Insisting that wrong is right - Gotcha

Will advocates of overnight trade liberalization ever learn?

Filipino steelmen decried Russian steel dumping a year ago. But government economists sneered that they should improve operations to be able to compete with cheap imports. Now that National Steel Corp. has shut down and laid off 12,000 workers, trade-libbers are silent about how Russian steel suppliers have tripled prices.

Cement makers are denouncing dumping from Taiwan, yet those economists are saying the same thing they told steelmen. They also want to let Taiwan's China Airlines and Eva Air to pick up US-bound fliers from Manila, to the detriment of Philippine Airlines. If cement firms and PAL crumble from dumpers, and Taiwan raises cement prices and air fares, will they still remain silent?

Perfecto Yasay says there's no quid pro quo in his sudden resignation as SEC chief. But stock marketers and fund managers aren't convinced, considering his mysterious words and deeds.

To begin with, when Joseph Estrada first cajoled him to resign, Yasay invoked security of tenure till 2001. Now he's saying he promised his family he'd stay in SEC for only seven years till March 25.

He also says he has learned that his earlier condition for resigning -- Congress enactment of a Revised Security Act -- was delaying its very passage. It would seem at first that Congress is sympathizing with him, that it wants him to stay till his terms ends, that it frowns upon Estrada's pressures on him to clear presidential crony Dante Tan of insider trading. Then again, delay could go both ways, since a provision in the bill would let the present SEC chairman and commissioners finish their terms. Delay can be a subtle pressure by Estrada's LAMP-dominated Congress to force him out. If so, it's no different from Estrada's phone calls to Yasay about Tan -- that is, meddling in the work of a quasi-judicial agency.

Yasay also refuses to share with SEC commissioners the Philippine Stock Exchange's investigation report about Tan's Best World Resources Corp. He claims he wants to insulate them from political pressure, since SEC will conduct its own inquiry based on the PSE report.

It doesn't make sense. If he wants to protect them from pressure, he should arm them with information and public opinion. Meaning, all the more he should let them -- and the public, through the press -- know the results of PSE's probe of peers for possible price-fixing and kiting. More so since, according to some investigators and PSE officials who have seen the report, it is full of names of the high and mighty, rich and famous.

As it is, PSE officials reportedly got pissed when their own probers submitted an incomplete report on Wednesday. Demanding and getting a fuller report the next day, PSE execs decided to leak it "so that nothing will happen in transit" when SEC evaluates it for filing of criminal charges.

Upon finding this out, Yasay called a presscon and declared that it is impossible to make charges of insider trading stick. The pre-emption got stock marketers and fund managers all the more suspecting there's more to Yasay's resignation than meets the eye. And these could be related to accusations that he frequently traveled abroad courtesy of companies that transact business with SEC.

Estrada had tried to win back confidence in the stock market by promising fund managers he'd dissociate from Tan and Mark Jimenez, pals who had played questioned roles recently in publicly-listed firms. Yasay's sudden resignation is ruining that initiative. It seems that Estrada has in Yasay a clumsy partner in a quid pro quo.

Since when did a wrong become right just because it's being done over and over again?

House Majority Leader Eduardo Gullas says there's nothing wrong with stuffing the 2000 budget with a P42-billion pork because Congresses under Cory Aquino and Fidel Ramos had done it too. It's like saying murdering a brother is right because Cain got away with it.

Even opposition leaders like Reps. Etta Rosales and Sergio Apostol agree with the LAMP majority. Saying that they call it "pork barrel" only for convenience, they defend their supposed right and authority to identify public works and other projects. They claim they don't tough the money and cite a Supreme Court ruling on their side. Yet they sidestep the core issue, which is, that the P42 billion are lump-sum allocations for projects that have not yet even been identified.

The Constitution is clear: Congress appropriates; Malacañang executes. To do this right, government must adopt line-item budgeting. Malacañang should draw up specific projects and costs for Congress to approve.

There's no problem with Malacañang consulting legislators about the projects before the budget is submitted to Congress. What is wrong is for Malacañang to simply assign lump sums for health, agriculture, education and public works for each district, then let congressmen identify them later. Or to assign thrice-bigger lump sums for senators' discretion. For then, the money becomes a virtual bribe for passage of the budget. And the lump sums become sources of kickbacks for congressmen and senators who approve the contracts for which these are spent.

But legislators are not about to do the right thing through line-item budgeting. There's no money in it; the money is in insisting that the wrong way is right.

That goes for the culture of gambling that Cardinal Jaime Sin and other religious leaders had warned about months ago.

Malacañang had retorted that awarding concessions for on-line bingo and jai alai perked up the economy and gave jobs. But is also sent the wrong signal to government managers. Government and sequestered stations began televising lotto, bingo, horse races, cockfights and jai alai. Police generals and local officials were emboldened to protect for a fee operators of jueteng, masiao, video-karera, monte and sakla.

Believing its own "praise releases," Malacañang began defending casino lords as the easiest foreign investors to entice. Government started hiring as consultants what Rep. Michael Defensor described in a privilege speech as masiao lords and jai alai game-fixers.

Now a LAMP congressman wants to put cockfights on-line. By networking cockpits, Filipinos will be able to place bets and know results from the comfort of their living rooms or offices. Just because Malacañang thinks it's okay, this congressman wants on-line gambling to thrive -- as if it is the computer world's wave of the future.

This LAMP man and other officials were probably taught by their parents that gambling is wrong. Gambling depends on luck, not on skill. And since humans can't control luck, they shouldn't depend on gambling for a living, or let it eat up their waking hours, or bank on it for progress.

They were probably taught by their parents, too, that creation of new wealth in farming, manufacturing and services makes for real economic development. They know it's the right, but also difficult, thing to do. Leading a nation to greater heights of technological and economic achievement is tougher than setting up gambling centers for people to divert themselves. So they do what's wrong and insist it's right.

Interaction will resume Monday. My modem broke down, and I got it working with the help of Mac expert Microstation Computer Center, Virra Mall, Greenhills, only last Thursday. I might even give an update on the 3-D plot, rather, what the scandal-sheet authors have been doing lately.

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