Credibility crisis

Apart from the fiscal crisis, the government is suffering another, at least equally serious, crisis – a crisis of credibility.

Rather than seizing the day and controlling events, the government is allowing events to dictate its priorities and divert its focus, to wit: the General Carlos Garcia case, Winston Garcia and the GSIS, a rumored coup d’etat, oil prices at record highs, rising inflation, institutional sloth in Congress, declining business confidence, among others.

Although not quite appearing helpless yet, the government seems at least distracted or, at worst, floundering as it reels from storm to storm. Calls to national unity are falling on deaf ears, even with GMA’s warning that this may be the nation’s "last chance."As former U.S. ambassador Steve Bosworth used to lament, in a national crisis many Filipinos tend to look for a deus ex machina, which the Oxford Dictionary defines as an "unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation".

It’s a dramatic device which, in real life, never happens. But in a country where many believe in life as soap opera, happy endings are a must. Otherwise, life makes no sense.           

Moreover, God will provide. But we all know that God helps only those who help themselves and we are, manifestly, not helping ourselves.

We’ve analyzed our problems to death. There is no dearth of suggestions about what needs to be done. Still, according to international bond rater Standard and Poor’s, we are nowhere near where we ought to be to avoid another downgrade of our rating around year-end.

No "fundamental changes" in sight, S & P says. If our bond rating sinks further, all our calculations on the service of our foreign debt get thrown out of whack. The fiscal deficit will deepen even further, a state of affairs those U.P. professors were warning us against.

Congress, after a fruitless session, is still in recess. Not a single tax revenue measure has been filed in the House. The Senate, true to its record of abundant hot air but scant productivity, has found time for its usual investigations in aid of legislation, such as that epoch-making inquiry into female escort services.

In that inquiry, our good senators resolved, in aid of legislation, to nab the pimps preying on virtuous young girls. Also, one 50-year old male senator was named in closed session as an avid patron of those escort services. Since speculation then veered away from other male senators who are younger or older than 50, the collective reputation of the Senate is safe for now.

The situation today is that among all the proposed revenue measures of the GMA administration, not one is ready for passage. Most are dead in the water and the two left standing are problematical.

A third which was not proposed by the administration, a tax amnesty, is a top priority of both the Senate and the House despite the heated objections of GMA’s economic planners.

Even that supposedly easiest of measures, the indexation of taxes on alcohol and cigarettes, is mired in serious argument about whether a return to an ad valorem tax regime is better than hiking specific taxes.

The cigarette industry has also raised valid concerns about unabated smuggling which may eventually kill it and lead to massive unemployment. Higher taxes will only drive smokers to cheaper smuggled cigarettes, the industry predicts.

Faced with formidable opposition, many of our intrepid legislators have cut and run. Switching to a populist mode, they shout: No more taxes. The poor have been taxed enough.

That gets them standing ovations from people who think paying taxes just enables the corrupt to steal more of the people’s money. But the question is: If you don’t want taxes, what alternatives have you got?

We know the stock responses: More efficient tax collection. Eliminate graft and corruption. Who can argue with that? Except it turns out that all our wishful thinking about indisputably valid ends doesn’t mean we’ve achieved them. Not immediately, anyway.           

Meanwhile, time lurches on. Christmas, with its other more pressing diversions, is almost upon us. The town is buzzing with rumors of doomsday scenarios. So many distractions, a crisis a minute. The more we hustle, the more we seem to remain in place.

It’s probably a symptom of official desperation, if not a bankruptcy of ideas, that the government has come up with this proposal to issue food coupons. Some five million families nationwide would be given a minimum of P1,200 monthly. The total cost to the government would be P6 billion a month.

It’s difficult to be negative about any proposal to give food to the needy. At a time when the hunger of the poorest families is reportedly increasing, objecting to any food distribution plan makes one look like a latter-day Marie Antoinette prescribing starvation for the masses  as a way out of their misery.

But on more sober reflection, this plan is unmasked as not merely a "palliative," as Church leaders have already characterized it, but as a really bad idea. To begin with, where would the money be taken, at a time of severe cuts in social services, education and health?

The money that would be spent is neither income-producing nor job-generating. It’s not even a true "safety-net". It doesn’t, for example, retrain beneficiaries for alternative employment which puts food on their families’ table over the long term. Neither is it unemployment insurance which keeps body and soul together until other employment is obtained.

If the food coupon idea is an indication of the kind of creative thinking and solid commitment to the  general welfare that drives our national leadership, we’re in deep doodoo.

Which is why right about now, and with apologies to Steve Bosworth, that deus ex machina is beginning to look like a pretty darn good idea.