Deficient

The last time I ventured out of town during the Holy Week, it took me seven hours to drive back from the Clark area. That is the reason I have not ventured out again in many years.

Every year, during long holidays, but especially during the Holy Week, Filipinos struggle with the rotten state of the country’s logistics system. The highways are clogged. Seats in buses and planes are short. Interisland ships are overloaded and unsafe colorum services proliferate.

This year is particularly unholy. The light rail system, overloaded on other days, will shut down for four days. Those trapped in the city will also likely be trapped in their homes.

When the President went out Tuesday to inspect the bus terminals, his convoy produced a horrendous traffic jam. He should have inspected the traffic management center instead.

No other society commemorates the Holy Week quite like we do, with a bizarre admixture of fun and devotion. This is the week to hit the beaches where pure pleasure is the norm —- and also to visit the churches, where the overriding theme is sadness. This is the most schizophrenic week in our culture.

The highlight on Good Fridays are shocking ceremonies where devotees inflict inhuman pain on themselves, including voluntary crucifixion. Considering the punishment required just getting from one place to another on a week like this, the bloody ceremonies seem infernally redundant.

Things are even worse in Mindanao, where rotating brownouts get longer as the summer gets hotter. These brownouts are not a new development. They have been getting progressively worse over the years — and government responses did not keep pace with the problem. This week, the authorities announced that more power barges will be procured, although it will take many months before we actually have them.

The power barges, when they do arrive, will generate the most expensive electricity imaginable. The good news is that the brownouts will be shortened; the bad news is that Mindanaoans will pay through the nose for the power they consume. With this sort of situation, who needs self-laceration?

What happens during Holy Week in this country underscores the severe backlog in infrastructures haunting our economy. We must rapidly modernize our ports and airports. We need more roads and mass transit systems. We need more abundant and cheaper power supplies. We need water impounding structures to save us from impending shortages.

The deficiency in our infrastructures makes life miserable for all Filipinos. They also limit the capacity of our economy to grow and to bring down poverty. The infrastructure gap inflicts incalculable opportunity costs for everybody.

I was deeply saddened last Tuesday reading Boo Chanco’s column. He anticipates that none of the big-ticket infrastructure projects will be completed before the last part of 2016. In fact, if the bidding process just drags on, none of them might even be shovel-ready before this administration packs its bags.

The LRT extension to Cavite is not moving. The renationalization of the MRT is still wading through the legal issues. The airports planned for Bicol and Bohol are moving at snail’s pace. Port modernization is at a standstill. New rail lines are only at the blueprint stage.

The infra gap will be as yawning at the end of this decade as it was at the beginning. Our economy could implode while our officials drag their feet on matters that require immediate decisions. All contentious matters are pushed up to the President’s desk, where they lie until they die.

Should the economy implode, every day will seem like Maundy Thursday.

Implosion

Speaking of imploding economies, the banks (or what is left of them) and the stock exchange will reopen in Cyprus later today. No one is really looking forward to that event.

For nearly two weeks, banking services have been suspended in this small island economy while the bureaucrats of the Eurozone twisted the arms of Cyprus’ leaders to accept brutal measures in exchange for bailout funds. The highest Cypriot officials travelled to Brussels earlier this week in vain attempt to renegotiate the conditions imposed for the bailout — principally and across-the-board levy on bank deposits.

The government of Cyprus has accepted a modified version of the deposits levy, exempting those with deposits of euro100,000 or less. The large corporate depositors, who used the Cypriot banks as some sort of off-shore banking facility will be severely hurt by the levy.

Russia, whose nationals hold over 30% of bank deposits in Cyprus, is not particularly pleased by the turn of events. For the citizens of Cyprus, their only choice is to hoard food and wait for the worst-case scenarios to play out.

When Italy ran into the same financial difficulties last year, the other members of the Eurozone were happy to underwrite a huge bailout package — requiring nothing more than the expulsion of Silvio Berlusconi’s government. Italy, the third largest economy of the Eurozone was too big to fail.

Cyprus, it now seems, is too small to matter. It must either accept a truly bitter fiscal pill or will be allowed to fail. No one really cares if Cyprus leaves the common currency and return to the old Cypriot pound. The government of Cyprus holds no leverage on the negotiating tables of the currency union.

The stock exchange at Nicosia will likely collapse as soon as it opens today. Thousands will march in the streets, of course, but to no avail. The government of Cyprus, paying the price of smallness, signed the terms of surrender to the lords of the Eurozone earlier this week.