Our solons are bad in math?

I am not surprised. In fact, I sort of expected it. Our inability to adequately fund our educational system all these years has caught up with us. Making sure our citizens can read, write and do arithmetic should have been top priority. Now, our badly educated voters have elected badly educated representatives. Apparently, we have congressmen who can’t do decent math, except when it comes to their pork barrel.

I don’t claim to be a math wizard myself. Far from it. This is why I am quoting from former NEDA Director General Winnie Monsod. Between Prof. Monsod of the UP School of Economics and our congressmen, I will trust the arithmetic skills of Mareng Winnie. So, when she says the congressmen erred in their math, which was the basis of the Davide articles of impeachment, I take her word for it.

"The different conclusions are a result of wrong arithmetic on their part. To illustrate: The rule is that at least 80 percent of all collections for the JDF must go for personnel, and at most 20 percent for facilities and equipment. Suppose that in Period I, P100 is collected, and P80 is distributed to personnel and P20 is set aside for facilities, etc. Has the rule been followed? Yes, obviously.

"Now comes Period II. Again, P100 is collected, and P80 goes to personnel and P20 goes for facilities. Has the rule been followed? The complainants say no. Their calculations show that only 67 percent has been distributed to personnel. That is because they divided P80 by the sum of the P100 collection in the period and the P20 that was set aside in Period I.

"No graft. No corruption. No betrayal of public trust. Just wrong arithmetic."

So, the whole brouhaha is so much tempest in a teapot. Bad math and bad politics are about to cause a constitutional crisis. Probably because many of us in media took up journalism because we are bad in math ourselves, we allowed the politicians to get away with stupidity. That’s our tragedy.

Tourism Standards

Tourism Secretary Dick Gordon called me to commiserate with me about my woeful experience as a Wow Philippines tourist to Bohol. Dick said his department no longer has the power to impose standards and regulate rates of tourism establishments. That has been devolved to local governments.

Dick did not contest my assertion that one reason why our tourism industry failed to flourish is precisely because our resorts charge high but keep less than world class standards in facilities and services. All he could say is that he had been putting moral suasion on the private sector to do their part to enhance our competitiveness with Thailand, Malaysia and other neighbors.

I can’t believe he is that helpless. Perhaps, the Tourism department can come up with its own voluntary grading system, if only to guide prospective tourists on what to expect with particular resorts. Or maybe, they could devise a seal of Goodhousekeeping sort of assurance and only those that maintain acceptable standards get to have it.

As what happened to me, I bought a WoW Philippines package, paid a lot of money in the thought that I was buying quality, but ended up being taken for a fool. Dick is clearly worried that even Boracay is losing its high quality image in the international market. I suspect it is our "puede na" mentality aggravated by the desire to "makaisa sa kapwa" that will keep us on the fringes of the world market.

So they are having another ceremony in Bohol with no less than Ate Glo in attendance to highlight its tourism potentials. It would be better if they did their homework first.

Chinoys Today

Assimilation is desirable and it is good that the local Chinese community has been assimilated well into Filipino society. Gone are the days when they just kept to themselves, frowning on social relationships with Pinoys.

On the other hand, by being assimilated well, they lost the cultural cutting edge that made the overseas Chinese communities a driving force in the economic development of our neighbors. Here is another e-mail from Carter Anderson Tiu, reacting to my column the other week on Chinoys today.

You may not be aware of it but your article is circulating over the net. I felt compelled to write you. As a third generation Fil-Chi, all the things you wrote made me realize that my current generation has grown complacent and relaxed. This may be because we never experienced the hardships of our parents and we all lead an extremely comfortable and protected lifestyle. I guess this is one of the reasons why we’re not that "hungry" anymore… we’ve become contented with our status quo.

I also felt the same way when you mentioned that "Young Chinoys have become too Pinoy for our own good". A majority of my Chinoy friends don‘t even speak or can barely speak the Chinese language anymore. Though I graduated from a Chinese school, my Chinese isn’t that good, I can barely make sense out of the articles in a Chinese newspaper.

The notion that Chinoys would only prefer their own kind has been weakened in my generation. A lot of my friends are indifferent in choosing their boy/girl friends. There is also the feeling of alienation to those Chinese who had recently migrated here, we call them names (GI, TDK, chekwa) as if they are not of our own blood.

Your article was an eye-opener for all of us Fil-Chis out there, I’m also worried about whether or not we are prepared to step up and manage the business of our parents. Most of us (Filipino-Chinese) are apathetic to the current political and social hubbubs pummeling the Philippines deeper into the quagmire. We have created our own little world in Binondo, Greenhills and Makati.

What makes us different with our Asian neighbors is unfortunately the lack of love for our own country. Ask any Filipino if given a chance to live abroad would they still stay in the Philippines and I’m sure that a majority of us would say no.

The Spy

I don’t know if the movie, The Spy, is still showing by the time this sees print. It is really based on the Graham Greene novel, The Quiet American. It almost didn’t see the light of day because its distributor, Miramar Films, thought it was un-American, in the light of 9/11.

Try to see it or go get its DVD from your favorite tiangge. It will give you an idea of why American foreign policy is the way it is – from Vietnam to Iraq. Dubya didn’t invent the phrase, you are either with us or against us. American foreign policy, it seems, is based on a black and white notion of what’s right and wrong. They are always right, of course.

Never Late For Work

Dr. Ernie E. sent in this one for today.

One morning when everything came to a standstill in commuter rush-hour traffic, a trucker sat high up in his 18-wheeler singing and whistling. A passenger in a nearby car, frustrated by the delay, yelled up at him, "What are you so happy about?"

"I’m already at work!" he cheerfully replied.

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