Where and when did we go wrong?

It could get a little tiresome, perhaps because of the futility of it all. I am talking about how many conversations at social gatherings today seek to analyze what went wrong, when did we start going downhill and, finally, if there is still hope. Middle class professionals are in a state of near despair and I hear the word "migrate" a little too often.

That was the drift of the conversation we were having in our corner of the long table at Alba's over lunch with my Thursday group last Friday. The world has really gone mad. Even our Grupong Huwebes is now meeting on a Friday. But that is another story.

Anyway, it was the thesis of banker Ray Orosa that the country and people started going downhill during the Japanese occupation. That was the time when all our cherished institutions went up in smoke and with them, our sense of civility. It was every man for himself. We were on survival mode. There were no rules. Everything was fair game in the name of survival.

We never got out of that chaotic war footing. Sixty years after, we are still trying to survive by fighting for our own self interest. We never recovered (or developed?) a sense of nation or even community. At best, we think of clan first, cronies second and nation, hardly ever.

Ray Orosa has something there. I heard that observation many years ago when I was growing up in Paco district in Manila. It was our loyal family driver, the late Angelino Camanong, who said something like what Ray Orosa was telling us last Friday. Angelino was an Ilocano from Caba, La Union who married Monica, my lola's cook from Borongan, Samar. Angelino drove for my grandparents and later on, for my father.

It was not always like this, I remember Angelino telling me one day as we were stuck in a traffic jam. Life was much better back in "peace time" as he called the pre-war years. The Japanese occupation made beasts out of us all, he declared.

I didn’t understand what Angelino was complaining about. If he lived to see what we have now, I would understand. I still remember my boyhood years in Paco, the large ancestral house on calle San Antonio, a side street of acacia tree-lined Penafrancia, where the Laurels and the Yulos once lived. It was one nice and quiet place in a bustling city. It might have even been seen in the years before I was born as somewhat genteel.

The old house of my grandparents had long been torn down and a line of run down apartments now stands in its place. A few houses down from my lola’s, are the Crespos, the clan from which Mark Jimenez sprung. They were a quiet family. I don't think they imagined they would ever harbor a fugitive from American justice from among them. But such is life. I drove by the old neighborhood some time ago and it had really changed. The city just got uglier and dirtier through the years.

The prognosis? We didn’t reach any conclusions over lunch. But the discouraging drift of our conversation threatened of severe indigestion, despite the usually great food at Alba’s. I must go back here on a quiet Sunday when I can enjoy my paella in relative peace.

Txt msgs

I have quietly watched from the sidelines the controversy over the decision of Smart/PLDT/Piltel and Globe/Islacom phone companies to reduce the volume of free txt msgs their subscribers get. From a strictly legal and technical point of view, the phone companies are well within their rights to do that. Text messages are part of the value added services that are not regulated by government. I figure, better to take this approach than have the phone companies apply for higher rates on the metered voice service.

With three teenagers (actually two but the eldest at 20 is still in that category, text wise), I guess the decision of the phone companies impacts my wallet grievously. But then again, I know too that the costs of expanding the network are horrendous. We are talking here of capital costs for high tech equipment and related services that are quoted in dollars. No such thing as a free lunch, someone must pay the bill, if not now, later.

As it is, our text rates are the lowest in the region. But I can hear the argument about our capability to pay. Our problem in this country, specially in noisy Metro Manila, is not capability to pay but inclination to pay. We want first world technology but insist on paying third world rates. Take the MRT. It takes money, lots of money to build it, and later on, to run it. But we insist on fares that do not even allow government to recover its costs.

We forget that when DOTC opted to subsidize the MRT fare, a farmer in South Cotabato ended up sharing the cost of every token sold even if he harbors no hope to see, much less ride the MRT in his life. The best run mass transit systems, in Hong Kong and Singapore charge proper rates. We must all learn that if we want first world technology, we must be ready to pay their economic costs.

What complicates our problem in telecoms is the existence of an oligopoly in the telecoms industry, one that is designed for active market competition unlike the MRT. We effectively have only two major telephone companies who survived the multitude that engaged in a free for all during the Ramos years. The consolidation couldn’t be helped. That is happening even in developed countries simply because the economics of the industry demand it.

I am not in a position to say if Globe and Smart are gouging the consumer by withdrawing a large part of a service now provided for free. Maybe, if government goes out of its way to encourage more competition to Smart and Globe in the cellphone business, the environment will enable us to get to a pricing level that consumers will not suspect as a product of cartel action. Until that happens, we can only take their word for it.

Don’t let a couple of billion pesos in reported net income mislead you. That is nothing much in the light of the massive amounts of capital in dollars that both firms are trying to raise to finance their network expansion. That’s why the Ayalas sold Purefoods – to cover part of the cash Globe needs. Don’t think Don Jaime is happy about losing the Purefoods basketball team. But they all have to make their sacrifices before they can ask us to sacrifice our text messages.

What I find dangerous with the judicial injunction issued by an RTC judge and the obviously political posture taken by DOTC officials is the manner by which the rules of the game seem to be changing depending on the call from the bleachers. That scares the hell out of investors, local and foreign. This is also something we cannot do at a time when we need all the capital we can lay our hands on to establish job-creating businesses in these difficult times and modernize our infrastructure.

I am also wondering if there would be more responsible texting if people knew it costs money to text. Believe it or not, but the telephone companies are taking a risk with the approach they have taken. What if people decided to text less? They may end up exactly where they are now, still scrambling for the cash to finance their expansion program.

Or maybe, government can help finance the expensive expansion program in far flung rural areas where investments are not expected to generate sufficient revenues. After all, government was ready to finance a corruption laden barangay telephone program under the Ramos and Erap administrations. Helping the existing telcos, who already have a ready network, is more cost efficient and definitely more transparent.

Tell tale sign

Here’s something from reader Chito Santos.

How can a pregnant woman tell that she’s carrying a future politician?

She has an uncontrollable craving for baloney.

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