Victory by ‘leak’just won’t do

SHANGHAI, China – Yesterday, the Shanghai Daily, which is circulated among all expats and hotels here, reported bleakly: "VOTE LEAK HAS ARROYO WINNER."

The subhead said: "Opposition Leaders Claim Victory."

In sum, they’re reading here in Shanghai that there’s trouble in the Philippines.

The English-language newspapers in China, like the above-mentioned daily, have a small circulation, since only a tiny percentage of Shanghai’s 14 million citizens, and, of course, the rest of the 1.3 billion Chinese speak little or no English at all – although 200 million Chinese are on a crash-course to learn English (including the taxi-drivers) before the Shanghai Expo and the coming Olympics.

The Shanghai Daily, for instance, is just the small English-language offering of the huge Wenhui Daily, the 66-year old newspaper which is this burgeoning metropolis’s major journal.

Last night, the Wenhui’s dynamic Editor-in-Chief, Mr. Qiu Xin – amazingly only 39 years old – hosted a dinner for us in the top-floor penthouse of Wenhui’s impressive, marble-floored 43-storey skyscraper. Would you believe, this newspaper owns one of the tallest edifices in Shanghai, on 755 We Hai-Road eclipsed in West Shanghai only by the nearby, towering Plaza 66 building on 1266 Nan Jing Xi road.

As a matter of fact, our Philippine Consulate General holds office not far away, in Suite 368 of the Shanghai Centre, also on Nanjing West Road. Which is why our Consul General, Ambassador Jesus I. Yabes, also hosted a luncheon for us in the 5th floor Lulu Restaurant in Plaza 66. Yabes, by the way, hails from Sinait, Ilocos Sur.

If this gives the impression that all our group has been doing in Shanghai is eat – you’re correct in jumping to that conclusion. Shanghai cuisine is among the most mouth-watering in China, yielding pride of place . . . eh, calories . . . only to Cantonese cooking. (Beijing food is...blah, since that capital lies on the edge of the desert and, aside from Peking Duck which is ubiquitous anyway, is a culinary wasteland.)

I’ve been accompanied on this voyage (nope, I paid for my own tickets) by the Wenhui’s very active and brilliant Manila Bureau Chief, my fellow Tuesday Club member Xiaoyang Xia. I must say that Xiaoyang Xia’s escorting me back to his hometown was both entertaining and invaluable. To begin with, I needed him badly, since he is fluent not only in Putonghwa (Mandarin), but in the Shanghainese and other local dialects. Moreover, Xiaoyang, having manned the Wenhui’s New York Bureau, covering the United Nations and the Financial "Wall Street" district, and the Big Apple in general, is a man of the world, not just your hometown-type journalist.

I must say that his boss Qiu Xin, who rose from editor of another daily, the Liberation Daily, to running this giant newspaper group, which publishes magazines and other journals as well circulated nationwide, was a knock-out fellow, full of good humor and tough common sense. The Foreign Editor, too, knew his way around the world. He said that Wenhui maintains 14 overseas bureaus across the planet, and has 1,000 employees.

All through the trip, the newspaper provided me with a car and driver – a powerful Buick van – and even assigned its Hangzhou Bureau to take care of us when we arrived in that city 170 kilometers away.

The trip took only two hours by the marvelous three-lane expressway constructed from Shanghai to that West Lake resort city!

When it comes to highways and trains, by golly, China’s way ahead. No potholes, and no "pork barrel" politicians! If anybody strays, it‘s the one-bullet execution method that keeps everybody honest. Sounds cruel, I know: but it works over here.

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THE ROVING EYE...What’s this about the Comelec "leaking" word that President GMA "won" by a few hundred thousand votes. This is wrong. It provokes trouble – and, from miles away, I can already smell trouble brewing... Last Saturday I took no chances. I called Manila and instructed People Asia to run off two different covers simultaneously with the accompanying "victory" stories. One featured GMA as "Gloria in Excelsis – at Last," the other FPJ as "Da King." In sum, we’re not on one side or the other. Whoever wins in the end, even the "other" issue will be a sell-out...But we must not sell out our country with electoral hanky-panky. There will be hell to pay, if this is done. Has it been done already? Abangan the coming "storm". Gee whiz. Am I beginning to sound like Teddy Man? I hope for the best.