Symbols

Smokey Mountain was the symbol of poverty in this country. Now, many years after the mountain of garbage in Tondo, Manila was leveled and replaced by a development project, it is still a symbol — of many things that are wrong with this country.

Politicians are fighting over it. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, as feisty as ever in her return to the Senate, has found a way to skewer Fidel Ramos, the man she accused of cheating her in the 1992 presidential race.

Unlike President Arroyo, the senator doesn’t seem to have qualms about beso-beso with men other than her husband, even if it’s Ramos. But we can see now that their beso-beso last April was not kissing and making up.

You will read today the responses of Ramos and deposed President Joseph Estrada to Santiago’s accusations. It’s a bum steer — nakuryente si Miriam, Ramos said. Erap, for his part, emphasized that he froze the deal despite alleged earnest lobbying by his adviser Robert Aventajado on behalf of contractor Reghis Romero II of R-II Builders Inc.

Ramos and the other individuals accused by Santiago are at a disadvantage in a country where people tend to believe the worst of each other, where an accused is deemed guilty until he can prove his innocence.

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The public is no longer surprised by the scandal. Every major infrastructure project in this country in recent memory seems to have been tainted by anomalies real or imagined.

Every president in recent memory, upon assuming office, makes noises about clamping down on corruption and giving no special favors to relatives or friends.

Yet when it’s time to award a contract for big-ticket projects, all inaugural promises to the public are forgotten. Fat contracts and sweetheart deals become rewards for political support, with biddings often rigged and held chiefly for show.

Regulating agencies, whose heads are also beholden to political patrons, are often toothless. Due to this weakness, the Supreme Court often ends up as the final arbiter of business deals. But because of the glacial pace of justice in this country, it could take years before a case reaches the Supreme Court.

By the time the tribunal voids a contract with finality, the project is already finished, kickbacks have been spent or stashed away in numbered accounts abroad, and too much damage has been done. Sometimes the culprits have died or fled abroad, beyond the reach of Philippine law.

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What will happen to the Smokey Mountain reclamation project?

The Senate will conduct an investigation. A case is pending with the Supreme Court over the same project, filed by former solicitor general Francisco Chavez. Once the Senate probe is over, another case could be filed in court.

Those accused by Santiago could file counter-suits. Resolving these could take several more years.

By the time the case is resolved with finality, the reclamation project could be just another mammoth white elephant, rotting away like the NAIA Terminal III and the mothballed Bataan nuclear power plant.

At best the public will find partial use for the reclamation project. It could end up like the Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard, whose southern exit cannot even get decent paving. Or the Skyway, which was supposed to stretch all the way to Alabang in Muntinlupa but had to end abruptly in Bicutan.

Each time a big-ticket infrastructure project is awarded, the first question asked by a cynical public is, "Sino na naman ang kikita dito?" Who will make money out of this?

Since few people are stupid enough to leave a trail in influence peddling and kickbacks, the answer will often remain in the rumor mills.

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Smokey Mountain used to be a tourist attraction of sorts in Manila. Foreigners could often be seen getting their pictures taken with the mountain of garbage as a backdrop. Every story about poverty in the Philippines was accompanied by a picture of children and old women scavenging at the dump.

As a reporter I often visited the dump. You could tell when you were approaching the dump by the stink, which was discernible several kilometers away. Residents around the dump complained of respiratory problems. The stench stuck to hair and clothing the whole day. Burning garbage left a perpetual pall of smoke for several kilometers around the dump that stung the eyes.

Those who did not rely on scavenging for a living naturally welcomed the arrival of heavy equipment that leveled Smokey Mountain.

Critics expectedly said the removal of the mountain of garbage was merely cosmetic, that poverty did not disappear with the end of Smokey Mountain. But Ramos apparently believed in symbolism, thinking that the mountain of dump got in the way of the Filipino can-do attitude he was trying to promote.

So the mountain disappeared. The dumps in Payatas, Quezon City and San Mateo in Rizal absorbed the garbage from the city of Manila.

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These days you can see scavengers along Sucat Road in Parañaque, sifting through truckloads of garbage that are dumped every night along one of the city’s few major thoroughfares. The unloading of garbage and scavenging leaves only one lane for vehicular traffic.

Similar sights can be seen in other dumps around Metro Manila. None of the dumps has approached the size of Smokey Mountain, but photojournalists still take pictures of children scavenging through piles of garbage in the nation’s premier region.

Smokey Mountain disappeared long ago, but the nation is still poor. In fact it is the poorest in Southeast Asia, according to a United Nations agency, which is why the country has been singled out in the region for a special multimillion-dollar development aid from the UN.

The poverty can be attributed partly to the system breakdown that has fostered corruption and inefficiency, holding back everything from poll automation to the construction of infrastructure projects.

The Senate inquiry into the Smokey Mountain project should at least lead to much-needed reforms in the way we conduct business in this country. But this probe will be so poisoned with politics that it is bound to end up like most other Senate inquiries: nothing resolved, no lessons learned.