in the mid twentieth century defiantly sails under the false authoritarians perverted the constitu tion from an instrument of freedom into a tool of oppression. Its original telos, the sharing of political power by several power holders to limit absolute power, has been transformed into its opposite.” We have just gone through another con stitutional choreographic number. It would have been less painful if the choreographers and the sponsoring dance company had admitted that it was largely a pointless exercise. But it was nauseating to listen to Panawagan 84 and its principal vocalists sing paeans to democracy in action. It was sickening to hear government officials eulo gize popular participation in the shaping of national destiny. The props were all there: voting lists, ballot boxes, clerks, 48-hour TV coverage. It matters little if the plebiscite was characterized by orderliness. Technical honesty does not make up for the decep tiveness of mere senianticism. One is tempted to despair. But an aroused citizenry can yet pressure govern ment not just into technical honesty but also into abandoning substantial deformity. Submit Amendment 6 to popular ratifica tion. Submit the accretions on martial law power to popular reexamination. Submit the cnidities of the merely semantic con stitutional document to popular refine ment. Then the rhetoric of captive media will not have the hollow ring of Faustian laughter. IN A country full of politicians, it is something of an achievement to be the smartest one of all. Presi dent Marcos is that politician. When he de cided to conduct the plebiscite, he was quick to say that there was not enough time to have a new registration of voters — although he could have set a later time. Be cause the issues were seemingly non-parti san, there was no outcry about using the same voters list that brought us the elec toral wonders of 1978 and 1981. As a re sult, Mr. Marcos got what he wanted - the urban land reform amendment otherwise known as the give-the-squatters-land-andtheir-hearts- and-minds-wilMollow amend ment with which he hopes tb-bcat the Op position in Metro-Manila. He also got the land grants amendment otherwise known as the give the Cronies-land-and/increasetheir-economic-and-political base-amend ment — with which he hopes to stay in power. As a bonus, he has shown the IMF, the World Bank, Reagan etc. that he has “overwhelming” support or at least political clout. This, plus playing footsies with the Russkies may give him the economic sup port he now needs from the Americans. There are other cute maneuvers perpe trated by the President. He calls the new voters registration for March - when anti administration students are all in the urban areas studying. The elections will be in May, when most students will be in the provinces — where they will find they can not vote. Mr. Marcos will of course say that it was the Opposition that wanted a new voters list in the first place — so its not his fault. Another area in which Mr. Marcos dis plays his political acumen is his attack on former President Macapagal, which reminds us of his tactics in 1969 when he used every friend he had in his old Liberal Party to select Serging Osmeha as his opponent. Between a war hero and a suspected colla borator, it was a no contest. Now, Marcos is hitting Macapagal, giving the former Pre sident a stature that he had lost after his -----------------—-----------defeat in 1965. The very obvious idea is to 8ave Barbers anything to do in four years, convince the Opposition that only Maca- AA " 1 ** ~c*~~ pagal has the stature to irritate Marcos and therefore everyone should rally around Macapagal. By a remarkable coincidence, Macapagal has no political bailiwick — un like the Laurels, the Aquinos, Tanada or Diokno. Nor does Macapagal have even a Party behind him. He is the easiest Oppo sition leader for Marcos to fight - so natu rally, he is selecting Macapagal. Cute, very cute. Mr. Marcos is very smart, yes, but the Opposition need not despair. Like Ninoy, Marcos is not alone. Hindi siya Nagiisa. Marami siyang kasamang tanga. His Cabinet is like Russian roulette - he never knows which chamber is loaded with a Mistake. All the Opposition has to do is wait. A Crony in the Coconut Industry has a pending application to lease 8,500 hectares of public land for agricultural development in Agusan. Since he is landless in Agusan, maybe the President can give him the land under the new amendment. QUOTE OF THE YEAR: “That’s how the people will vote in May 1984”, said President Marcos, commenting on the ple biscite. And that’s how their votes are going to be counted too. The Comelec may already have a Crys tall Ball when they say they don’t need new members, to run the elections. Last Friday, on the seven o’clock news of Tina Monzon-Palma, Comelec chairman Vicente Santiago was already saying that his pro jection of 70 per cent of the registered voters casting their ballots appeared cer tain. This was just after the voting pre cincts closed, given the time of the inter view and the processing time for the video tape. If the Comelec is this good - Namfrel can just ask them in May who won. Never mind the counting. One Crony Newspaper was even better at prediction. Although their printing dead line is five p.m; and their reporters have to turn in storie^ by three p.m., they already had a “YES” trend - even before the voting precincts closed. That’s how the voting will be reported in May, 1984, folks. Ilocos Norte Governor Ferdinand Mar cos Jr. is turning out to be a surprise a pleasant one for his constituents and an unpleasant one for government agencies with projects in his province. It seems the young Marcos has put his foreign educa tion to good use by, setting up a staff sys tem which monitors both provincial and national projects. The result has been sur prise visits by Bongbong to such projects as the'Currimao Processing Zone - a multi million KKK project which he had been told was already being constructed. The Ilocos Norte governor decided to see for himself. He saw talahib grass and dust where the KKK had told him they already had “vertical structures.” The result is that in the KKK offices in Manila, some heads are resting on fragile necks. Two relatives of Manila Mayor Ramon Bagatsing are reportedly running in Pasay City for assemblymen, both with the Op position — one is running with Unido, the other with Laban. Meanwhile, a son of Bagatsing is reportedly being groomed to run for assemblyman in Manila. Of course, Marcos never said politicians couldn’t set up dynasties in the Opposi tion. In Manila, the news is that President Marcos wants both Mayor Bagatsing and his Vice-mayor Jimmy Barbers to run for the assembly. The arrangement is that whoever gets the most votes will stay as mayor of Manila. The betting is that Ba gatsing won’t run. He knows that he never gave Darbcfs any uimg iu uu in fuui years, so all Barbers did was look after the barangays. Who’s sorry now? , as the song goes. When business firms first announced that laid-off workers for the first quarter of 1984 would number in the thousands, Labor Minister Blas F. Ople came to the rescue with a press release. He would tell the Social Security System to give them a three-month loan. Unfortunately, the SSS has strict rules on loans — such as a 36-month contribution before eligibility. Since most of those laid-off were new em ployees without contributions totalling 36 months, none of them can take ad vantage of the loan. The net result: eat the newspaper^. Any more bright ideas? The Ministry of Trade keeps trying to keep the cost of food, especially meat, by price control. Have they stopped to wonder why meat in Lipa City costs much less than in Manila? Or that the price decreases as you go southward? It isn’t just the trahsportation cost — its 48 check points manned by all sorts of police and military characters — who are worse than the proverbial middlemen. A departing passenger for Amsterdam got the shock of his life recently when the immigration agents at the Manila Interna tional Airport stopped him from boarding his plane. The passenger, Shell executive Jose Tomas Bautista, age 28, was held be cause a Jose Bautista (no middle initial), age 57, had a tax evasion case pending in court. It took three days for Jose Tomas to get a clearance and leave the country. Imagine the number of Jose Bautistas in the country - who will all be held at the airport because the bureau of immigration hasn’t heard about middle initials, pic tures, birth certificates etc. — just names. Fortunately, Edmundo Reyes is not a com mon name, otherwise, they could hold him at the airport one of these days. VEKLTAS FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 PAGE 6 INTERVIEW: BISHOP FEDERICO ESCALER, S. J. ---------------—-------------------------------------------- - -------------------------------- —... * ______________ z_________ ‘The first basis of reconciliation is truth’ THERE CAN be no genuine recon ciliation unless truth, justice and trust are present between the par ties seeking to be reconciled. This is the conclusion of Mindanao Bishop Federico Escaler, SJ., arrived at from an analysis of the direction taken by the movement towards reconciliation in the country. Head of the Catholic faithful in the Prelature of Ipil in Kidapawan, Cotabato, Bishop Escaler was interviewed by Veritas at the Villa San Miguel, residence of Manila Archbishop Jaime L. Cardinal Sin, and venue of the 8th General Assem bly and Annual Meeting of the Bishops’ Businessmen’s Conference during which, later in the afternoon, he was elected to the board of directors. Recalling a discussion during a special meeting last October of the Catholic Bi shops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), the body to which all bishops in the country belong, Msgr. Escaler illus trated the futility of efforts towards re conciliation without the government’s sin cere participation. “The first basis of reconciliation is truth. Both sides must be willing to tell the truth and to base their explanation of issues and realities on truth as it is and not how they would like truth to be. The second is a question of justice. Both parties must be ready to recognize that there can be no peace unless there is justice. The third element is charity and faith. If there is no trust on both sides, then there can be no begin ning of any talk.” However, the bishop said, his thumbnail etch ing patterns on the table top, belying the even tone of his voice, in the Philippine context, what has been blocking reconciliation efforts is the re fusal of one of the parties to tell the truth and to admit that it has caused injustice. “Up to now, there has been no give on the part of the administration to admit any mistakes. Rather, they seem to look for all kinds of excu ses, blaming other people for the country’s woes. There can be no reconciliation unless the govern ment and those who seek reconciliation admit mistakes where there had been mistakes and are open to give justice where justice is due.” All the justice that the people are asking for is within the context of their Constitutional rights, the bishop added. They just want these rights to be respected by the government and the military. “Allow them to live and to think freely and to act freely and to govern themselves the way they would like to be governed - not treated as children, or like parrots locked up in a cage, fed but hunted all the time. The people want really to experience true freedom and not the mockery of what they call freedom.” And how can there be trust, he continued, when the president always believes “that those who talk about reconciliation are thinking only in terms of replacing him or his friends in the government - that it is a self-serving interest that they have.” WHILE there may be a basis for this sus picionin some instances, not all who criticize or who seek reconciliation are after his posi tion and power, the Mindanao bishop stressed. “On the other hand, on the part of the gov ernment, there has been no give,” he repeated, shaking his head slowly, sadly. “There has been one step backward, two steps forward - but in the wrong direction.” Drawing on his experience as a priest who has mediated between individuals, families and groups in conflict with each other, Msgr. Escaler declared earnestly, “As a bishop, I feel that the permanent basis of reconciliation is really faith and spiritual values. If both parties do not em brace the same spiritual values or view reality from the same vantage point and the same direc tion, then there can be no reconciliation. It would just be a sham.” His idea for the mechanism for reconcilia tion, which is shared by the 20 other Mindanao bishops, Msgr. Escaler revealed, differs from Cardinal Sin’s suggestion of an advisory coun cil. The southern bishops, he said, prefer dia logues among the sectors themselves on an in formal, not structuraH^pd, basis. This would be similar to the informal dialogues the pres ident has had with businessmen. “Although most of the time it was a monologue rather than a dialogue,” he commented wryly, “talks such as these can bring to the attention of the po wers that be the reality that the people them selves perceive.” But the Jesuit monsignor does admit that, in the light of past experiences, he cannot be too optimistic that the government will be receptive to this suggestion, especially as far as meeting with bishops is concerned. “I feel we bishops have been shut off by the President from reconciliation talks,” he begins, etching patterns on the table top again. “Per haps it is because he feels that we are med dlers in politics, which the bishops are not We are just interested in issues, political or non-political, that have a basis in morality and in the welfare of our people. Because religion, as we view it, is not just teaching the people to pray, but also to live. And creating the proper atmos phere through which they can really live as hu man beings in prayer. But it seems because ■ aVenueS of the b‘sboPs have tiep" I hadn’t tried. E’ By JESSELYNN GARCIA DE LA CRUZ crisis, Msgr. Escaler revealed, there had been attempts to sit down with the president. Again, he sail, it had turned out to be a monologue, with the president berating the bishops for saying things they did not know about and threatening libel suits for statements made in a pastoral let ter. The bishop was referring to the meeting between President Marcos and a delegation from the CBCP in early August during which the latter made known their intention to release a pastoral letter calling for the abolition of the Presidential Commitment Order (PCO). “What happened? He berated the bishops who saw him, threatened them with libel. And he told them: ‘Where are your documented cases of PCO?’ And if you judge by what he says that no PCO is sent out without his signature, then he should know the exact number. Why did he have to tell the bishops ‘Give me your lists and what the abuses are,’ when he has those on file and our protests supposedly on file?” he asked rheto rically. THAT was the occasion, Bishop Escaler con tinued, when some of the bishops had decided at the last minute not to read the pastoral letter, although the CBCP had earlier approved its simul taneous reading throughout the country, because an assurance had been given that a decree would be created to abolish the PCO. “Only to find out that step one was a step backward. The next thing we knew, we had the PDA (Preventive Detention Action), plus the formalization of PDs 1833 and 1834 and all those damnable decrees that further limit the rights of the people.” His brows knit together and he cups his chin in his hand. “That’s what 1 mean. If you’re going to have reconciliation, you’re not supposed to be watching where you can trip the other guy. There has to be a lot of openness and sincerity.” He also recalls a recent conference that the bishops of Mindanao had had with some high ranking generals and national defense authorities when the tribal groups in Mindanao were being literally persecuted, harassed and manipulated by the PANAMIN. One of the defense officials, Msgr. Escaler reports, had said “You bishops have no guns, we have all the guns, so don’t push us.” “Well, with an attitude like that, there can be no room for dialogue. So we just packed up and walked out,” he narrated with the exasperation he must have felt then showing slightly. The Mindanao bishops had consistently made it known to the government and the military that they would be receptive to sincere invitations to a dialogue, he said, but none that were not cloaked in deception and trickery had been re ceived so far. If the government would only open its eyes, it would realize that the bishops only want to help restore the credibility of government officials and of military and government processes and not see the churchmen’s overtures as subversive activity, he mused. “Unless the government changes, I am afraid of the opposite taking place, namely that the people will have no alternative but to resort to violence. This is what the bishops are trying to stop. And in the process of our trying to calm down the people, the bishops, our priests and our lay leaders are accused of being subversives. “I,had told the President and the generals that I’ve spoken to, ‘We are your best friends. We are trying to ward off violence from you and yet you accuse us of being perpetrators of vio lence. So we will not stop, even if you threaten us, because we believe we are trying to stop vio lence. It is you who are bringing violence on the people.’ ” The bishop continued to explain that his ex talks perience in Mindanao has shown him that “where the military is not present, the people are very peaceful. But when you have a massive concen tration of troops, the NPAs are attracted. Then people are dislocated, and our Christian commu nities are harassed and threatened. Now what can be the reaction of a bishop in the church, except to stand up against the military and against the government and tell the facts as they are, hoping that there will be a change.” THE prevailing military supremacy in the country, especially in Mindanao, is one issue the bishop feels very strongly about. It was one of the six issues discussed during the BBC General Assembly, the one specifically tackled by Msgr. Escaler as a workshop topic. He summarizes this during the interview. The situation of militarization in our area is, I must confess, totally unknown to those in the big cities, because our condition is different. There you have complete supremacy of the military over civilians - civil officials kowtow to the mili tary because the military have arms and they are in control. And this breeds corruption, besides the kidnapping, the terrorizing, the grabbing of lands taking place. “And the small people are reacting - they are completely disgusted with the military. In one of our assemblies, I asked our leaders, ‘Well, what do you want? If the NPAs are here and you don’t have the military, what’s going to happen to us? The NPA will take over.’ And they tell me: ‘No, monsignor, what we are saying is, let them do their job then disappear, get out. Beccause the fact that they overstay in one place leads to graft and corruption and abuses and further attracts the NPA to come over. So we just want them to do the job that we’re paying them to do, then get out.” Who wields the gun has the last say in affairs of the local government, the Ipil bishop report ed, so much so that in Mindanao, the people, although affected by the economic crisis and other political issues, are more concerned with the continued and unabated militarization in their towns. “The main concern of our people is how to live and continue living,” he responded when questioned on how the present crises affect the Mindanao townsfolk. “It’s as basic as that - sur vival. That’s why when they learned about the Aquino assassination, they didn’t get as excited as the people in the cities, because they’re toor worried about their own lives. Their main pre occupation is how to continue living. So, what they’d like to see is an end to all this militariza tion.” with the local civil and military officials and com munications sent to them. For herein lies another problem, Msgr. Escaler lamented, all dialogues have to be with the President because of the centralization of powers. “You cannot dialogue with national defense people because they say they cannot do any thing about it - ‘You have to go to the Pres ident.’ We go to the MECS regarding our school problems, they tell us ‘We can’t do anything yet, it depends upon the President.’ Ques tions of land ejectment of our tribal groups in Mindanao, the land officials say ‘We can’t do anything about this, you have to go to the Pres ident.’ Once again, he cuts deep lines into the lami nated table top, then continues in what sounds like a wearied voice, “It seems to be impossible for one man to try to solve all the problems un less he commits himself in actuality to decentral ization and allows his regional offices the power to decide. On paper he says all the time that they have been given the power to decide, but they don’t And the buck always goes to Malacanang. And, Malacanang is always closed right now to small people. There’s no way they can get to Ma lacanang to get their voices heard. We bishops have tried to echo their wishes, sent letters, peti tions to Malacanang. Not a single word of acknowledgment, so we know they haven’t reached him.” He continues, his tone unchanged, “That’s what I mean when one man assumes too much power and reserves to himself even the smallest decisions. Then you have a situation wherein there is no one to blame but himself. But he re fuses to admit that the blame lies with him - he finds all kinds of people to blame.” As it stands now, Bishop Escaler concluded, if the present trend continues and national re conciliation gets farther and farther beyond reach, then the only thing to hope for is a “mo ral miracle.” “1 do hope that the prayers expressed by Car dinal Sin in one of his sermons would be^ answered. That there’d be a moral miracle, that the President would really take stock and look at himself and admit where he made a mistake. I think this would be the first step towards recon ciliation - the sincerity to step down when he sees that he has been the cause of so much suf fering and so much disaster in the country. “If he’s honest and open, and if he thinks that he is accountable for that, before the people and before God, he should be honest enough to step down. If he finds.he’s not, then let him start set ting his own house in order, revamping his ca binet and really stopping the massive graft and corruption that seems to corrode every sector, especially the military.”______ — CURRENT AFFAIRS PAGE 7 FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 VI-KLTAS The Bishops-Businessmen Conference: Strongly-worded call for renewal CONSIDERING the national shame that the Armed Forces of the Philippines brought upon the country when Ninoy Aauino was killed while in its custody, what should the President do? Fire all those responsible, including General Fabian C. Ver, AFP chief of staff, and Brig. Gen. Luther Custodio, chief of the Aviation Security Command (AVSECOM). To make the newspaper boycott more effec tive and lasting, what should the businessmen do? They not only should stop reading the con trolled press, they should also withhold all their advertising from it. One would suppose that the above recom mendations were advanced by youthful, fire breathing campus militants. Quite the contrary. They were adopted-with minor semantical changes-by a group which, for sobriety and .levelheadedness, has few equals in the Philip pines. The group was the Bishops-Businessmen’s Conference. And the above resolutions were only two of those adopted during the annual meeting 'and general assembly held January 24 at Villa San Miguel, the residence of Jaime L. Cardinal Sin. At the meeting, the 36 bishops and the 61 businessmen present attributed the national ills at present besetting the Philippines to the "ero sion of democratic traditions and institutions during martial law.’* They also called on all sec tor* of society to join hands in rebuilding the institutions and strengthening the traditions that have been undermined by 11 yean of re pression. In its “Call for Renewal,** the BBC pointed to three mqor problems as the root causes of the social divisions afflicting the country. These were the weakening of the principle of checks and balances necessary in a democratic state, the continued suspension or restriction of basic human rights affecting freedoms of the press, of expression and of peaceful assembly, ana the ex panded role of the armed forces in society which has resulted in growing militarization. These three problems came to the fore after a plenary discussion of six issues during a series of pre-conference workshops. And the challenge that confronted the participants at the 8th Gene ral Assembly was how to solve these issues to arrive at a “framework for national reconcilia tion,” which was the theme of the annual meetTHE 97 member-participants were joined by about 125 other individuals from the religious, professional, government, military and media secton. Together, they hoped to provide initia tives so that, as BBC co-chairman Vicente Jayme said in his keynote address, “all sectors that make up the nation can re-examine themselves and determine the things that have kept them apart, so that they can work together to make our na tion whole again.** “The BBC believes that it could meaningfully contribute to the process of national reconcilia tion,” Jayme continued, “by identifying the basic issues that, over the years, have significant ly caused divisiveness between the government and the people. For the process to succeed, these basic issues should therefore be given sufficient attention and action." The six issues that the BBC general assembly identified were the urgency of free elections in the li^ht of the coming Batasang Pambansa elec tions in May, the problem of press freedom, the dilemma of an independent and honest judiciary, the need for the restoration and guarantee of basic Constitutional rights, the controversy over presidential succession, and the nagging doubts over the appropriate role of the military in government and other aspects of national life. Focusing attention on these six issues which had been identified as the significant facets of the question of national reconciliation was easy. What the delegates had to strain for, argue about and even pray over concerned resolutions to be adopted arid collective action to be taken by the BBC. In the afternoon especially, when resolutions that were not drafted by any of the six prc-confcrencc workshops but by individual participants were presented to the body for adop tion, the delegates found themselves in a dilem ma: how to hammer out one consensus state ment for the entire conference while still res pecting the individual beliefs and sentiments of BBC members. The resolution submitted to the body by re tired Col. Simplicio Rivera, one of three military men who attended the Conference, was one such controversial resolution offered at the end of the discussion on the issue of militarization. In its original form, the strongly-worded statement had demanded the removal from office of Armed Forces Chief of Staff Fabian Ver and Brig. Gen. Luther Custodio, for failing in their responsibili ty of providing security for Senator Benigno S. Aquino Jr., who was assassinated while in their custody. Another resolution that elicited a flurry of reactions from the participants, particularly the businessmen, was made during the discussion on free press and the media. Jose Romero, an ad vertising man who admitted he had stopped writing when martial law was proclaimed, de clared that if the people really wanted to effec tively cut out support for the Marcos media - the newspapers that practice and espouse not freedom of fhe press but “freedom of praise,**' then a boycott of these newspapers is not enough. Publications are also supported by advertising and paid notices, he reminded the businessmen present, and suggested the adoption of a resolu tion “to prevent BBC members from advertising in Marcos papers and to advertise instead in the alternative press.” At this suggestion, an uneasy silence fell on the assembly as participants watched each other’s reactions. Then a ripple of low murmurs ran through the body until Dr. Salvador P. Lo pez, chairman of the workshop on Freedom of the Press and Media, offered an amendment to the resolution to make it read “The conference should prevail upon businessmen to avoid adver tising in the Marcos media and to continue the newspaper boycott.” The resolution was imme diately carried. Other resolutions presented by the pre-con ference workshops and subsequently adopted by the general assembly sought the repeal of Amend ment 6 which gives legislative powers to the Pre sident; the appointment of four more individuals to fill the existing vacancies in the Commission on Elections to ensure free and honest elections in May; the revocation of Presidential Decrees 1834, 1835, 1877, 1877-A and 1836; and the repeal of the Preventive Detention Action (PDA). To uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary, the BBC recommended increases in the budget of the judiciary and in the salaries of judges and judicial personnel and urged the creation of a commission to select the members of the judiciary and prevent presidential appoint ments. - Jesselynn G. de la Cruz SIDEBAR 7 Charting the next step Save money while THE 8th General As sembly of the Bishops* Businessmen’s Conference for Human Development (BBC) ended on a contrast ing note of fulfillment and uncertainty. Fulfillment for the delegates knowing that they had achieved their objective for the day, yet uncertainty about what (he next step should be. They had discussed the issues, drafted resolutions and recommendations, and were prepared to submit these to the authorities concerned for proper ac tion. But after this, what? “That’s something else,” chorused four of the bishops who attended the assembly. Veritas found them together during the lunch hour reflecting on the process that was taking place - they had come to the meeting to flesh out a workable framework for reconciliation. But other bishops were more optimistic. Bishop Cirilo AJmario, who was elected to the board of di rectors, for one. was con fident that the BBC would be able to exert some in fluence on the leadership .jnd on the people. “The BBC is respected,” he said confidently, “In the last 13 years of its -existence, the BBC has exerted a big influence on national issues affecting the national situation.” Cesar B uenave ntura, who was chairman of this year’s conference, on the other hand, felt that even if the BBC, specifically after the 8th annual meet ing. is not able to imme diately get the reforms that they seek, it is enough that the delegates “had created awareness that we do have these problems. What we really want is to get peo ple to think, to change at titudes and rethink ways of life." If the bishops can “bring to the city their own perceptions and expe riences outside Manila” and the businessmen leant from the churchmen, then it shall have been enough for the general assembly. This sentiment is echoed by Vicente Jayme, BBC co-chairman, who clarified that “over the years, the BBC has not been interest ed in saying 'This is our position.’ We are here to push others to work.” The body, he said, has always sought to provide a forum where sensitive to pics could be freely dis cussed and, in the process, concerned secton of socie ty be awakened into ac tion. For the moment, the delegates felt it was enough during the assembly not only to draft a “framework for reconciliation” but to set an example of how dia logues that could lead to a genuine r e c o n c i 1 i a tion should be conducted - a process they suggest should also be adopted on the na tional level. In the words of Jayme “through a process qf open, continuous and non threatening exchanges of views and ideas through the venues of workshops or meetings, there may be effected a greater degree of understanding and co operation among the va rious groups, so necessary before an inner change of heart in people can take place." - JGC and CLM you study with NCR. FREE! UNIX Course worth P1,400.00 forthose who complete these four courses: EDP Concepts, COBOL 74 Programming, Structured COBOL and Basic Systems Analysis Skills. Plus! P100.00 discount for those who enroH early in the Complete Course. Complete Computer Programming IVUn and Systems Analysis Course.* MORNING SESSION: Monday to Friday 8:00 A.M. - 12:00 Noon 1. EDP Concepts February 20 - March 2,1984 March 5 -16,1984 2. COBOL 74 Programming March 5 - 30,1984 3. Structured COBOL March 5 - 10, 1984 4. Basic Systems Analysis Skills March 19 - April 13, 1984 AFTERNOON SESSION 200-600 1. EDP Concepts February 20 - March 12 (M-W-F) March 5 - 26, 1984 (M-W-F) 2. COBOL 74 Programming March 6 - April 26.1984 (T-Th-S) 3. Structured COBOL April 3 - 14, 1984 (T-Th-S) 4. Basic Systems Analysis Skills April 24 - June 7,1984 (T-Th-S) EVENING SESSION <m-w-f) 6:00 -900 pm 1. EDP Concepts February 20 - March 23,1984 2. COBOL 74 Programming February 20 - April 27,1984 Course Schedule P.M. 3. Structured COBOL February 27 - March 16, 1984 4. Basic Systems Analysis Skills March 19 - May 25,1984 NEW SEMINARS & COURSES (Mon. to Fri.) 8:00 A.M. - 12:00 Noon ‘ 1. UNIX Operating System February 13 - 24,1984 Mavch 19 - 30,1984 UNIX, the latest and most advanced operating system, was specially designed by Bell Laboratories. The course presents the use of UNIX commands and the Bourne Shell for daily operations and software development. 2. Computer Concepts for the Executive March 5 - 9, 1984 3. C Language February 27 - March 9,1984 •Accredited In U.S, colleges and universities. If you are interested, call us at Tel. 88-19-81 locals 282 and 241 and ask about our admission requirements. Or write to: Educational Services, NOR Corporation (Philippines), P.O. Box 368, Makati Commercial Center. □BQ Education Systems NATION VEKITAS FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 PAGE 8 / Priests who agitate for reforms in Samar are often tagged as subversives ONE rainy evening, Fr. Bienvenido Chiquillo of Catbalogan, Sa mar, was on his way home. In front of the rectory, he noticed a parked jeepney and heard a baby’s cry. He found a family of three waiting for daybreak before proceeding down to the coast where a feny could take them to Bicol, the father’s home province. The priest invited the family to spend the night in the rectory. In the morning, after an early breakfast, the family was off on their journey. Two days afterwards, information from friends revealed that the military had re ceived a report on a priest “harboring a fam ily of subversives” on that same rainy night and that the rectory was being closely watched. What Fr. Chiquillo committed was the most common mistake of religious in the strife tom South: he neglect ed to ask the family for any form of identifica- .-.................. .......... , — tion. For that oversight Just stTUCtureshe joins a long list of what the military calls other hand, are “members “religious radicals.” of the Christians for NaAccording to a paper tional Liberation (CNL)... analyzing contemporary rehgous radicalism moa*tic Front (NDF) and in the Philippines pre- the Communist Party of pared by Galileo Kinta- .the Philippines (CPP) - nar of the National De- or^nizations «?“«■ fense College of the " Re” Philippines, there are Sinrilariy, the paper “legitimate and subver- considers members and re live religious radicals” l«»us radical adherents of Th! raajcais. the The former include u ng Pilipinas (NPDSP) priests who are appa- subversives because this rently radicals in making' organization has adopted a cndcta oflhegovem- EET-SX'S £ ment but are not con- state and the formation nected with any sub- of an army for the purversive organization. P®*- .. , .. , These pn.su may be dJSXSuZfSJ, “ openmg their mouths tain church activities, foreonly on their account most among which is the or in accordance with social action program, some pastoral letter --JfS’ .Urge1’ __i- n- archbishop of the diocese from the Catholic Bi- of Palo, Leyte defines soshops Conference of the cial action as the “apostoPhilippines (CBCP).” The Kintanar paper, in all probability, would be referring to Pope Paul Vi’s Populorum Progressio which speaks about inter national injustice, land re form, the social nature of poverty and the right of people to opt for armed resistance in extremely unThe agony of Fr. Pete Lucero ‘I think I will be transferred AT A distance, he was a picture of sereni ty. Fr. Pete Lucero, po litical detainee, seemed quite at peace, reading in his hut beside the military chapel at Camp Lukban, Catbalogan, Samar. Bot face to face, he looked very scared. His hands shook and his voice quivered. “I think I will be transferred again down there,” he said, point ing to a building below which was partly hid den by a thick cluster of trees. “Down there” was the U-2 detention center where, according to a letter which he wrote and managed to pass on to a nun during one >f his court trials, down th he was subjected on three occasions to phy sical and mental tor ture. Fr. Pedrito Lucero is a Calbayog priest who is on trial for alleged subversive activities connected with the Social Action Center raid of Sept. 1, 1982. He was arrested on May 12, 1983 at the St. Vincent de Paul Formation House in Marikina. He was detained in Camp Aguinaldo and after a week was trans ferred to the Eastern Com mand in Catbalogan. According to the fact sheet prepared by the Cal bayog diocese about his arrest, the transfer was made in a violation of an agreement that no such action would be taken by the military without the prior knowledge of the priest’s superior, Msgr. Godofrcdo Pedemal. The military promised that Fr. By CHIT L. MACAPAGAL BRIEFING POST - _________ HOT CARS late of the Church con cerning the problems of society like poverty, in justice and the physical or material needs of the people. It also means we work for and with the poor to fight injustice and op pression.” Bishop Julio X. Labayen, in an article on the development . of social action in the Philippines, writes: “We changed grad ually and experience was our best teacher. We found that credit unions mainly benefited the middle class. The Green Revolution, while it did provide more rice, widened the political and economic gap between the rich and the poor in ru ral areas. We realized that justice for farmers or sugar workers could not be found in the courts. Nor could decent housing or relocation site facilities be obtained for urban squat ters through argumentation or appeals. There are simi lar examples with tribal people, fishermen and workers. We discovered that these problems could only be solved through strong, democratic people’s organization.” The priestly ministry involves a day to day di lemma in areas which have been militarized due to the active presence of “com munist elements.” A priest from Leyte describes the situation thus: “When we huddle together with the people, we are suspected of plotting something. When we conduct seminars or teach-ins, we are suspected of spreading communist doctrines.” Priests know ;that the problems of their people cannot be solved by inter mittent dole-outs from the government. “The social problem goes deeper,” says one of them. And so they proceeded to make the people aware of their rights, organizing them into strong communities which could be mobilized “at a moment’s notice,” he adds. Monsignor Urgel com ments: “I will not be sur prised if a priest becomes a radicaL In these areas, we experience conditions of extreme poverty. If a priest is true to his priesthood, he does not have any choice but to work with the poor. In so doing, he is branded as subversive.” The Kintanar paper looks at these church com munities as “the most dan gerous form of threat from religious radicals. Setting up Basic Christian Commu nities (BCC) is considered “practically building an in frastructure of political po wer in the entire country.” this government stand on the BCCs. Archbishop An tonio Mabutas of Davao, in a recent UNICEF press sre again’ Lucero would be return ed to Camp Aguinaldo. To this day, he remains in the Samar military camp. On May 25, Fr. Pete Lucero-said, a signed con fession was “forcibly squeezed” from him. He was blindfolded, hand cuffed, while guards took turns in pouring water over him to keep him wet all the time. He did not get any sleep. He was not given any food or water. From 10 p.m. to 8 p.m. the next day, he was de graded "to the point where his humanity became a mockery in itself.” In his personal letter, Fr. Lucero said he was tor tured again on August 2 and a third time on August 5. Again he was drenched with water and not given any food or drink. The third time'he was tortured, his hands were tied at the back, he was kept naked while water was again poured continuously on him. “They started punch ing me all over the body . . . the excruciating pain almost made me faint. . . Next, they applied ice all over my body. . . .” His genitals did not escape their sadistic attention. “They” also spat out phlegm on his face, Fr. Lucero said. "They” forced him to eat left-overs. He added that those who tor tured him “were all under the influence of Liquor.” The letter of Fr. Lucero was distributed to the media by some of his friends. A tabloid printed the story, after which the security on Fr. Lucero eased up a bit. He was transferred from the deten tion center to the custody of a military chaplain. He has not been tortured since. “But 1 do not know how long I can hold on,” he says. He knows that he could be moved back to Fr. Pete Lucero the detention center any day. A motion for trans fer has already been filed by the military. And expe rience tells him that when such motion is filed, it only takes a few days be fore it is carried out. “I have no illusions of being free,” says Fr. Luce ro. But he is “strong and will try to remain so” - for as long as he can. CLM Newspaper reports over the weekend alleged that some law enforcers have been selling stolen cars they have recovered. The reports said that the PC anti-camapping task force had received complaints from people who disco vered only later that the used cars they bought were stolen and that some of these have already been reco vered by law enforcement agencies. MAJOR DISRUPTION In a recent cablegram to the country’s 500 creditors, Prime Minister Cesar Virata said that unless foreign banks immediately come to the rescue by resuming trade financing, the country will be facing another crisis in the next few weeks. After the Philippines stopped payments of trade-related debts amounting to $4.4 billion, foreign banks retaliated by refusing to under take trade transactions for the Philippines. MATCH FIRM LIGHTS UP It was a nightmare of a fire and firemen called in from different stations of the metropolis had a hard time controlling it And no wonder, what faced the firemen was a blazing match firm in Punta, Sta. Ana. After the fire had died down, probers estimated that property damage amounted to P5 million while 14 persons were reported injured, one them seriously. The blaze reportedly started at 8:45 a.m., Sunday and razed the two-storey building housing the lighter division of the Philippine Match Co. SEARCH FOR BETS The search is on for the candidates to the coining Batasan elections in May. President Marcos announced the other day that the ruling Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) will start select ing its candidates after the Batasan adjourns the first week of February. PORK PRICES PEGGED The Price Stabilization Council Monday fixed new price ceilings on hogs at farmgate and wholesale levels to protect consumers from unauthorized increases in the prices of selected pork cuts. So starting this week, the new pork price ceilings- 1, are: P16.45 per kilo (ex-farm) of live weight hogs and P22.40 per kilo of wholesale hog carcass. The new ceilings are expected to bring down the prices of se lected pork cuts to P24.25 per kilo. SANS USUAL ATMOSPHERE The plebiscite came and went last Friday minus the usual circus atmosphere which is part and parcel of Philippine elections. In fact, most of the people chose to stay home and ignore the exercise which many deem, as nothing but a “farce.” For those who went to the polls for the seventh plebiscite in 11 years, the mood was conspicuously de void of color. It was, as some of them commented later, “just like any other day of the week.” FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 VIETAS PAGE 9 WORSE TO COME ‘Calm’ just eye of economic typhoon Q./ DCDMADnA M \/ll ■ AC . - * _____________________________ By BERNARDO M. VILLEGAS IT IS counterpro ductive, if not perilous, to lull Filipinos into complacency by talk ing about bright eco nomic prospects f o r 1984, as some govern ment people are wont to do. True, we have had a relative calm in the financial sector these past few weeks, compared to the chao tic days that followed the shocking announce ment last Oct. 17 of a 90-day freeze on prin cipal payments on our foreign debt. But let us not be deceived by this apparent calm. It is probably just the eye of the economic ty phoon passing through the country. As in the case of 1970’s Typhoon Yoling (which destroyed most of Metro Manila after a lunchtime lull), the” worst of the eco nomic typhoon now buffeting us is still to come-most probably during this quarter. (What a heart-gnawing way to begin the Year of the Rat! ) Some of my col leagues at CRC and I have been raising ecorier.iic ’ 'Mwm signals even as. earJy as two years ago. We have seen the debt service ratio rise to almost 30 per cent of our total export receipts (from P goods and services), des pite official statements that it was still below 20 per cent. We have warned our leaders about the potential di sasters in prematurely embarking on the 1 1 major industrial pro jects (MIPs), We have lamented the multibil lion-peso waste caused by /crony capitalism We nave criticized anti market moves in the sugar, coconut, palav. and corn industries. FINANCIAL ICU Early in 1982. we raised storm signal num ber 2 after the econo my suffered a whop ping $1.1-billion ba lance of payments de- ___ ficit. We even used a panic because of their medical metaphor in earlier traumatic expepublicly saying that we riences in Latin Americould think of the ca. where they accumuat 6 to 8 per cent per annum, as our neigh boring “tiger econo mies” are doing now). We were heartened to see people heeding the storm signals. By the second quarter of 1982, in fact, our eco nomic ills were being treated with appropriate remedies. Market for ces were being allowed freer rein. Even those managing monopolistic sectors like coconut and sugar were responding to constructive criti cisms by allowing pro ducers to benefit from higher prices. Our eco nomic managers were determined to intro duce austerity mea sures: limit foreign bor rowings, drastically cut government budget de ficits. and devalue the Philippine peso. These stringent po licies reinforced the re medial measures alrea dy applied as early as 1981. namely: floating of the interest rate, li beralization of trade through tariff reforms, a faster depreciation of the peso to gradually combat the ill effects of an overvalued cur rency. and increasing focus on agricultural productivity on all fronts. What then made the "patient” succumb to u crisis even worse than that of 1982? Why al most suddenly did we have a BOP deficit in 1983 more than dou ble the already shock ing 1982 level? Just in mid-July 1983. hard data on nontraditional exports and services showed that wc could have ended 1983 with a BOP deficit of only S600 million! The answer is ob vious. The political events triggered by the assassination of former Senator Benigno Aqui no, Jr. extinguished the already flickering con fidence of creditors in our ailing economy. True, their nervousness had built up to near grown economic woes. grown economic woes. Korea, Singapore, Tai- ' wan, Hong Kong, and Thailand also went on a borrowing spree after the two oil shocks. Even Malaysia, an oilproducing country, suf fered a serious BOP deficit in 1982. All these countries were exposed to the same turbulent financial en vironment that we faced. How come they are still growing at 5 to 8 per cent per an num, while our eco nomic growth has come to a screeching halt? As wc have said just a while ago. the answer is obvious. We agree wholly with this diagnosis that appeared in CB Gover nor Jaime Laya’s aide memoire dated Oct. 31. 1983: The major nega tive factor has been the unexpected ca pital account dete rioration mainly in the third quarter. Expected loan and investment receipts V investment receipts ^e.n 00 ?Ur mea8er f°’ failed to materialize reiEPn,erXCf and foreign lenders called for the repay ment of outstanding loans’ to corporate borrowers, ... private and government banks and to the Central Bank alike. Even hotel reserva tions and tourist ar rivals fell abruptly. It seems clear that at the botto'm of much of this deve lopment were doubts in the mind of fo reign observers, in cluding financial in stitutions and inves tors. concerning the country’s internal stability. WHAT TO EXPECT There is clearly a crisis in confidence. But let us not cry over spilled milk anymore. Mistakes have been com mitted. but they can _______ ___ be righted. The task readily because of the now is to assess the seriousness of the crisis and to apply the neces—zy remedies. Not even the most avid government pro pagandist expects our .. ........... _______ m 7,’." .......... 7“' •■■■*■’■ '■■'-z problems to be over once apathetic citizens Philippine economy as lated debts of $300 after the 90-day freeze • ■ P • • having undergone a se- billion in various stages - rious surgical operation of restructuring. Yet, , that year, requiring it until that black day in ‘ih the financial August 1983-w h i c h “intensive care unit” vr for some time. Post-sur- on our national h i st ogieal therapy, was sup- ry financial analysts all posed *to be adminis- over the world clearly tered from 1.983 till distinguished between 1987. Only xin 1987 Latin America and Asiawere we ejecting the Pacific. •plltlCIlL (O fully rc- ♦L.;^ cover aifT1, p c. r l;a p s ■ compete again ’.ii*.Mie East Asian’ economic growth race (we said . -------------- ---------- ------------- - th.i. r»y ill-II. we could international financial poned) would already be g ---s. v: ome more crisis for our home- exert a tremendous bur------ -------------1---------------------------------------------------For business plan ning purposes, we shall assume no significant relief in the “letter-ofcredit crisis” until about Tune T985. Dras tic cuts in our imports can reach as much as 30-40 per cent (Mexi co reduced its imports by 70 per cent in the first 10 months of 1983! ). These will in turn lead to massive business failures in the Metro Manila area. Vo cal industrialists esti mate that 300,000 wor kers may be laid off in Metro Manila by 1984. Although we can ex pect our political situa tion to stabilize later, the worst in the eco nomic crisis is still to conic in the next few months. The govern ment now grants poli tical concessions more great pressure from the demonstrating “con fetti revolutionaries.” There is every rea son to expect that the May 1984 elections will be relatively clean, as , ...- 7 .’— anti me ?u-uay irccze. have turned increasingly billion in various stages Despite concrete com- vigilant Of rPQtnirtiirino Ypt _ :*___ _ _r al_ mr — .. .. . "He may be able to get up in five yean - or never.” backlash of the econo mic typhoon will hit Metro Manila in the first quarter of 1984. We have to be prepared for about a third of large m a n u fac t uring ___ .... z___,, firms Tri Mefro Manila ~'stfCh opportunities'for closing shop. Most of ----------------- ” these will be in auto motive assembly, che micals, pulp and paper, metal fabrication, cos metics and toilet prepa rations, and other im port-dependent firms that cater mostly to the domestic market. Worse, most of them arc among the top 1.000 corporations in the country. advantage if they are to be a dependable source of dollar earnings. It is possible that before we can get out of this crisis (which may last three to five years). TACTICAL MEASURES may be laid off in Met ro Manila in 1984 translate into 1.8 mil lion people without any source of livelihood. So, there is no ques tion that 1984 provides the best opportunity to “decapitate” t h e monster that is Metro Manila. Surely, the saving grace in 1984 will be agriculture. which is expected to grow by at least 1 per cent while the whole economy posts a decline. Especially for tunate will be palay and corn, as these will enjoy hefty volume and price in creases that can signifi cantly bolster rural in comes. Even coconut farmers-despite another pro duction volume drop of around 10 per cent (alter a decline of 35 per cent in 1983)- are expected to maintain the high incomes they started to enjoy in the second semester of 1983, thanks to copra farmgate prices of about P4 to P5 per kilo. Besides these old-time agricultural products, more investments will pour into nontraditional crops su^h as fruit trees, rubber, ofl palm, cacao, coffee, and cassava. Fortunately, these agribusiness operations are generally labor-intensive and can thus absorb some of the workers who will be displaced in Metro Manila. Bankers, investors, and employers should take it upon themselves to facili tate this “balik-probinsiya" solution to the massive unemployment problem in Metro Manila, and, to a more limited degree, in Metro Cebu. The manu facturing or service enter prises in Manila which have sister corporations or affiliates engaged in agri business operations in the provinces (e.g., tire com panies in rubber planta tions, construction compa nies in cattle ranching, and shipping companies in mango orchards) can set the pace in relocating some of their displaced emplo yees to their countryside (Turn to Page 11) “compensating” ex ports may dry up fast. Needless to say, emergency funds of the Social Security System and other private pro vident funds can sup port unemployed wor kers and their families for very short periods only. Even the laudable plans of church organi zations to organize “soup kitchens” in pa rishes can be no more than a palliative. What we need are strategic moves by busi nessmen to c o m p 1 ement the economic re forms already in place. Since we expect the re covery to take longer than we had previously expected (our reesti mate shows that the earliest our GDP can start growing again at 6 per cent or more per annum is 1989! ), peo ple in the private sec tor must implement measures in 1984 that will go beyond firefight ing. Their tactical solu tions must fit as much as possible into longerterm strategic direc tions. There are two most important tactical moves that should be taken in 1984 and fol lowed through with strategic measures in the years to come. The first is a “back-to-theprovinces” program. The second is an “ac celerated manpower ex port” campaign. The 300,000 workers who There will be tacti cal moves to minimize the damage on the Philippine economy. For instance, multina tional corporations will be pressured to import either on consignment or as additional equity. Yet. this approach is just a temporary solu tion since the Philip pines has to compete with numerous other countries for the funds of these transnational firms. If the long-term future of the Philippines does not brighten up, more of these foreign firms will pack up and g°- t Jjome of the import dependent firms may seek ad hoc approaches, if only to increase their exports and earn dol lars to pay for their imported raw materials. Still, these “instant ex ports” (such as con centrates of softdrinks bottled by foreign com panies) must show me dium-term comparative mitments of the IMF, Favorable p o 1 i t ical the US government, the developments, h o wWorld Bank, the Asian ever, cannot provide in stant solutions to our ---------.c problems. There will inevitably be a time lag. Since letters of credit literally dried up beginning mid-October last year*, • and since it usually taJjes at least three months from the time a letter of cre dit is opened to the actual arrival of imports in Manila, one can safely surmise that the •iT r ------ . • duiih, inc Asian will forever be a stain Development Bank, and.-st ant soiu n" . .............. '''c * ~ other agencies, the ma^ economic nitude of our foreign debt problem calls for further moratoria after Jan. 17, 1984. Even if we go by the most op timistic estimate which Jn fact, this distinc- ...... volllliait W1IK,„ tion-should be a stark . places our total debt reminder for our go- at $25 billion, paying vernment leaders who the interest bill alone arc quick to blame the (which cannot be postBUSINESS VEIQTAS FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 PAGE 10 There’s a gold mine in crop diversification NONTRADITIONAL crops offer this country one of the greatest op portunities for trade ex pansion, thus offering the investor better re turns than any tradi tional crop. The profit potentials are extreme ly good, with avenues for growth exciting. What are the major ingredients necessary to stimulate interest and hasten investments in these new fields of agri culture? First of all, we need venture capital ready to go into agri business with risks that may be as great as the rewards. An understand ing of the nature of this type of agricultural in vestment is necessary from all sectors parti cipating in its develop ment. Consequently, banks would have to shed their ultra-conservative men tality as well as their pawnshop image. They should be willing to take risks on the same extent as the exposure of the proponent. Financial services still unavailable to agri culture sector must be developed. The intro duction of long-term loans is not sufficient. Bankers must be ready to talk farming and farming finance. The banker must differen tiate a loan to industry (where the factors of production such as ma chinery can be bought outright and therefore loan releases can be planned) from a loan to establish an orchard (where loan releases can and may have to be very flexible due to weather and other fac tors). When a factory drops in one year by 30 or 40 per cent, the business is usually doomed; but when an orchard drops 30 or 40 per cent, it may only mean that the crop ne cessitated pruning to increase production by 70 per cent next year. Unless a banker is pre pared to talk this lan guage of the farmer, he might as well not con sider farming finance. Banks must hire staffs conversant in ag ricultural lending, while their board of directors and senior officers must have faith in agriculture, and must be ready to roll with the punches. Those punches include droughts and diseases, unexpected varietal con straints and responses, pests, typhoons, and elements. Leasing companies must take the chal lenges and opportuni ties available in agricul ture. They must be rea dy to design packages suited to it, such as leasing dryers during the grain drying cycle only, back-end loads on leased equipment, and financing warehousing facilities by leasing. The government’s By J.M. ZABALETA role cannot be dis counted in providing incentives unique to agriculture like allowing one year’s losses to be carried over to that of a profitable year. We must Wear in mind the uncertainties that bear down on farmers when individual crop years or crop cycles are unpro fitable due to unfore seen weather, disease or other biological factors. The Agriculture Minis try must be ready to solve and resolve bu reaucratic or regulatory constraints from other government agencies, with a direct bearing on the viability or the management of a pro ject. Some of these pro blems are the difficul ties in securing radio licenses for farms, farm vehicles, and their head offices which are an absolute tool due to the remote locations of these projects; the dif ficulty in securing li censes from the FPA in importing the latest chemicals, growth regu lators, trace elements, organo-chemicals, such as seaweed extract, plant and animal hor mones and new tech nology products which are unproven in the Philippines but which are necessary in the search for high-tech ag riculture; and the dif ficulty of securing im port approval for imple ments and farm machi nery which require a high degree of sophis tication and where fo reign patents and limit ed local demand require importation-and here I refer to such machi nery as paddle wheels for aquaculture, drip irrigation, plastic mulch laying equipment for vegetables, vibratory plows and soil chisels, crop harvesters, and the like. The Ministry of Ag riculture could, in fact, consider establishing a small department for nontraditional export crops which would serve the needs of individual project proponents. STRONG BASE While banks and go vernment agencies would have to gear themselves to meet the challenges of nontradi tional and high-tech agriculture, the private sector’s commitment to agricultural development will eventually decide the future of nontraditional crops, strengthening the agri cultural base of our economy. We need new entre preneurs to multiply ten fold what big busi ness can do. We need intensive vegetable growing for our own consumption, flowers and ornamentals for ex port, venture capital for spice farms, farms for the production of medicinal plants for the pharmaceutical indus try, thousands of hec tares of mangoes, gua vas and other tropical fruits to supply the needs of a growing do mestic and internatio nal market. Some are very long range invest ments; some are short range, but all offer in vestment opportunities superior to those of the old smoke-stack indus tries. My previous discus sions on the ingredients necessary for agricul tural diversification il lustrate that unless the above conditions were met, we are not ready to talk of crops for venture diversification. Once these conditions are met, however, a whole new world of ag riculture is opened to us. What are some of these crops? The old excuse that sufficient information is not avai lable is false. Our com pany has commission ed a foreign consulting firm to compile a book which will be publish ed in London and re leased next year inter nationally as our con tribution to Philippine agriculture. It shall in clude such semi-traditionals as cashew nuts, avocado, abaca, ginger, and guava, and such rtontraditionals as aloevera passion fruit, chili pepper, navy beans, as paragus and herbs like basil, oregano, and sa vory. I shall not at tempt to give you fi gures on world or na tional requirements for these crops. My pur pose here is only to give a bird’s eyeview of the potentials for both the existing and operating agri-business firms, as well as for the new investor looking to diversify his investment portfolio. PRIME CROPS Prime crops cannot be generalized. They must refer first to a specific market where reasonable margins are available, secondly, to the area where one is located and tends to operate, taking into ac count climate condi tions, soil characteris tics, irrigation and rain age constraints, dis tance to markets and a host of other factors. We have identified a number of crops just waiting to be produced to meet an evergrowing market demand and which, given favorable growing conditions, could bring in hand some profits. These are crops which investors could get into or where well-established com panies could enter into contract growing schemes with big or small. Anyone considering a new crop or a farm ing investment should realize that a thorough knowledge of the crop, the product, and indeed the business itself is a prerequisite. Few crops presently grown in the Philippines are yield ing anything like opti mum figures. The very fact that most of our soils are seriously lack ing in both organic mat ter and macro/microelements and also lack soil balance between elements preclude this high yield. If we are to raise more food crops, we will have to take these factors into ac count and break away from a rigid chemical NPK approach which for so long we have followed. Many of our crop disasters have been caused by planting in infertile and poorly pre pared soils; more have been caused by plant ing the wrong crop in a soil type unsuited to the crop or at the wrong altitude or in the wrong rainfall belt. Far too few have been the right crop in the right place with good yields and a favorable market . . The potential bene fits to the investor and to the economy are su perior to that of most industries as the basic raw material is soil which is plentiful and non-dollar based, and the major-investment is in land which does not have to be import ed. Social cost of farm mechanization ‘heavy’ MECHANIZING sugar plant ation operations can help lower production costs but the social price exacted is something to ponder upon in these times of economic crisis. This is the major finding of a study on mechanization and labor employment in the sugar cane fields of the Negros prov inces which are key producers of Philippine export sugar. Some of the country’s su gar plantations started mechan izing operations in the early 1980s. The move was com pelled by a tailspin in sugar prices at the world market and the need for the domestic su gar industry to keep its prices competitive. Objective of the study were the social changes brought about in the sugar farming communities of the Negros provinces with the advent of mechanization. The study was conducted by Dr. Violeta Lopez-Gonzaga with grant assistance from the By ANTONIO AG. TORRES International Development Re search Center through the Phil ippine Social Science Coun cil and the Visayas Research Consortium. Highlights of the study were: • Mechanization deepens the poverty of majority of ru ral workers dependent on the sugar plantations for their live lihood. • Witnessing what befell workers in farms which had mechanized, those in other plantations are radicalized and seek to protect their jobs by forming militant labor organ izations. • Mechanization forces some of the laborers to migrate to urban areas to try their luck but the majority decide to re main in the plantations which they view as their “total life support system” and bank on the “mercy” of the operators. • A few workers, those with skills needed by the machines introduced, are directly bene fited. They enjoy increased in comes and opportunities which enable them to further improve their economic status. With the coming of the machines, the study reported that “the unskilled have found no real end to their off-milling unemployment as the work previously assigned to them has been efficiently absorbed by the implements.” Mechanization also short ened working days of the un skilled, meaning less income, and this has “led to bitter and aggressive feelings among the unskilled.” “In a number of cases, mechanization has led to their politicalization and the estab lishment of a more united front against changes in man agement policies which affect them,” the study said. . Another significant finding by the study is the displace ment of women and youth la bor by mechanization. For the already impoverished families of the unskilled rural workers, this meant increased financial hardship. Mechanization of the sugar plantations has further de pressed economic conditions of the unskilled workers while those of the skilled have im proved. This widening gap “has led to a sense of restiveness and resentment among the un skilled” and explains why unionization has gained much ground among the hacienda workers, the study added-DEPTHnews PAGE 11 FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 VERLTAS BUSINESS 'Calm* just eye... operations. Some of the more da ring Manila residents who will be laid off in 1984 may be convinced to be come contract growers for a host of products like high-yielding com, shrimps, cattle, rubber, or silk. After all, many of those in Manila today originally came from the farms. They may be reattracted to the countryside if they see real opportunities in pro ductive agribusiness acti vities, such as those now proliferating in specific re gions in the Visayas and Mindanao. THE KEY OBSTACLE The greatest obstacle to a quick turnaround in the countryside is obviously the lack of long-term capi tal for agricultural projects (which usually involve ges tation periods of 5 to 7 years). Again, the coope ration of bankers is going to be critical in this pro gram to mobilize the rural areas as instant generators of employment opportu nities. With interest rates zooming to historic heights, however, there seems to be an insurmountable ob stacle to agricultural fi nancing. Nevertheless, there are ample favorable develop ments that e n terprising people can exploit in 1984. First, there will be the dry ing up of traditional oppor tunities in the financing of import-dependent manu factures and trading. Since import-dependent business is expected to drop by 3040 per cent many financial institutions, especially the large universal banks, will face great difficulty in placing their i n v e s t i ble funds. Even the bonanza they temporarily found in townhouses and condomi nium units in 1982-1983 will lose some glitter, what with construction costs ris ing by 50-75 per cent and effective interest rates reaching levels beyond 30 per cent. Real estate, altliCTE^i still more attrac tive than manufacturing for the domestic market, will become less profitable in 1984. The excess liqui dity of banks can thus find only one green pas ture: agribusiness. For this reason, we expect bankers to force themselves to learn as quickly as possi ble about agricultural fi nancing. This possible trend even expects a big boost via the $300-million structural adjustment loan forthcom ing from the World Bank specifically for the im provement of our agricul tural sector, in addition to financing productivity pro grams in such traditional crops as coconut and sugar, the proceeds from the World Bank loans can be utilized for such nontra ditional crops as rubber (whose price has turned attractive) and cassava (from which the Thais have generated hundreds of mil lions of dollars in foreign exchange in the last 10 years). Also being closely watched are the proceeds from the $900 million that the US government is ex tending to the Philippines under the revised RP-US Military Bases Agreements. Part of this Economic Sup port Fund can be chan neled to agri-business pro jects, especially in Central Luzon whose fertile plains must increasingly phase out sugar and palay and be planted to more profi table crops such as vege tables, high-yielding com, and fruits. Also expected to be harnessed more efficiently are funds available from such agriculturally prog ressive countries as the Ne therlands, Australia, and Canada. Their governments and private companies are interested in programs aim ed at increasing agricultural productivity both in tradi tional and nontraditional Finally, the long-stand ing skepticism about go(From Page 9) vemment-sponsored pro grams such as the KKK should not be allowed to completely discourage the private sector from hasten ing the flow of these pub lic funds (which are usual ly available for lending at highly subsidized rates) toward really productive undertakings. More than ever, we have to multiply in 1984 the numberof “right opportunists” who use KKK funds to help small farmers fatten cows, grow silk, raise mangoes, etc. FILIPINO WORKERS The dollars earned by Filipino workers have be come even more vital to our short-term survival. Whatever the difficulties, the enterprising people of Metro Manila must increas ingly explore more oppor tunities to export Philip pine manpower to both de veloped and developing countries. The declining business in the Middle East should not deter us from targeting to send abroad hundreds of thousands more of both white-collar and bluecollar workers. There should be major efforts to organize the mas sive export of serviceoriented workers whom we have in even greater quantities than manual la borers. Hospital, hotel, educational, country club, health spa, and other re creational facilities put up in the Middle East during the petrodollar boom of the 1970s are now in great need of all types of man power: maintenance engi neers, paramedics, doctors, nurses, teachers, etc. Without being oblivious of the moral dangers to which Filipinas are expos ed when they seek em ployment a b r o a d, we should continue to facili tate their pursuing posi tions as “p r o f e s s i onal homemanagers” (it cannot be overemphasized that running a modem home requires a great deal of technical know-how and culture) in industrialized countries. Since there may be se veral large manufacturing establishments laying off white-collar or knowledge workers, there should be a pool of exportable man power for the emerging “office of the future.” As we have repeatedly pointed out jn previous papers, Filipino professional men and women are in a very good position to benefit from the rapid growth of the information industry all over the wqrld. We can train and retrain our edu cated personnel as compu ter programmers, systems analysts, and software spe cialists. In many cases, it is not even necessary to actually export bodies; much of the software work whose output will be ex ported can be done here at home. We can apply the same strategy to account ants and architects who can either go abroad or work for companies in Manila that export account ing or architectural servi ces. If these and other leads are aggressively pursued, we can increase our foreign exchange earnings a n ywhere from 30 to 50 per cent in 1984 over the 1983 figures. With improved systems for remitting the earnings of our overseas workers, with a more rea listic foreign exchange rate, and with creative programs on the part of the Central Bank to attract remittances through the banking sys tem (instead of the black market), the manpower ex port business will be the undisputed leader in foreign exchange earnings. What about manufac turing enterprises? There is no hope for growth in the majority of these im port-dependent businesses. Volume drops of anywhere from 10 per cent to 20 per cent should be expect ed in both consumer and intermediate products. Investment-related industries such as construction, iron and steel, and automotive vehicles will also be hard hit by the economic storm of 1984. THREE HURDLES There are three hurdles that a typical manufac turing firm will have to overcome, obviously one at a time: 1. First, it must be able to import indispensable raw materials or supplies. Given the likelihood that total imports will drop by 40-50 per cent from 1982 levels, there will be many casualties even in this first skirmish. 2. Even if we assume that a firm is able to ob tain dollars (officially or through the black market) to open a letter of credit, it will have to face the formidable problem of coping with rapidly rising costs by having to jack up its prices to astronomical levels. Such a pricing move may squeeze the markets dry, driving the firm to the shutdown point on its breakeven curve. When re venue is no longer suffi cient to cover the direct costs of operation, there is clearly no point in con tinuing to operate. 3. Finally, even if a firm hurdled the first two obstacles, it may be final ly clobbered by the finan cial charges on its out standing loans as these may have to be serviced at over 30 per cent rate of interest. Like the Philip pine economy, many firms may have serious debt re structuring problems. SURVIVORS There are going to be a few survivors among ma nufacturers: 1. Those who are for tunate enough to fall un der the priority listing in the allocation of dollars. 2. Those who export all or most of what they produce. 3. Those who, at least temporarily, are able to make use of excess manu facturing capacity to pro duce goods for emergency exports to countries, suf fering short-term shortages of manufactured articles. 4. Subsidiaries orbran ches of multinational cor porations that are willing to support their focal affi liates through no-dollar imports brought in as part of their equity investment or through consignment or barter arrangement. The moral of the lesson is clear. Manufacturing for the domestic market will take a back seat in at least the next three years in the national economy. Riding high will be agribusiness and export-oriented manu facturers plus all the ser vice industries that can cater to these sunrise in dustries. HDfl GOLD We started mining gold in 1903, and as the largest gold producer in the Philippines, we have mined some 10,900,000 fine ounces worth over US$5.0 billion at current prices. We expanded into refractory chromite in 1934, and have since produced over 14.0 million tonnes of concentrates as the world’s largest producer of this strategic mineral. In 1959, we ventured outside mining, and today our principal subsidiary is an outstanding success in overseas and domestic industrial construction, alloy steel foundry castings, steel fabrication, and machinery sales. In 1979, we completed our US$106 million Dizon Copper-Gold mine, which is now the fourth largest copper producer in the Philippines. Our future goal: to build an enduring earnings base via programmed growth and selective diversification in mining as well as other basic industries. _________ 1982 Consolidated Highlights TOTAL ASSETS_________ P3,166 million REVENUE_______________P2,014 million EARNINGS 113 million PAYROLL & FRINGES P 511 million TAXES PAID_____________P 80 million EMPLOYEES___________________ 19,542 Benguet Corporation Executive Offices: 2259 Pasong Tamo Ext., Makati, Metro Manila Mines: Antamok. Acupan and Atok, Benguet e Masinloc, Zambales • San Marcelino, Zambales Subsidiaries: Engineering Equipment, Inc. e Benguet Management Corp. Benguet Corp FEATURES VHQIAS FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 PAGE 12 A REVIEW, MORE OR LESS, OF A “SEQUEL TO ORWELL” NLESS TIME is derailed in tran sit, or Earth as we know it ceases to exist — the dire prospect is not altogether improbable, both scientists and science-fictionists would remind us - 1994 will arrive as scheduled. That year will come puffing up with the usual cargo of fresh expectations, good news and bad - plus unfcommon freight that’s bound to cause quite a stir at the station: a revival of worldwide interest in a novel, an upsurge of literary, social and political commentary similar to that which George Orwell’s mo dem classic, 1984, has sparked in the last month or two. Released only last month by a publish ing firm reportedly backed by a clique of clerics and bihon manufacturers, 1994 promises to be as durable as Orwell’s mo dem classic, although it’s printed on the cheapest recycled newsprint so thin a sneeze could blow holes in it. (The old qua lity printers couldn’t get any L/Cs for their bookpaper imports and are now consider ing going into the confectionery business.) And 1994 will doubtless produce as much i controversy as 1984, so that ten years I hence professors and pundits, critics and I columnists and feature writers will be dis- I cussing and debating questions similar to I those provoked of late by Orwell’s anti- I Utopian work. ' Profound, ponderous, hypertensive, hardbreathing questions like: How close has the world come in 1994 to the frontiers of tyranny and terror as defined by the author? How far has society gone past these borders into the totalitarian super state depicted in such appalling detail in this novel? What precisely is the nature of this dic tatorship that the novelist, writing, it seems, out of the same despair that so pos sessed Orwell, would warn us against? Is 1994 a tract against the betrayals and excesses of socialism, or more accu rately, as social democrats have said of 1984, against the nightmarish distortions of the humane Marxist dream such as turned Stalin’s Russia into an archipelago of torture chambers, mass graves and labor camps? Or is the book more an in dictment of the Fascist state with its glori fication of the Omniscient Leader, its ruth less logic of repression, its nationalistic and anti-communist passions, which the Ger mans were led to embrace under Adolf Hitler Sind the Italians under Benito Musso lini, who was after all the original totalita rian, having introduced the term itself in the vocabulary of the 20th century? LOOKING FORWARD TO By GREGORIO C. BRILLANTES Or is 1994 to be read, as neoliberals have said of 1984, as an attack on all dicta torships, both of‘the Left and the Right, in cluding those other, apparently more mod est, less blatant models which essentially the same mania for power and the regi mentation that enables it to prosper have installed in certain Third World countries? Regimes, for instance, founded on “consti tutional authoritarianism” and proclaiming a “revolution from the center” or some such thing? Is the problem of totalitarianism in its naked form — and its many disguises — still urgent and relevant in 1994? Or, more happily, is it, 10 years after this updated reprise of Orwell’s fearful fantasy, a phe nomenon whose time has passed, thanks to the brave, freedom-loving men and women who struggled against it and won, despite all odds, including the novelist’s hopeless prophecy? Or is 1994 merely one of 1984’s forget table fictions, constructed from the du bious lumber of private despondency, the author’s unrelieved gloom over the crises of that troubled year, the devaluation of mo ney, morals and morale, and the threat of more such inflictions on the body politic? And so forth, and so on. . . echoes and variants of the curiosity, the anxiety, even alarm, which Orwell’s novel of political satire aroused among authors, scholars, journalists and a host of others with more PAGE 13 FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 VEKtTAS FEATURES LOOKING FORWARD TO ffl4 than a passing interest in politics and litera ture, here and abroad, in the closing weeks of 1983 and at the start of 1984... And in 1994, this “humble yet ambi tious sequel to Orwell,” as the novelist dis armingly calls this shamelessly derivative work in his preface, may well occasion the same flurry of activity which the wire servi ces report as taking place or being sche duled in Europe and the U.S. On the agen da are stage plays on Orwellian themes in London, Orwell-related films on British television, a West German TV production on the last y<«ars of the British writer, who died in 1950; a two-day conference on 1984 at the Library of Congress in Wash ington next April, and panel discussions on Orwell’s novel and the “realities of 1984” to be held in at least 30 American colleges during the year. French universities and Italian high schools have made 1984 re quired reading in English courses, while publishers on both sides of the Atlantic are set to reissue the novel. The popularity of the Englishman’s dark satire on tyranny has not been confided to the West. In Eastern Europe, says an AP report, there is currently a revival of inte rest, such as it is, in 1984, with more co pies of the proscribed work being turned out by underground presses. A Leipzig newspaper has assailed the book as “the bestseller of those who want a rebirth of the Cold War.” A recent issue of the Mos cow political journal, New Times, contends that “Orwell’s nightmare society" has its counterpart in America, and that the reallife version of “Big Brother,” the dictator in 1984, today lives in th* White House and is named Ronald Reagan. The novel and Orwell’s other books, notably Animal Farm, his barnyard parody on Stalin-era officialdom, are banned in the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations - a left-handed compli ment indeed to the heretical socialist who, as a champion of the Loyalist cause in the Spanish ■C:”il War in 1939, learned to his dismay that doc trinaire Communists could be as fascist as Fran co’s Falangists. SO IT goes, as Vonnegut would say. But the author of 1994 may not enjoy, whether posthumously or not, the same measure of celebrity - or notoriety - 10 years from now. For he has chosen to use, not even a recognizable pseudonym as Eric Blair did, but merely the letter “K”, perhaps in conscious identification with the harassed, paranoid charac ter in Kafka. His publishers have sworn never to reveal his identity even under torture, an an nouncement which the future will prove to be either a harmless publicity gimmick or an irre sistible temptation for some general or minister to issue a not so harmless invitation. But even without the promotional tease, K’s novel is likely to raise dictatorial hackles or agitate authoritarian bangles, as the case may be. For 1994 not only resembles the anti-tofalitarian original, it improves on it, if not formally, at least with respect to the material. Writing long after Orwell, who completed his novel in 1948, K succeeds in sounding even more dramatic, more relevant and contemporary than the English author, especially in those key chapters in 1994 dealing with the Ministry of Economic and Fin ancial Reality, the Ministry of Compassion, the Commission on Festivals, the Airport Arrivals Agency, the Idea Filtration Police and the Mischief Preventive Resorts. Such features of 1994's superstate may con firm the charge, made by Prof. J.Q. Quijano in the New Citizens Monthly, that K has de monstrated “merely an excess of slavish copycat energy and a contemptible lack of originality.” Be that as it may. K’s “aesthetic vices and stylis tic sms,” Dr. Luigi Beltroni has pointed out in a recent Diliman convocation, have enabled the author of 1994 "to range further and probe deep er into the territory first staked out by Orwell" who, having departed from this vale of fears some 23 years ago, missed subsequent expres sions and refinements of state control - tech"Mues made even more insidious and effective by mind-bending drugs, computers, communications satellites and plebiscites. More significant and instructive, to our mind, than this inclusion of the new paraphernalia of dictatorship are the changes in setting and charac ter that K has wrought in his futuristic political noveL (Imitation in this instance may well prove to be a “fount of startling creativity," in the word} of the formidable essayist, S.F. Lapus.) The three Orwellian or rather K-ish innovations are: 1994 takes place in Eastasia, not Oceania, which Orwell depicted as a Western or AngloAmerican superstate; “Big Sister" and not “Big Brother” is ruler of Eastasia; and the main pro tagonist, K’s version of Winston Smith, does not set his will against the regime, but resolves from the very start to love, serve and obey “Big Sister.” Eastasia, one of the three warring superpo-. wers in the Orwell novel, is in 1994 an even more brutal and dehumanizing regime than 1984's Oceania, K takes pains to convince us, with some success. Besides the Eastern talent for barbarous despotism and impersonal cruelty, the reason for this quality of Eastasia’s tyranny, suggests the author, is the greater vulnerability, the hap lessness and passivity of the masses - a condition resulting from centuries of colonialism, poverty and ignorance, all abetted by Big Sister with the zealous help of the New Reality Party and its ministries, commissions and agencies. All told. Big Sister has an easier job of it herding the peo ple of Eastasia into dumb submission than Big Brother had in Oceania. As the “all-good, all-wise ruler” of Eastasia, Big Sister has her giant portraits, monuments and busts (“as curvaceous as the original,’’ murmurs the worshipful hero-victim) looking down with matriarchal tenderness on the sometimes pa rading, often laboring and always half-starved populace. As 1994 tells it, Big Sister has been elected Supreme Leader of Eastasia by the Inner Council of the New Reality Party and the Board of Directors of the Retired Generals Association, a unanimous decision heartily supported by Eastasia’s ally, a much more powerful superstate across the seas that, as K describes it, seems to be no other than Big Brother’s Oceania. Window-dressing THAT A woman should be dictator of Eastasia has, interestingly enough, created no little controversy in literary and academic circles since the publication of 1994. * One school of thought, represented by the poet and gymnast Rosanna Obosa,maintains that the masses of Eastasia, given their history, cus toms, traditions, libido, etc., have always needed a strong, authoritarian female figure to tyrannize them. Another school, an alleged diploma mill headed by the philosopher and philatelist A. Navarette Solongo, insists that Big Sister’s dicta torship is a fluke, a freak, an accident - "1994's fatal flaw” - which neither the pre-Big Sister, male-dominated politics of Eastasia nor the book’s “inner symmetry” can justify. A third viewpoint, expressed by Dr. Gorgonio Lacongay, man-about-town and professor of biology at St. Paul, is that the portrayal of Big Sister as an im placable tyrant is unconvincing because false and unfair, “a "dastardly sexist outrage against the innate nobility of womanhood.” Though he doesn’t put it in those gallant words, the hero-victim in 1994 - named Andy, no surname, as if this Eastasian had only half his identity and dignity to begin with - feels the same way about Big Sister when an escapee from a Mischief Preventive Resort calls his skirted idol names too vile and shocking to print in this sober journal. Like Winston Smith at the Ministry of Truth, Andy is an employee engaged, at the Ministry of Economic and Financial Reality, in mangling, doctoring and otherwise revising facts and figures to make them conform to the dictates of Big Sis ter and the New Reality Party. Like Smith too, he has an affair with a fellow worker, a rebellious girl named Chits who loathes Big Sister, but he is not hounded by the Idea Filtration Police as he pursues and brings his amour to a consummation they both devoutly wish. For he is nothing if not a fervent follower of Big Sister and seeks, even as he copes with the nonpolitical ants in his pants, to convert Chits to the ethereal truths of the New Reality. How he woos and wins her is but one of several episodes in which Andy demonstrates his devotion to Big Sister. He volunteers to scrub the floors of the Ministry of Compassion after the day’s work in the Ministry of Economic and Financial Reality, helps recruit reluctant tribal musicians and a-go-go dancers for the Commis sion on Festivals, repairs a stalled armored van of the Airport Arrivals Agency, foils a subversive’s attempt to short-circuit the electrodes and cut the pipes to the water-cure baths at the head quarters of the Idea Filtration Police, contributes part of his starvation wage to the upkeep of the Preventive Mischief Resorts, and spends his an nual leave (a three-day vacation with extra lugao rations granted only to the Most Faithful Ser vants of Big Sister) doing the work he loves best of all - repairing and washing and cleaning up the gigantic portraits, monuments and busts of Big Sister disfigured or splattered with unhygie nic matter by a band of Eastasian dissidents who call themselves the Greater Reality Army. All this Andy does in his simple, cheerful way - against a lurid background of brutality, violence, mass arrests, rigged trials, detentions, executions, thought control, slave labor, econo mic chaos, poverty, suffering, apathy and despair. Orwell’s 1984 ends with a broken, emptied, utterly defeated Winston Smith confessing his love for Big Brother. K’s 1994 ends on an osten sibly upbeat note - to reward Andy for his industrious, unflagging loyalty. Big Sister grants him an audience, a Perpetual Condominium, a year’s supply <>f chicken feet and a peek into her stupendous wardrobe, whereupon he collapses in a blissful swoon. “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever,” Or well wrote in 1984. “If you want a mental image of tomorrow, visualize high heels pressing down on your stomach - day in and day out," writes K in 1994, less felicitously, perhaps, out in the same tone of warning and alarm. Which footwear will win out or who will wear which shoe is one more question to try men’s souls, between now and the advent of Eastasia’s fateful year. K’s book is all of 1,721 pages, hefty enough, one surmises, to brain a New Filipino if dropped down on his head from the roof of, say the Ma nila Hotel Annex. (The coffee-table edition with a hardwood cover and three legs, to be published as soon as the current economic crisis is over, v. ill doubtless make for heavier reading.) Whether that’s all the damage it can do, whether it’s no thing more than a work of fiction to be dropped, or a prophecy that can’t be stopped, pundits and professors and the rest of the people will find out - in 1994. i INDOW-DRESSING became a by word recently with the revelation that the Cen tral Bank carried in its books $600 million that it did not have. The figure was carried in the CB books allegedly to make the country’s foreign reserves look more attrac tive than it actually was. It might console CB offi cials responsible for that anomaly to know that they are not alone in windowdressing unattractive reali ties. There were the Metro Manila officials, for instance, who wanted tourists to see only the beautiful side of the metropolis by erecting tall fences around squatter colonies. Applicants for US tourist visas are also among the more notorious practition ers of window-dressing. A number of them are known to borrow a big amount from relatives and friends for deposit in banks. The bank books are then pre sented to US immigration officials to show that they have enough assets here to assure their return. The mo ment their visa application is approved, the amount is withdrawn from the bank. , Then there are the Metro Aides who are dissatisfied with the natural coloi' of tree barks and proceed to coat the barks with white paint or lime. Attempts to “improve” one’s natural attributes are more frequent among wo men, however. There was the beauty contest winner turned movie actress who fejt insecure with her inabi lity to. present a “bold front.” She cured this by going to a surgeon who pro ceeded “to make mountains out of molehills.” An American woman once went to a surgeon to have her bulging tummy tapered off. She dreamt of having a rounded figure but imagine her rage when she woke up after the surgery to find that her navel was no longer on the center of her tummy. A townmate who won a local beauty contest looked radiant during her corona tion. What made her more appealing was the promi nent black mole on her right chin. The next day, her prominent black mole “moved” to her left chin. The passage ot years has detracted from the former good looks of a mayor of a town in Metro Manila. He was determined to hide this fact, however. Thus, when ever his photo is needed for publication, he simply hands out his photo that has been taken about 20 years ago. How different things are from the time of Oliver Cromwell, former ruler of England. ‘When a painter made him look better, Cromwell rejected the por trait, asking the painter to make another showing him as he actually looked like, “w ;rts and all.” - ELD How’s that again? By EFREN L. DANAO Education offi cials usually take pride in saying that the Philippines is the third largest E n g 1 i s h-s p e a k ing country in the world, next only to the United States and England. A number of Filipinos, indeed, claim that they could speak English. Make them talk in English, how ever, and most of them will have difficulty communicat ing their ideas. One of the reasons for this communication snafu is the frequent difficulty, especial ly of those who come from certain regions, in producing some sounds properly. There was a friend, for instance, who said he could not speak Tagalog very well and insisted on always talk ing with me in English. Once, 1 saw him with a com panion whom he introduced to me immediately. “Efren, this is Tony. He is a bicker,” my friend told me. “A bicker? Sounds Inte resting! Tell me, what does a bicker do? ” I asked. “Why, he bicks kicks! ” . he replied, as if amazed that I could not even understand what “bicker” meant. Another acquaintance taking up a degree in com merce pronounces “finance” as if it were a sdcfSmSfif^ and “profit” as if it means somebody who could see the future. Frequently, a slip of the tongue or malapropism keeps one from being un derstood immediately. There is the person who said he would decide things “on a base-to-base cases” and who called a proposal “moot and epidemic.” Another source of diffi culty in communicating is the penchant of some in using high-sounding words. Government technocrats are the most frequent users of this kind of words. Hearing their speeches and reading their reports are enough to make one’s head spin, what with their liberal use of po lysyllabic words. A young man from the South who belonged to the same organization I did once stayed in our apart ment for several days. He later wrote me a letter, thanking me for my- kind “hospitalization.” I will not vouch for the authenticity of the follow ing story but a friend insists it actually happened. A balikbayan once got introduced to a man who had been married for a long’ time but had remained child less. When the balikbayan asked his new friend why this .was so, the latter re plied, “It’s because of Maria - she’s inconceivable.” When the balikbayan gave him a quizzical look, the local .boy pondered his words for a moment, then his face lit up and he said, “Actually, what I mean is that Maria - she is impreg nable.” L TOURISM VERITAS ' Puerto Galera: Paradise lost? FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 PAGE 14 By PATRICIA L. ADVERSARIO FOR centuries, the people of Puerto Galera have lived off the bounty of the sea. But recent developments have separated the people from the seas surrounding Puer to Galera. In some areas the shoreline is even lined with barbed wire. And the result is that in what was once a paradise of mountain, sea, sand and peo ple are afraid, threatened with the loss of their livelihood and their land. Ironically, presidential decrees designed to preserve Puerto Galera’s rich marine resources and coves have cut-off and res tricted the people’s means of livelihood. Presidential Proclamation No. 1801 which came out in 1978 declared Port Galera, Balatero Cove and Medio Island as zones and marine reserves under the con trol of the Philippine Tourism Authority (PTA). The rationale given was that water sports and tourism might cause ecological imbalance if allowed to continue unregu lated. PD1605-A which was promulgated in November 1980 declared the enclosed coves and waters of Puerto Galera Bay as ecologically threatened zones and forbade the construction of marinas (docking areas for small boats), hotels, restaurants or any structures along the coastline of the area. Ship repair and ship docking were also banned because the oil spills caused by the semi-permanent docking of large water craft was said to cause pollution. PD 1805 amending PD 1605-A empo wered the PTA, Coast Guard, PC-INP, the Office of the President, the Ministry of Human Settlements, the provincial govern ment of Oriental Mindoro and the courts to demolish constructions that fall within 25 meters from the high tide water mark. The decree also vested the power to issue permits solely in the Office of the Presi dent. An unnumbered circular from the Puerto Galera committee which controls and regulates all commercial, industrial and tourism-oriented activites within Puer to Galera even includes among its prohi bited activities, the establishment of poul tries and piggeries. Another unnumbered circular also in cludes among its list of prohibited activi ties, vague blanket provisions like “indus tries that cause pollution or (that) pose hazards to the area” and “any other form of destructive activity.” THE prohibition of any structure within 25 Crisencio Yaco (standing), president of the Puerto Galera Tourism Association, stresses meters from the high tide water line throughout Puerto Galera has encroached upon the existing family-owned enterprises. Some of the lands have been inherited by the local residents from their ancestors and these residents have been paying land taxes to the municipal government for years. Given the topography of Puerto Galera, the 25 meter rule is inapplicable, leaving residents with virtually no land. In Daluruan and the Muele poblacion, the mountains already rise just five meters from the shoreline. “Wala ng ibang lugar na maturing puntahan sapagka’t iyon lamang ang lupang pag-aari namin. Iba na ang may-ari ng lupa sa bundok, ” a resident said. The Philippine Tourism Authority, the Min doro Regional Development Office (the govern ment agency overseeing the development of Mindoro) and PHILTECH, MIRDO’s consultant, havegiven no explicit assurance to the people thatthey will be compensated for the land that will be affected by PD 1805. The prohibition of semi-permanent docking of large watercraft said to cause oil spills and sewage dumping threatens the long-time ship building and repair industry in Daluruan. Residents are questioning why the industry should be prohibited when spillage of wood shavings into the sea have not really caused any major pollution damage. But oil exploration and extraction which threatens greater ecological damage, is an exemp ted activity on “grounds of national interest” (found in an unnumbered circular pursuant to Proclamations No. 1801, PDs 1605-A and 1805). There are serious doubts about whether the restrictive decrees are really geared towards the preservation and protection of the natural re sources and the ecology of Puerto Galera. For one, if the primary intention is to pre serve the natural resources of Puerto Galera, why is the Philippine Tourism Authority and not the Ministry of Natural Resources involved? The people also believe that the summary dismantling and prohibition of structures is a measure to give way for big establishments to take over the existing local family-owned enter prises catering to tourists. ( Even in the face of resistance from the people over the 25-meter prohibition rule, an unnum bered circular has already been issued by the Puerto Galera Special Committee (composed of ministers of tourism, human settlements, and the local government, commissioner of immigration and deportation, Philippine Coast Guard com mandant, chief of Constabulary and UP Presi dent) extending its control and jurisdiction up to the 100 meter mark. THE people have no questions about the need to conserve the shoreline and the other resources of Puerto Galera, but they assert that these conservation measures should not be done by killing their means of livelihood and then taking over their industries. Almost 80 per cent of the residents are en gagedin local enterprises which cater to middle class backpack tourists from Europe. The flouri shing backyard tourism industry in Puerto Ga lera includes some 300 cottages for rent, 38 resPACE 15 FEB. 5-FBB. 11, 1984 VERITAS TOURISM S PUERTO GALERA taurarits, two diving camps and six windsurfing bases. PHILTECH President Constancio Reyes, ' consultant to MIRDO, however, opts for a more • “controlled development” for Puerto Galera as he notes that backyard tourism has sprouted in almost a “haphazard” manner. Residents and owners of establishments be lieve otherwise. They said most of the establish ments were planned. Besides, they added, “our businesses have managed to feed us without their help so why don’t they just leave us well alone.” According to municipal mayor Hermenegildo Atienza, the muni cipality earned Pl00,000 for the month of January alone from revenues collected from business licenses. But the hecklers have not let Puerto Galera alone. The Special Committee renders the municipal government virtually powerless, reducing govern ing authority to mere recommendations. Should the proposed amendment to PD 1805 be ap proved, revenues from the tourism industry will now be controlled by the PTA, Atienza said. There are restrictions imposed for the banca operator who ferries the tourists around Puerto Galera or for the Sabang businessman with his disco house made of bamboo rafters but there is an exemption for projects or activities in Puerto Galera which are wholly or partially funded from foreign loans or grants. This double standard legislation which the people vehemently oppose means the inevitable entry of big-time tourism which it is feared, will ultimately displace the existing backyard tourism industryIN a position paper, the residents said that “the people of Puerto Galera should be freely allowed to fully exercise all their own powers and functions to promote pieir own welfare and to control their own destiny which is to become a more autonomous, self-reliant and self-pro gressive community.” The people maintain that with the entry of foreign-funded enterprises, income will no longer be controlled by the municipality. Backyard tourism combines the ownership, management, and services of tourist facilities within the control of the local inhabitants. This avoids the situation where the ownership of the hotels are given to those who come from out side and only the menial jobs are left for the local people. “At present, the local residents are the own ers of their own enterprises. But once big time tourism sets in,, these people are bound to be displaced as dishwashers or elevator boys,” Atienza said. "fugnay ang turismo sa a ting pangangailangan upang manatili ang pakinabang sa a tin," said Crisencio Yaco, Puerto Galera Tourism As sociation President. “It is essentia] that we keep the tourism indus try within our control and as much as possible interference from the national government should be on a consultancy basis only. The ul timate controlling factor should be the local Sangguniang Bayan. While we cannot entirely do away with the PTA, let there be consultancy but not control.” Atienza stressed during a dia logue with MIRDO and PHILTECH. PHILTECH official Constacio Reyes rea soned out that Puerto Galera cannot live by itself and for itself. It has to consider its contri bution to national tourism and to the national government. A resident countered: “Should big establish ments rise, will the government be able to pro vide us with decent alternative means of liveli hood. O baka para na lang ba kaming aso na sisipain ninyo sa aming sarUing lugar." EVEN with the people’s resistance, big plans are already afoot in Puerto Galera about how best to guide the people to the “proper ap proach to tourism.” MIRDO, through its consultant PHILTECH, presented in a separate dialogue with the local officials a proposed development package for Puerto Galera which includes the installment of two mini-hydro plants, the improvement of water and electrical facilities, transportation and communication amenities and a botanical garden. An interview with a Sangguniang Bayan member, however, revealed that the municipal government already has its own plans on how it can further improve the existing facilities in Puerto Galera. “The existing facilities are okay. The point of improving them further is that these plans are geared towards their plans (referring to MIRDO) which is big-time tourism - the kind of tourism they want,” Melanio Lopez, Sang guniang Bayan member said. Prominent families in Metro Manila already hold extensive landholdings in the town. Re cords from the municipal assessor’s office re veal that the Locsins already own 226.028 hec tares; Ayala Corporation, 35.6215 hectares; Yulo, 6.2640 and the Kalaws, 95.4981 hectares. According to Yaco, these landowners are now in possession of 60 per cent of the prime beach lots in Puerto Galera. Reyes did not deny that financing resources for the development package will come from the World Bank, the national government and from private persons. He demurred when asked to name the pri vate persons who will partly finance the deve lopment projects. He did not deny, however, that these private persons who now own exten sive landholdings in Puerto Galera are interested to go into development plans which they will ultimately own since they are already part of the community. “The tourists would want to have some improvement on the roads for instance. It would be nice to have a sports complex for them,” Reyes said. Random interviews with several tourists staying in Puerto Galera, however, indicate they want Puerto Galera to remain as it is. No tourists could be found complaining about dusty roads as they were often seen hiking bare foot about town. Some were even seen sprawled on the roofs of commuter jeepneys soaking in the sun and the clouds of dust. George Calvert, a 70-year old tourist who stays in Puerto Galera during the winter months in England wants Puerto Galera to remain as is. “I like primitive pleasures and they are here in Puerto Galera,” he declared. A tourist from Australia said that Manila is hot, big, noisy and expensive. “You go to Puerto Galera because you don’t have those big expensive hotels here. If they’ll start having those things built in Puerto Galera, I’d rather go somewhere else.” Re-study of tourism z benefits recommended FELICIANO H. MAGNO By THE TOURISM in dustry of some develop ing Asian and Pacific nations could be an ex pensive and unneces sary adornment to their 'respective socio-econo mic development ef forts. - Underlining such a possibility is the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). It recom mends that govern ments concerned under take indepth studies to determine whether tour ism is indeed a net con tributor to economic growth or a negative factor. ESCAP, which moni tors socio-economic trends in the Asia-Paci fic region, cannot at present tell whether tourism is benefitting the developing countries which have gone into the venture as a means of increasing their earn ings of foreign ex change. The inability of ES CAP is due to the dearth of updated tour ism statistics which can prove with certainty that the industry is be nefitting or contribu ting to economic growth of the developing na tions. Tourism statistics available are those from countries, like Singa pore and Hong Kong, which have built their tourism industries into the level of prime con tributors to national economic growth. In urging the develop ing nations to undertake an economic analysis of -their respective tourism in dustries, ESCAP suggests that such a study includes three “must” components • and they are: Measuring the net eco nomic effects and earnings from tourism; comparing the returns to investment in tourism with alternative uses of domestic resources; and forecasting future path of the industry. Such an analysis, if done competently, would enable governments of dev eloping nations to ade quately assess the econo mic impact of their respec tive tourism industries, ES CAP explains. An ESCAP paper lists 13 costs and 14 benefits of the tourism industry to the private sector, the govern ment and the general pub lic assessment of which, singly and collectively, would also lead to a deter mination whether the in dustry is economically beneficial or not. Costs to the private sec tor are utilization of do mestic industries to service tourist demand; import re quirements of the industry including repatriation of earnings of foreign inves tors invited or made part ners in the venture; and training expenditures for people manning the indus try. Benefits ranged against such costs are profits on sales to tourists; wages and salaries earned in tourist enterprises; and indirect in come effects inostly through inter-industry link ages. On part of governments, expenses or investment re quired to help put up a tourism industiy include budgets of national tour ism organizations; tax sub sidies to tourist enterpri ses; subsidies to local goods and services used by tour ists; transport infrastruc ture; public utilities; out lays for government-oper ated tourist services; and other public amenities like use by tourists of zoos, parks, historical sites and monuments. In return for such ex penditures, benefits that accrue to the government are taxes levied on tourism firms; licensing and regis tration fees; entry and de parture taxes; airport land ing fees; indirect taxes on industries supplying tour ism inputs; income from government-run enterpri ses; other revenues like the sales and value-added taxes; air transport earn ings; and fees charged for tourism use of public ame nities. Tourism’s costs to the general public are crowd ing of public amenities, meaning local residents are elbowed out or denied use of the same;destruction of natural resources, and so cial costs - increase in the crime rate, deterioration of values due to “lifestyles” brought over by the visit ing foreigners, and loss of indigenous culture. Benefits derived by the public from the industry include what are called “positive externalities” which consist of informa tion exchange and the pat ronage by the tourists of some homegrown or cot tage industries like handi crafts; and use of tourism facilities specially during slack periods in arrival of foreign tourists. Reviewing world tour ism trends, ESCAP re ports that bulk of the in come from the industry continues to be cornered by the industrialized or developed countries which have a long history of tour ist traffic and well devel oped tourism facilities. However, ESCAP notes that statistics compiled by the World Tourism Organ ization and the World Bank show that share of the Third World in interna tional tourism is growing. The same figures indi cate that the tourism in dustry is relatively-new to many developing nations and its rapid growth “raises pressing policy questions for planning and economic management.” ESCAP also observes that for some Asian and Pacific developing coun tries, “revenues from tour ism are already a major source of foreign exchange. Their growing dependence on such revenues makes the tourist industry a key policy area for the 1980’s.” One of the needs of such a policy is planning in tourism which includes a clear understanding of the factors involved, the alter natives available, and the likely costs and benefits of pursuing various alterna tives, according to ESCAP. The Commission la ments that tourism plan ning in some developing nations in the region “is often myopic, focusing on maximizing the number of tourists for short-term - gains.” “In many countries, lit tle attention has been given to the costs of tourism and the'full impact of tourist revenues on the local econ omy. However, measuring effects of tourism is not easy. Tourism entails the mobility of consumers whose consumption beha vior impinges on the entire economy. Hence it is espe cially important to develop a research framework and a planning approach which depicts the various dimen sions of the industry and develops a methodology appropriate to such charac teristics,” ESCAP adds. Turning to the drawing power of the ESCAP re gion on international tour ism, the Commission re minds that such an ability remains smallscale since in 1981 over two-thirds of tourism arrivals were in European countries. ES CAP nations’ share of world tourism in that year was only 6 per cent. - DEPTHnews A further study on the expenses incurred by the Third World in developing tourism has been recom mended by a United Nations agency. Alien hotel execs’ pay under fire EXPATRIATE hotel managers in the coun try are embroiled in a controversy raging around the question of how best to reduce operational costs in the embattled industry. “Out with expats,” was the battlecry of the National Union of Workers in Hotels, Res taurants and Allied In dustries (NUWHRA) which represented what many concede to be the “extremist” view. The more “mode rate” stance was enun ciated by Tourism Min ister Jose D. Aspiras who suggested a reduc tion in the wages of ex patriates. Estimates are that compensation for foreign managers ranges from $1,500 to $3,000 a month exclusive of housing, recreation and other privileges. And caught in the middle of the contro versy are the expatriates like Franz Schutzman, Manila Hotel general manager, who, in effect, said that Filipinos have nobody to blame but themselves for the pro liferation of foreigners in their hotel industry. According to Mr. By MANOLO B. JARA Schutzman, few Filipi nos have risen to high positions because Fili pinos “discriminate” against Filipinos. The controversy emerged full-blown at the 12th national convention of the Hotel and Restau rant Association of the Philippines (HRAP) held last Dec. 1-3. It arose from earlier announcements that most hotels in the country are on the brink of bank ruptcy, prompting them to draw up retrenchment programs and other cost cutting measures, including the layoff of rank-and-file Filipino employes. NUWHRA, through its national president Leonar do Desierto, pressed in stead for removal of ex patriates employed by ho tels to reduce their opera tional costs. He said the removal of these expatriates, together with a reduction on the im portation of liquor, wine and some food items, could go a long way in minimizing the costs of ho tel operations. According to the NUWHRA, 30 per cent of the expenditures of hotels represent the costs of maintaining expatriates. “In some hotels,” the union said, “the monthly cost of one expatriate, excluding food and other incidental to?30,000 «2*140)""Un S The NUWHRA ex plained that the retrench ment of expatriates is a better alternative to the mass layoff of Filipino rank-and-file employes planned by hotels and other hospitality establish ments. In sharp contrast to the NUWHRA’s position was that enunciated by Minis ter Aspiras who keynoted the HRAP convention. He suggested strongly that the HRAP members study ways of reducing the wages of expatriates instead of laying off Filipino em ployes. A study by the Asian Institute of Tourism in dicates that there are about 120 expatriates now em ployed in the hotel in dustry. This makes the Philippines one of the biggest employers of ex pats in the region. The In stitute is based at the Uni versity of the Philippines. The study conceded that there are advantages in hiring expatriates to run five-star hotels. But their indeterminate stay, it added, “also spells a dis advantage like high execu tive management fees and wages, including benefits, and the outflow of dollars the Philippines cannot afford at all.” Based on this, Minister Aspiras told HRAP mem bers: “It is now time to re examine our international contracts. We need all the help we can get from our international chains but just right now, we have to look a little more closely at what we are really paying for and what we would like to get in return.” He observed this was particularly true in the marketing contracts which “eat up a substantial por tion of our foreign ex change earnings.” “The question is: are we getting the reservations in or are we merely throw ing the ball back and forth?” Minister Aspiras asked. “Prestige is impor tant but we need the cash, too.” Manila Hotel’s Mr. Schutzman, who was pre sent at the convention, said the discriminatory attitude of Filipino hotel owners toward their own country men accounts for the few “locals” now occupying executive positions in the industry. “Pay the Filipinos well and you will not have the expatriates,” he said. He cited his experience with a Filipino executive chef who was dissuaded from resigning at the Manila Ho tel for a tempting post in Brunei. The chef’s salary was increased to P 14,000 ($1,000) a month. Another expatriate ho tel executive echoed Mr. Schutzman’s observations. As far as Filipino hotel chain owners are con cerned, Filipinos are no good, he said. “If a Filipino were to ask for a salary of P10,000 ($700) in 1980 as general manager, hotel owners would say he is asking too much,” he said. “An Amer ican with less experience but has been to Europe can ask for a salary of $3,000 or more, and hotel owners would find this cheap.” - DEPTHnews FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 PAGE 16 FEATURES VEK1TAS Local anesthesiologists cry ‘ouch’ ONE out of 250 operations at . the Philippine General Hospital results in death of the patient because of mismanage ment of anesthesi?, a leading anesthesiolo gist revealed recently. Dr. Quintin J. Go mez, president of the recently concluded Eighth World Congress of Anesthesiologists, traced the high anesthe tic mortality and mor bidity in the country to the lack of properly trained personnel and proper equipment, es pecially in the manage ment of poor risk pa tients and children. Gomez said that ma ny in the medical pro fession are still not pro perly trained on the proper administration of anesthesia and are, perhaps, unaware of the risks involved in its im proper handling. The 8th WCA was held at the Philippine By AL IGNACIO International Conven tion Center Jan. 22-27 and was attended by about 3,000 scientists and anesthesiologists fpm 77 countries. It was sponsored by the World Federation of Societies of Anesthe siologists (WFSA) and had for its theme “Anes thesia - Safety for all,’’ underscoring its mission to make safe anesthesia available to as many people of the world as possible. The eighth congress marked the first time in the 30-year history of the WFSA that a congress was held in a Third World country.’ One of the partici pants recounted how a patient in war-torn Vietnam was found dead a few hours after what was considered a successful operation. It was later found that an oxygen mask was erro neously connected to the anesthesia gasmask. The attending nurse did not know that the pa tient was getting gas instead of oxygen, re sulting in the patient’s death. IMPORTANCE Before anesthesiolo gy was *fiot the sole domain of surgeons. Nurses and other medi cal personnel, though untrained, were allow ed to administer local and regional anesthesia. In the early part of the 19th century, how ever, a so-called “Re naissance” of medical anesthesia occurred in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. Emphasis was placed on the training of physi- ‘ cians as specialists in anesthesia and the de velopment of new and refined techniques of general anesthesia. During the past three decades, the scientific knowledge skill, and expertise of anesthe siologists have permit ted surgeons to operate on the critically ill, the very old, and the very young, with less or no pain to the patients. These have also paved the way for more radi cal operations like or gan transplants, and those related to cancer, and the heart. EXPERTISE Anesthesiogists have also lent their ex pertise to surgical and obstetric anesthesia and this led to the develop ment of better posta nesthetic care and the development of modern respiratory therapy ser vices; in the manage ment of acute and chro nic pain states, and more recently in the development of inten sive care units and cri tical care medicine. The real challenge facing anesthesiologists from the developed countries today is how Most of the equipment used in anesthesiology, like the above, are so expen sive that few Tliird World countries could afford them. to come up with more practical methods of anesthesiology using cheaper machines and drugs so that these could be applied in de veloping countries. It has been noted that many of the latest techniques introduced concerning anesthesia management called for the use of very costly equipment which poor and developing coun tries could hardly af ford. One foreign obser ver at the WCA said that only the big hos pitals in the developed countries could afford to buy the . expensive equipment for anesthe sia management. Third World coun tries may have to wait a little longer for them to be able to apply the latest technology and techniques in anesthe siology. This issue will still be discussed in the hext congress of WFSA to be held in Washing ton, DC in 1988. AFTER 40 YEARS THE Philippines is now on its fourth de cade of trying to eradi cate the malaria and chances are success will not be in its grasp even at the start of the 21st century. Providing such a bleak overview of the malaria situation in the country is a scientific paper authored by the three top officials of the health ministry’s Malaria Eradication Ser vice (MES). Jointly authored by MES Dir. Delfin G. Ri vera, acting Deputy Di rector Cesar V. Valera, Anti-malaria drive gains no headway and M. N. Santos, chief of the MES medical di vision, the paper states: “Malaria remains wide ly distributed in the Philippines in spite of three decades of eradi cation campaign.” Reason for the fail ure to effectively con trol the scourge spread by a certain mosquito species is the develop ing nation status of the Philippines. The paper cites the diminishing funds allocated by the government to the anti malaria campaign. Evaluating the anti malaria drive from 1953 to 1981 or three whole decades, the pa per lists the following “constraints”: • Uncontrolled po pulation migration be tween malarious and non-endemic areas. • Decreasing suscep tibility of the mosqui toes (A. flavirostris, A. litoralis and A. balabacensis) to the insecti cides being used against them. • Resistance of. the malarial parasites to prescribed drugs in use in the country. By ESPERANZA NAVA • Shortages in equip ment, transport and personnel being suffer ed by the MES. • Diminishing bud get allocated to the anti-malaria campaign due to the government’s lack of resources plus the economic problem of inflation. • Peace and order conditions in some ma laria infested areas of the country. The paper of -the three government phy sicians does not give the number of Filipinos presently afflicted with malaria nor does it de tail the areas where the disease is most pre valent. However,. the paper tries to relieve its gloomy note by point ing out that “although the malaria situation looks hopeless, there were gains which the MES had tried to main tain” despite the con straints hobbling its operations. Upbeat part of the paper also stresses that despite the odds, the Philippines can still ef fectively control mala ria provided it faithful ly complies with a fourpoint recommendation from the 31st World Health Assembly. The recommenda( %tions: A national will 'expressed by the go vernment to support malaria control/eradication; adequate funding to support such a will; making malaria control/ eradication an integral part of the overall na tional health program, and community parti cipation. Authors of the paper Why are rural women more fertile? By LOURDES PANGILINAN MANY married women in the countryside still believe that if they get pregnant it “is God’s will.” Such a belief is deeply ingrained and is a large factor which influences fertility behavior in the rural areas where most of the Philippines’ population “explosion” is taking place, accord ing to results of a university study. Unless such a belief is tempered with know ledge of modern family planning practices, the study projected that population measures being implemented by the government in the coun tryside will encounter “rough going.” Titled “Fertility Behavior of Rural Women in an Agricultural Barrio,” the study, conduct ed by Erlinda Guevarra of the Centro Escolar University, found that rural women tend to re main fertile due to ingrained beliefs and prac tices. Such beliefs and practices are in turn deter mined by educational attainment, occupation, age at marriage, ages of existing children, husband’s educational attainment, occupation, and religion, the study stressed. It found: • The lower the educational level of the mar ried rural woman, the more children in the family. The reverse happens with higher educa tional levels. • Wives who profess the Catholic religion tend to have more children than counterparts of other religious beliefs. • Employed or partly employed couples have fewer children than families where the husband is the only one holding employment. • Better educated husbands also result in fewer number of children in the family. • Marriage at earlier age for the women means more children than those who marry when they are 25 years old or over. The study reported that majority of the rural wives hold the belief that their getting pregnant “is God’s will” and that more children in the family has its own compensations. Over 80 per cent of respondents interviewed belong to the low-income group whose percep tion of children in the family including count ing the siblings as future economic units. The study explained that majority of resi dents in the countryside belong to the landless poor and such depressed economic situation has compelled them to look upon children as “secu rity for their old age.” It added that while family planning informa tion may seem sufficient in the urban areas, the same does not apply in the countryside, especially in the villages where the poor reside. Communities of the poor lack electrical ser vice, other basic needs and recreational facili ties. Adding to these is the pressure of religious beliefs and traditional practices. Combined, such factors help deepen resistance to prescrib ed* changes, especially those which pertain to fertility, the study said. In its report on the results of the 1980 na tional census, the National Census and Statis tics Office (NCSO) placed the average geome tric population growth rate of the Philippines during the 1975-1980 period at 2.71 per cent yearly. The annual national population growth is higher in the countryside where an estimated near 80 per cent of- Filipinos reside. The national population as counted in 1980 stood at 48,098,460, showing an increase of 6,027,800 over the 1975 population of 42,070,660 or an increase of over a million a year. The 1983 population is believed to have reached 52 million. NCSO also repented-that population growth rate in Mindanao is 3.58 per cent per annum, compared to 2.73 per cent for Luzon and 1.86 per cent for the Visayas. - DEPTHnews emphasize that com pliance with such re commendations is with in the capability of the Philippine government. They add that the government has already come up with the re quired political will t h rough establishment of the MES. __ Delving into Philip pine medical history, the paper recounts that studies on the disease started in the country as early as 1902 and that such investigations provided the entomo logical and epidemiolo gical groundwork which served as the launching pad of nationwide anti malaria campaigns. Organized malaria control effort began in 1926. It was handled by the Malaria Control Section of the then Bu reau of Health. Its acti vities were confined to anti-larval measures and treatment of cases with quinine. The effort last ed up to 1946. During 1926-1946, the paper says malaria is esti mated to be responsi ble for about 20,000 deaths and two million cases annually. From 1946 to 1952, malaria was recorded by the health ministry as the top cause of mor bidity in the Philippines ■ and the fifth cause of mortality. From 1966 to 1973, the anti-malaria cam paign was reorganized , with passage of a law (Republic Act 4832) which created MES. During 1973-1981, the MES was further strengthened by the government with such reinforcement virtually rendered meaningless due to lack of funding. r . - DEPTHnews FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 ------------------------------Q------------- ' i-----------------------------------VESTAS PAGE 17 ARTISTS CHRONICLE AN ERA This begins a series of works by notable artists reflecting a sensibility in protest of the times. - Ed. ENTERTAINMENT VERITAS FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 PAGE 18 cyMANILATIP-OFF By MA. THERESA R. MARTELINO PERFORMING ARTS Full-length documentary on Berlin in 1945. Directed by Franz Baake. Presented in CCP Little Theater cooperation with Goethe Institut. (CCP Complex, Roxas Blvd., Manila) February 5 - 7:30 p.m. A RT PHSA Music Festival. Featuring pia nist Aries Caces. Presented by the Philip pine High School for the Arts in coope ration with the CCP. February 10, 11 - 7:30 p.m. Ballet Philippines Repertory Ensemble. Dances performed by Ballet Philippines. Bulwagang Gantimpala (CCP Complex, Roxas Blvd., Manila) February 5 - 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. Kapangyarihan ng Kinulayang Tubig. Ronaldo C. Tumbokon’s 2nd prize winner in the 1983 CCP Playwriting Contest, Cate gory I presented by Bulwagang Gantim pala. Deals with faith healing. CCP Main Theater (CCP Complex, Roxas Blvd., Manila) February 7-8 p.m. New York Harp Ensemble. The Amer ican musical group performs with the Phil ippine Philharmonic Orchestra in this pre sentation of the CCP in association with the American Embassy. Insular Life Theater (Insular Life Bldg., Ayala Ave., Makati) February 5,11 - 3:30 and 8 p.m. February 9,10-8 p.m. Torch Song Trilogy. Harvey Fierstein’s Tony Award winning play on the third sex. Cast: Miguel Faustmann, Zeneida Amador, Paul Holme, Tommy Alvarado, and Baby Barredo. Directed by Baby Barredo. Pre sented by Repertory Philippines. FILMS Open-Air Theater (Rizal Park, Manila) Every Saturday and Sunday at 7:30 p.m.. Cinema in the Open Air, a project of the National Parks Development Commit tee. Free admission. 'February 5 - The Glass of Water. Ger man film classic about a court intrigue in seventeenth century Old England. Based on a comedy by Eugene Scribe. Directed by H. Kautner. Presented in cooperation with the Goethe Institut. February 11 - The Battle of Berlin. Primetime Specials Here are the week’s special shows and movies: • Sunday, February 5 at 9 p.m., RPN-9 presents a Rock Hudson starrer, A Fine Pair. Hudson plays a police captain who gets tricked by a beautiful stranger into getting involved in a heist. Claudia Cardi nale also stars in this Sunday’s Big Event feature. • RPN-9 brings back Bare Essence on Wednesday, February 6, at 8:30 p.m. Star ring Linda Evans, Bruce Boxleitner, Donna Mills, and Genie Francis, this two-part movie explores the exciting world of the perfume industry. • Also on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., GMA-7 presents the first part of a threepart documentary entitled Catastrophe. It features first hand accounts of heroic sur vivors of many of the world’s most awe some and devastating disasters. Narrators Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland share the experiences of these men and women suddenly thrust into bizarre and terrifying tests of bravery and stamina. There are also interviews with experts exploring the larger issues of disaster prediction, preven tion, and treatment of victims of these tra gedies. • Friday at 8:30 p.m., GMA-Motion Pic tures airs Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hood ed Fang, a story about pre-teen kids who form a group called Child Power to pro tect children’s rights from grown-up tyran ny. Starring Alex Karras as the Hooded Heritage Centre (Cor. William and Lantana Sts., Cubao, Quezon City) Pintig ng Buhay features the paintings of Rosella Sicat-Lorenzo and her son, Rus sell S. Lorenzo. Rosella is a business-admi nistration graduate of the University of the Philippines who paints as a hobby. Russell is a recipient of the Anita Magsaysay-Ho scholarship. Until February 24. HOTELS Hotel Intercontinental Manila (Ayala Ave., Makati) At the Bahia Lounge: E.J. Villacorta, Menchu Lauchengco, and Stella Ignacio of Repertory Philippines sing a wide reper toire ranging from Broadway to sentimen tal blues and ballads, to pop and medium rock, Mondays to Fridays at 5:30-10:30 p.m. At the Prince Albert Rotisserie: Rare Beaujolais Nouveau wine 1983 is served exclusively. Manila Peninsula (Cor. Makati and Ayala Aves., Makati) At the Lobby: Drink of the month is St. Valentine, a mixture of rum, white wine, pineapple juice, syrup, and grena dine. At La Bodega: An international fish and seafood buffet is offered at dinner time every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Price is Pl 10+ for adults and P70+for children aged 12 and below. Cafe Bar (Level 3, Ali Mall, Cubao, Quezon City) The Star Jazz Band composed of Nonong Avila, Henry Olib, Benjie Grey, and Mia Mirasol perform every Monday, Wed nesday, and Saturday at 9 p.m.-l a.m. Miscellany Our Lady of Fatima Children’s Learn ing Center holds a lecture series in the church compound. On February 18 the topic is “Understanding the Pre-School Child.” The public is invited. For more information, call or visit Lourdes Tiambeng at the school on Baltazar St., Phil-Am Life Village, Las Pinas. Metro Manila with tel. no. 801-8864. Genie Francis and Bruce Boxleitner in Bare Essence. Fang and Stephen Rosenberg as Jacob Two-Two. • Saturday, Marvelous Golden Movies presents A Promise of Love, a two-hour made-for-TV movie. Valerie Bertinelli stars as a frightened 28-year old Vietnam War widow untrained to face the responsi bilities and the hard facts of living alone. -Mttq—treason bmt noitormot— The Circus Band reunites for a series of reunion concerts at the Rizal Theater in Makati on February 10, 11 and 12 in com memoration of the 150th anniversary of Ayala Corporation. Tickets are available NETWORK ANTONIO C. Barreiro, deputy com missioner of National Telecommunica tions, has reportedly been tapped to re place Rodolfo T. Reyes as MBS-4’s general manager. Mr. Reyes resigned effective Feb ruary 1. * * * * * Angie Dickinson returns to the small screen in RPN-9’s rerun of Policewoman starting February 2 at 7:30-8:30 p.m. The acfion-adventure series, which revolves around the undercover cop Sgt. Pepper An derson (Dickinson) and her crime-fighting activities, replaces the local sitcom S.T.E.E.R. which was cancelled reportedly due to lack of sponsors. S. T.E.E.R. starred Carmi Martin, Jimmy Javier, Ronnie Laza ro, Wendy Villarica, and Emig Tagle. Contractual employees of Channel 4 are reportedly very unhappy about a memo stating that their contracts will not be re newed in 1984 as a cost-saving measure. Al though the directive has not been imple mented yet, these employes are raising their eyebrows at reports that the station’s news staff have in the meantime been given hefty salary increases. Remington Steele, a romantic comedy on private detectives, will premiere over Channel 7 on February 6 at 8:30 p.m. The series stars Stephanie Zimbalist and Pierce Brosnan. ***** Effective February 7, Inday Badiday’s True Confessions will be transferred from its Mondays, 9:30 p.m. slot to Tuesdays at 7;30 p.m. This is to accommodate Matt Houston which premieres on February 6 at 9:30 p.m. ***** Progress ’84, an information package about the Bureau of International Revenue and its policies, will be telecast daily on RPN-9 starting February 13^t 4 p.m. at the lobbies of Rizal, Quad, and Green belt theaters, Shoemart Cubao a-^ Makati Odyssey Greenhills, Erew^on, anTTavemon-the-Square. Pierce Brosnan and Stephanie Zimbalist in Remington Steele. SUM ^starring Mark Shera, Robert Urich, and Steve Forrest, will be rerun starting February 11 at 9 p.m. over Channel 2. In effect, Manila Files will be moved to a Tuesday, 8:30 p.m. timeslot. * * * * * Superstar, Ang Bagong Kampeon, and Duplex, three of RPN-9’s longest-running programs, celebrate their anniversaries this month. Thus, the station’s banner for the month is “Anniversary February.” ***** RPN-9 Y Cine sa 9, telecast from Mon days to Wednesdays at 1:30 p.m., has a new title: Magsine Tayo. -----------------------------------PAGE 19 FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 VESTAS REVEW Ln the realm of tears/ blood and all that sweat By JUSTINO DORMIENDO TO THIS modern day and age, the local komiks, that chief pur veyor of escapism, sen sationalism, and soap opera kind of amuse ment, still wields a do minant, if pervasive, stranglehold on Philip pine cinema. Notice, for instance, how local filmmakers invariably turn to komiks mate rial everytime they wish to cook up Something Big, Popular and Down right Commercial. With its legion of avid fol lowers, the komiks is guaranteed to bring in hordes upon hordes of moviegoers who will have no trouble identi fying with the film’s protagonists, keeping themselves perpetually glued to their seats as these long-suffering characters go through life’s unexpected twists and turns. The latest proof of this commercially suc cessful komrks-to-screen transposition is Viva Films’ Kung Mahawi Man Ang Ulap, based on Gilda Olvidado’s po pular • komiks fiction and now literally graft ed to the screen by scriptwriters Orlando Nadres and Lualhati Bautista. We only won der why a major film maker of the stature .gijd ability of Laurice Guillen who had done better work before (Sa lome, for one) has opted to do a movie as blatantly dated and in ferior as Kung Mahawi, a movie whose sensibi lity, to begin with, is as anachronistic as enjoy ing a Sampaguita Pic tures family melodrama circa 1954. As it is, KMMAU (let’s settle for the less excruciating acronym) is gravely faulted not so much for its cinematic treatment as for its overriding fidelity to the original source, al though in this case the two seem hardly distin guishable. The plot - or more appropriately, subplots - is as unbear ably convoluted as Zig zag Road on a cloudy day. The film’s central character, Catherine (played by Hilda Koro nel), goes through one terribly painful ordeal after another, the stuff of which could perhaps put to shame those hap less, harassed, and ha rangued heroines of many a Sampaguita me lodrama. At the fil Catherine’s mother takes back her old-time beau, now a widower, and his three children. Her mother then marries this goodfor-nothing rascal who is only out to victimize this poor, naive crea ture. Despite Catherine’s initial protestations, the other family takes over the household and the family business as well. Catherine loses her job at the grocery store. Then she loses her own suitor to whom she is betrothed when her stepsister seduces him. As if this weren’t enough yet, Catherine’s stepbrother attempts to rape her. She kills him in a clear case of self defense. But because of one damaging piece of testimony by her step sister’s lover, aggravated by her own mother’s re fusal to testify on her behalf, she is convicted to a lifetime imprison ment. At this stage, the plot thickens - with far stranger twists and turns. In prison, she gives birth to a child by her suitor Rustan who has been conveniently banished to the U.S. The child is entrusted to her godmother, but upon the godmother’s death, is passed on to her mother, who is now, at this stage, im poverished. When this poor woman finally comes to her wits, it is too late as she is made to fall down the stairs to her own contrived death. Meanwhile, Cathe rine’s sister concocts yet another plan to save her family from the threat of mendicancy. She passes off the child as hers by Rustan, who has now miracu lously returned. But be fore Rustan is com pletely deceived, the, truth lets out, straight from the lawyer’s mouth. The witness makes a retraction, and Catherine is set free. At the long-awaited end, Catherine exacts retri bution from her tor mentors, and claims her child from the father to boot. The material may sound incredible, from the above synopsis, but, in fact, it is as tortuous and unrelieved in its gloominess. Blame it on the film’s excessive hankering to portray the heroine’s anguish and suffering in life and in love. Blame it on the characters’ unbelievable naivetd allowing them selves to be usurped by the one family’s greed and avarice. And blame it, most of all, on the filmmakers’ concessions to prevailing taste for soap-operatic amusement. The performances are a mixed bag, but most of them of the uncon vincing, unsympathetic kind. As Catherine, Hil da Koronel, fine actress that she is, is hampered by a plodding role which relies heavily on emoting rather than internalizing. Christo pher de Leon is barely credible as the spineless, mindless Rustan. Glo ria Romero is as con fused as her part, a suc cessful businesswoman who allows herself to be easily destroyed. As ___ _ ___ _________ the quintessential villain, miks material, but both Eddie Garcia is merely caricaturish, while the performers who play his children, namely, Amy Austria, Isabel Ri vas and Michael de Mesa simply have to look and sound evil and scheming. Alas, not even Romy Vitug’s competent lighting and composition can save this film from its own self-made, pitiful disin tegration. Pusakal, Boots Plata’s first directorial assign ment, may not have been derived from a koWith Laurice Guillen as director, Romy Vitug as cinematographer, and the acting of a powerhouse cast which includes Hilda Koronel, Christopher de Leon, Eddie Garcia, and Gloria Romero, it is hard to believe that Kung Mahawi still managed to fail. in treatment and de piction of characters, much of it is komikslike. Though fairly pro mising in its attempt to shed psychological light on the mind of a man driven to a life of vice and lawlessness, the film is weakened by its own excesses, the re sult of directorial heavy handedness. A good quarter of the film is, in fact, de voted to the principal character’s traumatic childhood with a pros titute mother, his con comitant involvement in petty crimes, there after, his rise as his own syndicate’s kingpin. The film also attempts to insinuate that, in this case, the most generous philanthropist yet comes from the most vicious of criminals. There is also much confusion over the fo cus given to the mate rial. While scenes of bloodbath are shown in graphic detail, those that are meant to deve lop the “human” side of the protagonist Am ber (coolly played by Ace Vergel) are mostly in vignettes, hardly of fering genuine insight into his true character. His relationships with his now lunatic mother (Charito Solis), a teen age moll (Kristine Gar cia),. and a hard-toplease rich bitch (Myr na Velasco) do not eli cit sympathy, much less understanding into the unusual mold of an anti-hero. Pusakal thus ends up as another exercise in gore and mayhem, sac rificing its original in tentions to rise above the usual level of runof-the-mill action flicks, and, finally, falling into the same trap of sense lessness and viciousness that plague most of our movies today. Censorship may give way to film classification SOME SECTORS may have won their battle against movie censorship in this coun try with the introduc tion last January of the system of film classifi cation . The Film Academy of the Philippines (FAP), a private or ganization representing the entire movie indus try will work for the new system if findings prove film classification as the better alternative. The FAP was estab lished in June 1981 through Executive Or der 640-A issued by President Marcos. It is managed by a. board of governors composed of the presidents or repre sentatives of the 12 artistic, creative techni cal and non-technical guilds involved in film making. On Sept. 4, 1983. during a geneiaLassem bly at St. Joseph’s Col lege auditorium, FAP virtually declared “open war” against the cen sors board and draft ed the Code of Self Regulation and Classi fication System. This was followed by a series of discus sions on the guidelines for film classification and self-regulation. The guidelines were finally ratified and on Dec. 27, the Film Academy Clas sification Board was formed, headed by Nes tor Torre, noted film critic, columnist, and movie, television and stage director. Under the film clas sification system, there will be no cuts or dele tions on films submit ted for review. Instead, they will be classified according to the viewer ship for which they are deemed best suited, whether.G, P, R, or X. A “G” classification means that a film is suit able for all ages; “P” means parental advice is recommended for persons under 18; “R” means the film is suita ble for adults only, and an “X” means the film is not recommended for commercial exhibition. Torre stressed that censorship is contrary to the dignity of res ponsible human beings. “I am an adult and I know what is right and what is wrong. 1 feel humiliated that the board of censors should dictate what kind of movies I should see and what not to see,”he said. Torre revealed that the producers have been /‘traumatized” by the censors after seve ral “unfortunate” and “degrading” incidents. They charged the By EFREN L. DANAO censors with “conde scending and insulting treatment of producers and distributors, incon sistency in the classifi cation of films, unrea sonable screening and evaluation procedures and arbitrary and in consistent interpreta tion and implementa tion of censorship guide lines.” He said that mental censorship has stifled the creativity of writers, directors, and others engaged in movie pro duction. “It was this trauma tic experience with the censors that led FAP to organize the FACB,” he revealed. The FACB is com posed of 36 members drawn from the differ ent guilds of the FAP. Only six constitute a review - panel with- Tor- - re, the chairman as the seventh. Since the FACB is composed of persons coming from the movie industry itself, what is the assurance that these members would not be guided by their own interests? “Our members are prohibited from review ing films whose produc tion they had been in volved in. You know, one of the things that amazes me is the mem bers’ sense of delicadeza. Once, we were about to review a film when one of the panel members voluntarily in hibited himself, saying that the producer was a cousin of his. We didn’t know this fact and the panel member could have kept quiet. Yet, he volunteered the in-formatien - and—beggedoff from the panel. That is the kind of members we have at the FACB,” Tone said with obvious pride in his eyes. The producer of the film should have a re presentative in the re view and this represent ative is allowed to make oral representations for whatever ratings he may desire. If the pro ducer is not satisfied with the rating given his film, he may request re consideration from an appeals committee com posed of members of the FACB board of gov ernors. The decision of the appeals committee is final. “We do not just rate a film. We also explain why a film is given such a classification,” Torre said. AD films produced by members of the Philip■ pine Motion Pictures ~ Producers Association and the Independent Movie Producers Asso ciation of the Philip pines have assured the FACB that all their films would be submit ted for classification. They constitute 70 per cent of the movie pro ducers in the country, Tone added. The FACB has no police powers or a sys tem of sanctions with which to enforce the film classification sys tem. “You should remem ber that film classifica tion is not yet the gov erning system. Censor ship is still the pre vailing system so we could not possibly im pose any sanctions,” Torre stressed. He noted that the new system has been drawing support from the broad spectrum < ! I society.-------- ---------r VEKUAS FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 PAGE 20 Our prospects for clean clothes and related anxieties WHAT IS the official word on soap and detergents? Come June are we still going to be able to wash our plates, our clothes and ourselves? Procter and Gamble PMC’s Mr. Fernando Langcauon and Mr. Alberto Maniapit gave this reply: “Since this crisis crashed down on our ears a moratorium was declared on dollars so we purposely began to cut back our production of detergents. If we continued to manufacture in full blast our raw materials would be depleted so much faster and they can’t be replenished without letters of credit. It doesn’t help any that unlike grains and paper, hygienic products are not listed as vital industries when they’re used by everyone — young or old, rich or poor, male or female or sward. “But then we figured that even if soap and detergents were classified as essentials that still would not solve our problem. The supply of dollars is so limited and thousands, like the drug manufacturers, are lining up for a slice of it. After the tiny pie has been divided among all the essential industries, what we could get is just a morsel. By GRAZIELA C. FRANCIA “So what we have done instead is increase our capacity for producing laundry soap instead of continuing to produce detergents whose raw materials will be depleted by the second quarter of 1984. We are rejuvenating our laundry soap production because it died when we put Tide on the market. We have been rehabilitating our soap making equipment, retrieving those no longer even in the compound. We’re really back to where we were during the Japanese time. But then maybe if we had taken stock of the situation ten years back we should have done it then. This development is good for the soul, if not for business. “Anyone can make laundry soap, unlike detergents, which require a high technology. Small factories have resumed making soap in some provinces like Cebu and Laguna. It’s simplicity itself - all you need is a concrete bath. In coconut growing regions you cook your latik and there’s the oil, and you get lye from the ashes of the stove. “This reversion will require from us a regional type of manufacturing -instead of sending the product to say, Mindanao, and bear the heavy cost of transportation per bar we just open soap factories there. Only PMC and PRC are seriously making detergents and soaps so the need for hygienic products is still our responsibility to fill. Since no matter how much soap we produce will not be enough the small cottage industries will do the rest. They will survive because without our overhead their soap will be cheaper than ours.” Just in case it doesn’t work that way, here, folks, is... —HOW TO MAKE SOAP Soap making in the home is practical in places where there is an abundance of fats or oils. Many women of Mindanao have already begun to make their own laundry soap. Description of Ingredients: FAT AND OIL Use animal oil or vegetable fat, not mineral extract. Often used animal fats are those of cow, horse, sheep or pig. Though not as solid, the fat of chicken is also considered for oil. Often used for soap is vegetable oil from coconut, fruits of the nipa palm, com, oliva (olive) cotton seeds, mongo, peanuts or castor oil. Good soap is made out of a mixture of fat and oil. To make hard soap for use with hot water: Use 1.4 kg. lard melted from fat of cow, horse or sheep. To make washing and bath soap: Use 1.4 kg. lard from the fat of sheep or cow and 1.4 kg. from vegetal matter. The best oil is extracted from dried meat of coconut or palm nut. Soap made from palm nut is harder than soap made from coconut oil. LYE(LIHIA) One may use prepared lye (lihia), called caustic soda, or lye extracted from ash. Caustic soda is cheap and easy to obtain. It is poisonous and should be kept out of the reach of children. Do not get lye into direct contact with any part of the body. BORAX Borax is cheap, makes soap bubblier and improves its appearance. PERFUME This is not essential but it improves the quality of the soap specially if it is made from rancid fat. Citrus oil works as a preservative as well. WATER Fresh water is preferred. Sea water has minerals not conducive to cleaning qualities. Slightly salty water may be used but should first be neutralized in this manner: To every 1 gallon (3.8 liters) of salt water, mix 1 teaspoon (15 ml.) of lye. Mix the water while pouring the lye then set aside for several days, undisturbed. Separate the water on top for soap-making and throw the rest away. Rain water may also be used for soap making. UTENSILS Pail (timba, balde) pot, or kawa made of lead or clay (aluminum is melted by lye). Ceramic or glass cups for measuring. Mixing spoon, paddle or stick of wood or enamel. Wooden or cardboard form for moulding the soap, 2-3 inches deep. Coconut halves or dried upo shell may also be used as moulds. Slippery cloth or paper for lining the mould. Cut two pieces - one wider than the mould, the other longer than the mould. This will make it easier to remove the cooked soap. Thermometer (18° to 65°C) is useful but not essential. COOKING PROCEDURE: Fat should be clean. To clean: Boil an equal amount of fat and water in a clay pot or cauldron. Remove the container from the fire and strain the fat through a bamboo strainer or katcha cloth. Add one part cold water to every four parts of hot lard. Do not mix. Allow to cool. The fat on the top will be clean. (An unpeeled sliced potato put in at the start of the boiling will help in the cleaning). Take the right amount of the now clean and solidified fat and melt this in the pot where the soap is to be cooked. Set aside the right amount of water and the right amount of lye. Slowly trickle the lye into the water. This mixture will become very hot and may splash. Cool. To get the proper coolness, touch the bottom of the pot - it should be the same temperature as your hand. Never put your finger into the mixture. Cool the melted fat down to body temperature. Mix in the borax. Next pour the lye into the melted fat in small amounts and very slowly. While pouring stir in one direction. Continue stirring until the mixture thickens (about 30 minutes). Leave the mixture alone, stirring only once or twice every 15 or 20 minutes. After a few hours, when the mixture is as thick as honey, pour into the paper-lined mould. SOAP RECIPES INGREDIENTS: For 4.1 kg. soap Oil or clean solid fat: 13 cups (3 liters) or 2.75 kg Borax (optional): Y* cup (57 ml.) Lye (Sodium hydroxide crys tals): 370 gms. Water: 5 cups (1.2 liters) Perfume: oil of sassafras: 4 tsps (20 ml.) 1 .Cover the mould. Let the soap set for 48 hours in room temperature. Do not bump or disturb the mould in any way or the ingredients may separate. 2. After two days the soap should be hard. Remove the mould and cut into desired sizes with a strong piece of string or fine wire. 3. Stack in such a way that each bar is exposed to the air. The bars may be stored the normal way in two or four weeks. 2 4 oil of Wintergreen: 2 tsps. (10 ml.) oil of citronella: 2 tsps (10 ml.) oil of cloves: 1 tsp. (5 ml.) oil of lemon: 1 tsp. (5 ml.) For one bar of soap Oil or clean solid fat: 1 cup (230 ml.) Borax (optional): Lye (sodium hydroxide crystals): 5 tsps (23.5 gms.) Water: , ¥i cup (115 ml.) Perfume: a few drops 4. Good soap is hard, white, clean-smelling and tasteless. The top, if scraped, should yield curly shavings. N.B. If your soap does not turn out right, you can always go to the river and find a stone to scrub with. Another useful body scrubber is the dried netted pulp of a patola. — Soap procedure courtesy of Technology Resource Center FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 VERITAS PAGE 21 SPORT SHORTS AU-Filipino PBA When the Philippine Basketball has agreed during a special meet Association (PBA) opens its first to adopt an all-Filipino format of three conferences this March, throughout the 1984 season to Billy Ray Bates and company stave off a threat of some teams won’t be there anymore pricking to withdraw participation in view baskets and bringing home dollars, of the country’s foreign Currency The PBA board of governors problem. Manila Marathon Winner Kjell Erik-Stahl of Sweden ran the country in years. 2:19.24 Jor 42.195 kilometers in Unfortunately, the best FiliManila “to escape the harsh Swe- pino entry could manage only a dish winter.” ninth place finish through Jimmy And he ran fast enough to win Potested’s 2:32.04. Some 25 the third Manila international countries, mostly from Europe, marathon, one of the fastest and joined the race, best organized marathons held in Money in the Olympics There’s big money in the athletes’ national sports federaOlympic Games. tions to insure that the athletes The Winter Games in Saravejo don’t go into the hands of promothis month and the Summer ters and commercial sponsors. Olympics at Los Angeles in July The IOC has recognized the and August will gross over $70 fact that world standards are so million in television revenue for high that gold medal prospects the International Olympic Com- devote their whole time to their mittee (IOC). This amount is only sports, and they cannot do that one-third of the total television without income. The Philippines’ income, with the rest going to own sprint queen Lydia de Vega, the host country. who is now busy preparing for Skiers and track stars are open- the Olympics, has appeared in the ly making money, but the prize movies, but part of her income money and advertising payments goes to the Philippine Olympic have tp be held in trust by the Committee. Another Knockout Another knockout rocked Philippine boxing when Fernando Gloria, fighting for the OrientalPacific junior welterweight title, jvas knocked out by Kim Cungshik of South Korea. Gloria’s end came at 2:21 in the eighth round of the scheduled 12-round title bout at Seoul’s Munhwa gym. One week earlier, Frank Cedeno lost his WBC flyweight crown to Koji Kobayashi of Japan via a second round knockout loss in Tokyo. 19th Straight in 21 Years -Although this year’s RP Youth Team is better successful 1982 team (in photo) had more time to man-for-man according to coach Larry Albano the prepare for the campaign. The FEU softbelles scored its 19th title victory in 21 years by blasting off UST, 5-3, in the Metro Manila UAAP women’s softball championship. FEU first won the title in 1963 and has ne ver relinquished it since then, ex cept in 1972 and 1973 when the UAAP was suspended due to “martial law.” RP youth 5 races vs. time National UAAP in Bacolod By ROMY DE LA CRUZ The annual UAAP national games, the country’s biggest sport ing spectacle outside of the Palarong Pambansa, now Palarong Pilipino, will be held in Bacolod City on Feb. 23 to 26. The University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos will host the four-day athletic meet to be par ticipated in by 30 big colleges and universities representing de fending champion Metro Manila, the Visayas, Southern Mindanao, Northern Mindanao, North-Cen tral Luzon, and Southern Tagalog-Bicol. New Hobie ’14 Champ A man who said he doesn’t know whether to cry, sing, or laugh is the proud winner of the VII Hobie, 14 World Champion ship held in the choppy waters off Puerto Azul beach in Cavite. Bob Curry, a 26-year-old wea ther observer in the US air Force, became the first man to win the race on his first try since another American, Jeff Camapa, won the inaugural staging of the biennial meet in Hawaii in 1973. Dorre wins in women's marathon Unheralded Katrin Dorre of East Germany made a powerful spurt in the last 1.5 km to win the third Osaka International Women’s marathon in 2:31.41. Her winning time assured her a berth in the Los Angeles Olympic Games Marathon as the East Ger man Athletics Federation set the qualifying time for the Olympic marathon at 2:33, according to informants. The 22-year-old East German, who was running her fourth mara thon, overtook Japan’s front run ning Akemi Masuda near the 41km mark to take the honor. Masuda, 20, who had collapsed near the 15-km mark in last year’s race, was second in 2:32.05. The short 151 cms tall Masuda leapt to the head of the field near the 12-km point and at one stage she took a nearly 800-meter lead over the second running group, including eventual winner Dorre and Denmark’s Dorthe Ramsussen, one of the favorites, who finished fourth in 2:35.23. Hungary’s Karolin Szabo in her ninth marathon came in third in 2:35.38 and Laurie Crisp of the United States, who was running in the full marathon for the first time was fifth in 2:37.01. CAN THE Philippines retain the Asian Youth basketball crown in Seoul this April? A full-time school administra tor and a part-time basketball coach holds the key to the answer. And to give this query its popular response, Larry Albano, 40, admi nistrator of Scout Albano Memo rial Colleges, has changed his order of priorities since he was ap pointed last month to coach the RP Youth team. He gets up very early in the morning not to give his school a spot check, but to take a quick drive to the Rizal memorial com plex in Vito Cruz to join 15 RP Youth hopefuls in their daily workouts. The group starts the day by do ing some physical conditioning at 6 o’clock, to be followed one hour later by shooting and defen sive drills, to be capped by playing a practice game against an ama teur ballclub. The team expects to meet some PBA teams in exhibition matches this month and hopes to arrange some games against the “naturalized” Filipinos in March. The group will fly to Seoul in the first week of April in time for their scheduled games from April 7 to 21. “We’re racing against time,” Albano told Veritas over breakfast at the Rizal Memorial Sports Grille. “We now have less than three months to prepare.” Albano thinks his team is bet ter man-for-man than the RP Youth squad that regained the Asian Youth crown two years ago in Manila. But the successful 1982 RP Youth cast had terrific team work, developed through six months of intensive preparations supported by businessman Eduar do M. Cojuangco. “Our team is not only short of time, but also of funds,” sighed Albano, a statement which he did not have to elaborate. Right there during the interview, he was not sure where to charge the bill in curred by his boys for their break fast of coffee, bread, and egg. He said: “We’ve been told that the ambassador (Cojuangco) will help the team financially; we hope he can come to our rescue now.” Despite his problems, Albano looks undaunted. This is his third assignment as head coach of a na tional team and his first appoint ment that did not draw any objec tions from some other interested parties who claimed he was too in experienced to coach a national team. This is only his seventh year of coaching, three years of which were spent as high school coach of Letran. After helping the school win the NCAA juniors title in 1979, Albano was given the break to coach the senior team in the same league. He did not win the title on his first try in 1981, but his team finally won it in 1982 and success fully defended the title last year for Letran’s first back-to-back vic tories in 22 years. Albano had a series of good breaks after that. He was appoint ed to assist coach Nathaniel Canson in the Asian Games in New Delhi where the locals landed fourth place. He also coached the Philippine team that won the second ASEAN school youth championship. But even with these creden tials, his detractors believed he was not ready for his appointment as head coach of the national bas ketball team to the SEA Games held in Singapore last year. He disproved all of them by steering the locals to a gold medal finish in the biennial games. Still, he himself admits he lacks coaching exposure, so he goes out of his way to consult with the likes of Ron Jacobs, Nilo Verona, and Nemie Villegas. “I think my administrative know-how and understanding of human beha vior compensate for my lack of coaching experience.” And he proved that in only two years as a national coach. Right now, his main concern is how to jell his boys into a cohe sive team. “I think if they can develop unity and camaraderie among themselves in time for the Seoul meet, I think we can still be champions,” he said, stressing the if due to the time element in volved. VEKjTAS FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 PAGE 22 PILIPINO IBATO Ito ba si Bonifacio? Si Andres Bonifacio, ang Supremo ng Katipunan, ay natatandaan ng mga tao sa anyo ng isang pobreng paesano. Tipikal na paglalarawan sa kanya ang nakasumbrero, nakadamit nang butado sa dibdib, nakalilis ang pang-ibaba at nakatapak. Ang hawak niya ay gulok at sa tagiliran, sa kabila ng kaluban, may suksok siyang baril. Isang kakaibang rebulto ng bayani ang matatagpuan sa Imelda Park, Baliuag, Bulacan. Ipinakikita roon si Bonifacio sa pusto ng isang heneral ng militar - naka-uniporme, kumpleto ng sable at baril, may bota, nakakabayo pero nakasumbrero pa rin ng balanggot - ang tanging natirang dating pagkakakilanlan sa kanya bukod sa anyong pisikal ng mukha. Ayon sa rekord, ang rebulto ay “pananaw” ng, eskultor. Ni AGUSTIN V. TORRES ANO ANG isang ko mersyanteng kasanggu ni? Kasama ng pulitika 1 at kabobohan sa pagba-1 batas, ang pangungu- £ mersyo ng isang kasang-1 guni -kagawadng sang- I guniang bayan/lungsod — ay isang mapangwa- | sak na pwersa sa loob | ng lehislaturang lokal. | Iyon ang uod na sumi- I sira sa kapulungan. At, sa kasalukuyan, hindi na kakaunti ang komer syanteng kasangguni. Napakarami na ng mga kasangguning gumaganjft sa kanilang pwesto para makapaghanapbuhay. Ang komersyanteng kasangguning nagwawasak, sumisira sa kapulu ngan ay naiboboto sa tungkulin dahil sa pagpapahalaga ng tao sa ka nilang edukasyon at/o popularidad sa pamayanan, partikular sa kani lang sektor. Ang nakalalampas sa pobreng botante ay ang katotohanang hindi katiyakan ng mabuting paglilingkod ang magandang kwalipikasyong akademiko lang. Kahit ano pa ang katangiang akademiko ng isang opisyal ng ba yan, kung wala sa sarili niya ang hangad at debosyong magsilbi sa tao, hindi siya magiging epektibo sa anumang posisyon. Madaling makikilala ang isang komersyan teng kasangguni. Pinaghahangaran niya ang mahalal sa tungkulin para lang matulungan ang pribadong hanapbuhay. Tuwiran o hindi man. Sa pagbabatas, unang konsiderasyon ng mga kasangguniang ito ang interesng sariling negosyo o hanapbuhay. Kung, halimbawa, mayari siya ng isang malaking kultihan ng katad sa bayan, natural na sumalungat siya sa ordinansang mahigpit na kumokontra o nagpaparusa sa mga hanapbu hay na nakapagpaparumi sa paligid. Ano sa kanya kung ang pagdumi ng hangin at tubig sa kanilang pook ay maglagay sa panganib sa kalusugan ng publiko? Sa kaniya, ang pananagumpay ng negosyo o pamumuhunan niya ang tanging mahalaga. Ginagamit din ng opisyal na ito ang “po sisyon” para mapaburan ang hanapbuhay niya (na, mangyari pa, nakapangalan sa iba) sa mga pakikipagtransaksyon sa gobyemong lo kal. Kung may gasolinahan siya, tiyak na siya na ang makapagsusuplay ng gasolina sa mga sasakyan ng lokal na gobyerno. At tiyak ang pagbahayad sa ka niya dahil isa siya sa mga nagpapatibay ng badyet ng bayan. Ganoon din, kapag n ak i k i pagtr a nsaksiyon sa mga pribadong tao o kumpanya, pinalilitaw niya ang bigat ng nakaunang “kasangguni” sa kaniyang pangalan. At dahil alam ng kausap niya na iyon - ang titulo - ang lisensya niya para makagawa ng pabor o makapamerhuwisyo sa alinmang negosyo sa sinumang tao mula sa loob ng sibd-pulungan, tinitingnan niyang iyon ay mensahe na rin ng blackmail. Ang kasang guni ay kasingkahulugan ng pagsasabi ng: “Pag hindi mo ako pinaburan ay alam mo nang pwedeng may mangyari sa hanapbu hay na hindi mo magugustuhan.” Dahil sa kaniyang kalikasan, ang komer syanteng kasangguni ay mabilis umaksyon sa mga resolusyong nagbibigay ng mga dagdag na biyaya sa mga kawani at opisyal (na kinabibilangan niya), pagtataas kaya ng sahod o nagkakaloob ng mga kapaburang tulad ng libreng paggamit ng sasakyan o makinarya ng bayan. Isa pang lantad na katangian ng ganitong kasangguni ang kahusayan niyang magtago sa mga naghahanap na nangangailangan ng tulong na pinansyal. At kung masukol naman, magaling siyang tumanggi o maghabi ng mga pagdadahilan. Mapanira Ang pagkakaroon ng komersyanteng kasang guni sa sangguniang ba yan/lungsod ay nangangahulugan ng pagkainutil ng kapulungan. Dahil sa paluko na ang pagbabatas o nakatuon lang sa iilang interes (na personal ng mga kasang guning nangungumersyo), nakakaligtaan noPINTIG Tamana Ni AGUSTIN V. TORRES ANG PUBLIKONG pag-eendorso ni Assem blyman Teodulo C. Na tividad kay Labor Mi nister Blas F. Ople sa pangalawang-panguluhan, bagaman at malinaw na isang maniobrang pampulitika, ay mahalaga na para pagukulan ng pansin. Ginawa ni Natividad ang pag-eendorso sa kalalawigan nang parangalan si Ople bilang natatanging anak ng Hagonoy, Bulakan. Walang nakatitiyak na hindi parte ng istratehiya at ambisyon ni Ople ang maging pangalawang pangulo at, sa huli, pangulo ng bansa. Kahit na sinong pulitiko ay nartgangarap na magkaroon ng pagkakataon sa puwesto ng pa ngulo. Sa karerang pulitikal, iyon ang pinakamatayog na hangarin. Ngunit sa kalagayan, ang maaaring hulaan ng tao ay ang uri ng administrasyong maibibigay ni Ople sa Pilipino. May saligan ang paniniw'alang ang administrasyong maihaharap niya sa tao ay simpleng ekstensyon lang ng rehimeng Marcos. Itutulak siya ng pagiging-strategist para sundan ang ha limbawa ni Marcos - isang strategist din. Sa maraming nakaraang pagkakataon, naon ang kabutihan ng mga tao. At ang mga tao, na hindi naman nanatiling tanga sa mga nangyayari, ay nagkakaroon ng pangit na ideya sa kagawad, sa sanggunian at sa pamahalaang lokal. Dumudulo ito sa pagkawala ng kanilang pagtitiwala o kahit paniniwala lang sa totoong layunin ng administrasyong pampamayanan. Sa harap ng ganitong patuloy na erosyon ng pagtitiwala ng tao sa le hislaturang pambayan o panglungsod, imperatibo ang paggawa ng madaliang hakbang. Kailangang mapigil ang pag kawala ng tiwala roon ng tao. Binabanggit na isang mabisang paraan ang eleksyon. Ngunit hang gang hindi nagiging matalino ang tao bilang botante, hindi magiging totoo ang kontensyong eleksyon ang magpapabuti sa sanggunian at magbabalik sa pagtiti wala roon ng mga tao. Hindi dapat na basta boboto lang ang botan te. Dapat siyang bumoto nang walang impluwensya ng emosyonalismo o mababaw na pagpapahalaga sa mga katangian ng kandidato. Sa ganito, ang eleksyon - ipinalalagay ritong malinis at matapat - ang totoong magiging importanteng instrumento sa restorasyon ng sanggunian sa mata ng pagpapahalaga ng mga tao. ipakita ni Ople ang kasanayan niya sa pag gamit ng istratehiya sa mga gawain. Istratehiya ang naging tungkod niya para mahalal sa Ba tasan. Istratehiya ang naglapit sa kaniya - ba gaman, sabi ni Mel Lo pez, hindi gaanong malapit - sa Malakanyang. Istratehiya ang ginamit niya para masamantala ang sitwasyon at mapalaki ng Ministry of La bor and Employment ang pangalan niya bi lang minister. At, ngayon, istratehiya rin ang ginagamit niya para mahalal uli sa Batasan. (Nililigawan niya ang mga lider-pulitiko sa pamamagitan ng alaala - cards, calculators, at pata ng hamon. Sinusuyo niya ang boto ng maliliit sa pamamagitan ng pangakong pautang sa mga natiwalag sa trabaho, at, pang-akit ng pagkaempleo sa ibang bansa paris ng Saudi Arabia.) Lagi nang kahangahanga ang mga resulta ng istratehiyang matagumpay na nagawa da hil tiyak na mahalaga. Ngunit malupit - napakalupit - ng epekto noon pag sumala. Halimbawa, sa ilalim ng administrasyon ng strategist na si Marcos, napasama ang bansa kasunod ng pagpaltos ng Palaisipan 1 Sangga 5 Takip 9 Alpabeto 11 U__ - lamang-ugat 13 Malaking ibon 14 __ Pacino 15 Mabilis na hayop 17 Asta 18 Talab 19 -------lubi - isang halaman 21 Gusto 22 Ribon 23 Laki 24 Paalala 26 Pinangungunahan 28 Bayad 29 Ita 31 Unangoras 32 Los Angeles 33 Taba ng alimango .35____ A-santa 36 Ilantad 38 Himala 39 Hangin sa tiyan isang istratehiyang na ging dahilan ng pagsabog ng pambansang ekonomya. Sa hangad ni yang maikubli ang radikal niyang pamumulitikang maaaring salungatin ng tao kung mauunawaan, sagaran ni yang ipinangutang ang bansa para puhunanin sa pagpapasagana ng kabuhayan ng tao. Ang taong busog ay hindi magrerebelde; hindi makakikita sa opresyon - gaano man iyon kalantad - para mag-alumpihit at umalma. Ngunit sumablay ang istrate hiya - hindi umunlad ang kabuhayan sa kabi la ng bilyun-bilyong puhunang isinaksak doon. At ngayon, gutom ang mga tao, kulang sa hanapbuhay; hindi na man matulungan ng pamahalaang kuba pa sa di-nababayarang utang. Hindi na kayang dalhin ng tao ang mga epekto ng isa pang pagsablay ng istratehiya. Masyadong mapangwasak iyon at higit na sa kayang danasin ng Pili* pino ang anumang masamang bunga. Sa terminong puli* tikal, tama na sa Pili pino ang isang Marcos. Ang isa pa uli, halim bawa mang nasa likod ng bagong pangalan at mukha paris ni Ople, ay kalabisan na. 7 Pang-ukol 8 Bunga ng pangangasim 10 Sahod 12 Isuot 14 Abala SnaSSS nann m QQQaan d ana nmca oh nncnan nnaa Bara nao nans nBaamn aa □□□ onn a nnranaCT na aana aannaa aasa nannaa E3EES1 PAGE 23 FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 O VERITAS ' THE WET LOOK of the early ’70s. The me.laljic of the ’80s. The biggie. The pirate. The / prairie. Crumpled, I preppy, funk or mini, J these fashions have come and gone, making i their debut on the cam puses, a reflection of student lifestyle^ and concerns. When 1983 brought down two hard-punch ing devaluations on the economy, coupled with nationalistic uprisings from the most unexpec ted people, in Ayala, I Liwasang Bonifacio, Mendiola and even Ongpin, students all over were the first ones to I feel the crunch and they showed it. . ,outk- wardly. There was a gradual transition from gel haired young men sport ing executive-type shirts r .with rolled sleeves and pleated gabardine slacks “making paporma to the girls,” to polo- or t-shirt-and-denim-clad guys wearing rubber shoes that replaced i shiny leather footwear. FROM AYALA TO U-BELT Dressing up (or down] the studentry MARY ANNE Y. SARTE AB English III, St. Scholastics *s College Most noticeable were the fashionable who used to parade around exclusive - - exclusive ^hoolsrifafised in htalfflJgYSLs or Chanelsl or their local versiorfis to match clicking ?3(JX)+ heeled shoes and ' *ranjy accessories in their quest for bonggahan. They have now be come a minority among /hose inconspicuously Iressed in simple bloused-skirt pieces, washSLF Focuses on First Quarter storm w* STUDENTS re pre setting national organi sations, local alliances, and student councils tt.' ~' ;in tor the 14th Student Leaders' Fo rum at Vinzons Hall, U.P., Diliman on Satur day, January 21. The meeting was held in preparation for National Youth Week (January 24-31) and the commemoration of the First Quarter Storm (FQS), a series of huge and-wear pants and rea sonably-priced shoes. The shift of prefer ence to more comfort able, casual, simple and cheaper clothing is now a trend among the stu dentry. The reason? "Taghirap, e! (a season of hardship)” wails one coed. “We can’t afford the things we used to wear - unlike before.” Unlike before. There was a time when the campuses set the trend among the young with flashy, expensive-looking-and-smelling clothes which, although they covered the body, bared the tastes and pocketbooks of their wearers. Pl 00 then could buy you a set of coordinates in exclusive department stores; now it can buy you only one piece of garment in a general merchandise store. If you’re lucky, you could catch it on sale on some busy sidewalk or underpass. Perhaps, the change to simpler styles reflect changing attitudes and the more practical clothes maybe a reac tion which smacks of protest. Clothes have been used as a response to the times. Generally By HENRY TUASON (CEGP News Bureau Director) demonstrations staged during the first three months of 1970. Guest speaker at the forum was Armando J. Malay, former U.P. dean and at present chairman of the Kapisanan Para sa Pagpapalaya at Amnestiya ng mga Detenido (KAPATID). Malay reminisced about the days of the First Quarter Storm, speaking, the remark able change in manner of dressing betrays i formation of a different set of values and atti tudes toward present societal conditions. An example is the Ninoymania boom after Aug. 21. Whoever thought that after 13 years of an autocratic regime, nine of which were spent under mar tial rule, people would march out in the streets all clad in yellow para phernalia: t-shirts, caps, sunvisors, headbands, pins and ribbons? Cam?>us sidewalks were some still are) flooded with these items, the students walked around or joined rallies in pro test shirts saying: Nasaan ang Kalayaan?, Who Killed Ninoy?, or Stop Repression. Of course, there still the “UP barricade’-’ put up by students sympa thizing with the then striking jeepney drivers, and the rally, sponsored by the National Union of Students of the Phil ippines, that was held in front of the old Con gress building when President Marcos deli vered his State of the Nation address. That rally ended in a con frontation between the students and the police. are the remaining waves of flashy dressers along the University Belt area or around other schools in the metropolis. But for the most part, the conclusion holds true, CULTURE and tech nology, art and science, were the themes of the University Week celeb ration at the Univer sity of Sto. Tomas from January 23 to 29. The week featured an im pressive line-up of acti vities, organized and sponsored by the various colleges in the university as well as by the Central Student Council. Among the activities were library and art ex hibits; a math quiz, an essay-writing contest, and an on-the-spot painting contest; talks on philosophy, science education, and econo mics; an international film festival; a fashion show, called “SARIANYO,” sponsored by the College of Architecture and Fine Arts; and, on January 27, a concelebrated mass in honor of St. Thomas of Aquinas, patron saint of UST. ♦ ♦ * University Week ended on Sunday, Ja KINTIN SAKITIN BH5IN5 15 EXEFtOSEa general ‘ consensus agreed upon by stu dents: Simple. Cheap. But with lots of character. In economic and po litical crises, there is no BULLETIN BOARD nuary 29, with a parade and review of the UST Corp of Cadets and the presentation of spon sors, held on the univer sity’s parade grounds at 9 a.m. to honor the Rector, and the UST administration and fa culty. In the afternoon of that same day, the UST alumni had their gene ral homecoming at the Education Auditorium. This was sponsored by the UST Alumni Asso ciation. • ♦ * This week promises to be still very colorful at the UST. On Februa ry 9, the university’s annual song festival will be held at 3 p.m. in the College of Medicine Au ditorium. Participants are choral groups from the different colleges within the university. On February 8, 10, and 12, the English De partment will sponsor a “Drama Showcase,” to be presented at the Education Auditorium FASHION’S TRANSITIONS. Campus wear has changed noticeably in the last two decades. Today, students go for cheap, simple clothes with lots of character. choice left but to adjust our lifestyles to survive, even if it means dress ing down to the basics. Dressing up for an occasion? • Might as well parade at 2 p.m. It will feature various types and tech niques of drama. Finally, on February 11 from 8 am. to 6 p.m., The Varsitarian, the university’s official student publication, will hold the Intercollegiate Quiz Show with partici pating teams from the different colleges of the University. All these activities are open to the public. Activities in other campuses meanwhile have livened the last week of January. Scheduled for Janua TO BUDDING WRITERS AND CAMERA BUGS: Veritas welcomes contributions of articles by and/or about the youth, as well as candid shots of campus scenes for the Campus Crops section. All manuscripts should be typewritten and double-spaced. Published contributions will be paid for. All articles and photos should come with the contributor’s name and phone number (if any). Student contributors should also in clude their course, year and school. Send all contributions to: Veritas Youth, Bustamante Press, Panay Avenue, Q.C. your leftover party clothes for the last time before another devalua tion crunches through. Just hope it will not leave us naked. And bloody furious, too. ry 25, Wednesday: a symposium on “Youth in Response to the Signs of the Times” at the College of the Holy Spirit, and another CEGP Coffee Hour on the “First Quarter Storm” at Trinity Col lege. For January 26, an overnight vigil at the UP sunken gardens was planned as part of the commemoration of the First Quarter Storm. Also scheduled for the FQS' celebration was a culminating activity on January 31 at the Liwa sang Bonifacio. FEATURES VEK1TAS FEB. 5-FEB. 11, 1984 PAGE 24 At the Baguio mar ket an abundance of sampaloc has been avai lable in the past month and a half. The whole sale price is P2.00 per limon or short-mea sured ganta. Wala na pong tawad. Mura na yan. What else can be bought for two pesos these days? Not two Buy sampaloc and stock it By ADELAIDA L. PEREZ eggs or a kilo of rice or a vote of confidence. The sampaloc season will peak this month then taper off towards the end of February when the weather be gins to get warmer. Buy while the price is low and the supply is plentiful, goes the law of buy-and-sell econo mics. A number of good and useful things can be made from this sour fruit. One of the re membered tastes of my childhood was a com mercially made sampa loc jelly packed in flat, round tins with an ex tra cover. It was called tamarind jelly and we used to eat it by the spoonful with Lacatan bananas and slices of queso de bola-our fa mily’s quirky way of having its fruit, cheese and dessert all at once. Canned tamarind jel ly is now extinct. Here is a homemade revival. Remove the stems of half-ripe sampaloc but do not peel them. Wash the fruit to remove the dust on the shells. Place in a deep sauce pan with enough water to immerse everything. Boil for around 15 mi nutes mashing the fruit against the side of the pan to separate the flesh from the seeds. Strain everything through a seive and ob tain a thick puree. Mea sure the puree into a heavy-bottomed sauce pan. Add sugar at one half the quantity of the puree. Bring the mix ture to a boil while stirring constantly until all the sugar granules are dissolved. At this point syrup tends to boil over very rapidly so watch it. Lower the flame and let the brew boil gently down to a thick, thick syrup. To test for doneness, take a teaspoon of t h e syrup and cool it quick ly with ice. The jelly should set firmly. Pour very hot jelly into clean jars, cover and sterilize in a bain marie for twenty minutes. From this basic jelly preparation can be made a chutney to ho nor meals of curry and roast meats. When the jelly is nearly done, add fine slivers of ginger, garlic, peppercorns and those vicious siling labuyo. The-proportions of the spices may vary from taste to taste. The thumb rule for spice usage is don’t exagge rate. Boil the syrup gently down to half its volume, stirring oecST' sionally. When done, thick like jelly, pack in jars. The sourness of sinigang as any Filipino will have it is often times sampaloc. The fruit is boiled, mashed and strained then ad ded to the soup pot with an infinity of com binations from shrimp and bangus to pig’s tails and chicken wings and a choice of vegetables. While the supply is plentiful, a concentrate of sampaloc I .n be bot tled and stocked for use in sinigangs when the season is over. Ob tain a thick puree of sampaloc using the* same procedure as for making tamarind jelly. For every cup of puree, add a half teaspoon of salt. Reduce over strong" n heat to a thick sauce. - This keeps a very long time if packed proper ly. To start a sinigang _ simply dissolve a couple - of spoonfuls in water. / 1 SEALED-IN FRESHNESS in Tetra Brik® Superior multi-layered package. nature's goodness without preservatives Magnolia leads the way with Tetra Brik, a revolutionary packaging system that fruit juices for several months without using preservatives. By ERICK VERNON DY LOS BANOS, Lagu na — Filipino techno logy on conversion of cassava into alcohol as industrial fuel has been ■ kicking around for _ _____ j'om _ taU,.sety—~~Fkib^pi; tury but the mystifying ’ thing is that the capabi lity continues to be largely ignored by the government’s economic planners. Being assailed by the mystification are agri cultural scientists based at the University of the Philippines at Los Ba nos (UPLB). It is both a frustration and a goad to them. The savants express themselves as “infuria ted” by the fact that such a technology has been established by their predecessors as early as 1931 and yet the Philippines is still to make alcohol derived from cassava a signifi cant contributor fo its annual industrial fuel needs. They contend that had there been fore sight and adequate planning on the part of government policymakers in the past 53 years, the Philippines today would not be that dependent on im ports for its industrial fuel needs, in the pro cess saving itself from much economic woe. The scientists insist that the country should embark on utilizing cas sava alcohol to free itself from depenrie/icv-T on imports and that thr T job can be done pro- H vided there is call “the necessary pOh- i 1 tical will.” is more than capable ef-y’ producing all the cassa- i va needed to pro vid. t the necessary amount 1 of alcohol to fuel .the various machineries used in industry, according^ to the savants. Tb^-; add that the tiuber i easily grows ip ail parts | of the country. As for the necessary j. technology update on cassava cultivation and - alcohol use as engine fuel, the scientists claim adequate Filipino ex- ' pertise in both areas exists and -k eiTy warn ing to be properly® tapped. UPLB’s scientificarchives are replete with studies on uses of cassava as fuel. The knowledge and techno logy they provide stand as a monument to the . neglect in utilizing--^--sava-alcohol as a leading ‘ industrial fuel in the na tion. One study done in 1948 proved that cas- ' sava treated with mold ji bran gave superior al- J cohol yield than tlW’^ conventional barley malt treatment ThHj former‘produced an-hOx to 85 per cent re/^ / compared to the latCV 70 per cent. — DEPTHnews ERRATUM Maur A. Lichauco’s article entitled Chil dren’s Cookshop in last week’s issue which included a recipe for polvoron shoidd have read “Toast flour in a pan in very low heat until beige colored,” instead of “Toast powdered milk. .