CARDINAL TAGLE SACKING: REFINER'S FIRE OR MISSING THE BOAT TO PAPACY?

It’s a sunny Sunday morning outside our house as I get this article off the ground; so let’s get spiritual.

“Pope sacks Tagle, leadership of Caritas International” (Philstar headline)

            The recent headline above caught my eye which was about the sacking of Cardinal Tagle and the entire leadership team of the Vatican-based Catholic Church worldwide charity network Caritas Internationalis. A review of the workplace environment this year by external management and psychological experts found malaise and bad management practices at its headquarter. Current and former staffers told Reuters of cases of verbal abuse, favoritism, and general human resources mismanagement that lead some staffers to leave.

A statement from Vatican’s development office clarified though that “no evidence emerged of financial mismanagement or sexual impropriety.”

“Bad management” and “mismanagement” in the report have stuck out like a sore thumb. At a glance, the news story looks a lot like a typical case in an MBA class using the textbook “The Management of Men.” Many years ago, I taught a management subject at a local university. I always kicked off my first day of class defining “management” by writing on the board the acronym POSDCIR representing the 7 management functions: Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, Controlling, Innovating, and Representing.

I recall I always put stress on two points: One, to observe the sequence of “Organizing” followed by “Staffing,” never the other way around. In other words, one must describe the job position first, before he or she fills it with the right person – which is, sad to say, at odds with the traditional practice in today’s political milieu. Two, I often highlighted the little-known “Representing” function. One could figure out its significance by looking into today’s issues on anti-trust, disinformation, and fake news that saddle high-tech companies in going up against government regulations and public outcry.

“To work to build a better world, especially for the poor and oppressed” – was too daunting a mission to accomplish for Cardinal Tagle as president of Caritas – the umbrella organization for 162 official Catholic charities working in more than 200 countries, with more than a million staff and volunteers.

 Interestingly, he didn’t need an MBA in carrying out his herculean job to come out on top. His number one book, the Bible, contains a model for leadership and management in the book of Nehemiah – a classic study of true leadership.

The Job: Reconstruction of Jerusalem walls ruined by the Babylonians. The Person: Nehemiah -- the Complete Leader-Manager who showcased, 2500 years ago, the essence of both leadership and management. He led by aligning his people with his vision, communicating to them his goals and objectives, gaining their confidence and support by keeping them informed of the work in progress, and developing them by delegating their responsibilities, knowing he could not do it all by himself. He managed the work by carrying out the POSDCIR functions.

Amid adversity and dissension, Nehemiah completed the work along with reawakening the moral and cultural consciousness of his people.

Here are Nehemiah’s book lessons on the qualities of a good leader-manager according to Ogochi K. Deborah derived from her article Nehemiah: A Strategic Leader Worthy to be Rivalled by Organizational Leaders of the 21^st Century.

1. He prays.

2. He provides a clear vision.

3. He uses available resources.

4. He has the foresight

5. He attends to his people’s needs, morals and values.

6. He is a role model.

7. He adapts to resistance to change.

8. He perseveres.

 In a typical classroom setting, the teacher presents a project, defines the objective, provides a reference manual, forms a group, and appoints one as a leader. If he or she can’t pull it off, then he or she fails. As simple as that. In the same way, Cardinal Tagle didn’t deliver the goods in carrying out his Caritas mission, hence, he failed.

Did he miss the boat to the papacy? This Bible verse is a litmus test that may get to the bottom of the answer: “He who can be trusted in little things [a million staff and volunteers] can also be trusted in great ones [around 1.3 billion Catholics]. The other side of the coin holds too.

One of my pet authors M. Scott Peck wrote in his first book, The Road Less Travelled, this opening sentence: “Life is difficult.” I also read his book sequel, Further Along The Road Less Travelled, where he added: “Life is complex.” Truth be told, the spiritual life of a person like Cardinal Tagle is difficult and complex -- especially in his work with the “poor and oppressed.”

I had my share of work-with-the-poor disquietude. Many years ago, my wife and I were immersed in the Couples For Christ’s work with the poor by building Gawad Kalinga (GK) houses. One spiritual notion we soaked in during such immersion: loving the poor – God’s “intimates” as one writer called them – which we firmly believe is our ticket to heaven. There were unsettling moments sometimes when we wavered for not having felt a bit of gratitude from a poor beneficiary of the GK house, subsequently, pouring cold water on our moral fiber.

Living now in an empty nest, my wife does the “soft” work like cooking; mine, the "hard" work like cleaning the yard. The other day, I ran into a “poor” girl scattering her gathered junk (obviously to segregate them) on our front yard I’ve swept clean. All at once, I lost my cool and lashed out at her. After that, I felt bad for it should not happen in dealing with God’s “intimates.”

No wonder Nehemiah’s prayer goes this way: “Remember for my good, my God, all that I have done for [your intimates]!” I might add: “Even if, sometimes, I am offended by them.” As another verse goes: “Whenever you did this to one of the least, to my brothers, you did it to me.” Our real up close and personal interactions with them have dissolved the so-called “romanticism” of working with the poor.

America: The Jesuit Review reported that “the papal decree, as Cardinal Tagle said, is ‘a call to walk humbly with God’ and be open to a process of discernment, which includes acknowledging shortcomings.”

Dubbed the “Asian Francis” and being the fast-emerging papal front-runner, Cardinal Tagle’s sacking burst the bubble of Filipino Catholics who have kept their fingers crossed for the prospect of a Pinoy pope. Ninety percent of Filipino Catholics [Ulat ng Bayan survey] welcomed the year 2022 “with hope.” Will such “hope” sniff out on Cardinal Tagle’s above words the essence of the expression: “Every cloud has a silver lining”?

Talking of silver, let me share a classic story about the refiner’s fire. A young man came upon a silversmith sitting in front of his fire, refining silver from raw materials. He asked a series of questions which the silversmith gladly answered.

“Why do you heat the metal?”

“To remove all the impurities.”

“Why do you sit while you work?

“I have to watch the fire closely. Too little heat can’t remove the impurities. Too much heat will destroy the metal.”

“How do you know when the silver is at the right temperature?”

The silversmith smiled and answered:

“I know the silver is purified when I can see my face in it.”

To get our head around the story, the purified silver is to Cardinal Tagle as the face reflection is to Jesus.

Talking of a face, Mother Teresa had a beautiful way of expressing a transcending picture that could vitalize us in loving the poor – she wanted us to rediscover “Jesus in his most distressing disguise.”

Did Cardinal Tagle miss the boat due to his recent sacking; or, is he being purified in refiner’s fire to prep him for the papal journey? The key to the answer may be reflected on the titles of the songs rendered by Fr. Jerry Orbos during his Advent Sunday homily.

God will make a way… In His time.

Head photos courtesy of Adonyi Gabor & Oziel Gomez & pexelsdotcom

 

CONFIDENTIAL & INTELLIGENCE FUNDS: CREATING & INVESTING FOR THE FUTURE

 

Could you connect the following headlines?

“Public Must Join Outrage Over Intel Funds – Pimentel” (Inquirer, Nov. 20, 2022)

“Sara To Set Up VP Offices All Over PH” (Global Daily Mirror, May 11, 2022).

As a backgrounder, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, the Inquirer reported, “called on the public to oppose the allocation of hundreds of millions of pesos in confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs) to agencies not responsible for national security or law enforcement […] mainly the P500 million for the office of Vice President Sara Duterte and the P150 million for DepEd also headed by Duterte.” The report added that Pimentel and Sen. Risa Hontiveros would move “to delete the proposed confidential funds.”

Likewise, Rep. Edcel Lagman called for a purge of “unnecessary, excessive” CIFs, saying that “no stretch of the imagination or flexibility of logic” could justify P9.3 billion for confidential and intelligence spending in the wake of the refusal of the Commission on Audit (COA) to disclose details of the use of confidential funds.

I would like to show Rep. Lagman how I could “stretch my imagination” and try to figure out (not justify) the probable spending of confidential and intelligence funds mainly in the OVP office by connecting the two above headlines.

Six months ago, right after I read the headline, “Sara to set up VP offices all over PH,” what crossed my mind was to take my hat off Sara and her team. Why? I got the impression they had been delving and bringing into play one of the lasting exemplar of former US President Barrack Obama’s presidential campaigns (2008 and 2012) – his feat in the much-heralded “ground game” that paved the way for his two presidential terms in office.

What is a “ground game”? The US has more than 234 million eligible voters; not all are registered though. Over 159 million voted in the recent US general election. A presidential candidate can’t reach, up close and personal, all voters. Only when he or she puts into action a “ground game” setting in motion media, surrogates, volunteers, and paid staff, will he or she be able to reach voters -- convince them to vote for him or her -- and just as important, to convince them to get out and vote.

Raved over by both the mainstream media and political scientists, Obama’s “ground game” in his presidential run flexed its muscle through its numerical advantage in laying down FIELD OFFICES. It set up 947 (vs. less than 400 for John McCain in 2008) field offices mostly in “battleground” or “swing” states (refer to states that could be won by either Democratic or Republican candidate). Obama’s re-election campaign put in place 789 (vs. 284 for Mitt Romney in 2012) field offices.

A US study explored the impact of field offices on election results for the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns and come up with a key finding implication – a decentralized campaign with widespread field offices is a cut above a concentrated campaign focusing its firepower only on strategically selected areas.

And here’s the one thing that Sara and her team proactively have pursued and laid bare – the power of incumbency – the advantage of creating and investing early for her political future adopting the world-class “best practices” in a presidential election campaign.

So far so good. But there’s the rub. This “ground game” costs piles of money – “sackloads of cash” -- a tagline vulgarized in the last election.

Looking back, PBBM spent P623 million, the most among all presidential candidates last elections, based on his statement of contributions and expenditures. Such a declared amount evolved from the typical PH traditional election campaign which, to a limited degree, comprises only a portion of the needed resources in making the most of an Obama-like “ground game” in the PH setting. Lest we forget, let’s add to such needed resources the “contingency” for vote buying to win leaving no stone unturned. A report by International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines gathered through an International Observer Mission reported that the last election showed “a higher level of failure of the electronic voting system than ever before, along with a higher level of blatant vote-buying.”

All in all, the “sackloads of cash” needed for Sara’s future political aspiration connects the above twin headlines. The connection paints a clear picture that illuminates the pleading words of Sen. Pimentel:

“We hope (fellow lawmakers will join us), especially once they feel the mounting public pressure that the people are now alarmed why we are giving P500 million in confidential funds for the OVP (Office of Vice President) and another P150 million for the DepEd [headed both by VP Duterte].”

Let’s rewind just a little bit to illustrate how bleak the CIF issue has turned as we watch the government spending while PH is grappling with a ballooning national debt with the following headline:

“Duterte spent P4.5B on confidential, intel funds in 2021 – COA” (CNN Philippines)

To feel in our bones the immensity of money involved, let’s try to break it down in plain language. P4.5B (A billion is a number followed by 9 zeros) could build 30,000 units of standard Gawad Kalinga (GK) houses (spending over P12 million every day of the year). Each GK house is estimated to cost P150,000 (2018 data), having a total living space of 22 to 24 square meters with expandable loft area and separate sleeping quarters and toilet & bath. That number of GK houses could even be doubled since PRRD’s CIF was only half of the total P9.082 billion used by the government for CIFs last year.

Since the COA itself could not disclose to the public how the CIFs are used, here’s what Rep. Lagman said about them being “shrouded in mystery”:

“These [CIFs] breed corruption and the more enormous the funds are, the greater the magnitude is for the possibility of graft.”

Other than breeding corruption, the CIFs, mainly for OVP and DepEd, could place VP Sara in a conflict-of-interest situation where her courses of action, like setting up OVP satellite offices nationwide, would be perceived publicly as covert use of taxpayers’ money in creating and investing for her future political ambition. Her reason “to speed up government services” could easily be foiled by the “redundancy” argument, let alone, the glaring multi-awarded performance of the previous OVP without the gravy of CIF, a big budget, and the former President’s goodwill.

Since the public will never know how CIFs are spent, they could turn into so-called “opportunity losses.” Like the 30,000 GK houses that could have been built out of last year’s P4.5B CIF -- such an opportunity in easing somehow the 6.5 million housing backlog evaporated within a year without a trace.

Unless the CIFs are nipped in the bud from this P5.26-trillion general appropriations bill for 2023, once and for all, every year for the next 6 years will come, behind the same path or worse, that is covered with CIF potholes “shrouded in mystery.”

NEW BILIBID PRISON: PETRI DISH FOR MABASA & DE LIMA

The New Bilibid Prison (NBP), through the eyes of the public, has turned into a “white elephant” -- costs a lot of money but has no useful purpose. Let’s go through the following NBP value judgments by pundits on both ends of the political spectrum.

“The NBP is… a cesspool where booze, drugs, and deadly weapons are aplenty… command center where crimes are plotted and distantly carried out…” (Ma. Ceres P. Doyo, Inquirer)

“[T]he [NBP] and other national penitentiaries were both hell and heaven. ‘Hell’ because as of September, 708 inmates have died this year nationwide… Some…deaths… under mysterious circumstances. ‘Heaven’ because drugs, liquor, and deadly weapons were smuggled...” (Ramon T. Tulfo, Philstar)

“[H]ow could officials running the national penitentiary make money out of people deprived of their freedom and their money? ... huge graft money totaling at least P100 million is generated … for the operation of criminal enterprises inside and outside the facility.” (Rigoberto Tiglao, The Manila Times)

“[T]he [NBP] has in fact a big criminal organization composed of inmates behind bars capable of killing anybody outside of prison upon the instigation of somebody who has control over them.” (Emil Jurado, Manila Standard)

“Screamingly bizarre is the revitalized grand-scale corruption at the [NBP]… a clandestine mini-government… since there exists a rakish inmate-run centralized commissary selling beer at a thousand pesos a can, phones, and WiFi in supposedly one of the country’s most strictly guarded places. (Nick V. Quijano Jr., Daily Tribune)

Thanks to Mabasa case, everyone now can see the “white elephant.”

Strange to say, no one can see it at the “blind spot.” What’s a “blind spot”? Imagine you’re driving a car, you’re getting ready to switch lanes, thinking it’s clear. In the seconds before you maneuver, you turn your head to double-check. You thank heavens upon finding a car moving in the lane next to you. Phew, that's close, you say to yourself. It’s one example of the so-called “blind spot” in driving. The use of side-view mirrors makes up for us to “see” in our “blind spot.”

The Mabasa case put a spotlight on the political “blind spot” – De Lima’s over five years of detention. Let me explain using another metaphor – a petri dish – a shallow dish that biologists use to cultivate microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts, and molds. Interestingly, the same petri dish metaphor was used by the Cambridge Analytica (CA) whistleblower, Christopher Wylie, who revealed that PH was a perfect [election petri dish] for testing CA’s manipulation techniques and propaganda technology due to: PH’s questionable rule of law, high social media usage, and corrupt politicians.

NBP today is like a petri dish – instead of bacteria, yeasts, and molds, or Wylie’s disinformation, fake news, and trolls -- corrupt prison officials and inmates are “cultured” in drugs, liquor, and deadly weapons.

       De Lima’s detention is a “blind spot” because the whole justice system seems can’t see the connection between the NBP as a petri dish and De Lima’s trumped-up charges.

Three key witnesses retracted already their statements which led to De Lima’s arrest. “I am really sorry,” former BuCor chief Rafael Ragos told De Lima. He testified that he implicated her in the drug trade in 2016 because he feared for his safety and that of his family at a time when the police were killing thousands of people.

Likewise, confessed drug trader Kerwin Espinosa retracted his allegations that connected De Lima to NBP’s illegal drug business. Also, according to his camp, Ronnie Dayan’s statements were made “under duress and without the benefit of counsel.”

The wheeling and dealing of the key witnesses against De Lima are like the cultivation of microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts, and molds in a petri dish called New Bilibid Prison.

What more does DOJ Sec. Remulla need to satisfy his adopted principle of “totality” of all the facts given by all witnesses and all the circumstances? Over her continued detention and deprivation of basic amenities, De Lima said, “Up to the end of his term, Secretary Guevarra is minded to stand by the lies and manufactured evidence of the Duterte government, not wanting to displease his principal. He is, after all, Duterte’s alter ego. Never mind justice. Never mind fair play. Never mind that an innocent person was kept in jail for the past five years, and counting, without real evidence except for the lies of mostly convicted felons.”

The whole world is watching. PBBM knows full well the implication of global notice gleaned from the intent of his travel bug. A chunk of the world which PH should regard highly is the EU. A case in point, the European Maritime Safety Administration’s latest PH audit found shortcomings and grievances including a lack of training equipment and inconsistencies in teaching and assessment. Fifty thousand Filipino seafarers have been warned of losing their jobs subsequently slicing off a bundle from PH $6.38 billion annual seafaring economic haul if PH does not comply with the Standards of Training, Certification, and Watch-keeping requirements -- the EU has let PH off the hook for many years now.

Although the EU has refrained from imposing a ban on Filipino seafarers as reported lately, it still has kept a Damocles sword of holding trade privileges hanging over PH head while keeping watch on our country’s human rights situation. The EU’s statements are consequential when it called “for the immediate release of Senator Leila M. De Lima” and “to drop all politically motivated charges against her.”

So far our justice system’s inaction to De Lima’s case, despite having gotten an overload of the unthinkable NBP corruption, could only convey this impression -- our justice system is in crisis. Like a person in crisis, it may still be in a first-stage shock after having seen the NBP’s corrupted innards turned inside out.

This interesting story may paint a picture of the impact of such shock. Oliver Sacks, a neurologist, told the case of a fifty-year-old man, Virgil, blind from birth. Following a successful eye operation, suddenly, he could see after a half-century of blindness. Strange to say, he had no idea what he was seeing.  Although his eyes had captured the image of an object in front of him, his brain did not know how to make sense of the visual information it was getting. Virgil could not differentiate between a man and a gorilla.

Could our justice system be like that? Upon suddenly seeing a swarm of shocking images of NBP as a “cesspool of corruption,” like Virgil, it didn't seem to know how to make sense of it all.

Why can’t our justice system relate the latest startling NBP corruption revelation to the trumped-up charges of De Lima? Turning into an “elephant in the room,” De Lima’s detention has become a justice-delayed-justice-denied case of “an innocent person kept in jail for the past five years, and counting, without real evidence except the lies of mostly convicted felons” – not unlike the microorganisms cultivated in the petri dish called the New Bilibid Prison.

The Mabasa case has put a spotlight on NBP – as an “800-pound gorilla,” a “command center where crimes are plotted,” a “big criminal organization” -- of “inmates behind bars capable of killing [falsely testifying against De Lima was child’s play] anybody outside of prison upon the instigation of somebody who has control over them.”

Could this whole shebang be a mere “willful blindness” in which our justice system could not differentiate between the rule of law and the “rule of man”?

                                             The Dangers of "Willful Blindness"

A PORK BARREL BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD SMELL AS STINKY

 

What is pork barrel?

Pork barrel refers to lump-sum, discretionary fund allocated to legislator for local pet project.

Refresher: Which of the following items is pork barrel?

a. Support for Local Development Projects (SLDP)

b. Country Development Fund (CDF)

c. Congressional Insertions (CI)

d. Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF)

e. All of the above

All of the above. SLDP was put in place in 1982 during the martial law era; CDF, 1990, Cory Aquino; CI, 1998, Ramos; PDAF, 2000, Estrada.

“Koko Pimentel blasts DPWH P544 billion lump sum budget” (Inquirer headline)

We ought to pat Senator Pimentel on the back in blowing wide open this issue. His concern is easy to follow. The Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission identified last year the most “problematic” government agencies based on corruption reports – DPWH topped the list.

“Lump sum [budgeting] is the work of lazy people.” (Senator Pimentel)

The senator’s statement above is a skin-deep view of the issue at a glance – a snapshot of typical Pinoy’s Juan Tamad stripe.  I had my share of such do-nothingness moments. In my early days as a new kid on the civil engineering block, there were happy-go-lucky times when I was not in tip-top condition in doing my job in the workplace.

Like one instance I was estimating the cost of a proposed construction work. As always, I factored in materials, labor, and equipment. Then, as a rule, I asked myself: Did I miss anything? Aha, of course, the contingency. What’s that? I filled in such item due to a degree of statistical certainty of rising unpredictable specific costs whose amount I assumed at a level so that the desire in having liquidity would balance with the need in controlling risk. Ho-hum.

It’s a technical gobbledygook. Put simply, my head ached (aka hangover) from too much drinking the night before and I just felt too lazy to think and do the detailed analysis and computations. So, I just put in a big bulk lump sum amount so my cost estimates would not fall short. In other words, a contingency is a lump sum I put in – just in case – a side effect of a lazy mindset then.

Like in basketball -- no harm, no foul.

“What I fear the most is it could be a rich source of pork barrel funds.” (Senator Pimentel)

Now, the senator has dug deeper and his statement above is deep-rooted and foreboding – while stressing the word “fear.”

“This is no small amount. The P544-billion lump sum fund is equivalent to 75 percent of the total appropriation of the DPWH for next year. Lump sum funds lack details. The policy of the law is ‘line item budget,’ meaning as detailed as possible.”(Senator Pimentel)

No less than the former Chief Justice Antonio Panganiban in his Inquirer column raised this question: “Do the lump sums in the 2023 budget constitute a form of pork barrel that could be scuttled using Belgica v. Ochoa?”

Senator Pimentel’s no-nonsense words are far-reaching, being mindful of the seriousness of PH’s present plight as laid bare by the following dismal performance that has caught the eye of the world.

“[PH] standing in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index has dropped two places, ranking 117^th out of 180 countries for 2021[…] Since the election of Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines has also seen a sharp decline in freedom of association and freedom of expression, making it harder to speak up about corruption.” (CNN Philippines)

“In a 2022 CEO survey conducted from July to August this year by the PricewaterhouseCoopers Philippines and the Management Association of the Philippines, 67 percent of 119 business leaders ranked corruption [in PH] as the No. 1 economic obstacle.” (Inquirer)

“Among the 15 countries in East Asia and the Pacific that were included in the [Rule of Law Index of the World Justice Project], the Philippines remained in 13^th place, ahead only of Myanmar and Cambodia.” (Philstar)

Senator Pimentel’s word “fear” is well-chosen. Does it make sense? Definitely. Let’s rewind a bit of our nation’s political soap opera to give us the full picture and fathom the depth our country has come down with corruption.

The year 2013. PH went down the tubes for the infamous PDAF scam or the pork barrel scam – a political scandal involving 28 members of Congress who allegedly pocketed P10 billion in taxpayers’ money through the misuse of the PDAF fund.

Modus operandi. Lawmakers funded “ghost projects” using their respective PDAF funds and “implemented” through the companies of businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, the scam’s mastermind, with no tangible output. Why none? Napoles’ companies consisted of fake foundations and NGOs with Napoles’ employees, including her nanny, as incorporators. Each foundation or NGO had bank accounts where PDAF funds were deposited. Having taken a peek at the scam, we could figure out the utter corruption of the whole shebang.

I had a brush with the PDAF scam in the thick of the scandal. A contact tipped me off to pay a visit to a particular NGO to link up with Couples For Christ/Gawad Kalinga’s work with the poor. When I had gotten to the NGO office address given, I came upon a residential house owned by a family – clueless about the NGO office located right inside their own home. It opened up to me the clear-cut meaning of “ghost projects” and “fake NGOs.”

To the bitter end, the top 5 members of the Congress identified by the Inquirer as participants in the PDAF scam with the respective amounts (above P100 million) exposed (Source: Wikipedia), are as follows:

Bong Revilla – P1.015 billion

Juan Ponce Enrile – P641.65 million

Jinggoy Estrada – P585 million

Rizalena Seachon-Lanete – P137.29 million

Bongbong Marcos – P100 million

Revilla, accused of having received the biggest kickback at P224.5 million, was released due to a lack of evidence. Napoles and Revilla’s staff were found guilty and sentenced to reclusion perpetua or a maximum of 40 years in prison. Enrile and Estrada, out on bail, are still awaiting the verdict. The high court granted Enrile bail due to his old age and frail health.

Lanete was perpetually disqualified from public office. Bongbong Marcos claimed that the investigation into the scam was politically motivated.

The trio: Revilla, Enrile, and Estrada made a senatorial comeback. Revilla and Estrada are now our country’s senators. Enrile is now the Chief Legal Counsel of President Bongbong Marcos.

Onli in da Pilipins.

Although declared by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional, could a pork barrel reinvent itself? An insight reflected by the “Conflict of Interest” definition by the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption may shed light on the answer which I paraphrase: “Conflict of Interest” is being in a SITUATION where public officials are being PERCEIVED to maybe unduly benefitting from their official positions. It is a two-pronged forewarning out of a SITUATION and a PERCEPTION, not an action. (Exhibit A: Sec. Remulla’s dilemma re his son’s drug case)

“For Congress to allow lump-sum appropriation (a pork barrel with no name?) in the budget is tantamount to giving the executive a blanket authority to spend, in the case of DPWH, P544 billion at its own discretion.” (Senator Pimentel)

To rephrase, Congress will place the Executive branch in a SITUATION where the latter will be PERCEIVED to unduly benefit from likely acts of grave abuse of discretion based upon the infamy of the PDAF scam.

Senator Pimentel’s proactive use of the word “fear” is chilling but befitting. I recall the “Billy Graham rule”: He would never place himself in a situation -- alone in a room with any woman other than his wife or daughter.

In a light vein, a food for thought to wrap up this article: Never place Dracula in a blanket-authority situation -- where he would be in charge of the blood bank.

Head still photo courtesy of Brett Sayles @ pixelsdotcom

KOREAN WAVE: POP CULTURE POPPIN LIKE POPCORN

“[I]-ban na itong mga telenovela ng mga [Koreans]…” (Senator Jinggoy Estrada)

Two vendors sell “suha” (pomelos). One sells premium pomelos; the other, a mix of premium and inferior ones. Although both of them sell at the same price, the latter attracts more customers than the former. Why? Getting closer to the scene, we hear this sales pitch:

Vendor: “Ma’am, that pomelo in your hand is inferior which you can get at a lower price. But you deserve this premium one.”

Through her eyes, all pomelos look the same. That’s why his uprightness wins over her instantly.

SOFT POWER

We may call such a vendor’s virtue his selling power over his competitor. For Korean telenovelas, such appealing quality is called “soft power.” According to Wikipedia, “soft power” involves “shaping the preferences of others through appeal and attraction” drawing on its currency: culture, political values, and foreign policies.

Joseph Nye of Harvard University explained that soft power’s best publicity is “credibility” – the scarcest resource during the internet age of fake news and disinformation. “When one country gets other countries to want what it wants,” Nye wrote, it might be dubbed as “soft power” – a concept he further developed in his 2004 book, “Soft Power: The Means To Success In World Politics.”

“Soft power” […] is how the United States got the world to buy its Marlboro Reds and Levi’s Jeans: by peddling a desirable image. By peddling cool,” wrote Euny Hong in her book The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering The World Through Pop Culture. “It wasn’t the United States tanks […] that made the kids in communist Yugoslavia want to pay two months’ wages for black market Levi’s 501 jeans. It was James Dean.”

“[D]apat ang mga artista nating Pilipino talagang may angking galing sa pag-arte ay ‘yun naman dapat ang ipalabas natin sa sariling bansa.” (Senator Jinggoy Estrada)

It begs the question: which is better, Pinoy or Korean movie?

HENERAL LUNA VS. PARASITE

Let’s take, as a specimen, Parasite – a 2019 South Korean movie that won four Oscar awards. Becoming the first non-English-language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, it grossed over $263 million worldwide on a $15.5 million budget. What's it all about? It is a satirically comedic thriller about poverty, the contrast between the rich and the poor – about inequality.

I feel for Senator Estrada’s sentiment: “Pilipino talagang may angking galing sa pag-arte.” Imagine we put in a wealth of Pinoy talents, skills, and deep pockets that polished off Heneral Luna, hook on the latest movie-making technology, and then bring them all together into play around the story of 17-year-old Pinoy student Kian Loyd delos Santos – just before he was fatally shot by the police had begged: “Please… I have a test tomorrow.”

Playing on the movie-watching crowd’s heartstrings, that school test could have meant a lot to Kian – a step closer to his dream of having a bed for each of his 4 siblings, of his mother‘s giving up her overseas work as a domestic helper, of not having to use cooking oil when massaging his father, and of his dream of being a policeman – the height of irony. Such a storyline by itself, ceteris paribus, could easily measure up to Parasite’s world-class standard.

Sad to say, the begging question -- “which is better, Pinoy or Korean movie” -- catches only a glimpse of the tip -- the Korean telenovelas -- of the proverbial iceberg. It’s not the only thing. A variety of tips heave into view above the water: Korean music & bands, movies, video games & TV, technology, fashion, and cuisine, to name a few, that the world has fallen in love with -- everything South Korean.

HALLYU

As The Guardian news story bannered, “K-Everything: The Rise and Rise of Korean Culture.” The submerged bulk of such proverbial iceberg under water is called the Korean Wave or the Hallyu -- a collective term that refers to the driver of the phenomenal growth and global popularity of Korean pop culture that propels today South Korea’s cultural economy.

“Instead of banning K-pop and K-drama, let’s copy the economic strategies that led to its rise.” (Rep. Joey Salceda)

It’s easier said than done.

The word “copy” is an understatement. The right term may be “benchmarking,” specifically “practice benchmarking” which involves gathering and comparing qualitative information about how a program is conducted through people, processes, and technology. The “benchmarking” job will be so deep that one needs to dig into the late 1990s when South Korea started to envision in shaping up its popular culture as the main export.

In so doing, South Korea allocated resources to cultural industries like pop culture, tourism, and sports, among other cultural sectors, thereby allowing the entertainment industry to grow and flourish. Lifting the foreign travel ban along with freeing censorship laws, respectively, has fostered the spread of Korean culture abroad as well as promoted diversified movie content.

These Hallyu milestones spoke volumes: Seoul-based rapper Psy’s 2012 song Gangnam Style became the first YouTube with a billion viewers, Billboard has recognized the music group BTS, Netflix has mainstreamed the K-dramas, and America’s Academy awarded Parasite the Oscar Best Picture. As US President Obama in his speech at Hankuk University in 2012 said, “It’s no wonder so many people around the world have caught the Korean Wave, Hallyu.”

BENCHMARKING

Could PH avail itself of the benchmarking process that will give a boost to the plight of our nation? In other words, could PH get hold of and bring into effect the same “soft power” that South Korea put into action through its pop culture that has driven today’s Korean cultural economy?

The deep-rooted answer lies in the perception of the beholder in the world stage looking through the three perceptive lenses: Pinoy culture, PH political values, and PH foreign policies.

Pinoy Culture.

“The countries that surround the Philippines have become the world’s most famous showcases for the impact of culture on economic development. Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hongkong, and Singapore – all are short on natural resources, but all (as their officials never stop telling you) have clawed their way up through hard study and hard work. Unfortunately for its people, the Philippines illustrates the contrary: that culture can make a naturally rich country poor.” (James Fallows, A Damaged Culture)

That 35-year-old critical assessment, whether you like it or not, begs the question today: So far, have we shaped up or shaped out? The world’s striking reaction to our recent presidential election results gave us a clue: “What’s wrong with the Philippines?”

PH Political Values.

“How many investors of conscience around the world see the suffering of former Senator Leila de Lima in the hands of the justice system of her own country and are turned off mightily by the gross miscarriage of justice?” (Marlen Ronquillo, The Manila Times)

Such “gross miscarriage of justice” diminishes PH’s “credibility” -- “soft power’s” publicity around the world. Those “investors of conscience around the world” includes the same Hallyu investors that in 2019 boosted the Korean economy with a US$ 12.3 billion haul.

PH Foreign Policies.

“After conferring with [President Reagan], [Senator] Laxalt called Marcos [Sr.] back. By now it was 5:30 in the morning in Manila. The senator told him that power sharing would be impractical and undignified. He repeated [President Reagan's] invitation to the Marcoses to move to the U.S. His considerable reserves of determination and defiance now practically depleted, Marcos [Sr.] turned to Laxalt for advice.  What should he do? he asked. Laxalt put it to him straight. “I think you should cut and cut cleanly. I think the time has come.” (Sandra Burton, Impossible Dream: The Marcoses, The Aquinos, and the Unfinished Revolution)

The above momentous scene – the final official act of Uncle Sam to the Marcoses -- encapsulated the nuts and bolts of PH Foreign Policy under Marcos [Sr.] regime. He became then Uncle Sam’s “Amboy” in a two-decade long bittersweet relationship that was frozen in a time capsule after he and his family fled to Hawaii.

Fast-forward to here and now: like father, like son? Your guess is as good as mine. A US midterm election will take place in the next few days; a presidential election, on November 2024. Both can be a game changer in geopolitics. Let’s stay tuned.

So far, here’s my two cents' worth. Sad to say, “It’s more fun in the Philippines” has not been as booming as the “Korean Cool.”

OFWS – OUR CORE COMPETENCY

Let’s bolster up instead our tried and tested legit core competency – our OFWs -- reinforce it with homemade “soft power” ammos like education, hard work, and family values, among others. That’s another story.

Head still photo courtesy of istockphotosdotcom