Contagion

Over two decades ago, I worked on the team of the progressive Arab intellectual Samir Amin. Over coffee, in between grueling workshops, he would discuss his vision of democratic Arab societies. He observed our Edsa Revolution with great interest and imagined the people of the various Arab states rising with the same popular heroism one day.

At that time, I was incredulous. I could not help thinking this exiled radical thinker had lost touch with his homeland. The women were in veils, the mullahs were in power. Tin can tyrants ruled with iron fists. Funny dictators, like Libya’s Gadhafi, maintained airtight police states that employed cruelty with horrible regularity.

Those who wanted freedom voted with their feet. They fled the repression and settled in Europe. Samir was one of those.

I have not kept touch with Samir since those days when we worked together at the United Nations University. I have also travelled beyond the ideological positions we used to share. If he survives, I am quite sure he is pleased with what is happening — although he would need to revise his own philosophical position to fully grasp the significance of what is happening.

At the time we talked regularly, when I was more an apprentice to this guru, Samir preached the gospel of disconnecting the post-colonial societies from the world capitalist system. The upheavals we have seen the past few weeks represent more the desire of young Arabs to reconnect with the 21st century by disposing of regimes born in the 20th.

I realize that the term “democratic revolution” lost some currency here because it was used, in a most Orwellian way, by the Marcos dictatorship to legitimize itself. “Democratic revolution”, however, is the best way to describe what is happening in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya and possibly in other states like Jordan, Algeria and, yes, Syria. It is now eminently thinkable for democratic risings to happen in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The best reading of the situation, I think, was made by a US-based Egyptian intellectual who said that the Arab countries where this contagion of democratic upheavals are happening was due to the delayed entry of these societies into the mainstream of globalization. This delayed entry made economies, such as Egypt’s, unable to feasibly absorb the next generation into the economic mainstream. The large mass of highly literate but unemployed young people constituted the social base for the uprisings we now see occurring like a wild contagion in the Arab world — and possibly beyond.

The tyrant in Tunis fled to Saudi Arabia. Mubarak is out of Cairo. The monarchy in Bahrain decided last week it was far better to negotiate with the protestors than indulge in futile repression of its own people. There are wild rumors in Tripoli that Gadhafi is preparing to flee, possibly to Venezuela where he could join that other tyrannical funnyman Hugo Chavez for afternoon tea.

The situation in Libya is, of course, far from amusing. Gadhafi ordered his air force to bomb the demonstrations. The eastern cities have been taken over by anti-Gadhafi forces. Libyan pilots, rather that follow orders to bomb their own people, defected to Malta. Libyan ambassadors have withdrawn their loyalty to Gadhafi and denounced as genocide the repressive tactics employed by a dying dictatorship.

The final outcome is clear. The global community, however, needs to move urgently to prevent the genocide this lunatic Gadhafi seems bent on unleashing. Hopefully, the UN Security Council will act decisively this time to prevent wholesale slaughter of unarmed Libyan democrats.

Urgent upgrade

With all the excitement going on, we might overlook the fact that our airports have been rated unsafe by the various international civil aviation organizations. There is no way we can push our tourism program if international travellers are constantly warned about the decrepit condition of our airport equipment and the hazards of flying into these islands.

The US recently downgraded its rating for Philippine civil aviation. The European Union has blacklisted Philippine carriers from flying into its airspace. Our own air traffic controllers now speak of a “black hole” in Philippine airspace where inadequate radar coverage makes it impossible to track planes properly.

From the way our ratings are sinking, foreign travellers probably feel safer going to the Bermuda triangle than flying into Philippine airspace.

Since 2008, thanks to a Japanese grant, we have been able to map out modernization plans monitoring our air traffic. The plan calls for immediate replacement of the 14-year old air traffic management system we have in place. Recall that when this old system failed last year, all air traffic to the NAIA was diverted to Clark. It is a system that now runs on borrowed parts.

For over two years now, our transport authorities have conducted open bidding based on the best specifications for a new Communication, Navigation and Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) system. That transparent and professional process eventually awarded the $200 million contract to a joint venture composed of Thales-Australia and Sumitomo Corporation. This was the lowest bid submitted by the top-notch consortium.

Thales-Australia supplies and maintains air traffic management systems to Australia, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam as well as other countries in Europe and South America. Industry experts are quite satisfied with the credentials of the winning bidders.

However, the DOTC has been dragging its feet on finally inking the contract. According to the grapevine, some newly influential vested interests are looking into snatching the project from the legitimate winning bidders in favor of some new players with spotty technical records.

While the DOTC stalls the outcome of a process conducted entirely aboveboard, our old air traffic system puts all air travellers in peril and our tourism program in limbo. Any further delay will encourage politicization of what is properly a technical process.