GMA’s leadership was challenged by Subic disorders, she must know! - BY THE WAY by Max V. Soliven

OSAKA, Japan – Outside my 22nd-floor hotel window here, the sun is shining brightly, but it’s still very cold here in Japan’s second largest metropolis, the queen city of the industrially-powerful Kansai plain. It’s difficult to believe that only last Friday, it snowed.

The snow came pelting down in fluffy flakes as I walked down my favorite avenue, Midosuji, the main north-south boulevard, lined with pricey department stores like Daimaru, Sogo, etc., and studded with bustling, colorful arcades and ringing pachinko parlors. The snowflakes, pretty in flight, dissipated rather quickly into slush. Elsewhere in the country, though, a record cold snap in the Kinki region wreaked havoc on the roads, leaving a hideous trail of death and disaster. There was a 12-car pile-up on the Meishin Expressway. In Abiko, Chiba prefecture, eight people were injured in a similar pile-up involving ten vehicles. In another crash, a man was killed when two trucks smashed into the bus he was driving. When there’s a 30-centimeter snowfall, the roads ice up, and vehicles frequently skid out of control.

But today – sunshine.

Like their weather, the Japanese people are unpredictable. On the other hand, they are predictably courteous and helpful in their everyday lives. Returning to Japan after an absence of six years, I find that there may have been some changes, but the overall pattern of civility remains unchanged. You have to arrive in Osaka on a plane, direct from the rudeness and bad manners of Hong Kong, to appreciate how Japan remains a land of polite, courteously bowing, and well-mannered citizens, every strand of hair neatly in place, every relationship carefully nurtured, a nation where team spirit prevails over individual assertiveness.

It’s strange that a people – so disciplined and, yes, kind – could be governed by rascals and sometimes stupid men. Abraham Lincoln was right to say that "a people get only the kind of government they deserve", just as our own hero, Jose Rizal, was correct when he declared, "tal pueblo, tal gobierno" (As a people are, so is their government). Not so in Japan. For months, there has been a clamor for Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori to resign, even within his own ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its coalition allies, the New Komeito and the New Conservative Party. Yet, even when his approval rating has fallen below 10 percent, and he survived a no-confidence vote only last March 5, with 192 Diet members voting for no-confidence, and 274 against (but with misgivings), Mori hangs on. He is known for verbal gaffes as well as plagued by a pay-off scandal involving the mutual-aid organization KSD, the embezzlement of a secret state fund by a Foreign Ministry official who snatched unwarranted millions of yen by fake receipts and counterfeit billings for overseas trips for the Prime Minister’s office, and his own indifference to the sinking of a Japanese fisheries training ship by the US nuclear submarine USS Greenville off Hawaii some weeks ago (he had gone on to finish his golf game after being informed of the tragic accident) which left nine persons missing and presumed dead.

In short, Japan’s shaky leadership and the slide in its economy into recession need strong hands at the tiller – which Mori and his group have failed to provide. Yet, he and his habatsu (faction) hang on.

I guess the Japanese and the Filipinos have something in common, after all – lousy politicians.

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What’s this nonsense abut retired Rear-Admiral Guillermo Wong being offered the chairmanship of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA)? The truth is that, to appease Wong who had exposed the "conversion" evils in the Marines and, indeed, in the armed forces, Malacañang had dangled the SBMA chairmanship to Wong more than nine days ago. His classmates from the "Fighting ‘69", the 1969 Philippine Military Academy class of cavaliers, had advised Willie Wong to reject the offer as a "poisoned apple." This is because the chairmanship of SBMA is not vacant – it is occupied by the very capable former Bataan Congressman Felicito "Tong" Payumo, who has tenure of office.

The fact is that Payumo’s tenure of office as SBMA chief was confirmed by the court, after ex-Chairman Richard Gordon contested his own removal by the Estrada government in 1998. Dick Gordon’s "midnight re-appointment", which sought to extend his term by another five years, was shot down legally, but not until after he and his riotous cohorts had damaged the SBMA’s reputation severely by his trying to hang on, kapit tuko, through the resistance of his henchmen, the burning of a firetruck, and many battles with the policemen sent to restore order and eject him.

Now, the Gordons are at it again. A few days ago, in an effort to embarrass Payumo, employees of the City Hall of Olongapo (egged on by their boss, and Mayor Kate Gordon?), dozens of pro-Gordon base employees, and hundreds of kibitzers (were they professional "strikers" trucked in from Payatas?) attempted to block all approaches to the Subic Bay Freeport, illegally preventing workers of both the SBMA and the "locators" who operate firms inside the SBMA from going to work. The clear objective of the demonstrators was to disrupt the inauguration of the Juken Sangyo facilities in the Subic Techno Park. The function was attended by over 300 potential Japanese investors, with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo scheduled to preside over the welcome ceremonies. They did succeed partially in embarrassing Payumo, whom the Gordons had vowed to kick out of Subic, but the function went on smoothly. On the other hand, the visiting Japanese, while inscrutable as always in their reactions, must have thought: "Why should we invest millions of dollars and yen in such a troubled place as Subic?"

The "protesting" workers and their ridiculous allies have done the country a disservice. They’ve shit in their own nest, to boot. For how can employment be generated in our country, when in pursuit of a personal vendetta, one of the President’s own Cabinet members, Tourism Secretary Gordon, sends his followers to disturb the peace? Dick, naturally, will vehemently deny he had any hand in stirring up the embarrassingly-timed demonstrations and strike action. Mayor Kate Gordon, his wife, even made a great show of, after the jig was up, quelling the demonstration. Nonetheless, Kate reiterated on radio that the reason for the blockade kuno was that Payumo had refused to meet with that handful of disgruntled employees from the Freeport Service Corporation and ignored their grievance for 17 days. This is untrue.

President GMA, for her part, must not be partisan in this matter. Sure, she may love the Gordons, but justice is justice. The SBMA is doing great. Payumo has been doing well. He’s there by legal court order and has a tenure to fulfill.

If GMA yields to the pressure of her "friends" and attempts to displace Payumo, this will resonate throughout the world as a sign of weakness and lack of political will. She doesn’t need another sample of her placing "pals" and, yes, cronies in key positions. As for Admiral Wong, he must reject the poisoned fruit of an SBMA appointment. True to his principles, for which he nobly sacrificed his Navy career, he has to stand for what is right, not what is convenient.

Honor is everything. Income or money lost, little is lost. If honor is lost, everything is lost.