New sheriffs

“Mankind’s most valuable resource is probably 50 centimeters of topsoil,” forester Patrick Charles Dugan wrote on reading Viewpoint’s “Poverty webs.” This resource is being ravaged.

“Recently, I visited a Bukidnon mountain village called Bendum,” Dugan wrote. “Peter Walpole, a Jesuit priest and friend, implemented a rural development-cum-education project there for years. On the way, Father Walpole and I passed kilometers of hilly terrain where small-scale farmers denuded and plowed steep slopes to plant corn.

“The results are horrendous. Landslides all along the way. In a few years, most of the soil will be washed away. The land will be down to bedrock. The environmental damage is far larger than mining or logging operations that NGOs, the church, media and politicians protest about.

“The problem calls for massive soil conservation. Systems promoted by the Mindanao Rural Baptist Center, for example, can save the land and still enable the farmers to make a living. But our political leaders don’t pay much attention to this problem. The corn farmers, along the road that Father Walpole and I traveled, are heading straight towards poverty as they constantly lose their topsoil.”

“Generation fissures” (Inquirer, 9/10/11) cited graft “shuttling across the years,” e-mailed former University of the Philippines graduate Manuel de la Torre. Now a researcher in Idaho, De la Torre recalls Efraim Genuino had the Philippine Gaming and Amusement Corp. pay P1,007,408,908 for casino coffee. That doesn’t include P21.1 million for hamburgers.

Genuino’s children cloned that example in the last elections. His sons ran for mayor, Erwin in Makati and Anthony in Los Baños. Makati voters trashed Erwin, despite hefty Pagcor donations, including rice. In Los Baños, educated electors cluster in precincts around UP or agencies like the International Rice Research Institute. They are a minority; most voters huddle in depressed barangays, along Laguna de Bay shores. They go for the highest bidder. The Genuinos exploited this Achilles heel.

“We don’t need you. You need us!” Genuino the Elder told rallies. He denied President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo or Juan Miguel Arroyo owned Trace College. That’s where Genuino poll campaign vehicles often double-parked. Los Baños Mayor “Ton” Genuino holds court there.

An election often triggers overkill. Pagcor crews installed brand-new lampposts on the main street leading to the UP Los Baños campus—on election day. They ignored lampposts installed on the road’s other side two years before. Neither did they bother to tape over Pagcor logos. Brazen arrogance is spawned by a culture of impunity.

Trace College’s claim to five minutes of fame is world-class pools. During the last Southeast Asian Games, all swimming contests were held at Trace. Did funds from Pagcor, Malacañang or other agencies bankroll these glitzy pools for this small-town burg? Then Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez couldn’t be bothered.

A month before Arroyo stepped down as president, Genuino remitted P345 million to the President’s Social Fund (PSF). That boodle came from Pagcor earnings for April 2010, plus advance remittances for June 2010. Four days earlier, Pagcor funneled P80.2 million, also docked against Pagcor’s income for April 2010. Pabaon?

Whatever, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo extended Genuino’s  appointment a full year after her own Malacañang term ended. Did Genuino display that midnight extension to President Benigno  Aquino III? All we know is that P-Noy showed him to the door.

Since then, new sheriffs rode into town. P-Noy appointed Leila de Lima as justice secretary. He named former Supreme Court Justice Conchita Carpio Morales as the new ombudsman. These ladies do not suffer fools gladly.

Morales’ dissent on the Arroyo Court’s decision allowing Eduardo Cojuangco to pocket  P16.2 million of San Miguel shares bought with coco levies wrung from small farmers still  resonates.

De Lima issued hold-departure orders against Genuino and his children Erwin and Sheryl, which the Supreme Court upheld. Pagcor sued Genuino and 38 officials for “siphoning” P186 million allegedly to aid the election bid of Sheryl’s party-list group.

Los Baños market vendors may face stiffly jacked-up stall rents. “Guess who is building a new complex that can accommodate displaced  market vendors?” De La Torre asks. “Will vendors at Crossing move to Centro?”

Viewpoint “noted” earlier this year how Edsa spiraled into Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Uprising, Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution and Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolt. “After all these years, Edsa still brings out ‘wish-I-were-there’ envy in me,” Angioline Loredo e-mailed from New York. “PBS here showed an old documentary of Estonia’s Singing Revolution. It started with spontaneous mass singing of patriotic songs at the Tallinn Song Festival in 1987. It took four years for Estonians to wrest independence through songs. Was the difference cultural? Like Libyans, Filipinos are volatile which is a contrast to Estonian reserve. Or are these just my half-baked attempts at social psychology?”

“Sen. Panfilo Lacson browbeats witnesses at hearings,” gripes Dr. Carolina Camara from Cagayan de Oro. “How I wish Lacson and colleagues had the gravitas of a Claro Recto, the integrity of an Oscar Ledesma, the polish of an Emmanuel Pelaez and the incisiveness of a Jovito  Salonga. What we have today are dregs.”

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