And for the first day of the year, I am thankful that I survived last night’s traditional noisemaking revelry during the countdown of the last hours of 2006. I put on earplugs to protect my eardrums from the loud bangs of firecrackers and I had to wear surgical mask to protect me from any allergy-triggered asthma attack. Other than these gadgets, our family heartily greeted the New Year despite these deafening firecracker bangs and pyrotechnics that filled the air with so much smoke.
The year just past was really about survival. That was the central theme of the series of year-ender reports that The STAR came out over the last few days. Indeed, the biggest survivors of 2006 are we, the Filipinos ourselves. We survived three super typhoons that wrought destruction in our lives this year from Milenyo, Reming and Senyang that visited the Philippines successively one after the other. And most of all, we survived this government that raised our revised value added tax (RVAT) from 10 to 12 percent and imposed this tax on our electricity and petroleum products which we have been paying for one year now since the RVAT Law took effect Jan.1 last year.
The next biggest survivor is President Arroyo who defied the odds of the second most serious power grab attempt against her in the February Marines standoff at Fort Bonifacio, Makati City and the second impeachment proceedings in Congress in July last year.
Even as she emerged unscathed on these two major events that rocked her hold in office, President Arroyo steered herself to safer grounds at the height of intensified campaign to amend the country’s 1987 Constitution. By whatever mode of the Charter change (Cha-cha), if any of it had succeeded last year, she could have been reduced to power sharing with a Prime Minister, if not cut short her term earlier than June 2010.
And the third biggest survivor of 2006 is the Senate as institution. Speaker Jose de Venecia, aided by the solid administration bloc at the House of Representatives, nearly completed his Constituent Assembly (con-ass) bid to carry out the shift to unicameral legislature and parliamentary system. What saved the Senate from extinction was the timely transition from all out opposition Senate leadership of erstwhile Senate president Franklin Drilon to less combative Senate president Manuel Villar.
In the meantime, we could only hope that when Congress resume its sessions this Jan.22, both chambers would be more productive to finally pass into law the more urgent national and local bills. As per the joint calendar of both chambers, the lawmakers will start their recess this Feb.10 to enable them to hit the election campaign trail. The 13th Congress will hold the sine die sessions from June 4 to 8 and adjourn.
So for the first six months of this year, without any aid of crystal ball, I can see the coast is clear for President Arroyo to govern with the least of distractions from any impeach or Cha-cha movers. Obviously, because this is a period when everyone is preoccupied with the May 14, 2007 elections. That is, if the scheduled elections push through.
But given the history of election-related violence in our country, we anticipate with dread and apprehension the next few months as the campaign heats up. Assassinations of politicians have started rather early, the first case of which was the murder of the late Abra Congressman Luis Bersamin Jr. last Dec.16.
The Arroyo administration is facing 2007 with a huge political capital generated by a very strong Philippine economy for the year just past. Although no budget law for 2007 was passed by Congress, the government, however, would be able to draw strength from the resurgent peso, the strong economic fundamentals, the higher tax and revenue collections, among other good tidings from previous year’s good performance of the Philippine economy.
Internationally though, President Arroyo has a lot of making up to do to rebuild the stature of the Philippines after the controversial postponement of the Leaders’ Summit of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Cebu last month. Up to now, the official reason of the postponement, super typhoon "Senyang", remains unacceptable to cynics and skeptics, especially the Arroyo critics. Hopefully, the ASEAN Leaders’ summit rescheduled this Jan.11 to 15, also to be held in Cebu, would finally proceed without any more hitches. Terror threats aside, we might run out of excuses.
And before the year 2006 ended, the Arroyo administration finally found the courage to implement its treaty obligations under the RP-US Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and released from his Makati City jail detention Lance Cpl.Daniel Smith back to the custody of the US Embassy in Manila while awaiting appeal of his rape conviction before the Philippine courts. "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Clause in the VFA!"
What fascinated me about our usual ways of New Year merry-making was the fact that Filipinos, from all walks of life, were blasting away their money for these firecrackers and pyrotechnics. These firecrackers and pyrotechnics certainly do not come cheap. But these did not stop even poor families from also squandering their money in firecrackers. Who says more Filipinos suffer hunger?
In fact, families and people spending their Christmas and New Year get-together filled the malls and restaurants all over Metro Manila. Families trekked to restaurants obviously because it is less time-consuming and less efforts for working mothers like me to whip up a feast. I certainly do not have the luxury of time to cook specialty foods, not to mention, I must admit, that I am not exactly a good cook. I took my family to a restaurant and spared myself, or rather them from the agony of my cooking.
This reminded me of a very funny pun about a guy who put up a brand name of a restaurant boasting about the food they serve as something close to home cooking by his mother: "Cooking ng Ina Ko." Not too long after, others followed the success of his growing popular restaurant and came up with "Cooking ng Ina Mo!" restaurant. The restaurant craze spread out all over the place and is named "Cooking ng Ina "Niyong Lahat!’ That’s just a joke. Happy New Year eating to everyone!