Lee Kuan Yew's lesson; Visit the Bureau of Mines and Geosciences Museum

I was surprised when I read an editorial from a local newspaper that praised Lee Kuan Yew for resigning from his cabinet post. That was fine. But it followed the praise by deprecating our own leaders who continue, it said, to “meddle” in politics.

I was in Singapore at the time when Lee Kuan Yew won his seat without opposition. What he is resigning from is his post as minister mentor. At 87, he must feel age creeping on him, more so because his wife died last year. So Lee Kuan Yew can be said to have been active in politics all these years. He has been running for his parliamentary seat every elections otherwise he could not have held the post of minister mentor.

But it is true that he told the press in the last elections, he was putting at stake his record as Singapore’s founding father at stake. The PAP was not actually defeated in the last election and he has made his point that he hopes Singaporeans will not forget what he has done for them.  

But times change and that is something even a great leader and a heroic man like Lee Kuan Yew will have to accept. This is the lesson he bequeaths. The opposition won only a few seats in the last elections but it is enough to show that there is a growing educated class that now want a say on how the government is run.

Mr. Lee, ever the practical man accepts the changing times and described the vote as a watershed not because there will be a new government in place but an opposition that is growing stronger. A two-party government is no longer far fetched even if both Mr. Lee and his son Prime Minister Lee had said that Singapore is best run as a one party government.

The change foreseen in the coming days has less to do with a two party government than it has with putting in younger ministers because the government ”should have a fresh clean slate”.

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The case in the Philippines against former leaders continuing to be active is a different matter altogether. It is true that some leaders are better off keeping out of politics, but there are others who help the country by continuing their vision when they were in office. A single term of six years is one of the chief causes of the lack of continuity and stability in the Philippines.

 I would certainly commend former president Fidel Ramos, for continuing his advocacies as well as for his tireless work to sell the Philippines as an investment haven. So yes he has a role to play as a statesman in the Philippine political scene that is quite different from Singapore.

As a constitutional reform advocate, any help for the cause is welcome and that seems to be what former Gloria Arroyo wants to continue to do when she ran and won a seat in the House. I know it is difficult to imagine but how I wish that Ramos and Arroyo could get together and espouse constitutional reform through the party system. That certainly should be considered and gives every reason for them to continue to be active in politics. The job is unfinished. I have nothing to say about other former presidents.

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I was enticed to visit the Bureau of Mines and Geosciences Museum by museum director Dr. Yolanda Maac-Aguilar and Philippine Mine Safety and Environment president Luis Sarmiento because there were many things I would learn from it – the age of the earth, rocks that were billions of years old, some of them coming from outer space, how and when the Philippines was separated from the Asian continent etc. etc. And most of all, she said, bring your grandchildren and tell them we also have stones identified as a dinosaur’s ‘poo-poo.’ So I went to the museum in Quezon City and was amazed at what I found there. It is sad that the public knows so little about the museum and the geological treasures it contains.

Much of the misunderstanding about conserving our geoheritage stems from this misinformation from people who would benefit by going there and understanding the treasures of the Philippines, how these can be preserved as well as used for economic benefits to the country. Dr. Aguilar has included a chapter on the Philippines in the book Geoheritage of East and Southeast Asia.

She names six geological monuments in the Philippines: The Montalban Gorge in Rizal, Taal Volcano in Batangas, Chocolate Hills in Bohol, Ilocos Norte Sand Dune, Hundred Islands in Pangasinan and Saint Paul’s Formation in Palawan.

Both critics and advocates of mining should visit the museum and be better informed. Dr. Aguilar will be glad to tour you around. Some of the stones and rocks on exhibit are billions of years old. They came from Japan who donated most of the exhibits. The Philippines is relatively young with its rocks on exhibit mostly only millions of years old.

For example she told me, there were media attacks on buildings that were damaged by Ondoy. She pointed to a map that showed that the Marikina River has moved and it did not come into the calculations of the developers. As for climate change, it would be good to know the history of our planet and how climate change occurs every so often that no amount of human intervention can stop or mitigate it.

After my visit, I realized that a lot of our problems and inability to make use of our resources comes from our lack of information. She recommends and hopes that the government will see the importance of geological knowledge.

At the end of the visit we called on Acting Director of the Bureau of Mines Leo Nasareno who agreed that an Information campaign was necessary to conservation by both the public and management organizations and administrators alike. There should be a greater dissemination of geological information and the first stop is to make the museum bigger and more accessible to the public, Dr. Aguilar said. We can seek the help of geological experts from other countries. We should have a decent geological museum so that Filipinos understand what they are talking about when they speak of conservation and climate change.