Too much posturing and palabas lead to zero progress

Why get all het up about the latest Pulse Asia October 2005 Ulat ng Bayan survey saying that nearly six in ten Filipinos (58 percent) want La Glorietta to "exit" from the Presidency? Perhaps it’s true. Okay. But the reality is that GMA’s in the Palace and holds the reigns of power.

Surveys and opinion polls are fine – yet the public mood everywhere and in every age is fickle. Remember that Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem to the cheers of the people on Palm Sunday. They strew flowers and waved palms to hail Him as the Messiah. By Friday – mistakenly called Good Friday – the same crowds were crying out: "Crucify him!"

The Roman Governor Pontius Pilate offered the people a choice: Should he "free" Christ or the murderer-robber Barabbas? The mob roared: "We want Barabbas!" They nixed Jesus.

If you ask me, that instant "opinion poll" sealed Jesus’ fate. This is not to justify GMA or even, Susmariosep, defend her. But this is just to remind ourselves that vox populi is not always vox dei.

Britain’s Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher didn’t care about the opinion polls. She just did what she thought was right. When she imposed draconian economic measures which caused the British people pain, scores of thousands of jobs were being lost by her "reforms" and 300 economists and pundits shouted at her that she was wrong. I’ve quoted her before. In a pun on the expression, "This Lady’s not for burning," she asserted: "This lady’s not for turning." She didn’t turn around or turn back. And she won. In the end, by the harsh measures she enforced despite their unpopularity, Thatcher saved the economy.

Maggie Thatcher once said that she didn’t read the newspapers in the morning. "It just spoiled my day!" she exclaimed. She did read them in the evening, at the end of the day.

One American axiom I like is: "Don’t sweat the small stuff." Everything, including media hype and all this huffing and puffing on the part of politicians and special-pleaders which make it appear that we Filipinos are suffering a crisis a minute are just baloney and small stuff.

Let’s just work and pray. Let’s do our best – and we’ll win through.

China’s late leader, Chairman Mao Zedong did many terrible things and committed horrible mistakes that destroyed the lives of scores of millions of people – from his disastrous "Great Leap Forward" to the orgy of self-destruction inflicted on the Chinese people by the vicious "Cultural Revolution". But in the period when the Communist movement seemed defeated, and there seemed to be no hope for his Revolution, Mao uttered poetic and prophetic words which inspired his followers and foretold the triumph of their cause. He said – and please forgive me if I lapse, for I’m quoting it from memory: "They asked me when the Revolution is coming . . . It is like sun rising in the East whose first rays can already be seen from the tall mountaintops; it is like a ship far out at sea whose tall masts can already be glimpsed from the shore. It is like a child about to be born, stirring restlessly in its mother’s womb."

These are the words I wish our own countrymen can appropriate to gain confidence and rekindle hope when we worry about our future and the realization of our dreams while we wallow in the dark valley of deepest despair. Our Revolution, too, is coming – not one of violence, but a Revolution of the Heart. The dawn can be seen from the mountain peak, the ship beating against the wind but steadfastly approaching shore. The child is waiting to be born into the glory of a new day.

In the Mass, the priest says it all. I love the old Latin Vulgate – for it was the point in the holy sacrifice that the priest at the altar admonished the faithful: "Sursum corda!" Lift up your hearts!

And the congregation would answer, with confidence and without qualm: "Habemust ad Dominum!" We have lifted them up unto the Lord!

Christmas is coming. Lift up our hearts! Above politics and its furies. Above corruption and its slime. Above violence and fear.

Mao and Jesus were completely different. Mao abhorred God. Jesus led us to God the Father, and was Himself God. But their admonition was the same, in a strange way: That the dawn is almost here. But it won’t come unless we believe.

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Is this another lawyer’s game? After all the outrage generated by the "rape" of a 22-year-old Filipina by six US Marines, or whatever, the report we get is that the lawyers of the victim may not present her at the preliminary hearing of the case today. Why not? There cannot be a rape without a victim. By all means a victim of sexual outrage and molestation must be shielded from undue publicity – so why not a closed-door preliminary hearing? Must the cameras and the media be present? This is not a freak show.

In this instance, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez is right when he warns that a no-show of the unfortunate rape victim would give the lawyers of the US Marines an opportunity to delay the trial or derail it – exactly what we don’t want. If any of the Marines or all of them are guilty, by all means let them fry. But they can’t be prosecuted until and unless the victim shows up and testifies. She must point the finger: J’accuse! Otherwise, the Americans will dismiss everything as mere anti-American propaganda.

In the first place, why did our police and the authorities in the Subic Bay Freeport surrender the arrested US Marines to the United States Embassy’s representative when they were first nabbed? Now we’re trying to get them back – fruitlessly. We ought to have kept them, and let the Americans legally sweat it out, working to get them released from our custody. Our own blunders cannot be blamed on Imperialism. Stupidity cannot be wrapped in the flag and unctuously called "patriotism."

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It may be a cute gesture, but I’m not convinced that the postura of President GMA of sending Filipino "bird flu" experts to Indonesia to help them fight bird flu over there will be effective. Curbing avian flu involves the process, a very expensive one at that, of keeping live folk away from live fowl. In kampongs and barrios where everybody lives with the chickens, and, here at home, where cockfights involve live cocks – how can contact between humans and live fowl or poultry be avoided?

As for the worldwide desperation to corner and build up stockpiles of that suddenly "wonder drug" Tamiflu, Secretary Roberto "Obet" Pagdanganan, who’s head of the Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC), tasked to provide generic medicine to our poor among his other "hats," told me the Department of Health has already ordered Tamiflu worth P8.5 million, expected in January. Another P1.5 million order was placed with the World Health Organization, he said.

Tamiflu, Obet points out, is derived from herbs found in only four provinces of China. The generic name, he notes, is Oseltamivir (which I mentioned in a column written from Europe three weeks ago). Tamiflu is only the brand name of the drug manufactured by Roche, the Swiss company. The main raw material is shikimic acid, which is only effectively isolated from "Chinese Star anise." Pagdanganan insists that if the worst came to the worst, our own Unilab could produce the drug in cooperation with unnamed overseas scientists whose expertise has already developed the equivalent of Tamiflu.

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If you want the lowdown on Tamiflu and even its political implications, grab yourself a copy of the November 14 issue of FORTUNE magazine, the one with Martha Stewart on its cover. (Parenthetically, I admire Martha Stewart for having the guts and know-how to come back from the disgrace of imprisonment – but that’s another story).

On page 17 to 18, Nelson D. Schwartz writes revealingly of "THE TAMIFLU TUG OF WAR." Here’s what’s interesting:

A year ago Tamiflu was known, if at all, as an obscure remedy for influenza, which doctors typically treat with bed rest and chicken soup. Today, with panic mounting over a potential bird flu pandemic, it’s the most sought-after drug in the world, as everyone from suburban soccer moms in the US to health officials in London and Taipei scramble to stockpile the pill. At the moment, it seems, virtually the entire world is sick-chicken alert.

The appearance in Europe of the H5N1 strain of bird flu – which has already infected 121 people in Asia, 62 fatally – has set off a stampede for the medicine and created a contagion of stock market speculation about Roche and the California biotech firm that first developed Tamiflu, Gilead Sciences. Despite worries about Tamiflu’s effectiveness, the phenomenon is a reminder of just how quickly fear can spawn greed. The potential profit windfall for the drugmakers seems to be growing daily, and shares in both Roche and Gilead are surging.

Among the beneficiaries of the run on Tamiflu is Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who was chairman of Gilead from 1997 to 2001 and owns at least $5 million of the stock, which has jumped from $35 in April to $47. Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who is on Gilead’s board, has sold more than $7 million worth of Gilead in 2005.

Gilead developed Tamiflu on its own, then licensed it to Roche in 1996 to get help manufacturing and marketing it. But Gilead has complained for years that Roche wasn’t aggressive on either front. In June, Gilead, which receives royalties equal to about 10 percent of Tamiflu sales, took the unusual step of terminating its licensing agreement with Roche and going into arbitration to win back exclusive rights to the drug.

Roche CEO Franz Humer rejects Gilead’s claims that his company neglected Tamiflu. He points out that Roche has doubled Tamiflu production since last year, and will double it again next year. What’s more, Humer is confident the two companies will come up with a compromise that leaves Tamiflu in Roche’s hands. The most likely scenario would be that Roche simply coughs up more in royalties to Gilead.

While the soccer moms may be going overboard, the people who really should be worrying about the threat seem remarkably blase. Although governments in Europe are buying enough Tamiflu to cover a quarter of their population – and the Pentagon has already ordered $58 million worth of Tamiflu for US troops around the world – the US government has purchased only 1.3 million doses of Tamiflu and another anti-viral, Glaxo’s Relenza, enough for just 1.5 percent of Americans. Despite months of debate about an additional multibillion-dollar purchase, Congress and the White House haven’t agreed on a final plan.

Making tons of Tamiflu isn’t easy. The drug is derived from the pods of Chinese star anise in a yearlong process that is expensive and dangerous – at one stage the stuff is highly explosive. "It’s not like you press the button in the morning and in the afternoon Tamiflu falls out," says Humer. "We don’t yet have a firm order from Washington . . . words are not enough."