Blaming it on Wall Street - Gotcha

Until when can Malacañang keep blaming Wall Street, instead of acknowledging loss of investor confidence, for the stock market collapse? Not very long, stock analysts and traders say, not very long.

True, steep losses in Wall Street dragged down all Asian markets this week. As they say, when Wall Street sneezes, the whole world catches cold. But once Wall Street recovers, world markets also ring up brisker-than-ever trading a few days later -- like a patient regaining appetite after a bout with the flu.

Analysts and traders expect Wall Street to cure itself within a week, as always. When it does and Asian markets recover, they ask, what then will Malacañang blame if RP stock trading remains low?

In such eventuality, they say Joseph Estrada's best option would be to declare he has had enough with his feuding pals and throw the book at Dante Tan and Wilson Sy. That would calm investors' nerves.

But Estrada seems to think it's a sign of weakness to admit investor jitters with unresolved inquiries into BW Resources price manipulation. He probably fears it could bolster accusations of cronyism and rake up his phone calls to Securities & Exchange Commission head Perfecto Yasay in November to intercede for Tan. So, blaming Wall Street appears as a safer option, although it's virtually burrowing deeper into quicksand.

Good cop-bad cop. That's what Taiwan officials are playing in the air agreement with RP. Taipei Economic & Cultural Office (TECO) is the good cop; Civil Aviation Bureau-Taiwan (CAB-T) is the bad cop. Their victims: Philippine Airlines and overseas Filipino workers.

To draw Taiwan officials into talks for a new air pact to replace the one that expired in Oct. 1999, RP's Civil Aeronautics Board (RP-CAB) allowed any number of Taiwanese charters to fly to and from the two countries in December. As a further show of good faith, RP-CAB allowed China Airlines to resume in January its stalled Taipei-Manila flights.

All that time, TECO chief Hsien-ching Chan kept promising that Taiwan would reciprocate RP's gestures. Yet CAB-T never gave permits to any RP charter in December, thus forcing homecoming Filipino workers to fly all the way to Hong Kong for a connection to Manila or Cebu during the holidays. CAB-T also sat on PAL's application to resume Manila-Taipei flights in January to match China Air's.

By late January, Taiwan's one-way deal became blatant. Only China Air and Taiwanese charters were making money. So on Jan. 28, Chan signed with Manila Economic & Cultural Office head Eva Kalaw an "interim agreement" to resume two-way traffic between the two countries while talks go on for a final three-year pact. Under the interim deal, RP and Taiwan airlines may fly 4,800 passengers from each side per week, with the number rising depending on the outcome of the talks.

With that, PAL started flying Manila-Taipei seven times a week. Taiwan's Eva Air also went in with seven Taipei-Manila flights, while China Air maintained the ten flights it had begun in January.

Eva and China Air were supposed to share the 4,800 passengers between themselves. But they invariably overshot their quotas by their seventh flights. PAL just grinned and bore violations of the interim deal.

Last week China Air applied for seven flights per week, Kaoshung-Manila. RP-CAB turned it down, saying it and Eva Air were already going above their 4,800-quota.

All of the sudden, CAB-T retaliated by cutting PAL's seven flights to only four. Contrary to the clear wording of the interim deal, it claimed that the 4,800 meant only Taipei-Manila, not Taiwan-RP. Meanwhile, Chan is eerily silent about the document he signed.

Such arrogance!

A reporter who had covered his Presidency said Fidel Ramos was anticipating malicious whispers from Estrada sycophants. So he found it necessary to explain to the press why he will be meeting with former and present world leaders in Asia, Europe and America in the next 25 days.

Ramos left this week for Singapore to lecture on Asian economic prospects after the financial crisis, London for similar talks and a meeting with former PM Margaret Thatcher, The Hague for the Third World Water Summit, and Tokyo for an international trade symposium.

He will also fly to Chicago, Minneapolis, Phoenix and Houston to present his Ramos Peace & Development Foundation's works and meet with officers of George Bush's own presidential library. It's this US leg that the reporter says will set Estrada's sycophants wondering if something's amiss. For, low performers are also top paranoids.

DHL-Phils. is different from the DHL mother firm that's pulling out of Manila this month (Gotcha, 19 Feb. 2000), just as TNT-Phils. is not the TNT that stopped using Manila last year as Asian hub.

Jose B. Feliciano, president of DHL-Phils., writes to clarify: DHL-Phils., a Filipino corporation and local operator of DHL-Intl., will continue business in RP, enhance existing services and develop its network. It made huge investments in 1999, including a customer call center. Investments in 2000 will include upgrading of delivery vans and expanding into export-processing zones. DHL has set up a Central Asia hub in Hong Kong's new international airport. Starting March, Cathay Pacific will provide airlifts to 15 major Asian cities.

INTERACTION. Angela Astigo, Enrique Heights, QC: Your piece on Payatas dump (Gotcha, 28 Feb. 2000) should spur officials to act. A homeowner in one of the subdivisions you mentioned, I labored with blood, sweat and tears to build this house, only to be tormented by stench of garbage.

Dean M. Bernardo, Pandacan, Mla.: Before Estrada, businessmen hesitated to invest because there was no peace and order (Gotcha, 19 Feb. 2000). Now it's the President who's the reason why they're hesitating to invest. Aquino kept RP intact; Ramos rebuilt it; Estrada is undoing it.

Boris Lopez, San Lorenzo, Makati: Aquino, Ramos and Sin should have backed only one candidate in '98. Now we're stuck with him.

Mar Tajon, Fairview, QC: Erap kept his promise to end congressional pork by relocating it to his office. This reduced legislators into his hostages.

Eli Garnace, bellatlantic.net: Who says RP's in crisis? Government can give away billions of pesos in pork.

Victor Sumagaysay, marin.org: The biggest block to progress is kickback -- 60 percent of project cost, or P26 billion -- from the P42-billion pork.

Robert Tolentino, San Francisco: I'm glad Erap did not join the EDSA celebration. It would hurt an EDSA veteran like me to see a Marcos tuta there.

Antonio de Vera, mailcity.com: The P757-million public contract awarded to Sen. Tessie Aquino's spouse (Gotcha 26 Feb. 2000) is a classic example of what Cardinal Sin said in the last EDSA rites -- that EDSA heroes played blind to abuses when they gained power.

Jose Elizes, Sydney: Rejoinder to Anton Tan (Interaction, 1 Mar. 2000): Ninoy could choose his friends, but not his...

I choose not to print the rest of your letter, Jose.

YOUR BODY. Scientists said this week they have used gene therapy to treat hemophilia in dogs, with one treatment continuing to work for 10 months on one of the animals. Another US study rang success on mice -- an oral vaccine to protect brain neurons from injury caused by stroke or epilepsy. Read more about it in cnn.com/2000/health.

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