Is martial law in our future?

Last Saturday evening, I caught a documentary on BBC about the military coup in Chile that resulted in 18 years of a particularly harsh military dictatorship. The duly elected president, Salvador Allende, was found dead as the smoke of battle for the presidential palace cleared. Thousands of people were also killed, sent into exile or simply disappeared.The documentary sent a chill down my spine as I recalled those early days after the late President Marcos declared martial law and a hunt ensued for all enemies of the regime.

I must admit that while the Marcos era martial law also resulted in thousands disappearing, killed and tortured by military thugs of Marcos, the Chilean version seemed far more brutal. Maybe it mattered that Marcos gained political power through the ballot. He took pains to make it look like his dictatorship was "constitutional authoritarianism", a contradiction in terms. Augusto Pinochet and the Chilean generals were naked usurpers of political power, and had no problems with openly using the gun to force the people to submission.

The BBC documentary reminded me of two possible scenarios that could be our future. One scenario was told to me a couple of years ago by an astrologer friend who thinks the military would try to seize political power and there is the strong possibility that they would stay there for as long as the Chilean generals stayed in control of Chile. That’s a chilling thought!

The other scenario was suggested to me by another friend, over lunch at Cafe Havana with a group of journalists led by Chitang Nakpil. John Mangun is a very perceptive American old timer married to a Filipina, who has imbibed the Filipino culture better than many Filipinos (he even sends his children to public school in Makati). John later on wrote in his column in Philippine Graphic magazine that we should vote as President someone we would be comfortable exercising extraordinary powers over us.

John thinks that whoever is elected this May will have no choice but to use extraordinary powers because of the extraordinary seriousness of our current situation. John is particularly worried about our fiscal deficit and our declining ability to earn enough foreign exchange to pay for our increasing level of foreign debt. "I strongly believe," John wrote, "that our dollar demand will reach the dangerous level anytime within two years, forcing the president to take extraordinary powers to avert an economic and social catastrophe."

John’s fears have strong basis. As he points out, the drastic economic solutions required to address our serious problems "will never be found through a process of legislation and judicial review that takes years to accomplish and must please too many agendas other than the welfare and survival of the country."

The failure of Congress to pass the urgent economic measures, including those that would boost the government’s ability to increase its tax revenues, proves John has a strong point. Congress failed to even pass a National Budget, a basic responsibility of the legislature. It would be silly to expect Congress to help address the economic crisis in an expeditious manner.

The low level of trust we all have in the ability of our officials to curb corruption and run an efficient bureaucracy is another factor to worry about. That lack of trust supports the feeling expressed by my astrologer friend that we are ripe for a military dictatorship, one that would use this lack of trust to justify a power grab.

I know the thought is scary. It worries me too that recent surveys indicate that while our people are against a military power grab or a declaration of martial law, they won’t do much to oppose it, if it happens.

Indeed, I hear people say that there is just too much anarchy around us today that we need someone to impose discipline as a means to restore order, crush criminality and get the economy going. Before it is too late, we have to come to grips with the ever increasing reality of martial rule in our future.

This is why we cannot afford a failed election this May. It could be used as a strong excuse to take over a government that no longer has the ability to govern.

Incredible Bias

There are times when the use of unnamed sources in supposedly straight news stories tends to create more confusion to an issue that is already complicated as it is. Take that unnamed Inquirer source who claimed that the Maynilad compromise agreement was designed to pre-empt the Supreme Court and save the Lopez business empire from collapsing by going into cross default with its creditors.

Cross default? The Lopez flagship Benpres Holdings has been in default with its creditors for almost two years now and is, in fact, in negotiations for a restructuring of its loans. In fact, another Lopez project, the North Luzon Tollways got bank financing finalized after the Benpres default. ABS-CBN also managed to convert their short-term loans into longer term maturities, also after the Benpres default. So, what cross default is he (or she) saying? A default does not necessarily mean a collapse.

Assuming government completely cashed in the performance bond, as what some critics of the compromise agreement want, the banks that issued the letter of credit covering the Benpres guarantee of Maynilad debt in terms of unpaid concession fees to MWSS, would go after Maynilad as a corporation. If it goes after Benpres because of the Benpres guarantee, it would have to join the rest of the Benpres creditors working out the restructuring. The action of cashing in the bond would do nothing to improve the financial viability of the concession, something the compromise agreement addresses.

Whoever that unnamed source is, must be either a complete idiot or knowingly misled the newspaper’s editors, who unfortunately didn’t know any better. The problem is, Inquirer editors seem to have made up their minds on the issue and that prevents a clearer explanation of the nature of the compromise agreement from being presented to the paper’s readers.

When one is up against such incredible bias, there is nothing much to do but hope and pray the hysteria blows over so a more knowledgeable evaluation of the merits of the deal can be made. It does not help that it is the political season and some pretty hopeless candidates have found a sure fire formula of making it to the headlines of the Inquirer by attacking the Lopezes on just about anything including, yes, Dolphy.

When one feels helpless against a newspaper that is bent on setting the national agenda according to their view and no one else’s and at all cost, well… that’s as scary as martial law. But that’s life, I guess. It’s one or the other.

Traffic Violations

Some weeks ago, a foreign expat hotel manager got into trouble with MMDA traffic aides near the Lourdes church on Shaw Boulevard. The red traffic light was on but he was waved to proceed by one traffic aide and cars behind him followed. But when he got to the other side, another aide stopped him and insisted that he drove through a red light. The aide proceeded to extort a thousand pesos from him.

The biggest selling point of these uniformed extortionists is the thought that you will have to sweat it out trying to get your license back from their headquarters. Reader Jerry Pacheco has this very good suggestion, one that I had advocated in the past, and one that would help stem petty corruption by traffic cops and MMDA traffic aides.

Jerry suggests that instead of confiscating driver’s licenses, confiscating plates, etc., why not just issue the ticket? The MMDA/traffic personnel already have information such the driver’s license number, driver’s address, the vehicle’s plate number and registration details. The offending party can then pay the fines through banks or even bayad centers in the malls. This way the temptation for petty corruption/fixers is removed.

Since the LTO has been computerizing their database, the driver’s license and the vehicle can be tagged if the fine is unpaid or uncontested within a certain period, say one month. Once the person tries to renew the license of the vehicle or driver’s license, it can automatically be revoked until fines and penalties for failure to pay on time are settled.

Ecumenical Church

Sign in an inter-denominational church:

This church welcomes all denominations.

Graffiti beside the sign: But we prefer tens and twenties.

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