Database

It is the final feature of a weak state that government does not know over whom it governs.

For decades, all modern governments on earth have invested heavily in building a national database of its citizens. With all the rapidly advancing digital technologies around us, such a database is indispensable. It vastly improves the ease of transactions between government and its citizens. It is a prerequisite, for instance, for the eventual issuance of electronic passports that will soon become the norm.

Imagine, in the near future, when most other passengers merely swipe their electronic cards at airports to get through immigrations formalities, a special lane will have to be maintained for backward nationalities still carrying paper passports. Filipinos will have to line up in that special lane for Neanderthals, only because our government failed to build a national database.

We campaigned for a national ID system back in the mid-nineties. The effort was blocked by leftists in Congress who had “privacy” concerns about the system. They were simply content with the status quo where anyone who wants to may hide from his own government by using aliases and fake IDs – like Ricardo “Ardot” Parojinog attempted to do when he fled to Taiwan to evade our police.

Finally, a law mandating the establishment of a national ID system was passed by our Congress. That measure will drag our governance into the 21st century.

Actually, we could have a national ID system without the ID card. All that is required is to make all the existing databases interoperable. All the information required for a national ID system is stored in separate databases.

Since the eighties, for instance, our far-sighted bureaucrats at the Philippine Statistics Authority have been assigning a number for every registered birth. Those who regularly participate in elections or acquire a passport have their biometrics on file. When we purchase medical insurance, we submit our medical details.

When we want to be organ donors, we file a separate form that is difficult to access in an emergency. That should be contained in the driver’s license.

When we sue our credit cards, we contribute to a file that tracks our credit discipline. Then there is the Taxpayer Identification Number through which our incomes and tax filings could be matched.

Finally, we have our social security numbers that tracks our employment history and compensation. We even have a Pag-ibig number that tracks our cumulative contributions and a PhilHealth number we need for discounting hospitalization expenses.

All these can now be integrated into a single database and a single card that will make our transactions with government more efficient. In the nineties, to help relive some of the anxieties of those who resist it, I proposed calling this a “People’s Access Card.” This is especially useful for those receiving conditional cash transfers. It will help purge the system of the corruption that still infects it.

Cancelled

The complexities of diplomacy hit Donald Trump hard. Diplomacy is certainly more complex than reality TV.

The American president wrote Kim Jong-un a funny letter last Thursday cancelling the summit meeting originally scheduled for June 12 in Singapore. Trump’s team seemed to have been working on the naïve assumption that by means of a photo-op and some warm embraces, North Korea could be persuaded to give up its nuclear arsenal and receive “great wealth” from American investments.

In the aftermath of the cancellation, Trump seemed to be blaming China. He is always wont to blame someone else for his own miscalculation.

Most experts, however, see the cancellation as benefitting China. Xi Jinping is now seen as controlling the momentum and direction of engagement with Pyongyang. With Washington retreating from the process, amidst thinly veiled threats of war, the matter becomes a principally East Asian affair with Beijing, Pyongyang and Tokyo likely to carry forward the diplomatic momentum.

Trump appeared to be thinking that with enough “fire and fury” speeches, he could force North Korea to embark on a long march to “denuclearization.” After which, he expected to be honored with a Nobel Peace Prize. He certainly was not ready for the patience and perseverance necessary for any historical breakthrough.

Trump’s simplistic grasp of diplomacy is certainly matched by some of our “opposition” politicians like Robredo, Hontiveros and Alejano. The past few days, the three formed a chorus basically urging our government to change the tenor of our bilateral relationship with China just because Beijing landed some warplanes in an island in the Paracels that is not even contested by Vietnam or the Philippines.

If they had the power to run our foreign affairs, we would be in the same humiliating rut Trump now finds himself in.

Roth

This week, the world lost a true literary giant.

Phillip Roth dominated American literature in the second half of the 20th century. His novels were a ruthless dissection of American life during this period. Although he was not awarded the Nobel, he was decorated by then President Barack Obama to honor in place in literature.

Roth did not leave without offering us a gem of an insight on Donald Trump. He said of the sitting US president: “He’s ignorant of government, of history, of science, of philosophy, of art, incapable of expressing or recognizing subtlety or nuance, destitute of all decency, and wielding a vocabulary of 77 words that is better called Jerkish than English.”

Not much more has to be said.