spot_img
27.6 C
Philippines
Friday, March 29, 2024

SONA message: Fight the oligarchs

- Advertisement -

"Duterte is not done yet."

Some conclusions from President Duterte’s penultimate State of the Nation Address (SONA):

• Despite being poorly delivered and one hour 40 minutes, and 8,880-word long, it is the best of the five SONAs of Duterte and one of the best of any Philippine president’s.

• Duterte is not done with the old-time oligarchs yet. He equates oligarchy with corruption. Corruption not in the traditional sense of bribery but using government franchises like broadcast to play politics and using concessions like telco, electricity and water to create profits and capital without investing so much, parlaying the subscriptions or fees paid by users to sustain the business. Ginigisa sa sariling mantika, to use a local slang.

He said: “The oligarchy that exists in this country is the oligarchy that existed during the Spanish time. And the Spanish lands and the friar lands and all the benefits that were passed on to the Insulares who did not go back to Spain or to the Spaniards and into their… But that was long ago, it has been forgotten. This is the oligarchy that controls the Philippines by what? By taking control of the water and the electricity and power. Iyan ang oligarchy mo (Senator Frank) Drilon.” These words were applauded.

The President has already denied renewal of the franchise of ABS-CBN Corp., the broadcast behemoth of the Lopez family. It seems the government machinery is not done with the Lopezes yet.

- Advertisement -

Some influential congressmen want to check into the Lopez family’s ownership of the ABS-CBN building and the land on which it stands, at Mother Ignacia Avenue. They think it was owned by JUSMAG (the joint US-Philippine military advisory group) which was turned over to the Philippine government which happily went into the possession of the Lopezes. During 12 hearings of Congress, ABS-CBN failed to produce original titles to the properties.

• Duterte seems to think there are only three oligarchs in the Philippines—the Lopezes, the Ayalas, and Manuel V. Pangilinan, the top honcho of the Hong Kong-based First Pacific Group of Indonesia which in turn controls PLDT, Smart, Maynilad Water, tollways concessions north and south of Manila, and properties.

• The Ayala family and MVP Group own two major concessions—telco and water. Duterte has given Ayala’s Globe Telecom and MVP’s Smart to improve their service substantially by Christmas 2020, for two reasons: One, he wants to greet Jesus happy birthday on Dec. 25, and two, he wants cheaper and faster telephone service as his Christmas gift to the Filipino people.

Also, the President wants cheaper electricity rates, as his Yuletide gift to the people.

With the pandemic, the economy has collapsed, resulting in massive joblessness, massive hunger, massive poverty, and massive misery. How do you make people merry then? Give them cheap, fast and reliable utilities—telco, water, and power. These three utilities, if you think about it, account for as much as 60 percent of an average household’s expenses. About 70 percent of the people are locked up in their houses—jobless, hungry, poor, and bored.

The poor people need water for hygiene and drinking water. That is the best way to fight COVID—through water—wash your hands, clean your body, drink lots of it.

Now for cheap, fast, and or/reliable and fast telco and electricity: It has something to do with entertainment. When people are suffering, give them entertainment. That was the role of ABS-CBN. Without ABS-CBN, there is telco to turn to—it is an immense medium for entertainment—texts, photos, videos, movies, and tsismis (remember, PNP said they will tap tsismosas for contact tracing).

Coincidentally, using telco and electricity is the best way to economic recovery—thru computers, wifi, online business. But with expensive, slow and bad telco service, you cannot achieve recovery fast enough.

Doing things at home means you don’t need to physically go out, take mass transport and queue endlessly at pay stations of public utilities—telco, electricity, and water. If you ask me, their service is bad.

• The three oligarchic families—Lopez, Ayala, and MVP—can do a lot to burnish the image of Duterte as president. The pandemic has proved that his administration has many shortcomings and it has it has had its share of the incompetent and the corrupt. Also, Duterte has a growing dynasty and his own share of oligarchs.

• Duterte delivering cheap and reliable wireless telephone, water, and power ensures that his popularity ratings remain in high double digits.

Duterte seems bent on creating larger and larger bureaucracy. There will be a new cabinet department for OFWs and another for pandemic management. There will even be an authority to manage Boracay.

That is one lesson of pandemic management—create layers of bureaucracy by naming so many czars. The idea is to cut up responsibility and spread the blame. The czars of old Russia should complain. Their title has just been pedestrianized.

biznewsasia@gmail.com

- Advertisement -

LATEST NEWS

Popular Articles