Tour de farce

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita was obviously pre-empting any attacks regarding the President’s P123 million road show from Switzerland, the Middle East and on to Washington DC.

I can’t blame Secretary Ermita for the pre-emptive explanation since The Philippine STAR Editorial must have cut deep by calling someone as “The Obama Stalker”.

For the first time in my life I thoroughly enjoyed an “editorial” because it was complete of all the ideal editorial elements: Truth, sarcasm, humor, and biting condemnation of an unacceptable behavior and expense.

But did Secretary Ermita really study his options before launching his pre-emptive strike? To begin with he was restating the obvious but ended up making things worse.

To start with everyone critical of the trip did not even want to bother with costs and details.

From the word go, Malacañang was busy justifying an “official trip” to Davos, Switzerland that spiraled into an excursion that had no prior official schedule or agenda that it surprised some Philippine diplomats.

The Philippine Government could have sent Secretary Gary Teves to speak in Davos by himself or with his staff. That would have been smarter, cheaper and prestigious considering his recognition as Finance secretary. It was not important for the President to personally go to Davos. 

The short trip to Davos almost turned from excursion into incursion as pundits lambasted Malacañang’s desperation for a Presidential photo-op with Obama.

Now Secretary Ermita is hard put justifying the P123 million expense by trying to overwhelm us with a sea of promises. Ermita speaks of millions of dollars in PLEDGES of aid packages from the Middle East and $1.2 billion in POSSIBLE revenues from textile exports to the US.

Forgive my ignorant presumptions but as I recall, our December exports ranked lowest in the last 20 years because we are not competitive in quality, quantity, price and delivery time. All textile related products made in the Philippines are from textile products produced by India, China and Thailand. Most textile-based exporters have had to close down because they could not compete with cheap labor in China.

We hardly have any textile-based production in the country which is why many of the “name brands” sold in the malls are actually from China and not made in the Philippines. They are promoted by well paid actors and actresses willing to pose half naked but unaware that they are helping bring OFW money to China.

Ermita’s revelation is poetically tragic because in Filipino culture the term or “figure” 1-2-3 or “na 1-2-3” speaks of being fooled or scammed. The question is who or “Sino ang na 1-2-3”? Of course it’s the Filipino people who just paid P123 million for her majesty’s “Tour de Farce”.

This “Tour de Farce” should be investigated to determine just how far the “official” part of the trip really was. Who were part of the official list of participants and what were their role? What was the official schedule based on official arrangements made by our DFA with their foreign counterparts? What official agreements and commitments did participants in the “Tour de Farce” enter into? 

*      *      *

Government officials recently launched a not so “Surprise” random drug testing in one of the metropolitan schools. In a country where the word “secret” does not apply, it was really stupid to hang a banner in front of the school to welcome the secretary of education and his party. Just as stupid was to announce on every major TV and radio station that the drug testing would be coming to a school near you. The intention was obviously more about publicity than logic.

In terms of incidence and locations, the drug cases and the drug busts have not been happening in the school grounds as much as they have been going down inside the bars, the private parties and the slums! A majority of the actual reported cases have been buy bust operations or accident scenes that involve “public utility drivers” or professional drivers who drive long haul. 

So why not do random visits with K-9 units or drug sniffing dogs and go inside bars, clubs, as well as public transport. This will send a very strong message to the public and will be a deterrent to users and pushers.

If government or education officials really love students, they should show true courage by radically prohibiting cigarette smoking among students. Regardless of what the “yea” and “nay” may say, my personal observation and experience bears witness that a regular cigarette smoker has a greater chance of moving on to stronger stuff such as alcohol or drugs. A cigarette smoker will always be at a disadvantage in terms of study habits and learning capacity. So please, stop making students your usual suspects because your motives are now suspect.

*      *      *

ATTN: Senators Revilla, Estrada, Lapid et al,

Certain television and movie people are calling attention to a practice of the Movie Television Review and Classification Board or MTRCB of multiple billing for services previously paid for.

 According to the disgruntled organizations and personalities, the MTRCB charges a fee of several hundred pesos to review movies and TV shows to be aired on TV and Cable networks.

The problem is when the MTRCB requires payment for the same “services” on the same films or videos whenever they are replayed. So every time a documentary or even a cartoon is shown, the local producer or broadcaster has to pay several hundred pesos all over again. Multiply this on an annual basis and it amounts to a lot of money especially for small companies.

One broadcaster asks: where does the “replay revenue” go?

The tragedy is that replays are usually just fillers and “non-income” broadcasts used to keep program schedules loaded because cable companies don’t like broken grids. Perhaps the MTRCB should review its policies.