Courageous

While all the other major powers quibbled, France went ahead and extended recognition to the Libyan National Council, the revolutionary government a-forming in Benghazi.

This is a principled and courageous move, consistent not only with the brash political will characterizing the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy. It is consistent with the determined democratic standards maintained by the French foreign policy establishment. Recall that in 1986, France was the first country to recognize the government of Corazon Aquino moments after she took her oath of office.

The bold course taken by Sarkozy contrasts starkly with the cowardly and unprincipled statement made by Corazon Aquino’s son who mumbled something about not taking a position on the Libyan crisis because we had workers to be evacuated from that country. President Aquino II could at least have said we were observing the situation with grave concern.

Grave concern is the least we should have. Unarmed civilians are being mowed down by machine guns and artillery in the contested cities of Libya. No one since Pol Pot has so scandalized humanity’s collective conscience. No one lied so blatantly and so consistently at the world’s face than this madman Gadhafi.

Residential neighborhoods are bombed. Ambulances and hospitals have been targeted. Civilians are herded, tortured and executed every day. The brutality unleashed by the beleaguered Gadhafi regime is horrific. A humanitarian disaster unfolds by the hour.

We are missing our chance to claim our place in the concert of humane and democratic nations. Our short-term interest, no doubt, is to quickly secure our migrant workers from the troubles. Our long-term interest, clearly, lies in realizing a world free from the sort of terror Gadhafi unleashed on his own people.

When a group of Libyan pilots refused to bomb their own people, two defected to Malta and the others executed on the spot by Gadhafi loyalists. There is now evidence that soldiers in the Libyan army, refusing to fire at crowds, were likewise summarily executed. Gadhafi is trying to hold on through sheer brutality.

The Libyan National Council at Benghazi called for immediate international support. They are asking the Western powers to enforce a no-fly zone to prevent the carnage Gadhafi delivers from the air.

NATO, despite the urgings of France and Britain, continues to hedge. They want a Security Council resolution to provide legal cover for any military operation. A security council resolution, however, will likely be blocked by Russia and China.

Benghazi can now only pin its hopes on France and Britain acting on their own. A late-breaking Agence France Press report indicates that the Sarkozy government is looking at plans for tactical air strikes to limit Gadhafi’s capacity to massacre his own people.

The situation is so desperate on the ground that this report of possible French air strikes is among the last things holding up the morale of anti-Gadhafi fighters. Otherwise, these ill-trained fighters will be slaughtered by Gadhafi’s tanks.

Gadhafi forces retook Zawiya Thursday. Misrata is under heavy siege from the air. If none of the democracies act today, the Libyan people will lose all confidence in the capacity of the international community to quickly extend support to those who want nothing more than dignity, freedom and respect.

Needless to say, if Gadhafi is not stopped, Libya will be a bloody wasteland: a stain on humanity’s collective conscience. The hopes of all the other peoples seeking to end tyrannies will be dashed.

Cities unborn

While whole cities are dying in Libya, hereabouts there are those who want cities to be unborn.

I found that march of the League of Cities of the Philippines this week a bit strange. Reacting to what might be the final, final, final ruling of the Supreme Court granting city status to a score of municipalities, the city mayors are demanding that ruling be reversed.

It is as if the older cities want to prevent younger siblings from being born to conserve their portion of the inheritance. The complex legal struggle that ebbed and flowed at the Supreme Court for years is all about money, of course.

The Local Government Code sets aside a portion of the internal revenue allotment for cities to share among themselves. Perhaps it is this aspect of the Code that needs to be amended to prevent the proliferation of cities or the squabbling between chartered cities and those aspiring cityhood.

At any rate, for as long as the Code stands, the Supreme Court’s latest ruling appears correct. That ruling emphasizes justice and says that the municipalities aspiring to be cities will be prevented from playing their development role if not granted the charters they aspire for. The requirement to meet a specified income level for municipalities to convert to cityhood is secondary to enabling lead municipalities to play a role in the local economy.

For their part, the municipalities standing to benefit from this latest ruling put out a paper that demonstrates the existing cities will not get any less than their present allocations if new cities are added. In fact, they will likely get more based on increases in the internal revenue allocation.

 The problem seems to lie in the existing cities wanting to get the whole pie for themselves, whatever the size of that pie might be. In which case, the SC ruling will never be acceptable, however well this is argued on the principle of justice. There is no reasonable counterweight to greed.

As we await the final judicial resolution of this issue, it might be time to seriously review the design flaws present in the existing Code. There is reason to suspect the operational realities shown by experience thus far stray far away from the original intents of the policy.