SLEx toll hike made bigger by cost of graft

CLARK FIELD (PLDT/WeRoam) — The Big Powers would not allow it, I am sure, but still this tired kibitzer insists on musing about the prospects of war and peace in the Korean peninsula.

Would the prospects of a shooting war in divided Korea and vicinity be lessened if the United States and China stepped back simultaneously from behind their kiddie proxies in the maneuvering for control over that critical rim of the Asian continent?

I mean, if the US and China were to leave alone South Korea and North Korea and sort out their differences by themselves, would the two brawling brothers still make noise and war?

Maybe they won’t, but maybe they would still do, especially with the war merchant’s blood-stained boot already inserted in the slightly opened door to perdition.

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PRIMITIVE WARFARE: But my guess, more of a hope actually, is that if left alone the two estranged brothers would be less inclined to attack the other, especially with all that confidence-building, including family reunions, that had been going on.

Despite the harsh realities of geopolitics, efforts should not flag in trying to build up world opinion for the bullies of the world to leave us small tykes alone and square off by ourselves.

Some nights ago, there was this old movie on TV that showed screaming tribesmen lunging at each other with stones and sticks, some of them with pointed ends that looked like spears.

The war scene was still bloody and quite raw and a throwback to the olden times, but that could still qualify as a negative way of reducing the world’s galloping population and, while primitive, settling the score between tribes, and even among nations.

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SQUARING OFF: Flashback to the last Iraqi war, which spun off the American invasion of that biblical land between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers in what was once Mesopotamia.

What if the various ethno-religious groups in Iraq were left to themselves by the US? What if Baghdad did not have American-type of democracy forced on it by US President George W. Bush while war merchants and the oil giants lurked in the shadows?

Would it not have been simpler and less conducive to igniting wider wars if, for instance, Bush and Sadddam Hussein, his opposite number in Iraq, were made to settle things by themselves?

I was hoping that somebody, maybe the United Nations which is committed to the pacific settlement of conflicts, to sponsor a grand boxing bout – or even a bone-crushing UFC match, between Bush and Saddam at the Madison Square Garden in New York.

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WE, THE PEOPLE: Relations among nations are on at least two levels: one on the government-to-government level and another on the people-to-people plane. Many times, while our governments or leaders wage war, we the people plead for peace.

I am sure the Americans and the Iraqis did not want war. But their leaders (or maybe just one of them) egged on by the war merchants was itching to fight. Why did not the two machos, Bush and Saddam, do the fighting and not drag everybody else into the fray?

That proposed make-or-break bout in Manhattan, several blocks away from the UN headquarters, could have raised tons of money for rebuilding war-ravaged communities and helping victims of conflict get back on their feet.

If the two leaders did have the balls to go up the ring and fight, why should they have the gall to unleash their military on the other nation?

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NUCLEAR-NUCLEAR: This, of course, is simplistic, maybe even naïve, thinking. But there comes a time when we the people should assert ourselves and curb the sadistic and warlike tendencies of our leaders and their gangmates.

Yesterday, a US supercarrier and a South Korean destroyer took up fighting position in the Yellow Sea for joint military exercises meant to tell Pyongyang to cool down and that the mighty US is ready to defend its South Korean client.

As expected, China, the big brother of Pyongyang, entered the scene. It has a proposal to hold talks in early December among regional powers involved in nuclear disarmament talks. Note “powers” – which means we small fry are not included.

Note also that they are now talking of nuclear-nuclear. Just recently, North Korea revealed that it has a new uranium-enrichment facility, so cuidao kayo diyan!

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ISSUE ADVISORIES: This is an opening for the Philippines, long the butt of insulting advisories, to issue its own advisory warning Filipinos from journeying to Korea while war clouds are hovering over the peninsula.

While at it, Malacañang could play tit-for-tat and issue its own advisories against Pinoys travelling to the US, China, the Middle East and other countries where one’s safety is not that certain.

I wonder how the freezing by the Aquino administration of Filipino workers’ deployment in Korea will affect ongoing foreign job-generation projects?

Just last September, Pampanga Gov. Lilia Pineda worked it out that some 2,700 Capampangans were given permits for Korean language tests facilitated by the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency.

Successful applicants will be on waiting lists for employment in Korea. Before that, when Pineda was still plain citizen, she helped no less than 2,000 cabalens find jobs there.

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TOLL ISSUE: In scrutinizing the increased toll in the South Luzon Expressway, regulatory agencies and consumer watchdogs should look into the contributory effects of graft on the rates.

There should be an effort to determine and quantify that part of the rate and the impending toll increase is traceable to the millions reportedly paid certain officials and their runners to expedite the contracts.

Businessmen will recover the high cost of graft from the end-users of their projects. They will not pay it from their own funds or profits.

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