Railroad

See what a few million carrots can do? Even the chronic absentees at the House of Representatives turned up to vote — and be counted.

The railroad is on a roll. On Monday, over two-thirds of the honorable congressmen turned up to vote to impeach the Ombudsman. On Tuesday, by nearly the same proportion, the honorable members of the House of Representatives voted to postpone scheduled elections for the ARMM.

The vote last Monday was on a matter considered so politically important by the Palace that its spokesmen behaved like cheerleaders and its operatives were fully deployed to ensure the desired outcome. The Ombudsman will have her day in court before a chamber with (hopefully) greater discernment — and she is determined to argue her case despite the administration juggernaut.

The vote last Tuesday was on a bill certified urgent by the Palace — despite the vehement objections of most of the Muslim representatives and opinion leaders at the ARMM. It is a bill vulnerable to juridical contestation involving matters of constitutionality.

Both items now become the Senate’s problem. On the first, despite many urgent pieces of legislation pending, the Senate must make time to sit as an impeachment court. On the second, under great time pressure, the Senate must decide on whether it will agree with the House or trash the bill altogether.

Confronted with strong opposition to the idea of postponement, President Aquino II called for “consultations” with the affected constituencies at the ARMM. In those meetings, local leaders minced no words in opposing the idea as undemocratic, unconstitutional and unfair. The Aquino administration went ahead anyway and certified HB4146 as urgent.

The so-called “consultations” were highly uneven affairs to begin with. Four Cabinet secretaries, like horsemen of the Apocalypse, descended upon the people of Muslim Mindanao to extoll the virtues of postponing the scheduled regional elections. Those who were supposed to be consulted were given a total of an hour to argue their side.

Tawi-Tawi Governor Almarin Tillah decried the fact that no genuine consultations were heard. The officials from Manila talked down to the Muslim leaders, basically telling them they were wrong and the administration was right.

Tillah could not be consoled. The spirit of autonomy, he says, means that the people of the ARMM could elect their leaders. Now Imperial Manila, all so imperiously, is telling them they are not ready to do that. They must first be reformed.

Recall the McKinley doctrine about “benevolent assimilation.” After the US purchased the Philippine Islands from Spain for $20 million in the Treaty of Paris, the US President at that time said democracy was good for us — but we must first be prepared for it.

What followed the enunciation of that doctrine was a bloody war between Americans and Filipinos that saw our population effectively decimated. The object of that war was for us to learn about freedom by first being denied it.

The administration position regarding the need for “reforms” before elections are held in the ARMM resonates the McKinley doctrine — and reinforces perception that Muslim Filipinos are condemned to the caprices of Imperial Manila.

Overkill

There is a Swiss company that comes with a most bizarre unsolicited proposal. Sicpa Products Security SA is egging the administration to invest in high-tech tracer technology that will monitor tobacco products.

I imagine this system will attach the equivalent of a radio-frequency identification stamp on every packet of cigarettes that comes into the market. The purpose of this sophisticated tracer system is to ensure that illicit trade in tobacco products is minimized and revenues accruing from tobacco sales are maximized.

That sounds like a noble idea — until we compute the costs.

Sicpa initially proposed this project at a cost of P2 billion. The estimated project cost has since ballooned to P19 billion.

How much illicit trade in tobacco products is there in this God-forsaken country? How much additional revenue will the BIR make from adopting this system? Will it be worth the cost?

Most important for me, an incurable smoker like the President, how much more will this add to the price of a pack of cigarettes with additional “sin taxes” looming on the product?

The economics of doing this project is not the only thing that seems awry here.

Sicpa has capitalization of only P55 million. To do the project, it will have to borrow billions. The borrowings, according to their unsolicited proposal, will be covered by guarantees from the national government. This will add to the already unsustainable contingent guarantees government absorbed over the years.

When Sicpa’s unsolicited proposal was considered by the House Ways and Means committee, it was trashed. The unsolicited proposal was defective on many counts. The proponent could not raise the required 30 percent of project cost. The proposal included a government guarantee for financing the project. The company was unable to meet the technical and business requirements set down by the concerned public agencies.

The DOJ trashed the proposal just as roundly, not once but twice. It was trashed by the Justice Secretary under the previous administration. It was trashed by the present Justice Secretary for its incurable flaws.

But the proposal is not dead. Considering that the railroad at the House is open and the administration has demonstrated a strange sense of priorities in legislation, the proponents of this uneconomical proposal are somehow hoping they could pull a fastbreak — like the one pulled against the will of the people of Muslim Mindanao.

If they attempt that, we will have a scandal akin to the ZTE-NBN deal.