That's Entertainment - Sketches

Entertainment brought Joseph Estrada to the pinnacle of power. Nineteen months into his term, he's still entertaining us -- for the wrong reasons. He announces there's a crisis, then forgets that he ever said it. He grants conditional pardon to a priest's killer, then expresses surprise that he signed the document.

It's not the first time that he has been surprised by his own official act. He forgot that he appointed his cousin Celia Ejercito-de Castro to a P25,000-a-month government job. Read before you sign -- didn't anyone ever teach him that? Especially if your signature can mean a prisoner's freedom or a multibillion-peso government contract.

To be fair, I don't think a president should be burdened with going over 500 names just to make sure no one will get him in trouble. In the first place, even if President Erap came across the name of Norberto Manero, I don't think the name would have rung a bell.

But it can give you the shivers to wonder what other documents are being shoved under the President's nose, to be signed blindly.

Again, to be fair, Joseph Estrada knew his limitations when he assumed power. He vowed to surround himself with competent advisers. Where's the competent advice?

He's had New Year 2000 to draw up resolutions for a better Philippines (and better poll ratings). Now it's the Lunar New Year, the eve of the Year of the Dragon, and he still seems to be engaged in a losing battle for hearts and minds.

The Dragon year is supposed to be good for an Ox like him, but it's starting inauspiciously. Blame his Palace functionaries, his speech writers. And blame those darn oil companies.

Apart from trying to score brownie points with the people by saying the fuel price increase could have been 50 percent higher, President Erap could have instructed his people to explain how world crude prices skyrocketed 138 percent in 1999 while local pump prices went up by less than 50 percent.

Militant groups can vent their ire not just on the oil companies but on the members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. OPEC, which supplies about half the world's crude oil requirements, is controlling its members' output to force prices to go up to $35 per barrel, from a nine-year all-time high of over $28 late last month. Maybe the oil sheiks and other OPEC leaders are running short of cash to buy more limousines and send their kids to English boarding schools.

President Erap himself has intimated that we ain't seen the worst yet. He said the local oil firms gave in to his request three months ago to defer the price hike till after Christmas. He can't rejoice that the actual increase is 50 percent lower than originally planned. I bet that other 50 percent is coming -- and more -- within this Year of the Dragon. Nope, I don't think it's going to be a very good year.

How do we deal with this problem? About 99 percent of our oil supply is imported, so we're at the mercy of the greedy OPEC. We're committed to free trade so don't expect the Oil Industry Deregulation Law to be repealed. The state of our science and technology is so dismal that we can't develop our own alternative sources of fuel and we're at the mercy of the world's technological leaders.

One answer is to become rich enough to afford all the fuel we need, no matter what the price. For this, we need investments and more jobs. But what are the hindrances to investments?

It's not just the limits on foreign ownership, which the President is trying to correct through Charter change. Investors and economic analysts interviewed by local media and foreign wire services in recent months have pointed to weak political leadership, corruption, cronyism and flip-flopping or inconsistency in policies.

Malacañang insists it's just a perception, that it's part of a media plot to destabilize the government. If it's merely a perception, the Manero mess reinforces it. 

President Erap used to enjoy entertaining the public. It endeared him to the masses, he said. Now he wants the people to take him seriously. But what do we do when the President of the Republic is surprised by his own signature? We laugh ourselves to tears.