$130 Million Lifestyle and Hubris

The amount of overprice or commission on the National Broadband Network (NBN) project is at $130 million or P5.2 billion. The amount is so huge in pesos that ordinary people have a hard time grasping its magnitude. Relating this to the original size of the project of $111 million, this means an overprice of over 100 percent. What makes it even more unbelievable is the audacity of the sponsors to get this project approved. So it should not come as a surprise to the government that this scandal is creating all these troubles that could lead to its downfall.

For a developing country like the Philippines with a per capita income of $2500 a year, this is the income of 50,000 people in one year, or the cost of 20,000 schoolhouses, or the budget of five medium size cities in this country, or spending one million pesos a day for 45 years and still have half the amount for retirement, and this is just at a compound interest of 4 percent per annum. I think people just cannot accept that this amount of money could go to some persons without them working hard and earning it. There are definitely persons or families with this kind of money, but it took them years or even generations to accumulate their wealth, not in one deal. Nobody would fault the Sys, the  Tans, the Ayalas, the Yuchencos, the  Tys, the Aboitizes, and other local billionaires, even if their wealth are larger than $130 million. These taipans and tycoons have earned most of their wealth legitimately.

It is also ironic, as the government has been trying its best to balance the budget, even selling a lot of its assets, so that the budget deficit for 2007 would be zero. The budget deficit for 2007 was 9.7 billion pesos which was the lowest in so many years, thanks to the efforts of Finance Sec. Teves, the BIR and the Customs people; yet another part of the government, the DOTC and the DEP-ED, are trying their worst to come up with overpriced projects that will create expenditures that will again create budget deficits without the necessary economic and social benefits.

This brings us to the topic of “hubris.”

Hubris is a Greek word that came from mythology.  In some explanation, it is said that this is “the pride that comes before the fall;” to others, it means an overbearing arrogance, or an act of cruelty not for revenge but just to prove or emphasize ones superiority. My favorite explanation though is that hubris is the act of extreme arrogance and action that angers the gods, which will eventually lead to the downfall of the powerful.

The actions of the government in this NBN scandal is classic hubris. The persecution of all who expose the scandal, the silencing of those who talked of the scandal, and the clamp down of dissent because they can do it, is hubris. In so doing, the government strategies and tactics on this issue are all wrong.  They are creating more enemies and angering the general population. They are sowing the seeds of their own destruction. Marcos and Estrada did exactly the same things in their time and they were eventually deposed in shame. The powerful do not heed the lessons of history because they are isolated from the masses and blinded by the praises of their inner circle. Some say this is karma; others say it is divine justice. I say it is hubris.  So be it.