What is happening to the peso?

Pinoys are used to the gyrations of the peso. Still, questions are being asked what’s with the peso these past few days.

If you ask the Bangko Sentral, you get the impression that the current exchange rate is a temporary aberration. Tio Paeng had been heard to blame the peso’s current weakness to effects of regional currency movements and seasonal inventory build-up. You know… merchants importing and paying for all those Christmas goodies. Also, Tio Paeng points out that there had indeed been increasing demand for the dollar due to the rising oil import bill and the impact of the rising budget deficit.

But, Tio Paeng is always quick to point out, the exchange rate should be helped by the seasonal repatriation of dollars by Pinoy workers from overseas. Christmas is around the corner and Pinoys being Pinoys, OFW families will soon start receiving remittances from relatives working abroad. It isn’t far fetched, Tio Paeng suggests, that the exchange rate could go back to the fifty peso psychological level.

In fact, barring a massive deportation of Pinoy workers from Iraq, Italy and other countries, the OFWs should continue to be the one major savior of the economy for a long time to come. This year, more Filipinos have legally left for work abroad, and we can assume that the number of illegals must have also gone up.

One of the clearest indicators of OFW dollar power is Henry Sy’s SM chain. Look at the moneychanger’s booth in an SM establishment and observe the long line of people who want to change their money. And they are almost all Filipinos. Look at the SM branches in the provinces, like San Fernando, Pampanga. See how the mall is crawling with people at all days of the week. In Manila malls, the weekdays are pretty light even as the weekends are jampacked.

So, for those of you who keep on asking, maybe Tio Paeng is right about the peso strengthening somewhat as the holiday season draws near. Even if the OFWs decide to keep a larger portion of their savings in dollars, the holiday expenses will force them to sell some of that for pesos in the next three months. Hopefully, the war in Iraq will not cause the oil prices to rise high enough to eat up the possibility of a stronger peso for Christmas.

Extradition

Give the Supreme Court a break. It was stupid of some congressmen to prematurely warn of a constitutional crisis because of the Supreme Court decision on the Mark Jimenez case. In the first place, the issue taken up by the Supreme Court was simple enough, is a person facing an extradition charge entitled to bail? The answer, the Supreme Court now says, is NO. But even that is still subject to appeal.

Assuming the Supreme Court stands pat on its decision that an extradited person cannot post bail, I suppose Mr. Jimenez can file a petition asking the Court how this can be applied to an incumbent congressman. This petition can then cite the constitutional immunity from arrest that our legislators enjoy while Congress is in session. There should be no problem enforcing the arrest order once Congress goes into recess.

As for the fear, that even the House Majority Floor leader expressed, that the people in the sixth district of Manila (the district where I grew up and used to vote) will lose its representation, the voters there knew that danger existed when they voted for Mark Jimenez. They took the risk by electing him. They must now face the consequences. I thought the Majority Floor leader, the son of the legal luminary the late former Senate President Neptali Gonzales was more savvy than to make that observation. But this is politics, I guess.

As I heard Mark J tell a television reporter, it doesn’t matter that he is a congressman because a law is a law and it applies to all people. If Mark gets special treatment because he is a congressman, it establishes a dangerous precedent that all a fugitive from justice must do is get elected congressman and he is home free. That does not seem to be what the rule of law is all about.

All those congressmen who are muddling the issues are doing this country a great disservice. Threatening the eight Supreme Court justices who voted against Mark J’s petition with impeachment is also just too much out of line.

A father’s love

While signing the Meralco sale papers, Don Eugenio Lopez was asked why he didn’t bother to read them. The old man asked if he could change provisions he didn’t like. The emissaries of the martial law regime said he couldn’t. So the old man said, what is the point of reading.

It is in this context that makes it difficult to understand why Johnny Ponce Enrile is insisting those documents were proof of a normal business transaction. The signature of the Lopez patriarch fails to tell the complete story. The martial law era defense chief is wrong to say the Lopezes sold Meralco out of their own free will just because their signatures are on those documents and letters. Those of us who lived through those dark days of course know better.

It isn’t just because I do work for the Lopezes but it seems plain to me why the Lopezes agreed to sell under extreme duress. And this is what Johnny can’t seem to understand. Yet, any ordinary father who has a son and who loves him dearly can understand why a father signed away his business empire for the chance to save the life of his son.

Faced with a ransom demand to surrender the business that was his life in exchange for his hostaged son, Don Eugenio had no choice. He had to decide as a father, not as a businessman.

The Meralco transaction was not a legitimate business deal but one reluctantly agreed to in the hope of gaining a son’s freedom and maybe even saving his life. Too bad even his sacrifice was rewarded with a double cross. Marcos and Enrile, as his martial law administrator, continued to keep his son hostaged in Fort Bonifacio even after Don Eugenio signed those documents.

Of course, based on last weekend’s article in the Inquirer of Mr. Enrile’s only son, Jacky, we can now understand why the former Marcos defense chief fails to understand why a father would give up so much. Mr. Enrile cannot appreciate the old man Lopez’s sacrifice for his son most likely, because as we are now finding out from Jacky’s public complaints, Enrile does not know what a loving father is capable of doing out of love for his son.

The human element is necessary to understand the story behind legal documents. That’s also how to understand public posturings of public personalities. A father’s love for a hostaged son explains what the Lopezes mean when they say they signed away Meralco under duress in the early years of martial law. Now we know why it is impossible to make Enrile understand that.

Real Life

And now, here’s Dr. Ernie E.

A new bride was a bit embarrassed to be known as a honeymooner. So when she and her husband pulled up to the hotel, she asked him if there was any way that they could make it appear that they had been married a long time.

He responded, "Sure. You carry the suitcases!"

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