Two prime ministers on the ropes: Nope, not JDV in RP

Today a graduate. Tomorrow, unemployed! Don’t despair. That’s the way we felt when we graduated, too. After the party, we realized that we had to look for a job.

"More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of," the poet said. However, a good recommendation also helps.

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Today is President GMA’s birthday. Whether it’s happy or not depends on what newspaper she picks up to read. Or what television channel she switches on – by mistake.

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It makes sense, as is being suggested, that an Armed Forces Chief of Staff and a Police Director General and PNP Chief be both given a tenure of three years.

What can a Police Chief or an AFP Chief accomplish in just one year – with only 12 months between the Turn-over parade and the Farewell parade?

I say it’s about time, as La Presidenta is contemplating, that the revolving-door policy of "retiring" the chiefs of either command on their birthdays when retirement falls due in order to give way to the next-in-line who’s eagerly waiting for his turn doesn’t make for a better military or a more efficient police force.

But does GMA intend this new policy to be applied to the incumbents, or to the next two? May I propose that it be applied to the two now in place.

Weeks ago, this writer expressed the hope that La Gloria would extend the tenure of PNP Chief Arturo C. Lomibao (PMA ’72) who will have served only a year and a half when his "retirement" falls due on his 56th birthday this July 5. Lomibao is still "youthful" and vigorous.

What’s worrisome is that the "successor" who’s being pushed by powerful bosses in the government is a known "protector" of jueteng and a good friend of a notorious jueteng lord in Central Luzon.

As for AFP Chief, Gen. Gene Senga (also PMA ’72), he will be only 56 too when his retirement birthday falls on July 21. The rumored "next" man, already panting for the job has been claiming he "crushed" the aborted February 24 "coup plot" (untrue), and is scorned by many of his junior officers.

There are those who don’t much admire Gene Senga either, but at least we know his qualities and capabilities. I won’t say, as some grumble, he’s "the devil we know."

Both are loyal to GMA, which may prove to her their most endearing . . . well, traits.

One thing is clear, the politicians – through the Commission on Appointments – must not be given a say on who’s to lead our armed forces or the PNP. Under the current process, the Commission on Appointments screens the appointments of officers from colonel up to general in the military. Yesterday, I read in the newspapers that Surigao del Sur Rep. Prospero Pichay is furious with General Senga for proposing that only "generals", not colonels, go through the confirmation hurdle of the CA.

My view is that none of our ranking officers, whether colonel or general be subjected to the inquisition of the CA. Our armed forces leaders are "warriors" tasked to defend our Republic and the Constitution, not the lackeys of politicians. Let them do their duty, without being bullied by TRAPOS and being required to lick ass in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Opposition Senator Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel is wrong, for that matter, when he insists that not only our military leaders but the PNP Director General and other senior police officers of the 105,000 man police force be subject to Commission on Appointments approval.

Let’s protect our policemen, already subject to undue influence from politicos ranging from mayors to governors and congressmen, from being beholden to them in the matter of promotion. Too many cops are corrupt already owing to their ties with crooked politicians. I’m not saying the CA members are well, corrupt – but they’ve already demonstrated they can be bullies, clubbing Cabinet members and agency heads with the threat of reducing their budgets to P1-a-year only.

The "power of the purse," which is the Congressional prerogative is being blatantly wielded to compel Executive Branch officials to bend knee to House and Senate. We, the people, must not permit politicians to also utilize this weapon to cow policemen and soldiers into submission.

Not just the Opposition but the Defenders of GMA, Inc., would dearly love to brandish this club over our men-at-arms, too. If they do so there will be a backlash, I kid thee not.

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You may not have noticed a perceptive article in the April 3, 2006, issue of NEWSWEEK Magazine which asserted: "Massive Anti-Thaksin street protests underscore a growing disillusionment with democracy in Asia."

The article by George Wehrfritz and Joe Cochrane said: "It might look as if history were repeating itself: just as in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, defiant protesters have taken to Bangkok’s streets in a bid to oust a Thai leader they revile. Yet this time their nemesis isn’t a swaggering general who seized power in a coup, but a popular prime minister who won re-election in a landslide barely a year ago. Thaksin Shinawatra, say his critics, has abused state power to enrich himself and undermine representative government . . . ."

Now here’s the clincher. The two journalists went on to write that the frustration of the Thais "with the electoral system has echoes across the region’s youngest democracies. Protesters in the Philippines have similarly sought to oust an elected president, and even in South Korea and Taiwan, voters are increasingly tuning out a shrill and deadlocked political culture. Indeed, what Chu Yun-han, professor of Political Science at National Taiwan University (NTU), calls ‘democracy fatigue’ is spreading from Seoul to Jakarta."

"The disillusionment has grown because the social improvements people dreamed of when first casting their votes haven’t materialized. The East Asian Barometer, an annual comparative study of political attitudes in 10 East Asian nations, has recorded consistent dissatisfaction with democratic governance since 2001. According to a recent poll, just 41 percent of respondents in Taiwan, and 49 percent in South Korea, agree with the idea that ‘democracy is the best system under all circumstances.’ In the Philippines and Thailand, ‘sympathy for authoritarian alternatives runs so high,’ says Chu, that democracy rests ‘on a rather fluid and fragile foundation.’"

The March 27 edition of the same magazine NEWSWEEK, has an equally fascinating piece by Ruchir Sharma, co-head of global emerging markets at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, entitled "Why Thaksin is Tanking."

Sharma analyses why there is what he calls "an elitist uprising" centered in Bangkok, home to six million of Thailand’s 65 million people "and most of its real wealth."

He asserted that thousands of middle- and upper-class Thais are angered by, among other things, the economy’s poor performance; Thailand "has been among the worst performing emerging markets for two years running."

During his six years in office, Sharma points out, Thaksin never quite endeared himself to the Bangkok crowd. "He is contemptuous of the old-style politicians who long courted the capital’s elite, only to see their power base crumble time and again."

Here’s an interesting sidelight stressed by Sharma which ought to fascinate those who insist that Cha-cha, or fast-tracked Charter change, will save our country.

He wrote: "In the last 75 years, Thailand has seen 18 coup attempts and 17 new Constitutions. Thaksin came to power in 2001 focused on winning votes among the rural majority, inspiring hopes of stability. Following a decline in the military’s role in government affairs and the drafting of a new Constitution in the 1990s, there was a chance that real democracy would finally take hold. The Bangkok elite was willing to give Thaksin a chance at the start, hoping that his impressive credentials as a businessman would help him deliver on reforms. But they’ve since come to view him as a leader with authoritarian impulses, willing to exploit loopholes in the law to unfairly cement his hold on power and benefit his family."

(GMA, please note. This is a pitfall to be scrupulously avoided, if you wish to endure.)

"The breaking point," NEWSWEEK said, "came in January, when Thaksin’s son sold his family’s personal stake in the conglomerate Shin Corp. for a huge profit just days after the passage of a new law that allowed him to do so without paying taxes."

The truth is that most Thais in the urban centers never believed Thaksin had really "divested" himself of his business holdings when he entered politics. When he "sold" his ruling stock in Shin Corp., one of those who "bought" shares, in addition to his household help, was the family driver.

The last straw, of course, was the runaway US$1.9 billion the "family" earned, tax-free, when it sold the controlling stock in Shin Corp. to the Singapore government’s purchasing arm, Temasek Holdings. This was called insensate "greed". Indeed, businessmen complained that while the Thaksin government had taxed them heavily in recent years, this fast-break bonanza for his clan had been cunningly devised to be tax-free.

Last Sunday’s snap elections, which were boycotted by the three leading Opposition parties, were a terrible setback for Thaksin, even though he claims "victory" – of sorts. Running unopposed in many constituents, his Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party didn’t even garner 50 percent of the votes cast, a mere percentage of the country’s 45 million eligible voters. This was in sharp contrast to Thaksin’s landslide election victory in February 2005. What a difference a year makes.

In Bangkok, of the 2.63 million votes cast, Thai Rak Thai got less than 46 percent of the votes cast, while – as the Financial Times pointed out yesterday – the "No" votes and spoiled ballots – "many had anti-Thaksin messages scrawled on them" – totalled 54 percent.

How will this confusion and crisis be resolved? Thaksin underscores he will wait until the final results are tallied, but the Bangkok Post has already announced that "the huge rallies and loud calls for Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to resign will resume by Friday, as if nothing happened."

Sadly, business in Thailand is suffering from the almost daily demonstrations in the capital – while tourism, 30 percent "up" before the street protests began, is beginning to falter.

The famous Thai bahala-na-type expression is Mai pen rai" (Never mind). Alas, the crisis is not something Thais can continue to ignore. It’s not sanuk. It could prove disastrous for a nation which once registered 10 percent growth annually.

GMA, it seems, is – would you believe – much better off than Thaksin who once upon a time looked invincible. Thak-baby is looking more vulnerable by the day.

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Another Prime Minister, once so cool and self-possessed, is on the ropes, too.

This is France’s P.M. Dominique de Villepin, who hung tough too long on his unpopular "first job contract" (CPE), a labor reform law which would have entitled employers to fire employees under 26 years of age within the first two years of employment. For two months of increasing violence in the universities and streets, then in service sectors, millions of students, young people and trade unionists took to the streets in Paris and other urban centers throughout the country to angrily protest de Villepin’s measure.

De Villepin’s sponsor, French President Jacques Chirac, who wasn’t nimble enough to disown his protegé but tried to uphold him (offering the mob the weak "compromise" of reducing the firing-period to one year) suffered a drop in credibility, too. Chirac’s approval rating fell to the lowest of any President in 15 years, with 56 percent of those polled by the daily Le Parisien declaring his concessions had not gone far enough.

More strikes are now in prospect, in the transit sector as well as in Air France, the national air carrier.

De Villepin, who had hoped to run for President (with the outgoing Chirac’s support) next year has seen his chances dwindle disastrously.

The most gleeful of all is Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, President Chirac’s bete noir, and de Villepin’s rival in the Presidential stakes. As president of the ruling UMP party (the Gaullists, in street parlance), the hardline Sarkozy now appears the moderate, calling from the start for the offending CPE to be suspended – and now tasked by a despairing Chirac to find a way out of the conundrum.

The left-leaning newspaper, Le Monde (The World) chortled that political authority had slipped from the floundering Prime Minister’s office to that of his rival Sarkozy, "marking an unprecedented shift of power in the history of the Fifth Republic."

Opposition spokesman Julien Dray of the Socialist Party denounced the way, the FT noted, that Sarkozy had in effect taken over the government. "From now on," he groused, "we have a virtual prime minister and a real one. They have kept Dominique de Villepin in his post but stripped him of all scope for doing anything."

Do you think Philippine politics is crazy? Tant pis. The French are doing us one better. The French have an expression: "C’est logique! C’est tout a fait Cartesien!"

You bet. They always put Descartes before the horse. But they manage to do it in style.