The duck wins

There is a tale among cock-fighters about fight fixing in the cockpit and it starts with questions:

How do you know if an idiot is in the cockpit? He brings a duck.

How do you know if a moron is in the cockpit? He bets on the duck.

How do you know when the Mafia is in the cockpit? The duck wins!

I don’t know if the Philippines is truly business friendly or if the Arroyo government is simply crony friendly that even a duck could win in the cockpit! After nine years in power, the lameduck President continues to rule the roost and has become the only tri-powered czarina achieving nothing.

Her ascension to power as the Drug Czar has done nothing to assure members of the PDEA of her support and her protection. In fact the minute she declared herself in-charge, the DOJ and some administration Congressmen wasted no time twisting and turning things on the PDEA. From the looks of it, the boys in PDEA will soon be taking anti depressant and anti hallucination medicines due to the nightmares they have suffered in the hands of the rich and the powerful. They may be on the side of truth and what is right, but in this administration, the duck wins.

The great tragedy in the matter is that people like retired Gen. Dionisio Santiago is being relieved because he did a better than expected, if not an exemplary job of heading and inspiring the PDEA. While retired Gen. Palparan is also an exemplary officer with guts to match, we all know that his assignment to the PDEA is part of an acoustic war and press release of Gloria Arroyo. As the Pinoys would put it: Pa-impress!

How on earth can President Arroyo be the self appointed Trinity Czarina against drugs, global warming and pre-need industry, then run off to Davos, Switzerland then to the Middle East and elsewhere? The reason Malacañang could not give out a definite itinerary is because our ambassadors are still pleading with their counterparts to secure appointments to legitimize what I strongly suspect as a presidential junket.

At a time when food prices are on the rise, when corn supplies are critical, when LPG prices and supplies have gone out of control and the pre-need industry needs to be placed in “ICU”, The President’s departure clearly tells us not to expect presidential action. It simply is business as usual.

In a twisted and crooked way, yes the Philippines is “business friendly”.

Where else can a company declare that they can no longer meet their financial and moral obligations, gets off the hook and then turns around and sells out all its assets?

The Philippines is so business friendly that when a local bus manufacturer complained to the President of the Philippines, she personally went to the office of the Customs commissioner along with two cabinet members to order an outright increase on the duties and taxes of imported buses made in China!

It seems the case against the imported China-made buses was about being undervalued or technically smuggled which is why they cost half the price of the buses made locally which does not even use dedicated bus chassis, but cheaper truck chassis. As proof they presented an indirect price quote acquired through a third party.

In their eagerness to please, the DTI, the DOF and PGMA failed to appreciate that the models indicated were not equal to each other. For engines for example, China manufactures Euro 2 and Euro 3 standards. The Philippines is on the Euro 2, which is much cheaper. But the prices presented to PGMA were for Euro 3.

So, bus operators will either pay higher taxes for China-made buses or buy the locally made buses at twice the price but of inferior quality and design. In the end, the operators will pay more but will also have to charge more or cheat more while bus riders will pay more.

Pre-need — pre-greed

If the pre-need industry is about to collapse, I wholeheartedly agree with people who are suggesting that government officials in-charge or directly overseeing the industry should all be charged in court for failure to perform their duty.

Take the case of the Pacific Plans controversy. The company declared that due to unforeseen inflationary conditions, they could no longer fulfill their obligations to plan holders. They could only return the initial investments but that’s all. In the ensuing squabble a handful of plan holders find themselves as respondents to court cases instead of being the ones filing cases against company officials.

During that process the company hires PR people and lawyers, which cost a lot of money to deal with the ugly decision. None of the plan holders ever got what they expected and in the end experienced domestic disturbance, financial trauma and still continue to be displaced by the failed pre-need firm. In all this, no one from government or politicians stood up to the challenge. No one dared to challenge the matter and fight against something principally wrong, if not unjust.

About a year or more later we learn that the company has been sold to businessman Noel Onate. The only thing needed to make everybody live happily ever after was for the government regulators to set aside a portion of the sale to at least pay part of the failed commitment to investors and plan holders. But in this crony friendly government that is like asking the government not to let the duck win!