Of course, wars are fought over oil

The good news – but wait for it to be confirmed – is that Fernando Poe Jr. (our friend Ronnie Poe) is going to make a movie. This is a sign, to my mind, that FPJ, while his electoral protest is still pending, knows that life goes on – and that the sun will come up tomorrow.

He fought the good fight. He lost, or – as the Opposition continues to say – he was "cheated", but FPJ’s not going to mope about much longer, or be a hermit in his Antipolo home. We hear that the first "shootings" – of the projected motion picture, that is – are being planned for December.

Don’t ask this writer what the movie is going to be about. I haven’t the faintest idea. But one thing is sure: Panday will win. The difference between reel life and real life may be razor thin – but there’s still a difference. In moviedom, somebody writes the script. In real-life politica or in war (both are the same), there’s no script.

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Our politicians ought to keep their sticky fingers off our oil and energy crisis. I argued against the sale of PETRON when it happened. Now, to try to "re-buy" it, as some are suggesting, is a no-brainier. Too late. Anyway, how could our bankrupt government buy back those PETRON shares, from either local stockholders or the Saudis? It can’t even keep the National Power Corporation afloat, with that go-vernment-run entity sinking even more distrastrously than the Titanic, from its hull being stoved in by the multibillion-peso iceberg of "subsidized" electrical rate pricing and a glacier of foreign debts?

The government cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, attempt to regulate oil and fuel prices. It once had an Oil Price Stabilization Fund, but the OPSF was abolished – wiped out, really – after the funds ran out, or were gobbled up by some politicians. It’s the very opposite of the Midas touch. Everything our politicians, and the politicians running the Executive Branch, as well, touch turns to dross, then crumbles.

Leave it alone! There’s no abolishing the Law of Supply and Demand. If the humorous tale is correct, even our most beloved President Ramon Magsaysay couldn’t do it. Remember the joke? When Monching – whom I revered – rang up the late Senate President Eulogio "Amang" Rodriguez to ask him to repeal that "law" in the Senate, Amang had replied without hesitation: "Yes, Mr. President. But can you tell me when it was passed?"

Until the world can develop something to replace it (no, no Nanette, not nuclear power in our country where our mothballed Bataan Nuclear Plant was built on a geological fault), I guess everything will go on running on fossil fuel, or oil.

Is the war in Iraq being waged over "oil"? Why not? Even if America didn’t covet Iraq’s vast proven oil reserves, or President George W. Bush’s toppling Saddam Insane was based on idealistic Boy Scout motives, not his Texas oil bunch’s power-grabbing, it would still be imperative for the United States to keep Iraq’s oil "power" out of unfriendly hands – especially those of next-door, already oil-rich Iran.

The Ayatollahs, indeed, though they stolidly deny it, may be right behind the "rebellion" of the so-called Mahdi Army of Shiite radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr which sees the interim Iraqi Iyad Allawi government being rudely challenged, and the Iraqi National Guard (with threatened "defections") having to be backed up by 1,800 US Marines and their gunships.

A "United Kingdom of Iran & Iraq" under Shiite rule, with all that immense oil wealth pooled into a campaign to destroy America as "The Great Satan", is surely one nightmare which haunts Washington, DC no matter who’s President in the Oval Office. Old Osama’s al-Qaeda and his Taliban allies are making a bonanza to fuel their jihad out of Afghanistan’s opium – even with the warlords who threw them out of power – so why not a oil bonus for them in Iraq to boot?

Dubya Bush told Larry King "Live" on CNN that he has "no regrets" and he’ll win re-election, and that he intends to keep on fighting. So that’s that.

In any event, if we tough it out, many oil-producing nations are rushing to take up the slack. This won’t be soon, but eventually the frenzy – despite the onset of Winter in the cold countries – the situation will stabilize. Even Russia, despite the controversy over Yukos, with its tremendous oil reserves (include those under perma-frost) will come aboard.

Saudi Arabia has just announced it is going to increase oil output by 1.3 million barrels per day immediately to cope with world demand and curb soaring prices.

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Even the "victory" of Venezuela’s strongman Leftwing President Hugo Chavez Frias in last Sunday’s tumultuous "recall" vote – which brought heartbreak and cries of cheating to the valiant opposition – may have helped to stabilize oil princes. The Marxist El Commandante, a former coup putschist now styling himself the champion of the poor and a devotee of Cuba’s Fidel Castro, eve gloated on the even of the "recall" elections: "I’m the candidate of Wall Street!"

Well, Wall Street may not love Chavez, but Venezuela in South America, right at the USA’s back door, is the fifth lar-gest oil exporter (it used to export beauty queens), and its government-run PDVSA produces 2.6 million barrels of oil per day.

Chavez has unabashedly utilized his government’s oil earnings to finance his "social programs" for the masa, $1.7 billion plucked out of the petroleum giant’s $5 billion capitalization budget to fund his so-called "Bolivarian Revolution".

He’s been trying to equate himself with the great Liberator of South America, Simon Bolivar, Latin America’s most idolized 19th century hero of the wars of independence against Spain.

Andy Webb-Vidal of the Financial Times of London intimated that it is whispered in Caracas that Chavez’s predilection for all things Bolivarian extends to his dressing up in the uniform of that 19th century revolutionary hero, "to parade at night through the Miraflores Palace".

Chavez’s favorite book, he says, is the novel of the 1982 Nobel Prize laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez about Bolivar, i.e. The General in His Labyrinthe. Since Garcia Marquez, like most Nobel literature prize winners, is a Leftist – and an admirer, too, of Compañero Fidel – why not?

On the other hand, Chavez should remember that there are certain immutable facts about history. The first is that history is seldom, fair and, certainly, never complete. Another is that a man’s worth is not always recognized or appreciated by his peers, or even by his own generation.

The image that immediately comes to mind when one concludes this is that of Bolivar, now gloriously and posthumously endowed by grateful millions with the official title of Libertador of Suth America.

All over Latin America you will spot Bolivar statues depicting the great warrior, his chest weighed down with me-dals and ribbons, his eagle-like gaze fixed on eternity, or of Bolivar astride a horse, boldly waving his troops into combat. Everywhere there are provinces named Bolivar, and Bolivar Plazas, warships christened "Simon Bolivar". The bolivar is the unit of currency used in Venezuela. (Sus, nearby country of Bolivia is evidently named after him.)

But what did actually happen to Simon Bolivar, the man who fought 200 battles to win freedom from Spain – for his native Venezuela, for Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Bolivia and Peru. In the end, he found himself abandoned by everyone. He was forced to flee to a barrio named San Pedro Alejandrino, three miles outside Santa Marta, the oldest and most backward town of Colombia. On December 17, 1830, poor Bolivar succumbed to heart disease. In the remorseless words of writer Paul Theroux, the unfortunate hero "died penniless in a borrowed shirt".

Santa Marta now boasts a gigantic statue of Bolivar. A resort town, it has long held pretensions of being Bolivar’s "shrine". But the ill-fated hero had fled to Santa Marta only because he was threatened with assassination in Bogota (the capital of Colombia).

By the way, in Caracas, Venezuela, where he had been born in 1783 – and where El Presidents Chavez now says he adores him – Bolivar had been declared a traitor and outlaw. In despair, Bolivar had complained in a final letter to one of his few remaining friends, a man named Flores (his first name escapes me): "(South) America is ungovernable. Those who serve the revolution plough the sea. The only thing to do …is to emigrate."

He was, indeed, awaiting an opportunity to escape from South America when he died.

Twelve years after his lonely death, Bolivar’s remains were exhumed and borne in reverence to Caracas, where they lie in the National Pantheon.

Yet, for all his frustration and seeming defeat in the last gasps of his life, Bolivar’s heroic and compassionate message shines through:

"As the straight and courageous man must be indifferent to the onslaughts of ill-future, I am armed with constancy, and look with disdain on the shots of fate. On my heart no one has sway but my conscience….

"It is vain that arms destroy tyrants if they do not establish a political order capable of repairing the devastations of the revolution… We need our civil leaders who, escaped on planks from the shipwreck of the revolution, may guide us back though the sands into a harbor of salvation."

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Alikabok says that President GMA will announce her Cabinet choices tomorrow, Wednesday, August 18 – more or less along the same lines revealed in this column last Sunday.

In addition, she will probably announce the promotion of PNP General Edgar B. Aglipay to Police Director General and Chief PNP, as we had written some weeks earlier. How his coming birthday on September 13 will be regarded in terms of retirement date will be surely, legally finessed later. What I can say is that Egay is a crackerjack cop, and a straight-shooter.

The incumbent Police Director General and Chief PNP, General Hermogenes "Jun" Ebdane – who flew to Jakarta yesterday for the ASEAN (police chiefs) conference – will probably be promoted, as earlier surmised, to Cabinet rank as National Security Adviser.

Well, let’s see. It’s the President’s call, and there’s nothing sure until she categorically announces it.

In the Securities and Exchange Commission, who’ll take over? SEC Chairman Lilia Bautista has been excellent in that post, but is now there in a hold-over capacity since her term officially expired last March. Bautista, a former Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Undersecretary – in fact, La Presidenta GMA once worked with her – and a former Ambassador, too, would have been given an extension if that were possible. However, a new SEC Chairman is coming.

One of those most-mentioned has been recently-resigned Customs Commissioner Antonio Bernardo. If you’ll recall, at our Manila Overseas Press Club "Open Forum", after the President’s Night dinner, GMA stated she was going to give Bernardo another big job after Customs. Will it be the SEC? That was the hint. However, nobody can be certain until and unless it happens.

What about a ruling of the Civil Service Commission that bars the appointment of SEC Commissioners who are over 65 years of age? If you’ll recall, this ruling was reversed by Malacañang during the Presidency of Fidel V. Ramos to accommodate a recommendee of FVR’s fellow general, Secretary Eduardo Ermita, who happened to be a fellow Batangueño. So, in that tradition, whoever becomes SEC Chairman is definitely the President’s call. Abangan.

Incidentally, Ed Ermita – who’s "rumored" to be the next Executive Secretary – will be our guest speaker next Thursday, at our MOPC Breakfast Forum in the Ristorante La Dolce Fontana in Greenhills.

Whether he’s Defense Secretary or whatever, Ed Ermita will have many interesting things to say. You’re all invited.

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ERRATUM ET CETERA… I’ve received scores of e-mail and texts about my "Song of Bernadette" column, and many friends saying they can give me VHS or DVDs of that wonderful movie, starring Jennifer Jones. Gee whiz. And I searched all over the world for a Video or DVD copy. Thank you for your generosity and the information, friends! Even our Cebu Bureau Chief Bobit Avila texted me: "Sir Max, even I have a DVD copy. I bought it last week in the carbon (the Cebu downtown market)." Does this mean that even the "pirate" DVD makers are producing the "Song of Bernadette"? And now for the glaring error in yesterday’s Bernadette column: Owing to typographical error, the date of the first apparition of Our Lady to Bernadette came out as 11 February 1958. The apparition occurred in 1858.