Pulse Asia poll on poverty; SWS poll on chief justice

another criterion: willingness to disclose his statement of assets, liabilities, and networth (SALN).

http://partners.inq7.net/newsbreak/cover/index.php?story_id=55668 :
(NEWSBREAK sought an interview with Davide for this story, but he declined. The SC’s Office of the Administrative Service also turned down our request for his Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth, saying the request falls under the “circumstances” that make it deniable. A resolution, dated 1989, identifies such circumstances as those “which may endanger, diminish or destroy their [the justices’] independence and objectivity in the performance of their judicial functions or expose them to revenge for adverse decisions, kidnapping, extortion, blackmail or other untoward consequences.”)

Marites D. Vitug wrote in her Dear Reader preface of November 21, 2005 Newsbreak:

“…The SC wrote us citing a May 1989 en banc resolution stating that requests for this kind of information tend to ‘endanger, diminish or destroy their [the judiciary’s] independence…and expose them to revenge for adverse decisions, kidnapping, extortion, blackmail.’ It argues: ‘The independence of the judiciary is constitutionally as important as the right to information.”

“And we were just asking for information that the president, senators, congressmen, Cabinet members, generals (with difficulty), and other officials dutifully share with the public…”

even PCIJ’s similar request was turned down last year: http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:05mJWATHoO8J:www.manilatimes.net/national/2004/jun/09/yehey/top_stories/20040609top8.html+www.manilatimes.net/national/2004/+jun/09/yehey/top_stories/20040609top8.html&hl=en .

last i checked TRANSPARENCY “implies an openness and willingness to accept public scrutiny that diminishes the capacity for an organisation to practice or harbor deception or deceit. It’s a requirement that sits alongside ‘Accountability’ as a growing expectation on organisations by society.”

i ponder, when will we ever consider a government official ALWAYS acting IN GOOD FAITH?

Talaga naman oo. Poverty na nga ang topic pero pulitika pa rin ang focus ng diskusyon.

Check out this article I found in the *International Herald Tribune* on the slide to oblivion that our country is taking because of our penchant for losing the plot on just about anything:

“Filipinos count cost of remittance society”
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/16/news/phils.php

Excerpt:
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Overseas Filipinos sent home more than $8.5 billion last year, putting them third by this measure behind Indians and Mexicans. And in the first 10 months of this year, the Philippine central bank reported Thursday, Filipinos working abroad sent home 27 percent more than a year earlier, or $8.8 billion.

This amount is larger than the value of the top five Philippine export products and the combined amount of foreign aid and foreign direct investment in 2004.

The price to be paid for this income, experts and government officials say, extends far beyond the economy. Two-thirds of the Filipinos working abroad are women, official data show, and this migration takes a heavy toll on families. In many cases, fathers are simply unable to manage households and raise children adequately on their own.

“Their socialization as men in the traditional and cultural mold makes it difficult for them to assume the role left behind by their wives,” according to a 2002 study by Atikha.

Even when migrants return, broken families are often the result. This leads to increasing drug use among the children of migrants, government officials said. The majority of high school dropouts are children from these families with migrant workers, they added.
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Again this is a classic case of an entire society feasting on an unsustainable resource. What was once just a quick fix on a weak economy has now become a major pillar propping up our pathetic economy. This has a direct analogy to our Edsa-Revolution-happy political life. Edsa 1 was a quick fix but now we are using “people power” as a key pillar in our administration transition procedural framework.

True enough, here is what a study cited by the above article concluded:

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An International Monetary Fund study released a few months ago questioned the assumption that remittance money has an impact similar to direct investment.

“Remittances do not appear to be intended to serve as capital for economic development, but as compensation for poor economic performance,” the study said. “If these remittances are used by recipients to reduce their labor supply and labor market participation, then it is possible that economic activity will be adversely affected.”
=============

Remittance money is being spent on CONSUMERISM and is not being used to expand the capital base (the SUSTAINABLE part of economic development as most smart countries have acknowledged) of the Philippine economy.

And the case in point is cited in the case of the town of Mabini — the case study used in the above article to illustrate its point:

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Dozens of large homes have been built. The most exclusive of these hamlets is called Little Italy, where ostentatious houses, with designs evidently copied from the homes of the maids’ European employers, are status symbols for Mabini’s nouveaux riches.

“This town is awash in cash,” said Aileen Peñas, a community worker for Atikha.

According to Leandro Jusi, a Mabini official, a family here could receive as much as 60,000 pesos a month, about five times what a typical household in Manila would earn.

Aside from the houses, the relative affluence of Mabini is evident in the number of cars, lavish parties and even the donation of a church bell worth more than a million pesos.

“Italy has brought life to this town,” said Jusi, whose wife is a domestic helper in Italy.

Some schools charge fees so high that they serve the children of migrant workers almost exclusively, since these families are the only ones who can afford them. Families splurge in Manila shopping malls, save little and often spend themselves into debt.
=============

And of course, true to my brilliant form, Iv’e written about all these WAY WAY BACK. Check out this article here:

http://www.geocities.com/benign0/agr-disagr/8-8-ofw.html

Excerpt:
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Foreign employment should therefore be treated as the temporary solution that it is and should not be institutionalised as a key economic activity. Our dependence on foreign employment should be put in its proper perspective in the context of the following principles:

(1) Parents are responsible for the physical, intellectual, and emotional health of their children. This responsibility can be fully fulfilled only by said parents’ being present during their children’s formative years.

(2) Every child not raised optimally presents itself as a cost to society in varying degrees (depending on the extent of its parent/s shortfall in fulfilling their parental responsibilities). The cost may range from, say, wasted public education funds all the way to law enforcement costs resulting from the criminal activities of the truly damaged ones.

(3) OFWs with young children living in the Philippines are not present during their children’s formative years and are less likely to fulfill their responsibilities as parents beyond provision of material needs.

(4) Responsible parenting begins with ensuring one’s capability to assume full long-term responsibility for raising children hands-on before one actually has them.

(5) Parents of young children seeking employment overseas can be considered to be remiss in their parental responsibilities, particularly in the aspect described in Item 4.
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Happy reading! 😀