It’s The Talk Of The Town - By The Way By Max V. Soliven

The "revelations" of Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis "Chavit" Singson, although they remain to be proved, are the talk of the town – from the coffee shops to the Supreme Court.

Whatever his rough-and-ready image, even the so-called "warlord" status now being hurled at him by the administration, the litmus test seems to be: Who would you believe – Singson or the well-known gambler Charlie "Atong" Ang? As for Malacañang, the President’s image – whatever the outcome of the verbal tussle now ongoing – is hurting, too. The opposition, of course, quick to seize on the battle between cronies falling out with each other, is already capitalizing on the whisper "impeachment." And Chavit seems to be everywhere, on radio and TV, punching away.

With Chief Hostage Negotiator and Flagship Projects Secretary Robert (not "Robot") Aventajado smarting from innuendoes regarding "ransom" payments, this is not a happy season for the present government.

And, with the peso still wavering although being propped up slightly by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas "intervention" (estimated to be about P23 billion worth), the business and banking community continues to be discombobulated. While the peso-dollar rate sort of . . . and I mean sort of "stabilizing" at P46.42, it hasn’t gone unnoticed that banks (for example, the Banco de Oro) were still trading yesterday at P46.65 to the US dollar. Obviously, then, there’s a constant pressure exerted by many to snap up dollars. As for the airlines, the "ticket rate" now stands at P47.05 to the dollar.

Yesterday’s Asian Wall Street Journal ran a story by Alastair McIndoe of the Dow Jones Newswires headlined: "Philippine Peso Reaches Record Low." The subhead of the article stated: "Central Bank Intervenes But Sentiment Among Investors Remain Gloomy."

Everyone realizes that the Bangko Sentral won’t risk, by heavy intervention, the country’s foreign exchange reserves which stand at a record $15 billion.

The consensus (not cheerful) is that we’ll all have to tighten our belts and circle the wagons.

Do I heard "Christmas carols" this early on the radio? It’s like whistling in the dark. But what the heck. Let’s hope that, as in the past, the Filipino is like "Ivory" soap. Will he continue to "float"? The situation is more dramatic and daunting than a Mexican telenovela. Abangan.

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Other Asian currencies, of course, are also taking a beating, but not as badly. For example, Taiwan – through its bullying tactics – may have won the "airlines war", but the New Taiwan dollar has fallen to a nine-month low.

Taiwan, indeed, with its national day, "The Double Ten" (October 10) only days away, is being buffeted by a downward spiral of political developments, with the Taiwanese Prime Minister, retired General Tang Fei (a former Defense Minister and popular with the army), resigning from the government of President Chen Shui-bian – signalling the end of cooperation between some leaders (like Tang) of the former ruling Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) with Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party which was voted into power only five months ago.

The newly-resigned Tang politely pleaded "ill health" as the reason for his departure, but everybody knows that he had been locked in a bitter dispute with President Chen over the new Chief Executive’s decision to junk a $5.4- billion nuclear power plant already 30 percent built. Since the KMT still dominates the legislature, this defection can only damage President Chen. He has just designated one of his DPP members, Chang Chen-Hsiung, the new Prime Minister.

With Tang decamping, the stock market fell 2.4 percent (in fact, it has already plummeted 30 percent in the past five months), and some $10 billion has "flown out of the country", as reported by Morgan Stanley. When he took office, against all odds, I said in this corner that I admire Chen, a fighter and a brilliant former mayor of Taipei. But he has been finding difficulty governing, and his popularity at home has sagged enormously.

In Thailand, with the political mudslinging already in full spate in anticipation of general elections this year, the Thai baht is down (from 42.335) to 42.595 against the dollar – but they’re still doing better than us.

In South Korea, the Won was also lower at 1,119.9 to the dollar, particularly now that an American consortium led by Nabors Industries has backed out from a plan to buy the bankrupt Hanbo Iron & Steel company (they had earlier offered $480 million).

Also down were the Australian and New Zealand dollars.

However, we must not let our neighbors’ troubles become a kind of consuelo de bobo for us. We’re the poorest performers in the region. I wish our Cabinet members would stop chanting the mantra that our fundamentals are "sound." They’re not, and the problem is that we don’t admit it. How can we fix the economy if we don’t admit – at least to ourselves – that it’s "broke"?

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You know what worries me about the current controversy over jueteng and illicit profits being farmed out to big shots "upstairs"? Everybody may conclude that if there’s corruption "at the top", then it’s okay for the smaller fry to be corrupt, too. Even in the Bible, Samson, although his rage was righteous, pulled the temple down on everybody’s heads – the innocent and the guilty alike.

And if jueteng’s so widespread, as alleged, this would mean that the proliferation of drugs has reached nightmare proportions, for it’s almost axiomatic that the jueteng and drug rackets go together – one "funds" and helps distribute the other.

Now is the time for all good men to band together to help our country. Sure, it sounds preachy: But, in this critical hour, it’s the only way. In addition, why not try prayer?

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Instead of wringing our hands helplessly over the escalating price of crude oil, and consequently the constant hikes in the costs of fuel and energy, or fiddling around with weird remedies like the idea of putting up an "Oil Exchange", why don’t we do something positive, such as exploring and – more urgently – developing alternative sources of fuel and energy?

For instance, I believe it was over-hasty for the members of Congress (both Houses) to have been stampeded by so-called "environmentalists" (including that bunch, "Greenpeace") into condemning incinerators and other "burn" technologies as a means of disposing of garbage. Secretary Aventajado, who – among the almost innumerable hats he’s wearing – is the Chairman of the government’s Solid Waste Management, keeps on preaching the silly idea that "landfill" is the only proven means of coping with the garbage problem. On the contrary, "landfill", as practiced in the Philippines, merely creates Smokey Mountains, like that in Tondo, and more recently in Payatas, where that huge mountain of trash collapsed not long ago on hundreds of squatters and scavengers and burned many of them alive from the explosions of methane gas generated by the rotting garbage heaps. Would you say that "incinerators" are more deadly and pollutive than landfill "mountains" which pollute the air, get their toxic substances washed by rain and flood into the ground, contaminating our water table and our food chain, and producing "explosive" and poisonous methane gas? Landfill is a proven technology all right – it has been proven to be dangerous. Other technologies, like more modern incinerators, can even produce electrical energy and fertilizer.

It’s time we reviewed the jerry-built Clean Air Act and, after more serious study, amended it.

Then there are the many other options open to us. We have already in place many geothermal stations. In this volcanic land, surely there are many more sources and sites crying to be developed.

Next, there’s the huge underground reservoir of "gas" discovered in Malampaya Sound, in Palawan. Years ago, early searchers believed we had plenty of oil in Malampaya Sound, but our clumsy approach to sinking wells so as to find a substantial off-shore oil cache made our efforts fruitless. Gas, if properly harnessed, is just as good. Vehicles can be operated, generating far less pollution for example, from liquid petroleum or liquid natural gas. Don’t expect me to bluff it out by mouthing any technical mumbo-jumbo on the matter (columnists, even when attempting to be as astute and prophetic as the Oracle at Delphi, are often– if not pompous ignoramuses – jacks of all trade but masters of none). So don’t take my word for it: ask the experts. They’ll tell you that we haven’t even dented the surface when it comes to exploiting our real natural resources.

This is the moment to begin thinking positive. And get cracking. Or we’ll end up like Shakespeare’s witches of Endor, forever stirring a boiling cauldron and wailing: "Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble!"