Fear of pickpockets and of bigtime wheeling and dealing

PARIS – There was a report in yesterday’s (Monday’s) leading French daily, Le Figaro, that declared in its headline: "Les Japonais Redoutent les Picpockets Parisiens." It means that Japanese "fear" Parisian pickpockets and, therefore, are coming to France in smaller numbers than before.

Anyway, that’s what the Japanese Embassy here conveys when it distributes a four-page brochure to arriving Japanese: "Attention! Forte augmentation des delits a Paris. Soyez vigilant!" The warning, complemented by illustrations, is given to Japanese who plan to visit Paris, and conveys the message: "Be vigilant!"

I wish our government could do the same thing for Filipinos intending to either visit Paris, or, more urgently, for our countrymen and women who come here to find work or take up pre-arranged employment. The Department of Labor (DOLE) and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) ought to establish a short training course for intending Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) so that they won’t get over here blind and helpless, unable to speak the language, unable to cope with the "culture shock", and without much in their pockets.

In fact, Filipino workers over here are asking, "What happened to the Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration?" They have dutifully been paying their contributions to the OWWA, yet the OWWA – they complain – is never around to assist them.

The fact is that there are, by our Consulate count, at least 30,000 Filipinos living and working here. The number of Filipinos, including the undocumented, who are in France probably total more than 120,000. Many "new arrivals" have been cruelly exploited, in their ignorance, even by some of their own fellow Pinoys. But that’s the way of the world.

As for "pickpockets" there are, indeed, many. A friend of ours a few months ago was posing for the usual tourist photograph in the Place l’Opera, a block away from that landmark almost as famous as the Eiffel Tower, namely the Gallerie Lafayette on Haussmann. A fellow on a motorbike came along, grabbed her Christian Dior bag (newly-bought) and zoomed away. If she had not, after desperately trying to pull it back, finally relinquished her hold, she would have dragged painfully down the Avenue des Capuchines.

Even at the gate leading to the holy grotto and the renowned basilica of Lourdes, the premier place of pilgrimage for the pious and the sick seeking both consolation and a miraculous cure, a large sign asserts in six languages: "Beware of pickpockets."

I remember the travail of my former business partner, Dr. Ricky Soler, who drove to Lourdes years ago in a sudden fit of religious fervor. He had heard of the pickpockets there, and so he carefully locked his passport, wallet, and all his credit cards, into the glove compartment of his car. He returned refreshed by the healing waters to discover that his car had been broken into, the glove compartment unhinged, and everything gone!

Poor Ricky. He had no money for food, to buy gasoline, or for anything else. The only good fortune for him was that Lourdes is at the foot of the Pyrennees, the mountain chain beyond which lies Spain. (The saying is that: "At the Pyrennees that’s where Africa begins.") It was in Spain that he had a bank account in those days, so, after hitchhiking and cadging scraps of food along the way, he reached "safety" in Spain. The first thing he did, he told me, when he managed to get some cash was to buy himself a hotdog sandwich!

However, these horror stories are the exception rather than the rule. The important thing is: Don’t be the exception.

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We mustn’t fear pickpockets, though, as much as big-time French and other European corporations which "buy" their way into our officialdom and military in order to acquire juicy contracts and pick the Filipino taxpayers’ pockets.

Alikabok tells me that when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo left last Sunday for Hong Kong and Beijing for her three-day visit to the People’s Republic of China, she discussed with the officials and generals seeing her off my Sunday column on a French multinational giant, Thales (formerly known as Thomson CSF), which is suddenly poised to grab billions of pesos worth of contracts with the Department of National Defense and Armed Forces as well as the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC).

The President was concerned about the implications of those mammoth deals going to a single French company under different brand labels, but the same firm in any event.

When she expressed her misgivings, my informant told me yesterday, one of the generals present remarked: "Max won’t make such revelations unless he has something up his sleeve. He surely has documentation and more details. I think there will be more ‘bombs’ coming."

The most disturbed of all was Defense Secretary Angelo T. Reyes who, when confronted by the President, asked: "Shall I still go on with my scheduled visit to Paris?’ (He is supposed to arrive here on November 8 on a so-called or alleged "official visit".)

The Chief Executive didn’t directly answer Reyes on that one, and presumably will talk to him more privately on the matter. My two cents’ worth of advice to Secretary Reyes is: Don’t go to Paris!

Remember the maxim about Caesar’s wife. If you go to Paris, even on a purported "official visit", many both here and back home will be asking: "Who’s footing the entertainment bill and other expenses?" Nobody forgets that our cash-strapped nation is operating on an economy budget. (And Angie Reyes, surely, won’t be traveling economy class or steerage.) If there’s a quid, as the cynics remark, there must be a quo.

Indeed, last year when former President Estrada had been slated to visit Paris, Thales alias Thomson CSF, under its Chairman/CEO Jean-Paul Perrier (rhymes with the little green bottle), had arranged a lavish reception. The party was supposed to have been held aboard one of the bateaux mouches, the romantic boats that ply the River Seine, with a full orchestra playing and champagne – not the cheap variety they throw at you in the Lido or Moulin Rouge – flowing. After that, Memorandums of Agreement or Memorandums of Understanding would have been presented for Erap’s signature. How could he be so churlish as to refuse to affix his "Jose Ve–", oops, Estrada to those "timely" MOUs and MOAs.

To grace the occasion, five glamour girls or starlets had even been contracted at US$5,000 or more apiece. After such an eye-catching display of French talents, could Erap have said, "No"?

Alas, owing to bombings and other troubles back in Metro Manila and Mindanao, Estrada had to cut short his trip to China rush home and cancel his planned sorties to London and Paris.

Well, the girls may have gone off to other projects or film sets, but the champagne is still there, plus other frivolities, awaiting the next Filipino VIP with signing powers.

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What irritates me is that French executives have been bragging that some contracts are already in the bag, and that it is so laughably easy to "fix" Filipino officials and military brass. What hypocrites they are, looking down their haughty Gallic noses at us Indios Bravos! The mirror should tell them more about themselves.

Have they forgotten the multibillion-franc Elf scandal? I was just reading the apologia pro sua vita of that erring oil giant’s former President and Director-General, Loïk le Floch-Prigent (also former president of the huge pharmaceutical conglomerate Rhone-Poulenc, chargé de mission of the Ministry of Industry, and a pal of the late French President Francois Mitterrand. The volume, a Cherche-Midi publication, is hot just off the press and is entitled AFFAIRE ELF: Affaire d’Etat. It’s an embarrassing "Affair of State," truly.

There’s no explaining how Elf-Acquitaine was able to "corrupt" so many, not excluding Germany’s then Kanzler (Chancellor) Helmut Kohl, the Kaiser who reunified East and West Germany, with "donations" of hundreds of millions of Deutschmarks. It must be said at this juncture that most people, including this writer, don’t believe Mr. Kohl took the money for himself but for the coffers of his then ruling party, the Christian Democrats (CDU).

Other Elf "projects," like those supervised by Elf’s Affaires Generales Director Alfred Sirven (who had a Filipina girlfriend named Wilma), were equally scandalous.

What’s strange is how Sirven, who had previously been arrested in Tokyo for bank robbery was hired for one of the topmost posts in Elf by the French, on the same level as Pays de l’Est Director Maurice Mallet, Synergie Internationales Director Bernard de Chuffau, Gestion de Cadres Superieurs Jeanne-Marie Cardaire, and Chef de Cabinet Michel Baritiu (after Gilles Darmois).

All of these executives were directly under the President Director General Floch-Prigent.

Sirven managed to skip town when the scandal broke, and hid in the Philippines for four years, until he was spotted and arrested, with the help of Interpol, in Tagaytay City. Brought back to trial in Paris, Sirven vowed: "My testimony could bring down the entire esablishment!" Somehow, the Establishment, whose influence goes up to the Elysees Palace, has managed to keep the lid on things. Sirven is in jail, but my suspicion is that they’ll let him go sooner than later – on some "technicality." Does the evil get punished in France? Not even in Afghanistan.

What about the revelations of the former girlfriend of Mitterrand’s ex-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, the rakish Roland Dumas on the same matter? Dumas was instrumental in 1993 in getting a reluctant President Mitterrand (loathe to offend Beijing) to approve the sale of six or more naval frigates to Taiwan, to be supplied by Thomson CSF – yes, the same Thales that’s knocking at the gates of the DND and DOTC. Did Dumas profit somehow? The cynical French already have their own answer.

If I’m not mistaken, Dumas’s disgruntled girlfriend, Christine Deviers Joncour, recently wrote a scorching book, Putain de la Republique. (Whore of the Republic).

My, what a colorful language the French have!