Recasting our image abroad? Reform the reality at home first!

Two headlines in another newspaper caught my eye yesterday. One was: "Philippines to Recast Image Abroad." The other bannered: "Glo to OFWs: Don’t Come Home Yet!"

The first story said that President Arroyo will be hiring an international public relations firm, in conjunction with the private sector, to improve the Philippines’ image abroad and counter the negative perceptions held in foreign countries that the Philippines can’t get its act together.

Ay naku, here we go again! An American statesman a century ago (I forget his name) once put it well: "The best foreign policy is to have a strong domestic policy." In short, if the reality at home stinks, (not all the perfumes of Araby nor the ladling out of cheerful propaganda by the gross ton will deodorize or gild a malodorous situation. This country, let’s face it, is in the pits. On our chest is burned the olfactory horror: Payatas. At the back of the same tattered shirt are the words, Abu Sayyaf atbp. Clear out the rubbish at home, sweep the cobwebs out of the government, reform the crooked and exhausted institutions ruthlessly, make the Philippines safe for its own citizens, break up the traffic mess, and only then can we welcome the rest of the world to come visit us.

A public relations campaign overseas is putting the cart before the horse. What if such a high-powered propaganda drive could succeed in seducing reluctant foreign investors to come take a peek? The poisonous political debate, the never-ending road gridlock, confusion, pollution, and pervasive climate of sleaze would soon repel them. They’d head for the airport in panic, gasping for air. Clean house first, Madam President, then propagate the good news!

H. G. Wells once sneered that "advertising is legalized lying." The time to advertise to the world what we’ve got is to do so when we’ve really got something to show. It’s not only a sin to tell a life, as the song goes, but it’s counter-productive.

* * *

Then there’s the plaintive appeal of GMA to our five million OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers) to stay where they are, and not come home, because no jobs are waiting for them here. Since the multibillion-dollar remittances of our OFWs made up 25 percent of Gross National Product, we can understand why the Chief Executive wants to keep our exiles in the diaspora working industrially in foreign host "host" countries.

The harsh fact of life, on the other hand, is that the United States economy is slowing down, and the rest of the planet, from Japan and China to Western Europe are being adversely affected by the American downturn.

What does this translate to? The companies that employ Filipinos have begun laying off employees. Hewlett Packard, the computer group, has already announced it will be axing 6,000 personnel. Since HP and Acer (which does work for HP in Taiwan) both employ many Filipinos – for their knowledge of English – we’ll be feeling the pinch any day now. Other companies are dismissing 10,000 to 20,000 staffers and workers across the board. There are, for example, thousands of "IT" skilled Indians – who were lured to America from Bangalore and other cyber-centers in India with six-year "provisional" visas during the high-tech boom – today roaming the streets of US cities desperately seeking work. When the bubble burst, these "knowledge workers" were thrown out on their bums into the mean streets. If they can’t find new jobs, US immigration will deport them – back to the misery and squalor they left back home. These Indians can’t even contemplate hiring out as taxi drivers in New York. The truth is that half the Big Apple’s cabbies are already Indians, probably of lower intellectual achievement if not of lower caste.

Our OFWs face the same fate – unless the tide of misfortune turns. And all of Ate Glo’s exhortations to them to stay put won’t amount to a pitcher of warm spit.

* * *

In her well-delivered State of the Nation Address, or SONA, which has already been nitpicked to death by everybody, the President pledged that the Commission on Elections would be fully-automated by the coming presidential election year of 2004.

If the President hopes to streamline our election process, she ought to take a closer look at the disgraceful antics of several Comelec commissioners who acquired sudden and unexplained prosperity in the past election process alone. I pity Comelec Chairman Alfredo Benipayo who found, when he was named to that post by GMA, he had inherited a can of worms. Worms? Rattlesnakes might be more apt.

For instance, the most vociferous Commissioner, Ms. Luz Tancangco, still has not made an accounting for over one hundred million pesos worth of advances. Gee whiz.

Another commissioner is so brazen that he flaunts his wealth. A former politician, he recently acquired two flashy and very expensive Mercedes-Benzes of the same model but of different colors. He also has a shiny new Audi. He’s not shy about his acquisitions. The license plate of one of his luxury vehicles even bears the full initials of his name.

This same bozo was the ponente of the Comelec ruling in favor of Victoria Locsin who was supposed to have lost to incumbent Ormoc City Mayor Dodong Codilla by 17,500 votes, yet she was proclaimed winner by the Comelec instead. It’s not mere coincidence that he’s very buddy-buddy with Quezon Rep. Danny Suarez, the quintessential Erap crony.

Another commissioner, a former judge at that, suddenly went on "sick leave" from July 16 to 20, then skipped out of the country, latching on to a delegation led by Chief Justice Hilario Davide, Jr., to tour Moscow and St. Petersburg. The unkind allegation currently sweeping the Comelec is that the fellow was "in hiding", really, from two powerful Muslim politicians from Sulu and a furious Metro mayoralty candidate in the last elections for whom, obviously, he failed to deliver the goods. Does this mean that despite assurances worth several millions, "victory" was not awarded to them? If he’s hiding, then, who can blame him? This guy, like other commissioners, loves flashy cars.

A fourth poll official was reported in a letter to Chairman Benipayo as having received P5 million from certain Muslim candidates in Mindanao.

The favorite money-making trick of certain commissioners is to "sit" on electoral cases in order to raise the ante. Capish?

* * *

It’s not only the big shots who are raking it in. A retired Comelec official who had served under two successive chairmen confided to me that even the rank and file have been peddling UNUSED official ballots at P1,000 per ballot. You might wonder, with the May 14 elections long over, what good to anyone those unused ballots could be. Those blanks are intended for use by "losers" filing election protests with the Congressional electoral tribunals and the Regional Trial Courts. The racket run by nefarious Comelec syndicates involves "package deals" in which blank ballots are filled up with the names of their losing-clients candidates and their surreptitious substitution inside the padlocked ballot boxes. To our consternation, this kind of sleight-of-hand is going on!

The Comelec must be cleaned up – reamed out completely.

It’s not just the amount of money changing hands in the buy-and-sell market of Comelec resolutions, or the luxurious lifestyles and the expensive vehicles being acquired by some Comelec commissioners, that should alarm us. Bigger scams, involving higher public officials, have been exposed. But the kind of prostitution which entails "selling" Comelec resolutions, and the proclamation of losers instead of the right winners, is especially ruinous to our country and the morale of our nation. For, after all, it is by the electoral process that the people vote to choose their leaders and representatives. If you vitiate that process, with thugs and cheats coming to power instead, the confidence of our people in our "democracy" will soon be totally destroyed.

Why are some poll body officials so bold and brazen? It is because they believe, no doubt, that they are immune from investigation and know they can be removed only by impeachment, a long and difficult process. By seeking by law to make our poll body independent, did we tie our own hands?

We’ve seen them come and go. All Comelec administrations in the past – from that of Gaudencio Garcia, Juan Borra, Jaime Ferrer, Leonardo Perez, Vicente Santiago, Vic Savellano, Ramon Felipe, Hilario Davide Jr., Christian Monsod, Bernardo Pardo to Harriet Demetriou – have had their own share of scoundrels and scalawags. But the venality – with which poor, embattled Chairman Benipayo has to cope – tops them all.