The curious poll case of Palawan

Incredibly RP’s 42,000 barangays have only these number of health personnel: 2,660 doctors, 3,544 nurses, and 16,964 midwives. As neglected as education, health catches no attention from local officials busy with petty projects or big kickbacks. This is especially so in Mimaropa (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, Palawan), Bicol, Western and Eastern Visayas, the Muslim Autonomous Region, and Zamboanga Peninsula. Being in the big city is no solace. The urban poor of Manila, Cebu and Davao are as uncared for as mountain tribe folk.

Obviously, as P-Noy’s health advisers say, docs need to be deployed to the barrio. One per 16 barangays cannot suffice, given the average 2,200 residents in each. The oversupply of nurses, who actually pay hospitals just to have work experience, has to be employed in barangay clinics. And in remote areas where health workers shun posting, locals must be trained in basic health care, clean food, and sanitation.

Naturally they’ll need bare apparatus and medicines. Local taxes, Pagcor-PCSO doles, and the national budget will never be enough. Private pharmaceutical donations and indigenous herbal treatments need melding, not clashing. Bashing big pharma or Filipino herbalists will get nowhere. Modern drugs treat killer diseases and conditions, but so do herbals, as cardiologist-health secretary Esperanza Cabral knows. Where there are no doctors, it’s herbs that save the day, as P-Noy campaigner and ex-health chief Jimmy Galvez Tan experienced.

* * *

Election protests cost big. The Comelec charges P500 to reopen a vote box, and P10 to recount a ballot. That’s why Mar Roxas would need P35 million to prove that three million “null votes” in 10,000 boxes would make him Vice President. Plus, legal fees, and expenses for transportation, food and lodging for the re-counters and watchers.

Some poll losers resort to petitioning to recall winning contenders. It entails the signature of 25 percent of the voters in the electoral jurisdiction. Petitioning itself is cheap. But if the recall succeeds, the loser must spend big to campaign against the incumbent. His chances dim if, aside from the recalled official, other candidates join in. Baby Pineda opted for an election rematch with Pampanga Gov. Ed Panlilio rather than pursuing recall.

Automated balloting has spawned another way of edging a foe out of the race: disqualification. Various ineligibilities can be cited: wrong age or citizenship, or false entries in the candidacy form. The usual is lack of residency — one year in the locale, for instance, where the candidate is running for office. Here the expense is much cheaper than in protest or recall. A candidate deals simply with the Comelec.

This is what’s happening in Palawan, where disqualifications were sought of running mates Baham Mitra for governor and Fems Reyes for vice. For the 2010 election both declared new residences in Aborlan town, after voting in the past in the capital of Puerto Princesa. Puerto has been elevated to highly urbanized status and so was to vote separately from the province. Mitra, outgoing three-term congressman of the southern district, is a son of Speaker Ramon Mitra Jr.; Reyes is wife of three-term Governor Joel.

Mitra handily beat businessman Pepito Alvarez, a new Palawan voter. Problem is the Comelec had debarred Mitra and Reyes.

There’s another twist. Alvarez’s nephew Franz ran independently of him, and topped the balloting for provincial board member. So if Reyes and Mitra are taken out of the picture, an Alvarez still will sit as governor.

* * *

Harbour Centre Port Terminal Inc. is getting hit from everywhere — Manila North Harbor, Tondo Smokey Mountain, Subic Freeport. In the last, cargo handlers have sued Subic authorities for allowing the giant operator entry. Last week they went on a media blitz, taking out full-page ads against Subic’s impending joint venture with Harbour Centre.

Foremost of the cargo handlers’ complaints is that Harbour Centre is not world class as it presents itself to be. Supposedly the firm does not have real experience with bulk cargo because it only bags port concessions then hires subcontractors for various operations. The joint venture with Subic fails to meet NEDA guidelines, they say, notably on previously holding a contract worth at least half the present one, or P3.27 billion of the P6.54-billion deal.

The cargo handlers also say Harbour Centre has no financial capacity for the Subic deal. Supposedly its capital is only P2 billion and net income P700 million in the past five years. This supposedly violates NEDA rules for 50-percent capitalization of the contract amount.

To the charges, Romero’s group simply retorts that it has not yet been awarded a joint venture. It continues to tell the existing contractors to pose a Swiss Challenge, a form of public bidding under the Build-Operate-Transfer Law. With no Swiss Challenge to a well-publicized project, Subic authorities say, the original proponent wins the bid, if the agency accepts the project.

Still other sectors are questioning the NEDA’s “concoction” of joint ventures as a valid form of B-O-T. They say they will work for its rescinding under the P-Noy admin.

* * *

 “Many who know the Gospel by heart destroy by their lives the heart of the Gospel. Many there are who never read the Gospel yet keep its message alive — in their hearts.” Shafts of Light, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ

* * *

E-mail: [email protected]