Peace and order: An investment disincentive

When I first heard about it last Sunday, I reacted with a bored yawn. I thought, what’s another NPA attack and burning to collect revolutionary taxes. The significance of the event escaped me, primarily because there had been so many such cases in recent months and we have grown used to such reports. Then again, as I read the full story in the Monday papers, it dawned on me that here is another problem that was not given proper attention when the topic of investment incentives was being discussed last week.

Actually, when I attended a birthday party last weekend in a "born again" community with a lot of Chinoys, I was also told that peace and order is again an important concern. In fact, the problems, I was told, have been errant members of the PNP who set up check points at night, plant shabu in the cars of their victims and proceed to extort money from them for their liberty. One investor from Australia, I was told, promptly left never to return after such an experience in the Broadway area of Quezon City. I could only say, what else is new.

But that successful raid by communist New People’s Army rebels in Silay, just next to Bacolod is something else. They blew up some P30-50 million worth of equipment owned by foreign contractors, being used to build a major airport. It is extremely embarrassing to Ate Glue, the AFP and the PNP. That NPA raid is a significant propaganda victory for the rebels because they destroyed a major government project, one that has been billed as a part of Ate Glue’s mega projects cited in her SONA.

One would understand why neither the PNP nor the AFP can do much to protect the transmission towers of Globe Telecom, given their remote locations. But it is difficult to fathom how a P4.3-billion government project, in Silay, just 14 kilometers north of Bacolod, could have been victimized by the NPA just like that. It is clearly a failure of intelligence. If we don’t see heads rolling from the regional commands of the PNP and the AFP, then that’s a sign that no one takes responsibility for failure in government these days… a definite bad sign.

According to news reports, a band of about 30 guerrillas carried out the attack, bombing the computerized batching plant and cement paver owned by the Korean firm, Hanjin International, and the power generator of the Japanese company, Takinaka Itochu. The Negros Occidental airport project is funded partly by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and was scheduled for completion in the second quarter of next year.

"They launched the attack to show that they are still in a position of strength," Malaya quotes AFP information chief Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro. And it seems, the successful raid proved just that. The AFP spokesman said the NPA probably deployed all its fighters in Negros Occidental and sought augmentation from nearby provinces in staging the attack. "Based on experience, they have adopted that strategy," he said.

If that is the case, if the NPA had to marshal all its fighters in the region for the operation, there must have been a lot of coming and going of people. How come the AFP intelligence units didn’t see something big was in the offing?

Yet, when asked if the military remains confident of crushing the communist insurgency as ordered by President Arroyo, Bacarro said: "Of course, we are very optimistic. With the gains that we are making, we can defeat them. Our success is very notable."

Gains? What gains? Yeah… sure. Tell that to Globe Telecom. Tell that to the NGO Alter Trade whose trucks were burned by the NPA, also in the Bacolod area. And tell that to the owners of bus companies whose buses are routinely torched by the NPA for refusing to pay revolutionary taxes. Yet, someone in government recently warned businesses that they will face criminal charges if they succumbed to the NPA demand for revolutionary taxes.

If government cannot protect its own mega project, one that is funded by international donor organizations, who in his right mind would entertain a flicker of hope that government can protect him and his investment from the communist rebels? Globe Telecom officials might as well ask Smart what is their secret in keeping their towers safe, as if they didn’t already know. It would be understandable for the victims of NPA torching to think that government is no longer in full control and they have to reach separate peace pacts with the rebels if they want to continue doing business in the countryside.

The damage to the country’s image is worth more than the P30-to P50-million lost in that airport raid. I saw the news item in the USA Today website. I suppose Korean and Japanese papers must have carried it too, delivering the message that contrary to what Ate Glue and her military and police brass are saying, all is not well in the peace and order situation. Who is the idiot of an investor, local or foreign, who would now take Ate Glue’s word that there is nothing to worry about the country’s peace and order situation?

If even Rep. Etta Rosales, a leftist sector representative in the House of Representatives, is already complaining, in fact denouncing the continued burning of equipment of those who refuse to pay revolutionary taxes, the problem must be serious. Ate Glue and her generals should have seen the Bacolod airport burning coming. Let us now see what they do next to reassure us helpless citizens who are caught in the crossfire of this deadly game.

America too

Then again, peace and order is elusive not just here but in America’s capital too, if this e-mail from Dr. Ernie E is any indication.

If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theatre of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2,112 deaths, that gives a firearms death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.

The firearms death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000 for the same period. That means that you are about 25 percent more likely to be shot and killed in the US Capitol, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq.

Conclusion: The US should pull out of Washington.

Exporter’s woe

Here’s an e-mail from a reader and foreign investor, Steven B.

I have written you in the past and I must say I really enjoy your articles in The Star. I noted with interest your article last week about the declining peso in which you pointed out what with gas and diesel prices coming down would the fare increases be rescinded. I thought it was quite funny in that I think you know as I know, once they get the increases it is impossible to rescind them.

As a manufacturer who is in the export business selling in dollars I have seen my costs go up for electricity; rent; water; wages almost 13 percent just by the appreciation of the peso. Also when the peso was going up to 56 to one everyone clamored for wage increases which now costs exporters nearly 13 percent more to pay when they convert there dollars to peso. I also noted that the Bangko Sentral keeps saying a strong peso stops inflation meaning it translates to lower prices. Every time I turn around to buy from local suppliers they increase the prices even thou the peso has gone from 56 to 50.

The biggest factor for exporters is China, what with China churning out cheap low costs products well below just the manufactured costs here in the Philippines. I guess there is no solution to the China problem with their ability to produce goods 40 percent cheaper than we can do here.

I have been out in the Bataan export zone since ’93 manufacturing cases for violin; cello; and bags for such cases and have managed to survive. But it is getting harder and harder. I do hope you will keep addressing the problems exporters face. I always enjoy your articles because you address the true facts.

Follies

Here’s something from reader Perla Manapol.

Question: What do Republican Congressmen do in their spare time?

Answer: Some read books; others curl up with the pages.

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