Writing The Philippine Story (Revised Edition)

I’m looking at many a would-be writer of The Philippine Story (Revised Edition): motivated Senators, aspiring Representatives, venturesome PMA graduates, go-getting ex-Cabinet members, daring militarists, enterprising businessmen, starry-eyed journalists.

Men, women they’re all the same. I’m different. I’m incorrigible as they all are, but I’m different – I’m an incorruptible optimist. They’re all critical as I am – I criticize them for not being creative. ‘He has (no) right to criticize who has (no) heart to help’ (Abraham Lincoln revised).

Whatever her critics say and don’t see, I’m looking at the Indian summer of my President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. It’s a feeling. I walk the street and see flowers framing the window; out comes my daughter Teresa’s Sony CyberShot DSC S60 to record the moment forever. I had seen the scene before, but not seized the moment.

GMA has been busy writing the next Philippine Story; her detractors have been busy denigrating the size of her frame, using the wrong framework sizing up her failures, never minding her successes. I admire their tenacity, or shall I say their character? Character, I like to say, is stubbornness bordering on stupidity.

Where were they when GMA was in a State Visit early this month and established ‘a long-term and mutually beneficial trade relationship for import and export of various products’ (gmanews.tv) between India and the Philippines? Thank God they did not devise a Senate inquiry in aid of legislation. Well, I don’t hesitate to say the Indians have more faith in the Philippines than many of the Filipinos who keep loudly professing their love of country.

Let the noisy patriots with their arguments consider the many agreements concluded during that historic visit, including:

(1) A $50 million credit line from the Export and Import Bank of India. A credit line means you’re creditworthy, doesn’t it?

GMA said in New Delhi last Friday, that this can have ‘a direct and positive impact on us in terms of job creation, balance of trade and investment’ (pia.gov.ph). India grows, we grow; if India diminishes, the Philippines is the less.

(2) Import of pharmaceuticals from India as part of the Government program to cut in half the price of medicines commonly bought by the poor.

Including the poor senior citizens. October 1-7 is Senior Citizens Week; poor me, I’m 67; I can’t afford medicine except when I’m deathly sick; I don’t have the budget for vitamins and anti-oxidants except if I scrimp on food like fish, and that’s not inexpensive either. No, neither pizzas nor hamburgers on whims, not even on my birthday (that was 3 weeks ago).

(3) Enhanced cooperation in the field of renewable energy. GMA said, ‘Praj Industries informed us that they are ready to roll out their Philippine bio-ethanol plant soon’ (2008) using as feedstock sweet sorghum.

During the Philippine-India Business Forum at New Delhi on October 5, GMA ‘acknowledged and recognized the efforts of Director General William Dar as a global leader in promoting sweet sorghum for bioethanol production’ (ICRISAT Happenings #1279):

President Arroyo congratulated India and ICRISAT for the development of sweet sorghum for ethanol production, and invited investors to the Philippines to use the technology package developed by ICRISAT and Rusni Distilleries. She also encouraged ICRISAT’s idea of developing a Philippine Dryland Research Institute.

In the past two years, ICRISAT and the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) have been conducting trial plantings with new sweet sorghum varieties in Batac, Ilocos Norte. 3 sweet sorghums have shown high yields 40-45 tons/ha of cane in 4 months. The ratoon crop that follows yields even more, 45-50 tons. That is to say, in the Philippines, sweet sorghum can yield 85-90 tons/ha in 8 months. This is much better than yields in India, where the new sorghums come from. That tells me either we have better soils than India for sorghum, or we have better weather. This is called, I believe, comparative advantage – I say, MMSU or not, let’s start taking advantage of it! The Dryland Institute is another good start.

As to our legislators, only (new) Senator Migz Zubiri seems interested in biofuels; other Senators are more interested in fueling the ire of the people against indigence and helplessness, blaming it all on GMA. Only they know how one woman (or man, for that matter) can cause the poverty and misery of a country all by herself (or himself) – and I’m not about to ask them.

(I’m glad Secretary of Agriculture Arthur Yap – he was with GMA in India – is not only interested – he is pushing for biofuels for my country.)

(4) Waiver of visa requirements for holders of diplomatic passports and official passports, liberalized visa policy for Indian nationals. What are friends for?

Even Harry Potter learned, as his beloved Professor Albus Dumbledore told him in Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince (2005, Scholastic), ‘You need your friends, Harry.’ But if you say you love the Philippines and bad-mouth her to the world every time you send an email with attachment or open your big mouth, who needs friends?

During GMA’s visit to India, there was also the Ispat Industries Ltd’s plan for a $1.6 billion investment for an integrated steel mill in Southern Philippines, which Ispat Managing Director Vinod Mittal reported to GMA in a courtesy call at the Taj Majal Hotel in Mumbai. Ispat already owns a $225 million steel mill in Iligan City.

GMA also convinced Bollywood (India’s Hollywood) filmmakers to consider the thousands of islands called the Philippines as an alternative site for producing films. Bollywood is the largest film industry in the world, producing 1,000 films a year.

With India on top, the Philippines is among the world’s first choices for business process outsourcing (BPO). Thank God for BPO. BPO is contracting out to a third-party service provider such office functions as payroll, accounting, human resources, medical coding and transcription (searchcio.techtarget.com). The Filipinos are good at this, in English too.

‘Look East, young man,’ India is saying.’ The Philippines is to the East of India. GMA said during her visit:

World stage carries implications, not just for economic development but for the management of our environment on a sustainable basis and for maintaining the broader peace and stability in the region, in the world. That is why we support India’s ‘Look East Policy’ and your plans to integrate both South Asia and South East Asia. (hindu.com)

A good number of our beloved Senators are busy conducting investigations, in aid of legislation, they who are convinced that these are more important than clean environment, sustainable agriculture, peace within the Asean countries, stability in Asia. They are determined to show the world that the solutions to social, economic, political, moral problems lie in more bills discussed in Congress.

So, spoiled boys and girls that they are, let us leave them to their own devices.

In the meantime, looking toward the general direction of India:
I shall be counting more jobs created (I’ll consider offsite contracts);
I shall be assessing the balance of trade and investment (assuming I can master statistics);
I shall be expecting better biofuel crops and ethanol blends with gasoline (assuming I can afford myself a car);
I shall be expecting economic prices of drugs, medicines, pharmaceuticals, rice, sugar – especially wheat, assuming I can buy affordable bread in the morning. After all, I have to feed my big mouth.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 6th, 2007 at 9:21 pm and is filed under creative photography, creative thinking, creative writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.