Php 70.00 Vol. 45 No. 5 • MAY 2011 - IMPACT Magazine Online!

COVER
STORY
Who feels better now after a year of Aquino economy?
liberalizing the energy sector is law and,
after a while, when nothing comes out of
the investigation, people may already have
forgotten anyway but who knows how they
will respond to the next social surveys?
What makes even better copy is how
the PNoys are now ready to distribute the
fuel subsidy cards that are to start by May
2nd. The Department of Energy (DOE) will
distribute some 200,000 fuel assistance
cards that will initially be distributed to
PUJs in the metropolis because most of
the gasoline stations in the capital region
are equipped with point-of-sale (POS)
terminals. Some P450 million have been
allocated for this so-called Public Transport
Assistance Program (PTAP), with
P300 million going to jeepney driver
beneficiaries and the remaining P150
million to be shared among tricycle driver
beneficiaries.
The bureaucratic side of this program
is sufficiently laced with modern information
and communications technology that
it should not become another corruption
center—not easily. The fuel smart cards
are embedded with information that will
tie it to the point-of-sale machines of the
gasoline stations and the vehicle for which
the card is intended. This means that the
cards cannot be used for anything but the
purchase of fuel products in the gas stations.
The cards, being nontransferable, can only
be used to gas up or avail of discounts for
a specific vehicle and plate number. There
seems to be assurance, then, that the cards
will reach the intended recipients and will
neither be pilfered nor abused.
Then there’s the CCT or conditional
cash transfer program—an effort undertaken
even earlier than the Pantawid Pasada.
Actually, cash transfers to poor households
are well established in many developed
countries, to provide income maintenance
following adverse shocks—such as unemployment,
disability or sickness—or
to redistribute income. Their importance
varies across countries. For example, in the
mid-2000s New Zealand’s cash transfers
accounted for around 13 percent of household
disposable income and Sweden’s more
than 32 percent.
Conditional cash transfers to assist
poor families have also become popular
since the late 1990s, in Brazil and Mexico.
Cash payments are made to poor households
that meet requirements related to
household investments in child schooling
and health. Today, in fact, more than 30
countries have some kind of conditional
cash transfer programme, many national
in coverage. In Africa, however, uncondi-
tional transfers may be more appropriate
because of inadequate supplies of basic
services and more limited capacity to
implement and enforce conditions on
transfers.
In any case, these programmes can
be administratively demanding. Targeting
households and monitoring compliance
are data intensive and require extensive
coordination across agencies and levels
of government. The path to successful
implementation is riddled with potholes
of bureaucratic corruption opportunities.
And CCTs are not development programs;
they cannot substitute for comprehensive
development and poverty reduction strategies.
They can, however, make a President
wonder why despite such measures his
popularity can still take a big dive. Or
they could also make him think at last
whether he really has a clear strategy for
poverty reduction and the political will
RH Bill, from page 11
abortion in these countries. In international
circles abortion is part of the reproductive
right! Either the promoters of HB 4244 are
naïve or they are cunningly deceptive when
they say that they are not for abortion. All
those who promote contraception end up
upholding abortion, if they are consistent
with their position of contra-ception!
b. Even more teen-age pregnancies,
so more unwanted pregnancies. This is
the result of more promiscuity and less
respect which stems from the ideology
of contraception. By the way, there is no
mention the word ‘contraception’ in the bill
but its ideology is all over in the language
of ‘Reproductive Health’.
c. Their poor people are not improved
by the availability of these devices. The
poor do not get a better chance in life
even if they have fewer children if basic
services are not given to them and if the
© Roy Lagarde / CBCP Media
to implement it. For instance, can he be
the first President to focus tenaciously on
the agro-industrialization of this country?
There seems to be evidence in Benguet
province where one finds vegetables galore
that soon small farmers may have access
at last to DA-sponsored post-harvest marketing
and processing centers that could
motivate farmers to make their area grow
even greener and more prosperous.
Otherwise, the truth remains that Filipinos
living on less than $2 a day represent
about half of the population, and this has
remained stubbornly persistent for the past
two decades. Indeed, a top economic policy
official in the last administration lamented
that 34 uninterrupted quarters of positive
economic growth during the better part
of the 2000s did little to reduce poverty
in the country.
The PNoys think they could start by
reducing the government deficit—a laudable
goal. They are working to reduce the
government deficit from 3.9% of GDP,
when it took office, to 2% of GDP by 2013.
Their government has had little difficulty
issuing debt both locally and internationally
to finance the deficits.
PNoy's first budget emphasizes education,
health, conditional cash transfers
for the poor, and other social spending
programs, relying on the private sector to
finance important infrastructure projects.
It has also vowed to focus on improving
tax collection. But as of this writing, only
two Revenue District Offices nationwide
have been able to meet their collection
targets: Cainta and Pasig City. A New
Deal economy needs a super-efficient
finance department. Sadly, neither our tax
collectors nor our tax-collection systems
are famous for this.
The story at the Bureau of Customs
is not much different.
What has not lost vibrancy and efficiency
is the complex underground
collection system of illegal gambling
activities running parallel to so-called
legalized gambling projects and the even
more odious system of illegal drug pushing
nationwide where cops and pushers are
hard to identify and differentiate but where
money surely flows efficiently—all going
where? Yes, PNoy economists—where?
Where are we going? It is less than a year
since you took over but time, the digital
age guys declare, being indeed so relative,
runs so much faster these days. We hope
and pray we’re not running twenty times
faster just to stay in place. I
perspective of governance is pro-foreign
investment rather than harnessing local resources,
pro-investor rather than pro-labor,
increased GDP rather than equity.
13. There is the concern that many
people die because of unwanted pregnancies.
Many of these devices, IUDs and
Pills among them, are contraceptives and
abortifacients. They really kill the life that
is already there. The bill and the contraceptive
mentality behind it do not recognize
the equal dignity of life of all—preferring
that of the woman than that of the child
that she had engendered. It is killing the
ones who are innocent and defenseless. No
wonder insensitivity to life in contraception
eventually leads to abortion.
14. In is noteworthy that the bill
speaks both of the youth and the adolescent.
It defines who the adolescent is but
not who the youth is. It really targets the
Plight, from page 8
Filipino migrants is a number so staggering
that the Commission is in a quandary on
how to effectively and efficiently meet the
demands and expectations of the Bishops
Conference of the Philippines.
One of the greatest pains of our migrant
workers is the loss of the sense of self-pride.
They pine to get it back, but no amount of
money that they receive can buy it back.
The Church understands the depth of man’s
pain when he is deprived of such self-worth.
Hence, in its work for Christian justice and
charity, its priority is help the concerned
individual migrants get back their dignity.
Hence, the words of John XXIII
echoed: “Individual human beings are
the foundation, the cause and the end of
every social l institution” (Pacem in Terris,
31). Then he added: “Every man has the
right to life, to bodily integrity, and to the
means which are suitable for the proper
development of life; these are primarily
food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care,
and finally the necessary social services”
(ibid, 32). For, every person is precious,
people are more important than things, and
the value of every institution is whether
or not it threatens or enhances the life and
dignity of the human person.
Our migrant workers, nine million of
them, have dignity to uphold, human pride
to protect, better quality of lives to pine
for, meaning of life to savor, spirituality
to hang on to, so that they can stand up as
human persons and as children of God in
foreign places. I
adolescent, both for its sex education and
for the services of its “devices.”
15. There are several good provisions in
the bill. Among them are Sec 5 “Midwives
for skilled attendance” and Sec 6 “Emergency
Obstetric and Neonatal Care”. Both
demand that there be enough personnel and
hospital facilities to address maternal care.
Both end with this sentence: “Provided
that people in geographically isolated and
depressed areas shall be provided the same
level of access.” Beautiful words, but will
the government do this? The bill does not
provide where the money shall come from
for these services, and this is indeed a very
basic need which can really address a lot
of deaths and sufferings among women and
children. Are these then just dressings to the
real intent of the bill, not to really help the
poor and the women but to put forward the
contraceptive mentality? I
20 IMPACT • May 2011
Volume 45 • Number 5 21