The risks behind decisions we make

Zenaida, my astrologer friend, was relating to me a conversation she had with a couple she shared a table with in a social function. During the course of the dinner, someone brought up something I wrote in this column. Zenaida volunteered that I am her friend and this led the couple to confide in her about their son.

They are worried about their 16-year son’s decision to migrate to Canada. To back up his decision, the son cited some of the views I have expressed in this column. The father, according to Zenaida, agrees with my views and with the son’s conclusions derived from them. They are only worried that he might be too young to be separated from them.

You know, Zenaida said, you have a profound influence on people and decisions they make and that’s an awesome responsibility. I responded that I only write as I honestly see things. When I say I see no future for this country in the next five years, that is my honest opinion. And I have acted on it myself by encouraging all my children to think of going abroad because on a personal basis, they would be wasting their time here. I am myself too old to live anywhere else, but my children have their whole lives ahead of them.

Still, going abroad is a risk my children and that 16-year-old reader of my column must take for their own account. I could be terribly wrong although at this time, I can’t see how I could be. I do not see a credible national leader in the five-year horizon who can make us think as one people rather than as a collection of interests. Nor do I see our fundamental social and economic structures reforming to the point of being able to reverse our downward spiral.

I was reminded of Zenaida’s little anecdote as I was reading a review in the latest issue of BusinessWeek of a new book about Risk in the 21st Century. The book is about the need for a new world financial order but there is this paragraph in the review about risks that I thought are pretty relevant, specially in this graduation season. What are the risks our young people must take with decisions they make at this crossroads in their lives?

There is, the book points out, the risk of choosing a profession that will be rendered obsolete by technological change. That might seem a little too First World for comfort. The problem in our Third World environment has more to do with the risk in choosing a career rendered useless by market demand. The oversupply of physical therapists and mass comm graduates comes to mind. Also distressing is the phenomenon of licensed doctors taking two more years of training to be nurses so they can migrate to a better paying job abroad.

The book then talks about the risk of living in a country that will underperform. That is precisely the very real risk I had in mind when I told my kids to go abroad because staying here will trap them and their future in the country’s continuing underperformance. I know my children have world class talents and capabilities and they have a better chance of maximizing their potentials abroad. If they want to come back later to serve their country, they are in a better position to do that without worrying about their material needs.

The same issue of BusinessWeek carried the story of the new chief operating officer of Motorola, an immigrant from Yugoslavia who made good in America. Mike Zafirovski migrated to America from the Macedonian region of what was then Yugoslavia when he was 16 years old. His family settled in Cleveland where his family found factory work. He knew just a few English words when he started school a few days after arriving in America. But dedication and talent brought him to the pinnacle of Corporate America today.

Going back to Zenaida’s story, 16 years old isn’t too young to migrate as the experience of this Motorola executive showed. But I can see the point of the parents of that 16-year-old in Zenaida’s story too. I told my kids they could leave only after they finish college here. I thought that would be enough time for them to know who they are and what their heritage is. I don’t want them to go there too young and feel lost like many Fil-Am kids who know they are not Americans but neither are they culturally, Pinoys.

Having said all that, I can’t see myself now living anywhere else but here, unless a Pinoy version of Saddam Hussein rises in our future. I have had two opportunities to migrate to America but I have let that pass. I am not sorry I chose to stay because when I reached the crossroads, one could still hope even during the darkest days of the dictatorship. I can’t even say my generation messed things up because I don’t think we were even given a chance during the power vacuum of the Marcos years. But my children deserve better.

Local oil

One of our readers, Edgardo Alabastro, wrote us to ask government to do something so we can process our own oil from Malampaya instead of selling our production to refineries in Singapore. Here are portions of that e-mail.

In my work as an environmental consultant, I have intensive interaction with the local petroleum industry. One area I briefly touched as part of my work is the disposal of Malampaya Condensate. The condensate is by-product of natural gas extraction in Malampaya, Palawan.

At current gas offtake, condensate production is 240 kilo barrels a month and if the utilization rate improves to 70 percent utilization, condensate production is going to hit 600 kilo barrels a month. The condensate is a high quality crude. It is 50- percent gasoline and 50-percent diesel. The crude though contains mercury, which requires special processing equipment to ensure safe environment.

This crude is being sold to Singapore instead of being processed in the Philippines!!!! As a Filipino citizen, I cannot understand and I find this surprising. We have three oil refineries in the Philippines who can process this crude.

The following explanation was given. If a local refiner bought the condensate for processing, they are charged three percent excise tax. If this is brought to Singapore, there is no tax. Just imagine, the local refiners are charged with 0.72 $/bbl for processing indigenous crude. This hurts the economics of the local refiners to process the oil. Multinational petroleum companies are now zonal in structure which means economics is going to be based on the most economical route within the area of operations.

Clearly, processing of Malampaya condensate is more viable in Singapore than in the Philippines by 0.72 $/bbl. Why not exempt the local refiners from the three-percent excise tax? The government does not enjoy this anyway in the present scheme because the crude is exported to other countries.

By doing so, we are assured of 50 million liters of gasoline and 50 million liters of diesel a month by simply processing our own crude. The 600,000 barrels a month maximum capacity of Malampaya condensate is 20 percent of the petroleum demand in the Philippines. This is a natural reserve which we could have tapped during the Iraq war.

I hope you can talk to our President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to persuade the Department of Finance to waive the three- percent excise tax. I hope you can persuade SPEX to sell the crude locally. The Philippine government is part owner of SPEX. Malaysia and Indonesia offer incentives to process their own indigenous crude. I hope we can adopt the same policy.

Golf

Dr. Ernie E sent this one straight from an agent in Iraq.

Three guys escape from one of Saddam Hussein’s secret prisons in the midst of the chaos that followed the fall of the dictator. One is British, one is American, and the last one is Turkish. After wandering aimlessly around, they got bored and started thinking of something to do.

"Let’s play golf." The American finally says.

"I don’t know how to play that." The Turk says.

"Oh it’s easy, " answers the Brit, "all you need is a ball, a stick, and a hole."

"I got the ball, " says the American.

"I got the stick, " says the Brit.

Then the Turk says, "I don’t wanna play."

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