R.P's empty tourism come-on slogan

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

I am not impressed by the government’s come-on: “It’s more fun in the Philippines!” This is empty rhetoric. We Filipinos are good only in sloganeering. How can you attract tourists, particularly deep pocketed foreigners to come to our shores and start spending their monies when a toilet bowl at Terminal 2 in Manila could not even be provided with toilet paper by airport officials ( I know this because I was a victim of this when I arrived from abroad). A hotel in Dagupan City shuts-off its water system even before midnight because its owner wanted to save power and water bills, and another hotel seems to have an air conditioners that are programmed to decrease its cooling system from cool to hell as hours pass by. Even how catchy is our country’s slogan originally coined or plagiarized (hey, are the Swiss listening?) by the wise guys at the Department of Tourism, the figures speak that in terms of drawing tourists we are still a wimp even in our backyard South East Asia.

FVR Irks by Benguet's Guv Long Speech

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

The event was the unveiling of the marker dedicated to former President Fidel V. Ramos, and the launching of the first San Roque reservoir boat at the San Roque Power Corporation in San Manuel, Pangasinan.

It was an event treated by a five-minute speech (as dictated by the event’s program we called "protocol") to each high roller government officials like Japan Ambassador Toshinao Urabe, President and Chief Executive Officer of SRPC; Mr. Froilan A. Tampingco, President, National Power Corporation, Pangasinan; Ryukichi Kawaguchi, President & CEO,SRPC;Governor Amado T. Espino, Jr. , Benguet Governor Nestor. B. Fongwan, and other luminaries.

Former President Fidel V. Ramos

But the rule did not apply sui generis to the main guest the cigar chomping former President Ramos, known by the acronym's FVR , who had been given a 15 minute allowance for his peroration.

He wowed the crowd after he gave his signature EDSA Revolution’s jump after he was introduced by SRPC’s vice president for corporate affairs and renowned master of ceremony Tom Valdez.

But FVR's bravado was doused by Governor Fongwan after the latter gnawed not only the 15 minutes allocation for the latter but even those five minute’s allotment given to the other VIP guests. Fongwan’s “kilometric” speech was probably written by scintillating Ilokoslokavia saluyot nonpareil columnist Max Soliven, hahaha!

Ang haba anak ng bakang dalaga!

With his Civil Law's prowess, the Igorot Guv's dissected the nuts and bolts of the shares of Real Property Tax and the Special Education Fund from the earning his province Benguet gets from the SRPC that were reduced from 2 % to 1.1%. He assailed how his province and his town Itogon are shortchanged in the distribution of revenues from the SRPC, and other grievances he showboated through his legal prowess.

I heard he ain't even a lawyer but probably an LL.B holder sans the Bar examination.

This irked President Ramos who impatiently and incessantly biting his cigar and eventually stood up and went to the seat of Benguet Vice Governor Crescencio C. Pacalso by telling him in Ilocano like “napudot ditoyon (it's hot here)" and commanded him like what U.S General George Patton did to his Colonels before launching them to Normandy to stop Fongwan’s chatterbox.

Everybody at the back seats laughed when the former president gestured by cutting his (FVR) throat to the amusement of the members of the provincial board of Benguet and other spectators.

FVR then went to have some niceties in Ilocanos with some folks at the back while the unwitting Governor Fongwan continued his sentiments and encomium.

The raucous continued when FVR came to my seat when I asked him when I would give him my news article in relation with my recent interview with him. Instead he extended his right hand and hand locked it by asking me to counter his gripped.

“You already know, Sir, I could not beat you ever since we had hand locked before,” I whispered to him as the crowd no longer looked at Governor Fongwan, who still delivered his legally loaded piece, but to our direction.

“Kahit si Manny Pacquaio surrender dito (Even Manny Pacquiao (world class boxing champion) gave up on this hand locked),” Ramos told me.

FVR then asked his close-in bodyguard to get my folder that included my article with him and my latest Q & A with former speaker Jose de Venecia on the South China Sea (See too in the next issue of this blog my Q & A with Ramos).

Thereafter the Benguet Governor, who probably sensed the demeanor of the former Commander-in-Chief to him, has returned to his seat.

When it was Ramos turn to speak, he said he would only speak in five minutes because Governor Fongwan consumed his 15 minutes allocation (crowd guffawed again). But it did not stop FVR to go 20 minutes impromptu.

He dramatically threw at the gusty San Roque wind all the three sheets of folded papers he took from his front pants’ pocket by telling the crowd he no longer need them because it would consume more time at the expense of the crowd who endured in the noontime scorching sun.

What amazed everybody about the former alumnus of West Point during the entirety of his speech?

He, clad in a long sleeve barong, spoke outside the mammoth sunbrella unmindful of the blistering noontime heat.

This made FVR a cut from the rest.

All the preceding speakers spoke under the comfort of the sunbrella. Despite the scorching sun he continued to crack jokes, reminisced how as the then incumbent president of the land he helped conceive the SRPC, and the significance of the hydro-power plant to the need of the country that reeled in the debilitating power crises then.

The chivalry made FVR a soldier's soldier.

I saw these awe in the eyes of retired and active generals, officers, and enlisted men who were there. This made him an Erwin Rommel and a Charlie Chaplain mixed into one and reincarnated susmariosep like when he treated the hoi-polloi about the great giant tilapias and the shark’s story him and former Speaker de Venecia cultured at the reservoir of SRMP.

"When I was President, Joe de Venecia narrated to me how big by gesturing the size of the mature shark to those fingerling of tilapias we threw years ago at the reservoir. You know Joe loved to exaggerate. Sabi ko naman sing laki na iyan ng pating e mas maliit naman iyong giant tilapia".

FVR brought the house down, son of a gun, with that anecdote!

(You can read my selected intriguing but thought-provoking columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com).

Analysis:Why the Philippines is poor?

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

 I felt bad every time I saw on TV the celebration of the anniversary of the EDSA Revolution. Since that historic date in 1986, the economic stocks of the Filipinos went to the dogs.
We remain poor while people in neighboring Mainland China, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam have experienced economic growths catalyzed by their government led pro-business environment. Before EDSA Revolution, according to the United Nation data the Per Capita Income/ Gross Domestic Product (PCI/GDP means an approximation of the value of goods produced per person in the country, equal to the country’s GDP divided by the total number of people in the country ) in current U.S dollar prices in 1987 of these countries were the following: China ($308), Malaysia ($1,965),Thailand ($929), and Vietnam (No record), and the Philippines ($645). In 2011 or 24 years after the revolution, these countries have the following bigger and fast growing PCI /GDP: China ($4,354), Malaysia ($8,373), Thailand ($4,613) and Vietnam ($1,183). The Philippines has an anemic $2,140 of PCI/GDP as based on the PCI/GDP growth of these leapfrogging countries except Vietnam. But with Vietnam’s $1,183, it would not take some years before this former backwater but fast growing” communist” country that embraces 100 percent foreign business ownership on her shore to catch up with us.

READ MY OTHER ANALYSIS: IS THE PHILIPPINES GOING TO THE DOGS?

Q and A Spratly Islands’ conundrum:” We should play the Philippines Card” – De Venecia

In a recent article of the Global Times published by the Communist Party’s People’s Daily, the tabloid exhorted China to punish economically the Philippines because of its recent military dialogues with the United States to host a more regular and much bigger military exercises on her territory.Former five-time House Speaker Jose de Venecia, Jr., an imminent connoisseur of geo-politics, was interviewed by Mortz C. Ortigoza, political columnist of Northern Watch, on the Chinese’s threatening belligerence towards the Philippines and the East Asian Countries who have claims on the Spratlys and other island territories in the South China Sea (SCS), the United States growing presence in the SCS, and the debt crises at the European Union in the face of the forthcoming election in France and the volatile political coalition in Germany. Excerpts:

MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA (MCO): Mainland China’s president Hu Jintao recently said war is imminent between China and the United States, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

Radio Commentator Mortz Ortigoza and former Philippines
House of Representatives' 5-Time Speaker in one of their
huddles that usually zero's on international  affairs.

JOSE DE VENECIA (JDV): Well, in the first place I don’t know whether it was true Hu Jintao made that statement that war is imminent against the U.S, Philippine, and Vietnam.

MCO: I read that in the internet an article entitled “China prepares for war over South China Sea Spratly Islands” after Hu reacted, in a speech he delivered at a military industrial complex in China, to U.S President Obama’s announcement in January 5, 2011 on a new military strategy in Asia as Vietnam and the Philippines were acrimonious on China’s incessant and aggressive encroachment in the Spratlys. 

JDV: I don’t think there will be war in the South China Sea.

MCO: How strategic is the SCS to the U.S and the claimant nations in South East Asia like the Philippines?

JDV: Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, Philippines, Brunei and so to address to the U.S and the Europeans to insure an untrammeled navigation of the South China Sea that is their main concern because of the oiltankers of Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan would pass through these Spratlys in going to the Malacca Straits, going through the Andaman Sea, going toward the Indian Ocean, going toward the Arabian Sea. Imagine that our ship through Manila bring this (oil) through Corregidor. We don’t have tankers (to pass) to the front yard and backyard.

 MCO:President Barrack Obama has just decided to reduce the United States troops in Europe by transferring them in South East Asia like the Philippines and Vietnam, Guam, and Australia to buttress the U.S Military presence there. How did you see this latest U.S policy?

A stupid Catholic priest

MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

Boxing great Muhammad Ali will celebrate his birthday on February 18 at the MGM Grand Area in Las Vegas, Nevada.

According to Associated Press, his guests would be high rollers of the boxing world like former heavyweight champions George Foreman, Ken Norton, and Leon Spinks. Former welterweight king Roberto Duran will be there, too.

As far as this corner is concerned, the only kings that could not attend are the "Three Kings".

But there is a special guest that could ruin or turn the party into success.

Philippines's pride and world’s pound-for-pound boxing boss Manny Pacquiao would  treat the  Parkinson disease-suffering Ali and the guests with a love song.

Did I hear somebody yell: “Mag boxing ka na lang!( Just concentrate on boxing!)”

***

Does retired Archbishop Oscar Cruz shoots from his hips without any basis as he comes to the succor of beleaguered Chief Justice Renato Corona of the Supreme Court?

In an interview at the program of Bogs Torribio of Bombo Radyo- Dagupan, I asked Cruz that in case we stop now the impeachment he brands as a charade against Corona how would he solves the dilemma incase detained former president Gloria Arroyo asks the high court to grant her a bail by invoking the constitutional mandate that evidence against her is not strong on her non-bailable case.

“What if the Court grants her, and she absconds to a foreign country that has no extradition treaty with the Philippines?” I posed.

Susmariosep, the good archbishop, who is my neighbor in this paper, said he could not answer my question.

Tsk, tsk, Cruz should better shut his mouth and restrain himself if doesn’t know the nitty- gritty of the impeachment trial and its political and moral consequences.

As you know folks, an impeached Corona would straighten the other magistrates not to entertain evil thoughts otherwise they would be next on line of impeachment.

***

What I don’t like about many of the Catholic clergies in this country, they sided with issues that are no brainier.

For instance issues like the artificial methods of birth control.

The absence of free contraceptives glares its ugly heads on our street.

Poor families kept bearing children that become street urchins, petty criminals, you name it. Vehicles on the streets’ slums are hampered by poor malnourished kids playing their things there.

“These sorry sights would aggravate for another ten years from now,” I told somebody in the car as I tread carefully the roads.

         By the way, we are already 101,833,938 (July 2011 estimate) million rambunctious Filipinos. Number 20 in the world in terms of demography.

***

Then here comes  retired Archbishop  Cruz and a priest who officiates a novena mass at the Supreme Court lately for the beleaguered chief justice Renato Corona.

I could forgive and forget Cruz craps there at the executive department of the government  that he accused of bullying the chief magistrate, but I nearly kicked my TV after I heard the officiating priest asking Corona if he is ready to become a saint after the conclusion of his impeachment try.

Susmariosep my foot! How can be the chief justice be a saint when he could not even submit publicly his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and  Net Worth (SALN) for some years now and his recently P14.5 million already discounted posh condominium unit  purchased that would not jibe with his salary?

A saint is beyond suspicion. Corona’s stalling to show publicly his SALN elicits strings of suspicions that he enriched himself after he prostituted himself with the infamous former president Gloria Arroyo.

On the latest Pulse Asia survey, it said that Corona had the highest disapproval (24 percent) and distrusts (27 percent) ratings among the five top government officials

Res Ipsa Loquitor eh, chief justice?”

Why foreign investors shun the Philippines?

Philippine former president Fidel V. Ramos (extreme right) agrees with the author's (center) observation on the inequitable business partnership between foreign investors and their Filipino counterparts as provided by the Philippine Constitution

BY MORTZ ORTIGOZA

In a recent conversation with former President Fidel V. Ramos at the Lucap Wharf (after he scuba dived at the Hundred Islands) in Alaminos City, he agreed with my observation that our country needs to liberalize the 60-40 percent, 70-30 percent, and even 100 percent business equities in the 1987 Constitution  in favor of Filipinos.

“I agree with it, and we should also change the system of government from presidential to parliamentary,” he told me after I cited how incompetent leaders like Greece’s George A. Papandreou and Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi were replaced by technocrats to avoid their countries spiraling into the economic morass.

But look what I found here!

It is the latest survey conducted by business TV channel CNBC that the Philippines is among the worst in Southeast Asia to conduct business in and the 4th worst in the world  according to top business executives who were interviewed.

CNBC, on its poll titled “The World’s 10 Worst Countries for Business” published on November 3, 2011, said the Philippines attains only 2.5 percent of the $76.5 billion of foreign direct investment (FDI) that flowed to the 10 member-states of the Association of South East Asian (ASEAN) in 2010.

The prestigious business TV channel wondered why this happened despite having a massive untapped mineral water, a long geographical South East and North Asia neighbors, and a large English speaking population, the country still failed to stir the economy to significant growth.

The culprits, according to CNBC, are the country’s unpredictable legal system, violence, and bureaucracy.

“Its ease of doing business ranking from the World Bank fell a further two spots this year from 2010. The country also ranks among the lowest when it comes to starting business and resolving insolvency, with the latter taking more than five and a half year, compared with an average one year and seven months in OECD countries,“ its says.

***

That’s why BIR Regional Director Arnel Gubala was all praises to the South Koreans when he told me how that country (where he attended career schooling) has dusted- off Japan, Hong Kong, and the United States in terms of development in infrastructure landscapes.

He said that the Korean government invites member countries of East Asia for them to learn for free about taxation, economics, ecology, etc

He lamented that when he asked foreign participants in a mammoth five- star- hotel- liked government seminar and facilities where the Thais, the Vietnamese, and the Malays are, he was told that they were not around because they concluded their schooling there as they were in a higher category compared to our country.

“I could only shake my head when I learned that Philippine delegates were with delegates from Cambodia, Burma, Sri Lanka, and Laos,” he told me.

Talagang Laos na tayo, sir!

Those Thais and Malaysian used to learn from us in the 1950s and 1960s but have long dusted us now in the number games of Foreign Direct Investors.

“Don’t you know that the Korean hosts told us they copied the taxation of the Philippines in 1970s under (former president Ferdinand) Marcos and look where are they now? They are now part of the top ten richest countries in the world!” Guballa zealously explained to me. (You can send comment at totomortz@yahoo.com).

Vultures at DepEd

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

The sights in Alaminos City, as seen on TV lately, were heart wrenching.
An older brother Lyndon Milan mowed with his M-16 assault rifle and a single shot from his .45 caliber pistol a younger brother police Supt. Lloyd Milan and his wife Cherryl.
Then the remains of the victims were seen being shipped to the southern province of the country Surigao, the home province of Cherryl.
The dead Milans’ 13 year-old eldest son told the TV reporter that his father’s mother, sisters, and brothers conspired to kill his father.
Lyndon used to be my co-faculty in college. We had some warm chit-chat at the City Hall of Alaminos, where he worked, a week before the carnage without me knowing the gruesome incidents that await a week later.
The kin of his father did not show-up during the entire wake.
A “distressed” Mayor Nani Braganza quipped how Alaminos City lost a first potential general in Colonel Milan.
The slain police officer was a graduate of the Philippine National Police Academy.
His and his wife’s death, according to my source, started when his parents’ fishpond was mortgaged to him.
***
If you enter the office of Assistant Superintendent Dr. Shiela Marie Sison-Primicias , you will see three columns of pictures on a long bond paper posted at the glass window of her office for all to see.
Column 1 is about two dirty comfort rooms in her division office called Pangasinan-1 in Lingayen, Pangasinan.
Column 2 is a photo of a refurbished well-tiled spic –and-span comfort rooms after the old comfort rooms in Column 1 were renovated by Dr. Primicias in her 36-day brief stint as OIC superintendent of Pangasinan-1.
This after Dr. Aurora Domingo, Superintendent of the Division, went for a two-month vacation in the U.S.
What infuriated Dr. Primicias and those who dropped at her office were the photos at Column 3.
All of those tens of thousands of pesos worth of renovated comfort rooms in Column 2 were in rubbles as if they were bombed by the NATO forces in Libya.
***
The person responsible for this demolition should be sued with criminal acts. This is not only Malicious Mischief. This is taxpayers’ money that went down the drain because of stupidity.
As you know there is internal “squabbling” among Dr. Domingo, Dr. Danny Sison, Dr. Primicias.
Kung sino man sa inyo ang nag-utos na ipa-demolish iyan dahil mi mga away kayo diyan, sana naman iniisip niyo na ang dinamay niyo ay government funded project.
Managot kayo!
I am calling the attention of DepEd. Secretary Ermin Luistro, Governor Amado T. Espino, and chairman of Education Committee (and the saving grace of the provincial board) Board Member Ming Rosario to investigate and mete penalties on those who were involved on the outrageous acts there.
***
The names for new positions for teachers given by Sec. Luistro to Dep Ed ­are now mostly coursed through congressmen instead of the division offices of the education department.
This new policy is to avoid corrupt division superintendents who sell these new items to willing teacher applicants.
According to my source, Dep Ed central office finds it safe against corruption- hold your breath -to give these quotas to congressmen.
My other source told me that a school superintendent could sell each item up to P135 thousand to P150 thousand for an applicant.
But if it is given to a solon, the lawmakers would just give it to the son or daughter of his supporter who are board passer and who are included on the rank’s lists of principals.
He said that bigwigs at DepEd central office know that these applicant- protégée of the solons are not fleeced — even if they are listed at the bottom part of the ranking of their application.
Under the” Matuwid na Daan (Straight Path)” of President Benigno Aquino, Jr., a congressman is given up to 50 quota while a superintendent is given only a measly ten quota for new positions.
***
A division that covers up to four congressional districts is given up to 200 new positions through the lawmakers.
A lowest rank public school teacher now receives P19 thousand a month pay.
With a bill now being deliberated in congress, this amount would balloon to P32 thousand a month, according to a high ranking education official.
With a handsome sums dangled to would be applicant in the public school, vultures like these superintendents and principals proliferate.
(You can read my selected intriguing but thought-provoking columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com).