We need a way out for Estrada - DEMAND AND SUPPLY

As the impeachment hearings go on, it is becoming clear that there will be no winners, whatever happens in the end. Positions are hardening and it will take a miracle to quickly get the country back on course. It does not help that rumors abound about the possibility of a coup. As I have maintained in this column, we will all be better off if the President just resigned so we can start over.

The window of opportunity for this to happen came and somehow, we wasted it. From various reliable sources, I have pieced together the story that unfortunately, it was the opposition that allowed this opportunity to pass. Sheer self-righteousness prevailed, making it impossible to forge a compromise that would be good for the country as a whole.

Despite the denials of Malacañang that talks were going on for a graceful exit for the President, I am told by both administration and opposition sources that such talks did happen in that All Saints Day weekend. The President’s emotional state was so down that he might have been predisposed to consider a quiet departure from power. Titoy Pardo was negotiating for the administration and Gloria Mac asked Tita Cory who in turn asked former Health Secretary Alran Bengzon to negotiate for the opposition.

The discussions failed on the subject of immunity from prosecution. Alran supposedly refused to budge on the matter, taking the position that Erap must be ready to face the music after he steps down, no ifs and no buts. I am sure there must be another way of addressing the issue because it is but natural for a head of state about to step down to want to get some guarantees about his future.

Actually, giving Erap the immunities isn’t such a bad deal if it means we can escape the national hair pulling which is dividing the nation down the middle now. The priority, as I see it, is not so much to prove that Erap is the crook we suspect or even believe he is. The priority is to get the country together at the shortest possible time. I suspect that only the lawyers are enjoying this impeachment hearing, and for academic reasons.

The reality is, things are likely to get really bad no matter what the verdict turns out to be. Only the truly vengeful will want to use the hearing to completely humiliate the President even if in the process, all hell breaks loose in the country. The other important priority we should have is to deny the military any excuse to assume power on the pretext that it is their constitutional duty to be guardians of the people.
What’s so bad with giving Erap immunity in exchange for stepping down and turning over to the state those mansions and other visible products of corruption? Sure, he doesn’t get to go to jail but at least, the country is quickly liberated from inept, even corrupt rule.

The hardline position of Alran, which is apparently Tita Cory’s, left us right where we are. It now makes sense for Erap to just fight it out and he may yet get acquitted. But the national agony drags on indefinitely. Somehow, I think some amount of pragmatism would have been in the national interest.

Forex blues

The extreme urgency to turn the economy around will become more evident next year as the impact of our current political crisis will be more widely felt. But even now, the negative effects of the rapid decline in the value of the peso is causing havoc in the business community. Many corporations and even individuals who were lulled into believing that the peso is was stable borrowed heavily in foreign exchange. All of a sudden, the peso’s value deteriorates beyond belief.
In fact, some of the big privatization projects of the Ramos administration may just unravel on account of the forex impact. Take the MWSS concessionaires. When the concession agreement was given, the value of the peso was at P26 to $1. Now, at P50 to $1, the concessionaires may find themselves in a serious cash crunch by next year.

Most hard hit is the concessionaire for the West Zone because it was made to assume 90 percent of the forex loans of the old MWSS. An additional P2 billion have been paid to cover the MWSS loans, a heavy burden to a company that has spent some P8 billion in capital expenses to improve the system.

The cash crunch that will hit the concessionaires will in turn, adversely affect the poorer sectors who, until the expansion program took place, used to pay atrocious rates for water delivered by independent water dealers. But the failure of the show window privatization program of government will be the biggest blow. Government, given its difficult cash position, will find it difficult to resume the responsibility of delivering water to the population.

Granting the concessionaires immediate relief through an automatic currency adjustment is one strategy that could be taken to give immediate relief. But the long term relief should be a more vigorously growing economy. And we can’t have that without political peace.

The Pig

Reader Orly Morabe sent today’s joke. However, I seem to recall that an earlier incarnation of this joke had President Clinton as a subject. Here it is.

Erap’s limo is driving along the South superhighway on the way back to Malacañang from his Tagaytay Mansion, when all of a sudden a pig jumps out in front of the limo. Of course, it was squashed.

Erap, concerned, tells the driver to drive to the nearest farmhouse so he can pay for the damages and apologize. They arrived at the farm house up the road, and Erap tells the driver to go inside and tell the farmer and his wife what happened.

Two hours later, the driver emerges from the door with his clothes in disarray, a brown paper bag, and a huge smile across his face. Erap asked him what happened.

The driver tells him, "I went inside, they made me a nice steak, then the parents introduced me to their 24-year-old daughter who was a finalist in the Miss Philippines Pageant, they left us alone and we made love for an hour, and when I was finished, I came downstairs and the mother had this bag of cookies for me."

Erap says, "What did you tell them?"

The driver replies, "I told them I was Erap’s driver, and that I just killed the pig."

(Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected])