Philippines: A report card / Agassi, Williams triumph

It was one of the stories you light upon when reading a foreign publication, and even if you knew what it was all about, it still hurt like all-fired hell. There it was the headline of Business Asia (International Herald Tribune) Monday "investors give Philippine leader the thumbs down" Author William Pesek, Jr. (don’t know him from Adam) wrote in the lead paragraph that the Philippines economy "has slid toward the brink". Reforms are badly needed, he said, but "bold reforms do not usually come from Philippine politicians."

Another bomb: "That investors are not buying Philippine assets shows Arroyo faces an uphill climb, and needs to act far more boldly than she offered in her much-hyped economic policy speech on Jan. 10."

In vain did I look for anything promising, a silver lining, morsel of optimism in Pesek’s account. It was all negative. The budget deficit of about P202 billion was certainly highlighted, as was the sorry state of the peso. Of the most used currencies in Asia, he said, "only the Taiwan dollar has performed worse than the Philippine peso this year. The peso slid 3.73 percent versus the US dollar last year, even though the world’s reserve currency fell against virtually every other one."

The dynamic of the budget deficit "explains why the Philippines was the only Asian economy to experience serious spillover effects from last year’s crises in Latin America. If GMA cannot "shake up things fast," he continued, "international investors will dump Philippine bonds. This may push government to borrow more heavily at home this year. Increased bond issuances may curb lending to the private sector, possibly preventing households and companies from borrowing and stifling growth."

"Many government bureaucrats do not want change because they profit nicely from the current system," the story continues. Then Pesek sets off his biggest bomb, the continuing deficit pattern "whereby many of the country’s richest people and companies do not pay taxes" which he says "is at the core of the Philippines problems."

Pesek’s prose is of course narrative and therefore devoid of any elevation to anger and passion, which would be the tilt of a committed Filipino journalist who feels he or she is being jobbed by a corrupt leadership, given to nothing but largescale thievery. But maybe it is better that way. It comes off like a doctor’s prognosis. The cancer is there but it is illustrated by x-rays and the medical argot of physicians who have no wish whatsoever of scaring anybody. And yet it is scary, as the word cancer is scary, as AIDS is scary, as transorbital lobotomy is scary.

And when Pesek’s story tops the IHT’s Business Asia section, however objectively it may have been written, you hear the clangor of brass gongs sounding imminent disaster.

Well, President GMA in one of her rare moments of candor did state last November 29 that the Philippines has become one of the weakest states in Asia. She mentioned the "large gap between rich and poor, a political system based on patronage and ultimately corruption to support patronage." Previously she had been affirming and reaffirming that everything was going up roses and under her administration, the nation would reach high ground. A month after that, to be precise on Dec. 30, she shocked the nation by announcing she had abandoned her bid to run for the presidency in 2004.

There are Doubting Thomases who continually ask: Is she sincere? Was her Dec. 30 disclosure just a ploy? Wouldn’t she eventually reverse direction if her approval or popularity ratings would go back to the high road? I hardly think she will ever reverse direction. It is virtually impossible to shake hands with a historic avalanche, look it in the eye, and bid it to turn back.

* * *

There he was, billiard ball-bald, stalking the court as if he owned it, André Agassi, at age 32 still on top of his game when he should have retired years ago. There she was, rippling with muscles, Serena Williams, a female battle tank all by herself, at age 19, unstoppable and unbeatable. Agassi won the Australian Open literally taking Germany’s Rainer Schuettler apart, 6-2, 6-2, 6-1. The younger Williams proved her father’s forecast she would rule women’s tennis because she was "meaner" than her older sister Venus whom she beat, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in the same Open.

This was world tennis’ first grandslam for 2003 in Melbourne and watching it on TV was a tremendous treat.

No, we haven’t seen Pete Sampras yet. He’ll certainly compete in the French Open and there will be a lot of speculation as to whether his tennis guns remain the topside of a missile rack or have lost some of their firepower. But as we await Sampras, who has a record 13 grandslams in his belt, André Agassi fills the role of riveting us on our seat, amazed that at his age, he is perhaps better than ever. They will probably meet again, Agassi and Sampras in the French or other Opens. But for the nonce, Agassi basks in the limelight, even more dominant than ever.

Agassi was great. The Teuton Rainer Schuettler was never really in the game. His racket, which demolished Andy Roddick in the semi-finals, never caught fire. Agassi saw to that. From the outset, he flogged Schuettler with ground strokes that clawed close to the baselines or when needed with aces that just whistled past the German. It was like watching Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber, jolting Adolf Hitler’s fistic pride Max Schmeling with jabs that fairly cracked. After that, he brought the pride of the Aryan race down with hooks and straights that came from the turret of an Apache helicopter.

It is simply amazing that advancing age has yet to diminish the physique and the talents of André Agassi. At 32, he should be close to a relic. At 32, he is still a Greek god with wings for feet.

If there is such a thing as a tennis technician, it has to be Agassi. He as established his mastery over every square foot of a tennis court. He has trained his legs for sudden sprints, medium and long surges in long battles. He delivers the ball effortlessly as a mailman delivers letters. There is no wasted effort. He walks and runs briskly, the ball coming off his racket like a line drive hit by Joe DiMaggio. Getting that ball past him is like – as we said before – smuggling down past a passel of roosters. Or a gorgeous blonde past Frank Sinatra.

How Agassi manages to remain physically fit also amazes me. Professional tennis players normally start at the age of 16 or 17, hit their peak during their mid-20s, then start slowing down as they approach 30, then hang up their rackets at this stage. Or if they remain, they are already has-beens, retiring only when their rankings slide swiftly down like Michael Chang. Or are beaten by almost every journeyman. Steffi Graf, Agassi’s wife, who has borne him a son, retired when she could still win one or two grandslams. She beat Martina Hingis in the French Open, remember? Shortly after that, Steffi, probably the greatest next to Martina Navratilova, announced her retirement. Her legs could no longer carry her swiftly and easily to the ends of the world and back.

In the case of Serena Williams, she is simply nonpareil.

The Old Man Williams raised Venus and Serena to be great tennis performers, and they responded like a bullwhip cracked by a lion-tamer. He forecast Serena would eventually surpass Venus, and he was right. Serena has that extra like a good and promising hungry fighter has that extra. She is mean. She is hungry and feisty. She has to win every match. And the grit is there in her face, the scowl when she botches on exchange, the soft snarl of a tigress about to pounce. Venus does not have that. She plays tennis just as well as Serena, but it is the extra that she lacks. The meanness. The surliness.

Venus’ face is almost always a mask. She is just as powerful as Serena in her strokes. But her teeth do not show, or the slightest slit of an emotional wound. There is no magic adrenalin that throbs in her muscles, no open, gaping mouth that would devour the enemy. Maybe it is just as well. That way, off the tennis court, they remain loving sisters close to each other, not bitter adversaries lugging their ferocity to the family abode.

The two have changed the face of tennis.

It was a white man’s game just a decade or so ago. It was a game royal as royal can be. Wimbledon was and remains the tennis world’s crown jewel, glittering but huffy and haughty and white over many decades. While they might not have broken the color barrier because others did that before them, the Williams sisters barged past every racial obstacle because their genius could not be denied. As the aristocratic world of golf could not deny Tiger Woods his unmatched power and artistry.

But under the surface, there is a thin layer of white resentment that two black sisters dominate a sport that the whites invented and raised to the level of class aristocracy. Perhaps as the French say, c’est la vie.