Why is our wimpish gov’t begging Joma for peace talks while his NPAs sneer and attack?

My jaw dropped in astonishment and disbelief when I saw Government Negotiator Silvestre "Bebot" Bello III on ANC television yesterday, saying that he might in the future "return to Utrecht" to discuss the possibility of resuming "peace talks" with Communist Party and New People’s Army Supremo Joma Sison.

Cut it out, Bebot! Joma doesn’t want peace talks. The National Democratic Front scoffs at peace talks. Their NPA guerrillas are on the attack here. What kind of peace are our government clowns speaking about? Surrender?

It’s stupid and humiliating enough that a succession of delegations, including the last one headed by Bello, went hat in hand to meet Sison in his lair in Utrecht, Holland. When you send a mission to beg for "peace" to the headquarters of the enemy, this sends the wrong and silly signal that the government is losing the "war", and that the Communist rebels are "winning". It should be Sison and his NDF and NPA who should be pleading for peace – not the other way around.

We’ve got troubles enough at the moment, from the mad bombers to corruption in the government, to be worrying about an insect like Joma Sison who directs murderous operations here from the safety of his Dutch bolt-hole thousands of miles away from the battlefront. (Incidentally, methinks ANC, the news channel of ABS-CBN, has been giving Joma, the Communists, every tinhorn radical and Red front organization in the country as well as Satur Ocampo, Crispin Beltran, and assorted Leftists, too much daily publicity. Sanamagan. Has this powerful radio-TV network now become the vehicle for revolutionary propaganda? I guess Lenin was right when he sneered that Capitalists will sell you the rope with which to hang them. The capitalists who own such agencies help become the instruments of their own destruction.)

As for Joma, he’s grown spoiled. Imagine, the Dutch government subsidized his stay and that of his family in Holland for many years until those benefits were taken away from him because he had been labeled a "terrorist" by the United States. (Previous Philippine governments had been calling Sison a terrorist for years, but The Hague had ignored us – until Washington, DC joined in the indignation. Just goes to show that the Americans, for all their missteps and occasional follies, carry a big stick, while we carry only a toothpick.)

Sison is now complaining and insisting, angrily, that the Dutch government should restore his housing accommodation allowance and defrost his frozen bank accounts and financial assets. Why don’t you just come home, Joma, to personally lead the revolution – at least within gunshot, in your own country?

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We may not immediately recognize the fact, but it’s an honor and a gesture of confidence in our country (given the perilous environment that exists nowadays) that the annual general meeting of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) will be held here in Manila next Monday. This international gathering of the world’s top 500 agricultural scientists, hosted by our government, will take place from October 28 to November 1.

What’s significant is that this is the first time this AGM or annual general meeting is being held outside of Washington, DC. (Mind you, the decision to meet in Manila was made before the mysterious and deadly one-shot "I am God" or Tarot Card sniper killed nine persons in and around Washington, DC, and seriously wounded two other victims – making the capital of the world’s only superpower even more dangerous than Metro Manila!)

The press statement said that the details of the meeting were announced by the Philippine representative to the CGIAR, Dr. Eliseo R. Ponce and senior officials from the 16 international agricultural research institutes ("Future Harvest" centers) who compose the CGIAR (sort of rhymes with cigar). It seems that CGIAR is an alliance of the abovementioned 16 research centers, 22 developing countries, 21 industrialized countries, and hundreds of partner organizations striving to harness science for the benefit of poor people who are dependent on agriculture.

What’s not being publicized enough is that one or the moving spirits behind this effort is our own former Secretary of Agriculture William D. Dar, who has been working in India since he became Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in January 2000. His Institute is located near Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh.

I learned of Willie’s whereabouts in India in May 2001, when we were in New Delhi attending the 51st World Congress of the International Press Institute (IPI) there — about the time of the great Gujarat earthquake. To my surprise, he contacted us in our hotel, the Taj Palace. Then he arranged to have my wife, Precious (whose school operates an O.B. Montessori Farm in Cavite), visit one of his major projects and observe their technology.

Yesterday, I met with Willie Dar and my cousin, journalist-turned-farmer, Joe Burgos (winner of the World Press Freedom Award on the occasion of the IPI’s 50th anniversary by the way) to discuss Dar’s concept of a Grey-to-Green Revolution through what he called "Science with a Human Face". In fact, Dar has written and published a book about it, sponsored by ISCRISAT, subtitled Turning Adversity into Opportunity.

In our present state of disarray, we could pick up a few useful pointers in that direction.

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Willie pointed out that there are 840 million poor people in the world, 350 million of whom are located in the "dry tropics" of the planet in 48 "developing" countries. "We used to talk of a Green Revolution based on irrigation," he said. "The dry areas are neglected – which is why our battle-cry now must be a Grey-to-Green Revolution."

Willie underscored that it’s not enough to simply use science and technology to improve the production and living standards of poor farmers, but we must prepare them "to upgrade themselves from mere subsistence farming to commercial farming."

In this world of smart-alecks, goof-offs and chair-borne pilosopos, at least we have guys like Willie who’re doing something meaningful.

Dar, who comes from Sta. Maria, Ilocos Sur, once served as Presidential Advisor for Rural Development in the Estrada administration. He has been on the managing boards of the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), and of the CGIAR’s International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). He was the Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions (APAARI), Chairman of the Coarse Grains, Pulses Research and Training (CGPRT) Center based in Indonesia, Executive Director of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Development (PCARRD) and Director of the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR).

Whew! It’s always a chore to wade through the alphabet soup of such weighty organizations.

Willie received his M.S. in agronomy from the Benguet State University (BSU) in La Trinidad, and a Ph.D. in horticulture from the University of the Philippines, Los Baños.

He taught at BSU for 11 years with the rank of professor.

Among his many awards were his being named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) of the Philippines by the Jaycees, Outstanding Young Scientist of the Year from the National Academy of Science and Technology in the Philippines, etc.

He warned yesterday of an impending wheat shortage. This is bound to bring an increase in the price of pan de sal! Wheat crops, it seems, have failed in the United States and Canada this year. India, where in his headquarters is located, is suffering its worst drought in a hundred years, particularly 12 of its states. Rice production is down, as well. The winter wheat crop, newly-planted, seems fated to fail.

Fortunately, he notes, India still has 60 million metric tons of wheat in reserve from previous harvests.

It is also becoming the peanut capital of the world. India has developed a transgenic peanut immune to such devastating diseases as peanut clump virus and "Rosette" which yellows and stunts peanut plants. At present, six million hectares there are devoted to peanuts, as compared with three million hectares in the People’s Republic of China, Dar revealed. Spending even just an hour with Willie is truly an education, even for peanut-brains like Yours Truly.

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Let me, albeit belatedly, say it. It’s sad that former Chief Presiding Justice of the Sandiganbayan Francis Garchitorena had to "retire," buried under the huge backlog of unresolved cases he was unable to handle. Francis is a decent and honest man, but he – despite his brilliance – could not cope. Perhaps, being so meticulous, he wasn’t cut out for such a task. He ran afoul of the dictum, I guess, of justice delayed is justice denied.

May I take this opportunity to apologize to Francis, my old friend, for the erroneous article bylined by one of our reporters in the October 5 issue of The STAR? The article completely misquoted Justice Garchitorena about, when he returned to private practice, being "willing" to appear as counsel for ex-President Joseph Estrada in his present cases. This is "totally incorrect" he told me, "and in fact a reading of other newspapers will show that The STAR was the only one which carried that slant."

"In various interviews," Francis said, "I had made clear that I would not be able to accept cases against public officials charged in connection with the performance of their office since I would be a pensioner. A special case would be when a pensioner is appointed by the Court as in the special case of former Presiding Justice Manuel Pamaran with respect to the case of the son of former President Estrada."

In fact, Garchitorena added, even if the impossible happened and he were so designated, "I would be constrained to decline it since two other cases against him (Erap) were originally with the First Division over which I presided."

Francis Garchitorena’s courage and decency were demonstrated to me and many others early in his legal career. When Ninoy Aquino, Pepe Diokno, Tatang Chino Roces, Soc Rodrigo, Teodoro Locsin Sr., Nap Rama, Jose Mari Velez, Monching Mitra, Vic Rafael and I were arrested and clapped into maximum security prison in Fort Bonifacio, Francis was one of the few lawyers with the guts to come over to represent us in court. (There was Joker Arroyo, too.) As a matter of fact, Garchitorena was so furious at the injustice of the Marcos martial law regime that he fumed often and openly against it, and those "military bullies".

Ninoy and I finally had to tell him to "shut up" We warned him that if he kept on fulminating so loudly, he would end up in the same calaboose we were in, "and we need you outside as our lawyer!"

Other lawyers, even those who were Ninoy’s protégés and Pepe Diokno’s (Pepe was a former Justice Secretary) were shaking in their boots, and used to pee in their pants at the threat of exposure about their closeness to any of us "prisoners", "subersives", "cohorts of the Old Society" and "enemies of martial law and progress". Not so Francis Garchitorena. That’s where he showed his mettle.

Mabuhay, Francis. The best of luck in your coming endeavors!

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THE ROVING EYE. . . My comadre, Senator Loren Legarda, rang me up yesterday to say that she is a Catholic and only an Honorary Muslim. She was conferred status as an Honorary Muslim Princess by the Maranao Royal House in Marawi City several years ago. "Why," Loren asserted, "I go to Mass at least three times a week!" There you are. A reaffirmed Christian. However, I distinctly remember some years ago when Loren told me that she and her husband Tony Leviste had become Muslims. This is when they got married, despite previous marriages. Did they then really embrace Islam at that time? Anyway, when La Senadora goes to Mindanao, and dons Muslim dress, they welcome her there as one of their own. Her latest costume, of course, is apropos to her being a devout Catholic – her Assumption High School uniform. La Presidenta, who also donned tha same cute Assumption uniform, looked even more fetching. She looked like she was a Grade Schooler. . . Director Ismail al Rashid called me up yesterday to clarify that in the Philippines, Muslim women also pray in the Mosque, not just the men. They worship inside the Mosque, he pointed out, but pray behind the men. All right, Director. But that I didn’t observe in Jordan, Egypt, Syria, even in mixed-religion Lebanon, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh (although one has a woman president, and the latter two had women prime ministers). In Turkey, they used to be segregated behind a latticed partition, although the great Mustapha Kemal Ataturk had "liberated" them and upheld their equality. I repeat: When you see those photographs of a sea of worshippers prostrating themselves, what you see are male bottoms. And the Holy Qu’ran emphasizes (Sura XXIV:31): "Say to the believing women, that they cast down their eyes… and reveal not their adornment… and let them cast their veils over their bosoms."