Playing around with agrarian reform

The arrest of Land Bank President Gary Teves on orders of a DAR provincial official is a shocker. It shows to what extent some people will go to connive in an effort to sabotage the social reform program. It also reveals the extent of corruption at the local levels of the Department of Agrarian Reform. This is a major headache for Secretary Nani Braganza that he must do something about quickly.

I watched two successive nights of Ces Drilon's Pointblank, as she interviewed the protagonists in the Teves arrest. It became clear to me that the DAR provincial adjudication officer involved tried to fast break a controversial decision. Both Secretary Braganza and an undersecretary of DAR denied having seen a copy of that arrest order. Yet, something as serious as this should have gone through a clearance procedure that includes the highest officials of DAR.

I can see the logic in the explanations of Gary Teves, Secretary Braganza and his undersecretary as well as that of the representative of the Peasant Institute that the astronomical valuation being imposed by the local DAR official would kill the program. I can also sympathize with the aging former Justice who wants to see his compensation before it is too late.

Inasmuch as the Santiago case has now attracted national attention, it is perhaps best that the DAR settle this case once and for all. The landowners can take the decision or leave it but it is important that so far as government is concerned, there is one clear computation and position on the case. The valuable time of Gary Teves is needlessly wasted if not in a jail cell, in an office at the Western Police District. Local officials of DAR should be constantly watched and misfits banished from the ranks.

Beyond land distribution, however, DAR Secretary Braganza is right in saying that the agrarian reform program should be a major force in fighting poverty in the countryside. This means on the operational level, that farmer beneficiaries should be given all the help they need to make farming a profitable venture for them. Unless this happens, not only will our kind of land reform end up a failure, so will our efforts to improve agricultural productivity and food security.

In fact, it makes sense to have a multi-agency approach wherein other government agencies and even NGOs move in as soon as those land emancipation patents are distributed to make sure the farmer-beneficiaries can make productive use of the land. Unless they are able to make a decent living out of the land, the exercise is useless.

Hopefully, everyone uses the lessons of last week and the anniversary of the agrarian reform program next month to give agrarian reform a new life. We need it for social harmony and agricultural productivity too.

Shipping industry

We received this e-mail from reader Michael B. Cuanzon in reaction to our column last week on the shipping industry.

Reading your column today gave me a ray of hope for a "hopeless" shipping industry in the country. I am a retired Master Mariner, who passed the gamut of shipping locally and internationally, since 1949. In 1986 I asked the same question you now ask. Why can the Panamanian and Liberian governments do it? Main reason: the Americans and British and now the UE are all behind the FOC scheme.

Locally, the drawback is not only Congress, regulating agencies, but the shipping moguls themselves. They prefer the Bare Boat Charter Scheme, because there is no capital outlay for them... no hustle and problems. All the problems are taken cared of by the true owners of the vessels, minimal taxes...never realizing that the Philippine Government pays for the tonnage dues to IMO for tonnage that do not rightfully belong to the country.

In the case of manning companies... some if not most of them are truly owned by foreign principals...they are nothing but fronts. We have the qualified manpower to man the vessels; the shipping experience to run the business but we lack most of all the necessary government backing and support. Even our seafarers have to go to nine different government agencies before departure procedures are met. Our schools and training centers are charged exorbitant interests for loans before they can come up to acceptable standards.

There was money from Japan, Germany and Norway given to DBP for re-lending to the shipping industry at a minimal interest of three to four percent...DBP passed it on at more than 13 percent. That is DBP’s way of helping... Too many government agencies dipping their fingers into the pie... Our brilliant minds in shipping only want to travel the well traveled roads. Our maritime assessment and certification system is problematic...our sea safety resources is wanting in budget and proper equipment....of course proper training too… according to the PCG head.

So what else is new?

Take or pay

Part of the PPA we are burdened with has to do with simple incompetence on the part of Napocor. For example, they were paying Mirant for one year under take or pay without using a single watt of the 700 MW Pagbilao coal-fired power plant because they didn't have the transmission facilities to make use of it. This is sheer incompetence. Hopewell, the original owners of the Pagbilao plant, was working on a schedule that Napocor knows. Guess where Napocor got the money to pay Mirant for a year, for doing nothing. This IPP was signed in 1996, during FVR's term.

Just proves the suspicion that Napocor under FVR's watch did all it could to sign IPP contracts not because they wanted to have available capacity but because of something else. If they planned for all that capacity to be useful, they would have worked as hard to make sure there was transmission capacity in place too. FVR's boys simply didn't care if all the generation capacity they were signing up for were used or not.

So, who's responsible for this failure? Surely, it couldn't be Erap.

Equal opportunity blessing

Here's Dr. Ernie E.

The Pope was finishing his sermon. He finished with the Latin phrase, "Tuti Hominous" – Blessed be mankind.

A women’s rights group approached the Pope the next day. They commented that the Pope blessed all mankind, but not womankind. So the next day, after his sermon, the Pope concluded by saying, "Tuti Hominous et tuti Feminous" – Blessed be mankind and womankind.

The next day, a gay-rights group approached the Pope. They said that they noticed that he blessed mankind and womankind, and asked if he could also bless ‘gay’ people. The Pope said, ‘Yes.’

The next day, he concluded his sermon with "Tuti Homenous et Tuti Feminous et Tuti Fruity."

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