‘Chicharon’

By: Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer

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Lito Lapid worries about the wrong things.

He’s dying to plunge into the Senate discussions on the RH bill, he says, but he doesn’t know if his English is good enough. “Much as I want to interpellate, my tongue is not used to English. What if they don’t understand my Tagalog or I don’t know how to answer their questions in English? These senators are also lawyers who spent 10 years in law school while I spent 10 years practicing my stunts.”

His concerns about RH include: What if we end up like Singapore and South Korea that have aging populations because of family planning? And do contraceptives produce bodily defects on those that end up getting born anyway? His basic standpoint is respect for women. “Consider that a Filipina always covers her chest when she bends to pick up a coin, a handkerchief or a set of keys. What is she protecting? Is it not her body?”

Well, if he worries that he cannot engage the other senators in a discussion or that he doesn’t have the tools to carry out his sworn obligations, why in God’s name did he run for senator in the first place? Surely those concerns should have been apparent to him from the start?

In any case, why should he feel inferior about their different former occupations? It’s just learning one stunt and another. Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Juan Ponce Enrile themselves just learned the stunt of surviving by switching allegiances from one boss to another, in Enrile’s case all the way to Marcos. They’ve been practicing that for more than 10 years. At least Lapid’s stunts have caused bodily harm only to himself, Miriam’s and Johnny’s have caused irreparable harm to the nation.

But if those are the kinds of things Lapid wants to raise in the Senate, he truly has a reason to fret, he truly has a reason to fear. He shouldn’t be worrying about the quality of his English, he should be worrying about the quality of his mind.

It’s an indication of the quality of his mind in fact that he should be worrying about the quality of his English. Why on earth must he feel compelled to talk in English, raise questions in English, argue in English? His colleagues are vying with each other to be expansive and accommodating. Santiago says: “I will try my pidgin Tagalog to try to explain the issue to him, although I am ashamed of my Tagalog. I don’t have an extensive vocabulary.” Sen. Pia Cayetano says: “There should be no problem because if you will notice, I also use Tagalog to emphasize some points in my explanations on this issue.” Tito Sotto says he doesn’t have a problem with Lapid asking for a shift to Tagalog in some of the debates. “I will support him if he asks for certain accommodations.”

That is all very well, except for one thing. Why should Tagalog, or indeed Filipino, need to be accommodated? Why should Tagalog, or Filipino, need to patronized? Why should Tagalog, or Filipino, need to be taken as the exception rather than the rule in debates? Particularly in debates by a national legislative body, particularly in debates that have to do with the fate of the nation? Last I looked, the national language was not English, it was Filipino.

But of course you ought to be ashamed of yourself if your Filipino is horrible, particularly if you are a senator, particularly if you are a congressman, particularly if you are a secretary. That is so whether you are Ilonggo or Ilocano or Zamboangueño. You want to be a national official, learn the national language. You want to participate in a national debate, speak the national language—fluently.

In fact the question is not: Why should Lapid be accommodated and the debate reduced to Filipino? The question is: Why should the other senators speak in English and the debate not elevated to Filipino? The second is the natural order of things. The first is the tail wagging the dog.

What makes Lapid’s trepidations—and the way he is being assuaged—bizarre is that P-Noy himself has just demonstrated the incalculable power of speaking in Filipino. That is what he has done in his major speeches, and the last State of the Nation Address in particular has had the most dramatic effects. Indeed, what a difference a speech makes. Before that speech, he was getting brickbats from various sectors and his approval ratings were falling. After that speech, he soared mightily, enjoying nearly three months now of peace and prosperity, and his enemies are scattered and fighting for their lives. Speaking in Filipino, he showed a President who wanted nothing better than to communicate with his people. Speaking in Filipino, he showed a President who wanted nothing better than to be understood by his people.

Behold the power of articulation. Behold the power of Filipino.

Most Filipinos speak Filipino—or Tagalog if you want to insist on it—not English. That is more so today than yesterday, all the (free) TV stations now broadcasting their news in it. English-language news in local networks is a thing of the past. Why shouldn’t that be the case for the Senate, the House, the Cabinet, and the courts as well?

The argument that English is the traditional language of governance is no argument at all. If so, then change it. Governance in fact is the very reason for using Filipino instead of English. To govern, you must communicate. To govern, you must be understood. To govern, you have to touch the governed to the core of their being. Unless of course you think of governance as the art of screwing the people. Which it has been so here, English doing for officials what Latin did for the friars: As a means to exclude, a means to intimidate, a means to delude people into believing you know more than you do. English being the initiating ritual for a secular priesthood: You don’t know the coded language you’re out.

You’re chicharon, Lapid’s or not.

We must have justice and punish criminals

By: Neal H. Cruz
Philippine Daily Inquirer

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The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), the government agency that gives hundreds of millions of pesos to lotto and sweepstakes winners, and financial help every day to hundreds of poor people, has not paid P5 billion in taxes to the government? Believe it or not, it is true. No less than PCSO Chairperson Margarita Juico has confirmed that the state lottery firm is being dunned P3.6 billion in unpaid taxes from 2007 to 2009, plus interests, surcharges and penalties so that the total may go up to P5 billion.

What happened? The PCSO people forgot? Or they mistakenly thought that being a government agency giving out financial help, the PCSO is exempt from paying taxes? Or is the PCSO just spending more than it earns so that no money is left for taxes? Which is which?

The PCSO is not the first state agency to have problems with back taxes. Many state agencies, because they are government, think it is all right not to pay taxes to the government. From government to government, they say. It is taking money from one pocket and putting it into another, they say.

But the PCSO case is different. It is disheartening to know from an off-the-record revelation that the PCSO was not able to pay the right taxes because it had to remit funds for the use of the powers-that-be, in this case, members of the Arroyo administration.

Congress should investigate the claim that instead of using money to pay its taxes, the

PCSO diverted funds to the discretionary fund of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo shortly before the 2010 elections.

A congressional investigation is necessary because even Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares said that it was not likely that the tax agency would start legal action against former PCSO officials because the funds involve only unpaid documentary stamp taxes.

Henares said her agency can prosecute local officials only for not remitting taxes withheld from employees because that constitutes estafa. That is not the case with unpaid documentary stamp taxes.

The worst that the BIR can do, she said, is to seize and liquidate PCSO assets, but that is not practical because the state charity agency may not be able to deliver its services to the needy.

The situation is much like the case of former Chairman Efraim Genuino of the Philippine Gaming and Amusement Corp. (Pagcor), and two of his children. The difference is that the government apparently has enough evidence against the Genuinos in the corruption charges the Genuinos deny.

The cases stem from the use of Pagcor funds amounting to P26.7 million to finance the filming of the movie “Baler,” which was co-produced by a firm where Genuino’s son was executive producer. The other case is the alleged diversion of P24 million representing the stipends of Philippine swimming athletes.

Genuino is also accused of using P186 million in Pagcor funds to finance an anti-drug campaign of a foundation headed by his daughter Sheryl. Pagcor rice donations were also allegedly distributed during the campaign rallies of Genuino’s two sons. In fairness to the Genuino family, it denies the allegations.

The cases against the Genuinos appear to be strong enough to persuade the court to issue hold-departure orders against them, but that is not the case with the PCSO raps.

The irony is that even if congressional investigators manage to persuade the court that the

PCSO did divert funds to GMA’s discretionary fund, the PCSO will be liable only for its back taxes, and the truth will still be hidden by the accounting veil of a presidential discretionary fund.

But even then, that does not mean we should surrender and take the lazy path of “letting bygones be bygones.”

Pagcor and PCSO are among the government’s biggest cash cows, where one doesn’t even have to wait for a budget release order to get his hands on piles of cash. But that money should have gone to schools and hospitals, and the fact that it was used for personal benefit should be enough reason for national outrage.

One of the reasons the Philippine government has become so corrupt during and after the Marcos administration is that thieves are given the impression that Filipinos are a forgiving people and soon forget crimes.

That is one of the serious challenges to the Aquino administration. It is the government’s task to prove that crime does not pay and criminals are prosecuted.

That was perhaps the message the country wanted to deliver when it imprisoned former President Joseph Estrada (unfairly, he claims). For six years, we jailed a widely popular president in what was then the second strongest indication of our indignation against official corruption.

The people ousted him, jailed him and replaced him with someone who was supposed to be his antithesis. Now we know that we were wrong. We were shortchanged and had to endure for 10 years a president who was much worse.

Of course there are those who became filthy rich beyond their wildest dreams. One example is retired Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia (ironically the namesake of a former president known for his humility and honesty) who managed to amass ill-gotten wealth that made even the Old Rich dizzy. He might even escape prosecution because he cut a questionable deal that was approved by the previous administration.

Even his conviction in a court martial was left unsigned by GMA so he would not have to be imprisoned. When the authorities finally arrived to arrest him, he supposedly told them: “Bakit n’yo ginagawa ito sa akin (Why are you doing this to me)?”

Critics say that the Aquino administration is being vindictive for bringing out the truth that was hidden from the people for 10 years. But that is justice, criminals must be punished, and the people deserve no less.