The United Nations Summit: Reforms or bust!

Today, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) is in New York City to attend the United Nations General Assembly and World Summit and the 60th anniversary of the UN. She’s coming to the UN quite timely, just when House Speaker Jose de Venecia came back from his European trip where a proposal by the Speakers of the Parliament for some kind of debt cancellation and debt reduction for the Philippines was introduced.

Actually, this proposal is not really debt reduction, rather it is a request to our foreign creditors to allow the government to convert 50 percent of the existing foreign debt servicing into foreign investments, which, if granted, translates into some P120 billion every year. Whatever it is, anything that reduces our foreign debt would be of great help. So let’s hope that the President can persuade the world leaders to give this idea some kind of priority.

Last Sunday noon, I was with Rep. Tony Cuenco and Cebu provincial board member Agnes Magpale for the inauguration of the Ching Palace restaurant annex and Cuenco told me that he would also be with the President at the UN. So I took the opportunity to suggest to Rep. Cuenco to tell someone high up in the UN hierarchy that after 60 years of existence, it is time for the UN to repackage itself as it has become irrelevant to the poorer or developing countries like us. Indeed, reforms for the UN are on top of the World Summit agenda.

One quick suggestion I gave to Tony Cuenco was something I wrote a few years back… that what this world needs today is some kind of a United Nations Electoral Commission (UNEC). If you look at the problems of the world today, especially here in the Philippines, we have a Commission on Elections (Comelec) that has no credibility and this situation is happening worldwide like in the recent elections in Egypt or in the many African or Baltic countries.

So if the nations of this world would agree to come up with the UNEC for countries that have not yet matured politically, then we can disband our discredited Comelec and whenever we hold elections, it would be conducted under the auspices of the UNEC and no Filipinos would be under it as foreign volunteers would conduct our elections. To return the favor, Filipino volunteers would be doing the same in other countries. Rep. Cuenco agreed with this idea, saying he would bring it up to any UN official who would care to listen.

As expected, our conversation turned to the political brouhaha still raging in Manila. Rep. Cuenco’s wife Nancy is close to Tita Cory Aquino so we couldn’t resist but ask Tony what he thought about Tita Cory linking arms with the communists and the sore losers in the last presidential race. Tony could only shrug his shoulders and gave a heavy sigh, and said in Bisaya, "Ang Gino-o nalay mahibao niya (God knows what will happen to her)!" Indeed, I have met a lot of Cebuanos who were true-blue Cory supporters way back in 1986, but who today are nauseated with Cory cavorting with ugly politicians who are so hungry to grab political power that they wouldn’t hesitate in plunging the nation into a political abyss for as long as they are on top.

As for the suggestion of the opposition to set up a "People’s Court" and try and impeach President Arroyo, the first question asked was, "What authority of the government or law allows anyone to establish a ‘People’s Court?’" There’s no doubt that the opposition really has no law to stand on this issue.

In fact, by creating a "People’s Court," the opposition has walked right into the alley of the Communist Party of the Philippines which has tried, convicted and killed many Filipinos under a "People’s Court," which is also called a "kangaroo court"; after all, there really is no difference between the two!

As to his thoughts about the "People’s Court," Tony said, "A court hears the evidence before it makes any decision. The people behind the creation of this People’s Court have already convicted President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo because they refuse to submit to the rule of the majority, (having) lost in the plenary session. What they are doing is merely creating a lynch mob!"

Since the opposition has vowed to make fun out of President Arroyo in the UN forum, I fear that it would give a signal that democracy in the Philippines is not working well… that the minority groups refuse to heed the decision of the majority… and that is unhealthy in Asia’s longest running democracy.

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Since we’ve been writing about juvenile prisoners, at dawn last Monday, the security guard at the Century Plaza commercial complex along Juaña Osmeña street operated by my family caught minors (three boys aged 13 and one aged 15) stealing a circuit breaker, which could be quite dangerous because they could have been electrocuted and killed. The kids were brought to the Fuente Osmeña police station.

With the CNN report on "Child Prisoners" still very much in my mind, plus what we recently wrote about Mrs. Margot Osmeña’s Operation Second Chance, the facility that handles juvenile prisoners, it was a good time to experience myself how to handle such a ticklish problem. Since the family didn’t want to make criminals out of these kids, I was tasked to call Mrs. Margot Osmeña on how to handle the problem.

Immediately, Mrs. Osmeña asked Tony Auditor, executive director of the Free Rehabilitation, Economic, Education and Legal Assistance Volunteer’s Association (FREELAVA), to get more details about those kids and in a short while, he called to inform me that the 15-year-old boy was a recidivist. But since we were not pressing charges, this boy was sent to Balay Pasilungan, a halfway house for "children in contact with the law," the politically correct term to describe these kids.

The three other kids, who have no records, were sent to a community-based rehabilitation program for re-integration, which intervenes and gives support to such fallen children in cooperation with barangay officials and their parents. Thanks to NGOs like FREELAVA, Cebu’s fallen children truly have a second chance to a better and fruitful life ahead.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly talk show, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, at 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.