Poll summit action plan

It’s puzzling why His Eminence Archbishop of Jaro Angel Lagdameo, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), found it necessary to point out that the CBCP remains out of the four-party summit called by Malacañang to ensure clean and honest elections.

"The chairman of NASSA can permit the executive secretary to be an observer but she can’t speak in behalf of the CBCP," the archbishop was quoted as saying when he learned that Sr. Rosanne Mallillin, executive secretary of the National Secretariat for Social Action, Justice and Peace (NASSA), attended the planning meet last Wednesday for the poll summit. NASSA is part of the CBCP’s Episcopal Commission on Social Action, Justice and Peace, which is chaired by Marbel Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez. It was Bishop Gutierrez who sent the NASSA executive secretary to the planning meeting as an observer. But as Archbishop Lagdameo would have it, the nun’s presence in the poll summit planning meet had to do with NASSA’s application to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for accreditation to do a quick count. "It has to know what’s going on," Archbishop Lagdameo qualified.

It must have been rather humbling for His Eminence to resort to such roundabout elucidation about the CBCP’s presence in an exercise that he had initially scoffed at. It will be recalled that the four-party poll summit was President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s response to the CBCP’s call for clean and honest elections. That call urged the Catholic faithful to mobilize and link with other groups toward "clean, honest and peaceful" elections come May 14.

"As a nation, we cannot afford yet another controversial electoral exercise that further aggravates social distrust and hopelessness," the CBCP noted on January 28. President Arroyo obviously agreed. Just a day after the CBCP issued its statement, she proposed a four-party summit among the Comelec, CBCP, poll watchdog groups, and the Philippine National Police (PNP), to come up with a comprehensive plan on stabilizing election hot spots, focused monitoring in possible areas of fraud, transparent poll procedures, and check on illegal spending. The President also appointed Cabinet Sec. Ricardo Saludo as point man for the exercise. "Political stability must stand alongside economic strength to seal the competitiveness of the Philippines and its momentum in the world arena," the President stressed.

This must have stumped Archbishop Lagdameo. Two days later, he wrote in his CBCP blog that he was "wary and skeptical" about the four-party poll summit, noting that everybody should just do their jobs "with an honest conscience." Lingayen-Dagupan Arch. Oscar Cruz was more graphic about his skepticism. "It is the standard big words, grandiose idea, and glorious vision but as usual, it is doubtful in immediate objective and dubious in its eventual goal. What comes to mind is the image of a spider inviting a fly to its sticky and deadly parlor. This is so good for the big spider but so bad for the tiny fly," he was quoted in a CBCP statement.

But Secretary Saludo eventually proved Archbishop Cruz wrong. He succeeded in gathering participants to the February 7 planning meet by lucidly explaining what exactly would be achieved with the four-party summit. His emphasis: an action plan. The February 7 meeting would define the objectives, participants, issues, activities, date, venue and other parameters of the summit, he said. True enough, when the planning meet was concluded, Secretary Saludo reported that the general objectives, key issues, activities and tasking of various entities had been drafted during the three-hour meeting at Barbara’s Restaurant in Intramuros. This was after the group reviewed preparations and activities being undertaken by the PNP, Comelec, the Department of Education, and the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) for the May 2007 elections. Now with the summit parameters in place, Secretary Saludo said it is ready for approval and implementation of the participating organizations.

Secretary Saludo has explained that "the nationwide effort leads to, among other things, cellphone photos of campaign workers mounting posters where they shouldn’t, tipped-off police accosting pistol-packing goons with no gun permits, text messages from Comelec insiders about dagdag-bawas vote-padding and ‑shaving, and media companies publishing lists of political advertising expenses incurred by candidates, party coalitions and their supporters."

Not exactly the standard big words Archbishop Cruz expected, but more of a glorious vision translated to action. Does this sound "dubious in its eventual goal," as Arch. Cruz asserted? Certainly not to me.

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The Philippines is in step with the worldwide struggle against global warming. That is a statement of fact because we happen to be at the forefront of green initiatives, which include our international status as No. 2 in geothermal development and use, trailblazing moves in the development of solar and wind power in Asia, and the passage of the Clean Air Act almost a decade ago, and just recently, the Biofuels Act of 2006.

The Biofuels Act of 2006 is a landmark legislation expected to liberate the country’s transport sector from full dependence on imported fuel. This is why there was a multisectoral effort to convince Congress to pass the measure in record time — and it worked.

Now that the law is in place, the nationwide mandate is to have one-percent coco methyl ester (CME) blend in diesel sold at the pumps starting April 2007. The biodiesel mandate was precisely timed way ahead of bioethanol, which would entail a five-percent ethanol blend in gasoline by 2009, because local CME production is sufficient to meet the estimated 70 liters required to fulfill the nationwide mandate within two months.

But there’s persistent talk that oil industry players are pressuring the government to delay implementation of the biodiesel mandate by one to two years, due reportedly to logistical limitations. The word on the ground, however, is that these oil players’ infrastructure are ready to make the one-percent biodiesel blend operational, and that it’s just a question of management will.

The Biofuels Act is part and parcel of a global imperative to act on climate change. Let’s hope our oil giants exercise more prudence in their moves regarding the biodiesel mandate. As good corporate citizens, it would be unwise to play the local villain in a global imperative to ensure the earth’s survival. That would be hard to live down in the international scene, and surely machinations to thwart the Philippine green initiative will receive global attention.

You woudn’t want to live down such notoriety, guys, so better think twice. Meanwhile, I believe multisectoral monitoring is in order to make sure the Biofuels Act of 2006 is implemented just as envisioned.

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