SONA

Down with the flu, I watched on television the delivery of a "different" State of the Nation message. Aside from the substance of the address, the difference was provided by the use of power point graphics and the presence of Pinoys who have demonstrated exceptional skills in their fields.

When the announcement was made days before that "idols" like Manny Paquiao would figure in the SONA, I thought Manny would be punching his way up to the podium where stood the President. Fortunately such was not the case; the President made mention of Paquiao’s achievement, and the boxer, dressed in a snazzy barong, and seated among the ambassadors and cabinet men, stood up, smiled, and waved to the crowd.

The presence of Paquiao, et. al was more believable than the gimmick used in the President’s SONA last year. The story of three boys sailing paper boats bearing messages for the President was just too good to be true. Anyway.

Last Monday’s message proved several things: 1) The President, looking calm and self-assured, was clearly a survivor of man-made and natural calamities (abandonment by her once-trusted Cabinet members, impeachment attempts, coup tries, and disasters such as the Leyte landslide); 2) Her source of optimism provided by a substantial contribution from the United States government to the Philippines’ anti-terrorist effort, a strong peso, a lower unemployment rate, lessened corruption, less bureaucratic impediments; 3) An ambitious program of action that calls for the organization of the country into development zones, and 4) A call for foes and allies to unite and work for the good of the nation.

The President’s critics had a field day smashing her program of action at TV interviews, saying it would cost a trillion pesos, something that the country does not have. The President acknowledged the cost of this vision, and said she would be pleased if half of it would be realized by 2010, her last year in office.

Detractors would have wanted the President to say something about the possible corruption charge of Jocelyn Bolante, former Undersecretary of Agriculture, and the Garci case. I don’t think the President and her co-speechmakers would have found mentioning those cases helpful to the SONA.

But I personally would have wanted mention of a population policy, her vision of an effective educational system, and the successful conclusion of the peace negotiations between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (which the President had announced in her previous SONA would happen last year).

The SONA’s delivery is over. Let’s wait what happens. Will Congress make it hard for the President to fulfill her promises? Would the opposition block the success of her programs? The big question is: would the President’s foes ever find the courage to stop protesting and start letting this nation move forward?

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ANOTHER WAR is brewing at Biak na Bato in Bulacan. One will recall that Biak na Bato is famous as the place where the leaders of the Katipunan revolution held their last stand in 1897. Today, another "war" is being waged there – the "war" to preserve the Biak na Bato reservation and its surrounding area from being ravaged by illegal miners, destroying the environment and endangering the lives and properties of inhabitants of the locality.

The "war" pits Environment Secretary Angelo T. Reyes against Bulacan Gov. Josie dela Cruz. Last July 12, Secretary Reyes issued an order suspending all quarry operations at Biak na Bato pending a wider investigation into the legality and environmental effects of the mining activities of small-scale miners and the full compliance by a mining corporation of certain requirements.

The governor launched a protracted word war against the Secretary. It turns out the Secretary was forced to issue the order after the Rosemoor Mining Corporation, which has a valid Mineral Production Sharing Agreement (MPSA) with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) filed a complaint against the governor and other provincial officials for alleged "plunder" of mineral resources, particularly the rare Tea Rose marble found in Biak na Bato, by granting illegal quarry permits to small-scale miners and a dummy corporation called Tea Rose Marble Corporation, said to be controlled by a relative of the governor.

Another mining corporation, Atlantic, accused the provincial government of illegally favoring local small-scale miners in granting permits for an area to which the company has a better right since it filed its application ahead of the small mining operators.

DENR investigations showed that four small-scale miners had been granted quarry permits by the provincial government without clearance from the DENR’s Mines and Geophysical Bureau (MGB), which is authorized under the mining law to provide such clearance for the protection of the environment. Rosemoor Corporation complained that the small-scale miners were using dynamite to blast the quarries for the extraction of the marble.

Reyes, however, did not stop at canceling the illegal quarry permits of the miners. He also suspended the permit to quarry of Rosemoor Corporation after finding certain lapses in its operations and for its deficiency in the payment of taxes to the national government.

Governor Dela Cruz has accused the Secretary in various media forums of being biased in favor of Rosemoor. She also complained that Rosemoor’s operations were merely suspended, while those of the small-scale miners were stopped upon cancellation of their quarry permits. But DENR has pointed out that Rosemoor has a valid MPSA, which has been sustained by the courts and which has a fixed period of 25 years for its validity. Hence, DENR cannot cancel the permit without violating the priority rights of the corporation.

Secretary Reyes, who had remained silent until the governor’s attacks through the media, has finally come out to say that instead of warring against the DENR, Gov. Dela Cruz "should cooperate with it in protecting the natural environment of Biak Na Bato and its surrounding lands and communities. That is, if she really is concerned for the safety and welfare of her constituents."

TOMORROW, the Philippine STAR community will celebrate the paper’s 20th founding anniversary. As of this writing, 200-page paper has been rolling off the presses, heralding the growth and success of the publication, and demonstrating the appreciation of the advertising and public relations industries through ads and congratulatory messages. The paper’s rank and file employees, editors and columnists and executives have been celebrating the happy occasion, and remembering the founding of the paper by the late Betty Go-Belmonte, the current publisher and chairman of the board Max V. Soliven, and the late Art Borjal.

In a previous column, I wrote about Betty, who had agreed, 20 years ago, to help form and run the paper after praying long and hard about it. As in everything she did, Betty made decisions after reflecting and praying about them.

Betty had been a close friend of mine. We constantly bumped into each other at the Cosmopolitan Church or the Church of the Risen Lord at the UP in Diliman. She was thoughtful and caring. This I experienced a number of times. When she learned I had cancer, she immediately offered to send me to a US hospital for chemotherapy if it was called for, at her expense. Fortunately, I had no need of that, but Betty defrayed, personally, and through the company’s Medicard benefits, nearly all my hospital expenses. Betty was like that, helping those in need not only financially, but with her prayers and words of comfort.

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My email: [email protected]