Foreign aid: Soros calls Bush a piker

I just got a news release from the US Information Service announcing the decision of the Bush administration to contribute an additional $5 billion over the next three years for improving developing countries’ economies and standard of living. The proposal also has an "if", i.e., "if those countries commit to policy reform and improved health and education, a White House fact sheet says."

Billionaire George Soros, however, is simply not impressed as he virtually called George W. Bush a piker. According to Business Week, Soros called the President’s new plan to boost foreign aid as "absolutely inadequate" Worse, Soros feels that by failing to see the importance of foreign aid, Dubya threatens to turn next week’s Financing for Development conference in Monterrey, Mexico, into a diplomatic bust.

Soros knows whereof he speaks, since he is a big giver of aid to developing nations himself for such causes as strengthening democracy. Considering that the new funds under the Bush plan probably won’t start flowing until 2004, Soros, Business Week reports, "calculates that the package essentially amounts to $1 billion annually over the next five years."

Soros himself donates $500 million of his own fortune to economic and health programs in the developing world. Business Week quotes Soros reacting "For the US government to [be increasing its spending by] only double what I am spending is absolutely inadequate."

Soros, according to Business Week, charged that the meager Bush administration response shows "the US is the main obstacle to more aid and international cooperation" on fighting poverty. Soros pointed out that even with this extremely moderate increase in developmental assistance, American foreign aid (the lion’s share go to Israel and Egypt) will still be around 0.1 percent of gross domestic product.

Most European nations spend three times that percentage. The US is absolutely critical, Soros said, to build support for devoting greater resources to the problem. "Unless the US does more, nothing much will happen."

The UK’s International Development Secretary, Clare Short, according to the BBC, said she was going to Monterrey to convince the Americans that aid does work, and that it was vital that extra resources were put on the table to encourage reform in developing countries. She argues that "as we work together to fight terrorism, we must also work together to address the causes of poverty; not just because to do so is central to peace and security, but because to do so is right."

Oh well. It seems the lessons of 9/11 have not sunk in on the world leader of this war on terrorism. It is most likely cheaper and more humanitarian to fight this war by fighting world poverty. But that will not support the American industrial-military complex, the guys who build the bombs and the helicopters and the high-tech military equipment.

Too bad neither Soros nor the pop singer Bono can run for the White House in 2004.

Malls

The shopping mall, in the context of today’s urban Philippine culture, is the equivalent of the town plaza in the days past. This is why the big malls are packed full on weekends and holidays. Whatever you need to do, you can do it at the mall.

This is why again, in the context of our troubled social and political milieu, the mall is also the center of attention. When bombing public places was in the headlines, one of the cinemas at the SM Megamall got hit, killing a janitor. The rumor mills also target the malls like the time when a snake was supposedly devouring women in the fitting rooms of Robinson’s some years back. A late night moviegoer was supposedly raped in the comfort room of the Ayala Glorietta mall a couple of years ago.

So when my friends at the upscale Rockwell Power Plant mall were worried about rumors of lost cellphones and a woman losing her valuables in the comfort room, I told them it was par for the course. But they took all those rumors seriously, even in the absence of physical complainants.

This explains why security is tight as ever at the Rockwell area. It is the only mall I know with a security guard in all its ladies room. Just two weeks ago, I was kidding Tong Padilla about the battle ready security around the Starbucks area. You can never be too prepared, was all that Tong responded.

He was right. Sometime last week, a kid was going home to nearby Bel Air with his yaya when they were snatched by a group of men in a car. Fortunately, the men were stuck in traffic, enabling yaya and the kid to escape. The frustrated kidnappers realized their predicament and abandoned their car in panic.

It was later on determined by the police that the men were working with the family cook of the kid’s family, an inside job that could have happened anywhere. It only means that what normally looks like high security visibility wasn’t high nor visible enough to discourage the perpetrators from striking. Tong promised to increase the level even more.

One thing Rockwell shoppers and residents have going for them is the fact that the owners of the development live there and it is also to their interest that the area is always as secure as possible. That was the one thing that an ADB advisory that singled out Rockwell for safety concerns, didn’t consider. Actually, if the ADB official who wrote the advisory checked with the Makati police, they would have found out that the only untoward incident of consequence reported to have happened at Rockwell is that frustrated kidnapping last week.

In the ultimate analysis, safety in this metro area in these times is only as good as the government can assure it. Tong can put another battalion of security guards there as he probably would in reaction to last week. But we simply have to take precautions we do not end up the next victims wherever we might be. Don’t let the rumors and misguided advisories cause you any anxieties. It is a normal day in our fair city, after all.

Gokongwei

Correction: Lance Gokongwei didn’t go to La Salle naman pala. He studied in Xavier and Penn U. Siguro puede na yan. May Jesuit links naman pala!

Another correction, this time, grammatical. I should have said alumnus in the first paragraph instead of alumni. I checked the e-mail again it is just one person. In any case, I really goofed on that one. So sorry.

Being happy

Here are some words of wisdom from Dr. Ernie E. To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love him a little. To be happy with a woman you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.

(Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected])