Social payback time

President Arroyo has set the tone for 2007 as social payback time for the nation.

To this end, on the first working day of the New Year, she went to Nueva Ecija to inaugurate an irrigation canal under the Casecnan Multi-Purpose Irrigation and Power Project, which would irrigate almost 27,000 hectares of farmlands, benefiting some 15,000 farmers in that province and in Victoria town in neighboring Tarlac province.

On the same day, she also formally opened the Pingkian Bridge in Kayapa town and the multimillion-peso Aritao-Kayapa-Pangawan Road, which is part of the Cordillera Road improvement project. These two are considered vital infrastructure projects. The Pingkian Bridge is expected to reduce travel time between Ifugao and Manila to just five hours, half the time it used to take to traverse the distance. The Aritao-Kayapa-Pangawan Road, meanwhile, will serve as an alternate route from Aritao, Nueva Vizcaya to Baguio City. Both will greatly ease the delivery of goods and services between the nation’s capital and the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), which is part of the North Luzon Agribusiness Quadrangle.

Last Saturday, the President trooped north again to inaugurate the 600-meter Doma-landan Bridge linking Lingayen and Dagupan City to the western towns of Pangasinan. Even as the bridge was completed ahead of the March 2007 schedule, it took five years to build it due to the usual funding constraints. But February last year, during Lingayen town’s fiesta, the President vowed to the local residents that the bridge would be completed in a year’s time, noting that the opening of the bridge would further boost tourism prospects of the province. She made good on that promise last Jan. 6, to the obvious delight of townfolk.

The government’s agenda for North Luzon under the Super Regions program unveiled by the President in her State of the Nation Address last July, is to realize the agricultural and fisheries potential of the Cordilleras, Ilocandia, and Cagayan Valley. In doing so, North Luzon can provide basic goods at affordable prices to the entire Luzon, aside from harnessing their potential for agricultural exports and tourism.

Port development is high on the agenda for this super region. In the works is an international airport in Poro, La Union and the improvement of the two airports in Batanes, aside from a seaport in Salomague, Ilocos Sur and the improvement of Port Irene by the Cagayan Zone Authority.

Of course, North Luzon also hosts the first and largest wind farm in Southeast Asia, which has contributed significantly in reducing the country’s dependence on imported fuel. Not surprisingly, the 25-megawatt wind project of the Northwind Power Development Corp. in Ilocos Norte has won accolades. It emerged as the first runner-up in the on-grid category of renewable energy project competition for the Asean Energy Awards August last year, for its significant environmental and societal contribution to the country. The project’s emission reduction was the first carbon credit trading in the country under the World Bank Prototype Carbon Fund, through which an Emission Reduction Purchase Agreement was done last December 2004. No wonder the President touts the windmills in Batanes and Ilocos Norte for turning megawinds into megawatts.

Clearly, there’s a lot going for the Arroyo administration in terms of its capacity to deliver on its social payback tone. What really matters is that it has the funds to deliver on its promises to the people, having nursed the economy back to real good health with its fiscal reforms. This makes me wonder if anyone outside of its forces will even bother to take the opposition seriously during the mid-term elections. With its agenda solely to topple the President (that’s according to the united opposition’s campaign manager, Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay), the opposition might as well have said its main goal is to disrupt this virtuous cycle of growth and development at all costs. Only extremists can appreciate that sort of crusade. And there are very few of such ilk among us Filipinos.

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It will be interesting how the Supreme Court, under the new leadership of Chief Justice Reynato Puno, will handle its first test case: our Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the United States.

Evalyn Ursua, the lawyer of Subic rape victim known as "Nicole" has placed the SC on the spotlight with her petition seeking to void a VFA provision that was made the basis for the return of US Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith to the US Embassy.

That particular provision, Article V, Paragraph 6 of the VFA, mainly states that "custody of any US personnel over whom the Philippines is to exercise jurisdiction shall immediately reside with US military authorities, if they so request, from the commission of the offense until completion of all judicial proceedings…"

Well, in the case of Smith, the US obviously invoked this provision, which has resulted in the agreement entered into by Foreign Affairs Sec. Alberto Romulo and US Ambassador Kristie Kenney, which Ursua also wants the SC to void.

"Due process demands that Smith, who has been found guilty beyond reasonable doubt by the trial court of the nonbailable crime of rape, be detained in a Philippine jail for the entire duration of the judicial proceedings including during the pendency of his appeal, in accordance with our rules of procedure and the longstanding practice in our judicial system," according to Ursua. Therefore, Article V, Paragraph 6 of the VFA and the executive agreement that effected Smith’s return to US Embassy custody are "unconstitutional" and must be voided, she asserted.

Many of us know that the SC has already made a ruling on the VFA. In its en banc decision in the case of Bayan vs. Executive Secretary Zamora, the SC ruled on Oct. 10, 2000 that: "With the ratification of the VFA, which is equivalent to final acceptance, and with the exchange of notes between the Philippines and the United States of America, it now becomes obligatory and incumbent on our part, under the principles of international law, to be bound by the terms of the agreement…Hence, we cannot readily plead the Constitution as a convenient excuse for non-compliance with our obligations, duties and responsibilities under international law."

The SC also noted that Article 13 of the Declaration of Rights and Duties of States adopted by the International Law Commission in 1949 binds the country to abide by its treaties.

Obviously, there already is jurisprudence on the government’s side regarding the VFA. However, what makes it interesting is that Chief Justice Puno dissented from this majority ruling at the time. Let’s see how this will turn out.

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