Don't just build those toilets, maintain them

Even before the Supreme Court en banc commenced Tuesday pickets hailed Chief Justice Renato Corona as “champion of agrarian reform.” The urge to acknowledge the cheers outside the SC building in Baguio must have been strong. He appeared at the second floor veranda to view the dozens of peasants who had traveled all the way from Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac. But then somebody must have given a wet blanket advice: do not take credit for the subsequent 14-0 SC vote to distribute the land to the tillers. Why? Because it will contradict your impeachment trial defense that, even as CJ, yours is but one vote and cannot impel the other justices. Two of three impeachment raps filed by congressmen-allies of President Noynoy Aquino would be affected. These are for Corona’s alleged swaying of justices to reverse, on a mere letter from a lawyer-friend, a three-year-old ruling to rehire 1,800 fired airline flight attendants; and to almost let his patron, former President Gloria Arroyo, flee abroad from non-bailable criminal charges. Aquino’s maternal kin, the Cojuangcos, own the 5,000-hectare sugar estate.

So Corona came out with the politic line: “I am not a champion. We just did what is right and fair, that is, social justice as ordained by the Constitution.” For good measure, he answered a reporter’s loaded question if, because of the ruling, he expected retaliation from the Aquino administration. “Sigurado (Surely),” he said.

Last Tuesday’s 14-0 ruling was not new. It was a reiteration of a similar SC vote last November to parcel out Hacienda Luisita to 12,000 farm hands. If there’s any champion, it could be the entire SC, including three appointee-justices of Aquino who nonetheless voted to take the land away from the Cojuangcos. Champion too perhaps is Aquino’s late mother, President Cory, who had pushed for agrarian reform. The truest champions are the tillers who steadfastly fought for their social right.

What was new Tuesday was a separate 8-6 decision. The majority voted to compensate the Cojuangcos P200 million, under the 1989 valuation of sugar lands when Cory’s agrarian reform was enacted. The minority, including Aquino’s appointees, wanted it at P5 billion, based on the 2006 sale price of a hundred hacienda hectares to the government for a highway construction. Corona voted with the majority. He can be credited for saving the government P4.8 billion.

Speaking of P200 million, that’s half the amount of personal wealth that the Ombudsman wants Corona to explain. Citing complaints filed with its office, the anti-graft agency has asked him about $10 million (P425 million) in hidden wealth, some in peso deposits and real estate in Metro Manila and California, but most in dollar accounts. It looks like the Ombudsman is not about to get any explanation. Corona’s lawyer not only tersely has denied such hidden assets, but also opined that the Ombudsman has no jurisdiction over the CJ. In a petition before the SC, Corona also is seeking to quash the impeachment allegedly for hastiness.

The impunity is boundless. Corona’s lawyer also has stated that he would file his annual sworn Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth by today. But he will not disclose it, under a 1989 SC memo, despite the provision in the Constitution he has sworn to uphold. It doesn’t matter to him that the first of three impeachment charges against him is for non-declaration and undervaluation of substantial assets, and non-disclosure of SALNs.

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An Atenean and a La Sallian were in the men’s room. Depending on which schoolboy is telling the story, after they finished one proceeded to the sink while the other went straight for the exit. The first guy said, “Hey, didn’t they teach you in (name of school) to wash your hands after peeing?” The second snapped back, “No, what they taught us was not to pee in our hands.”

That toilet humor from the most exclusive universities of the land somehow tells of how Filipinos belittle basic sanitation. And it is most visible in the state of public toilets. The pink urinals all over Metro Manila reveal how bureaucrats think. They cover men who relieve themselves on trees and fences, but do not provide water for hand wash nor drainage for the urine. And they care not about women who also need to go; hence, no such hiding places for them. And why do men have to shamelessly pull out their things in public in the first place? Is it because of lack of breeding, or of public toilets to begin with?

Transportation Sec. Mar Roxas believes it’s the second reason. And due to first-hand experience — he needed to go while inspecting the Manila International Airport, and was ushered not to the nearest toilet but to the general manager’s no less — he’s doing something about it. All agencies under his department that transact business with the public will have public toilets. He is to erect 231 new and refurbish 786 old ones. That would mean all airports, seaports, Land Transportation Office branches.

We wish Roxas luck, albeit with lots of pessimism. We have seen such initiatives before, and they’ve proven to be ningas-cogon (no follow through). One such was the compulsion, in the name of tourism, for all gasoline stations along MacArthur Highway north of Manila to have toilets. The owners complied alright, but the toilets were always dirty and stinky because there was no running water in most towns. Roxas is talking about saving the taxpayer 35 percent, from P66 million to P40 million, to purchase the toilet fixtures. But will the government include in his department’s future budgets the outlays for repairs, maintenance, water, toilet paper, hand soap, paper towels, and hand driers? Maybe it would, but what if finicky Roxas departs in 2016 for a presidential run, would his successor be as conscious of sanitation?

Still, we pray that other Cabinet members follow Roxas’s example of providing public washrooms. Remember the basics: drainage, ventilation, water, lights, locks, toilet bowls with seats (!), male urinals in unisex toilets, and more cubicles in women’s rooms.

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Grab a copy of Exposés: Investigative Reporting for Clean Government, a compilation of selected Gotcha columns on some of the worse scams in government in recent years. Available at National Bookstore and Powerbooks.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ, (882-AM).

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