I disagree with the Inquirer?s Oct. 13 editorial titled ?All are to blame.?
If ?Ondoy? and ?Pepeng? had caused floods and landslides that did not result in widespread deaths, misery and destruction, the Arroyo regime would now be all over the place claiming credit for a job well done. And the regime would have been justified doing that if, during the last eight years, it focused on protecting our forests from loggers and kaingeros, on guarding our mountains and valleys from the scorched-earth greed of transnational miners, on shielding our rivers and lakes from irresponsible subdivision developers and garbage dumpers and on enforcing enlightened protocols concerning the management of dams and dikes.

But the Arroyo regime cannot escape responsibility?not only for not doing its job but also for doing the opposite.

The Arroyo regime is the incumbent vehicle of collective efforts to secure the people against calamities. But although armed with a huge budget (the people?s money) every year, it has practically done nothing. The priorities of the Arroyo regime are meant to uphold the debt conditions prescribed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, namely: liberalization, deregulation, privatization and level playing field. Environmental concerns do not occupy a commanding place on the WB-IMF radar. For example, in the pursuit of those priorities, the Mining Act of 1995 was ?constitutionalized? by the Arroyo regime, signaling the opening of our forests, mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes and seas?the environment in general?to legalized despoliation and plunder.

During the eight years she has been in power, President Macapagal-Arroyo could have made a difference in securing the nation against calamities, but she did not. Her eight years in power saw, in fact, the deterioration of the nation?s preparedness for calamities. Only a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) bureaucrat, a certain Ajay Chhibber, director of UNDP Asia and the Pacific, has perceived ?very good economic progress? in the Philippines. If the Philippine economy is ?very good,? as he claimed, would there be widespread poverty and unemployment where people are driven to squatting in dangerous areas and to extracting every resource they can from Mother Earth in order to survive?

Perhaps the UNDP director should apply for retirement in this country to actually see and feel the folly of his perception. As far as Filipinos are concerned?with the exception of President Arroyo?s highly rewarded but inane mouthpieces in Malacañang?the only way to progress is overseas employment.

?AMADO GAT INCIONG,
Unit 301 Union Square Condominium,
145 15th Avenue, Cubao, QC