Something different in the air

After the still unexplained explosion in Glorietta, next day’s bombing in Congress, one would think well enough is enough and just give up. Not to be outdone, the usual do-gooders published a petition asking President GMA and Vice-President Noli de Castro to resign and hold snap elections. At the back of this political turmoil was an 11-year old girl who committed suicide allegedly because of her family’s poverty, this right after the ZTE controversy. According to this calculation she is the apt symbol of conditions in the country today because of corruption and immorality in government. Ergo the government is to blame for her suicide. That would have been a potent symbol of public dissatisfaction. Add to this the recent Pulse Survey which confirmed that the President has become even more unpopular based on their survey of Filipinos (at least those asked with their own particular set of questions to get the desired result, mind you!)  All the ingredients were in place to provoke yet another EDSA, coup or general uprising.

Yet nothing of the sort happened. Indeed, after the bombing in Congress, the Philippine Stock Exchange registered the highest gains during the week. It may have gone down the previous day but it was not because of local political noises but because of worries in the continuing sub-prime mortgage crisis and its effect on the US economy.

What does all this mean? My own interpretation is that Filipinos are changing and collectively their attitudes are behind that “different something in the air.” It is not that they do not care about alleged government corruption or immorality. They do. Call it more mature or more detached, but Filipinos are now able to separate political intramurals from more fulfilling tasks. They want to get on with their lives and one way to do this is to learn to live with quarrelling politicians as part of living in a democracy.

But it is one thing to decry corruption and another to rev up indignation as one columnist put it into a ‘critical mass’ to bring down government. Filipinos today are making distinctions instinctively because they know it is for the better. They know that EDSAs are not solutions and putting another set of politicians in power is no guarantee they will not do the same.

This ‘different something in the air’ is so infectious that Bob Broadfoot, managing director of the Hong Kong-based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy reports that foreign investors reacted with the same surprising calm after the bombing. Surprising because it is the received wisdom that “a lack of political stability and a national fascination with political intrigue have long been among the factors discouraging foreign investment.” Since Arroyo came to office six years ago, there have been two coup attempts and continuing congressional impeachment attempts.

Broadfoot thinks that “for experienced foreign investors, the tendency for Manila’s feisty politicians to engage in endless legal battles while the country lurches from one political crisis to another has itself become a sort of normality.”

Most foreigners (in the country) don’t really care about Erap’s pardon. They resigned themselves to such things long ago and have adjusted their expectations accordingly, he says. But the saddest thing about the pardon is not so much that it has reinforced the low expectations of foreigners but that it has once again focused international attention on the country’s weaknesses.

He adds something that should cheer all of us except the professional agitators. “The reality is that the Philippines does have a good story to tell, at least in terms of its economic performance. The economy grew 7.5 percent in the second quarter of this year — the fastest pace in two decades as the government spent more on roads and schools — consumer demand rose and the construction sector boomed. A slowdown is expected in the second half, partly as a result of high oil prices, but the overall health is not in any doubt. Not surprisingly, the peso has strengthened against the US dollar, reaching a seven-year high last month. The Philippine Stock Exchange Index also jumped 28 percent in the first nine months. And the increasing influx of remittances from Filipinos working abroad is limiting the country’s downside risks in a way that almost no other Asian state enjoys. It is, after all, the type of capital that is unlikely to stop coming in if there is any change of sentiment towards Asia in general.” By the way this report came from the Straits Times not from our media who will hesitate to say anything good about our country. They might look sissy or worse branded as government lapdogs.

Soros and Joey de Venecia. I was able to talk to Joey the other day and I am happy to report that although he mentioned George Soros in his Senate testimony it had nothing to do with the BOT proposal of Amsterdam Holdings for a nationwide broadband network. He told this column that he mentioned Soros because he was an investor in Multimedia, a company he has since sold. Soros’ participation came through Next Century Fund, a hedge fund then run by former Secretary Vince Perez. He wanted to impress on the senators that he was not making an empty proposal and that he would have the necessary funding for it if indeed the project had been awarded to him. That explains Joey’s side. He looked to Soros simply as a potential investor that he could tap, among others. That, of course, does not mean (and he is willing to accept as much), that a Soros capital entry into the project would not have political implications.

Finally, the Asian Century. I met some of the Arab ambassadors at the Belgian National Day reception and asked jokingly if I could break into the ‘Arab league’ for a moment to tell them how thrilled I was on the news that Alibaba.com has been launched in the Hong Kong stock exchange. It set a record raising more than $1.5 billion because of the unprecedented interest among investors. I have long talked to my Arab friends to look to direct investments in Asia. Well there it is a vehicle they could use. The report added that the website is China’s fastest-growing online business-to-business marketplace. “The optimism surrounding its IPO is due mainly to gravity-defying equity markets and booming corporate activity across Asia, which has prompted some cheerleaders to suggest that the region’s economies are ‘decoupling’ from those of the west — and in particular the US, traditionally the world’s economic locomotive.“