MMDA fences and overpasses

Pink fences barricading sidewalks, hot pink and blue overpasses. This has been the thing in Metro Manila for years since Bayani Fernando became chairman of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA). To the horrors of subsistence informal vendors and commuters alike, the right of way has become the right of the private car owners. Forget the wishes of convenience of the general riding public and the hungry and dirt-poor vendors.

Most of the implemented policies of the MMDA has been controversial. An example would be the inconvenience of walking long distances because of the barricades. Generally it's good because it creates order and discipline and promotes smooth traffic in the main thoroughfares of the metropolis. However, there should be a prescribed length from the corners or intersections so that hurrying and tired commuters won't gasp for air walking in the infamous not so clean air of the metro under the hot rays of the tropical sun. Case in point, for commuters from Commonwealth or Fairview in Quezon City going to ride the MRT train station at Quezon Ave - the jeepneys and FX taxis going to Quiapo stop at some 100 meters from the overpasses at the EDSA-Quezon Ave intersection. Commuters must walk that distance going through the overpass to reach the train station.

One can say therefore that MMDA gives rights only to the whims and the convenience of private car owners, to the detriment of the general riding public. The riding public by the way constitutes more than 98 percent in all the population of Metro Manila. This is only one example of the controversial controls the MMDA implemented. And this is one blaring example of the tyranny of the elite against the masses where it is perpetuated and even blessed by the government.

long time

Just a brief update.
It has been quite a while that I haven't posted anything here. Lots of "geographic" things concerning the Philippines are worthy of mentioning:
-the 2007 national census
-the food shortage
-Senator Pimentel's drive for a change of government form into a federal republic
-the MILF-Philippine government deal
-the American economic geographer who garnered the Nobel Prize for economics
-and, Boracay as public domain.

Neglect, squabbles imperil RP claim to Spratlys

This article is from the Philippine Star. This is an outstanding analysis regarding the Phillipine-claimed Spratlys.

By the Vera Files
Monday, March 24, 2008

(First of two parts)

Neglect by President Arroyo and squabbles over turf and money have derailed government efforts to establish the country’s new archipelagic baseline, and may jeopardize the Philippines’ claim over parts of the resource-rich Spratlys that fall within its extended continental shelf.

With a year left before the May 13, 2009 deadline for filing its claim for an extended continental shelf under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the Philippines is nowhere near completing the studies, surveys and report required to bolster the country’s claim over its extended territory.

The UNCLOS, which the Philippines ratified 14 years ago, requires coastal states to declare their extended continental shelf, which is the underwater extension of the land.

In Congress, lawmakers are debating a redefined archipelagic baseline bill. Although there is no deadline to the filing of a country’s archipelagic baseline with the UN, it is, however, going to be the basis for measuring all maritime regimes or zones: territorial sea (12 nautical miles from the baseline), contiguous zone (24 nm), economic exclusive zone (200 nm), continental shelf (200 nm) and extended continental shelf (350 nm).

The drafting of the country’s claim under the UNCLOS is a tale of infighting among agencies wanting to take the lead and subsequently controlling the billions of pesos of government fund for that undertaking, including a $250,000 grant from the Norwegian government.

It is also a story of President Arroyo’s failure to give importance to the complicated tasks involved (such as marine hydrographic, gravity and magnetic surveys and studies) to come up with data required in drafting territorial baseline despite the urgency of a May 2009 deadline.

In 2001, President Arroyo abolished the Cabinet Committee on the Treaty on the Law of the Sea, created under Ferdinand Marcos and maintained by the three succeeding presidents – Corazon Aquino, Fidel Ramos, and Joseph Estrada. Arroyo replaced it with the mid-level Maritime and Ocean Affairs Center (MOAC), which was just a unit in the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) then headed by Assistant Secretary Alberto Encomienda.

It was only in March 2007, after six years, that Arroyo restored the issue as a Cabinet-level concern when she issued Executive Order 612 creating the Commission on Maritime and Ocean Affairs (CMOA) under the Office of the President. The CMOA is to be chaired by the Executive Secretary with the Justice Secretary and Foreign Affairs Secretary as vice chairs.

The initial members were the departments of national defense, environment and natural resources, budget and management, transportation and communications, tourism, trade and industry, National Security Council, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, National Mapping and Resources Information Authority (NAMRIA), and the Philippine Coast Guard.

Arroyo designated the Department of Foreign Affairs as the lead agency and secretariat of the CMOA. She also committed a major oversight: she excluded from the EO creating CMOA the Department of Energy, which had been involved in doing scientific studies on the country’s continental shelf with other agencies.

It took nine months for Arroyo to correct the lapse. On Dec. 17, 2007, she issued EO 612-A including DOE in the CMOA “in order (for it) to be able to fully contribute its knowledge and expertise” in the preparation of the country’s claim for extended continental shelf.

Outside the Palace, however, there were other initiatives toward complying with the UN requirement. In 2001, the University of the Philippines, through its National Institute of Geological Sciences and the UP Law Center’s Institute of International Legal Studies, undertook a project, “Delineation of the Outer Limits of the Philippine Continental Shelf,” with the DOE, NAMRIA and the Mines and Geosciences Bureau.

UP law professor Harry Roque, an international law expert, recalled the confusion on who was to take the lead in this project. Foreign affairs officials wanted the DFA to lead because it was in charge of submitting the claim to the UN. DENR said they should take the lead because the project involves natural resources and NAMRIA is its line agency. The NSC also got into the picture, citing security considerations.

In the end, the project proposed an executive order creating an interagency national committee with the president or vice president as chair and the DFA and DENR as vice chairs. When the UP-led project ended months later, Arroyo had not created any such committee.

In the case of MOAC, interagency coordination was saddled by its not being Cabinet level; thus, no policy decisions could be made. To be fair, Encomienda presented updates on the project before the Cabinet cluster on security attended by President Arroyo.

There were also personality differences among MOAC members. Some did not regard highly the entry of a retired police general, Dionisio Ventura, as head of NAMRIA, while others resented what they said was Encomienda’s “soliloquy” during meetings. Worse, some agencies refused to share data with MOAC.

Bureaucratic wrangling also marred baseline-related activities of the past administrations. During the presidency of Fidel V. Ramos, interagency power play derailed a project that would have strengthened the Philippine position to include a portion of the disputed Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) within the Philippine archipelagic baseline. The KIG is part of Spratlys.

Documents obtained by Vera Files showed that as early as 1994, Ramos ordered various agencies to work together on projects to redefine the country’s archipelagic baseline.

In mid-1994, then NAMRIA administrator Jose Solis (now congressman of Sorsogon) sought financial assistance from then Energy Secretary Delfin Lazaro for the building of lighthouses on three islets in the KIG: Nares Reef, Recto Bank or Marie Louise Reef, and Sea Horse Bank.

This was about the time that the Chinese were starting to occupy Mischief Reef in the KIG, which is only 135 nautical miles away from the Philippine baseline. Lazaro supported the lighthouses project and sought Ramos’ approval to draw funds from the DOE’s Special Account.

In a memo to Ramos, Lazaro cited possible international complications and risks of the lighthouse project: “While this project will be beneficial to the Philippines in terms of expanding available area not only for petroleum exploration but for other natural resources as well and that the lighthouses will also be important navigational aids, we wish to point out that actual construction of the lighthouse could provoke international protests from other countries (such as China and Vietnam) including possible physical stoppage of the work by their navies.”

Lazaro’s request for a go-signal got stalled in Malacañang. His successor, Francisco Viray, pursued the lighthouse project. In a memo to Ramos dated Dec. 12, 1994, Viray said: “Once established, these lighthouses will serve as legal basis in determining the new baseline. Other countries are doing the same things to fortify their territorial claims.”

Viray said the presence of lighthouses would reinforce the country’s claim over the Reed Bank. A lighthouse would have qualified Reed Bank, which is within the 200-mile exclusive economic zone, to be part of the archipelagic baseline. This would increase Philippine archipelagic waters within the baseline by 11,042 square nautical miles or 7,750,000 hectares.

Documents obtained by Vera Files showed that on Feb. 15, 1995, Ramos finally approved the release of P178 million for the mapping, survey, and construction of lighthouses in the KIG. He instructed the DOE to supply the funds, and the NAMRIA to supervise the design and construction of the lighthouse as well as the coordinates of the benchmarks identifying the territorial limits based on the 200-nautical mile EEZ. Formal public bidding was waived “in view of the urgency and confidentiality of the project.”

But soon after the funding was approved, Ramos himself revoked NAMRIA’s authority to oversee the project and transferred it to the Philippine Navy upon the recommendation of Defense Secretary Renato de Villa.

This led Solis to complain: “The NAMRIA has been religiously working for the immediate implementation of the KIG project. I would like to inform the Executive Secretary that when there were still no available funds for the project, it was the NAMRIA which did all the work to convince the funding agency to support the project. However, when the funding was approved and the authority was given to the NAMRIA, the Cabinet made a decision to transfer the project to the Philippine Navy.”

For one reason or another, the KIG lighthouses never got built – and the Philippines has lost its chance to build them. In 2002, the Arroyo government signed the ASEAN-China Code of Conduct in the South China Sea that bans construction of new structures on uninhabited islands in the disputed areas. Brunei, China, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines are claiming wholly or partially about 160 islands in the South China Sea.

A number of baseline and continental shelf legislations have been filed in both chambers of Congress. In the Senate, Sen. Leticia Shahani filed such a bill in 1993. A proposed baseline law authored by detained senator Antonio Trillanes IV is pending in the 14th Congress. The bill seeks to amend existing baseline to include Scarborough Shoal and treating the KIG as a regime of islands to conform to the criteria set by UNCLOS.

In the House of Representatives, Cebu Rep. Antonio Cuenco’s bill has been returned to the committee level after reaching second reading last December. There were earlier initiatives in the House by then representative and now senator Francis Escudero and Rep. Gerry Salapuddin. “The project was stalled due to lack of available funds,” Salapuddin said back then.

Indeed, it is the government’s failure to provide the money that has slowed down projects needed to revised the baseline law and identify the extended continental shelf. After receiving an initial P50-million funding last year, CMOA is getting only P10 million in the 2008 budget.

It also took Malacañang five years to include the budget needed for the extended continental shelf project. A source privy to the project said NAMRIA had initially estimated that P10 billion would be needed for the scientific and technical surveys. Deputy Executive Secretary for Legislative Liaison Jake Lagonera balked, saying, “Masyado yatang malaki ’yan (That’s too much).”

Indonesia had spent about $100 million for its project. But MOAC had said about P500 million would be enough for the extended continental shelf project.

The source said the Palace also found NAMRIA’s second proposal, totaling P2.9 billion, on the high side. It finally approved a P1.7-billion funding to be released over several years.

The Arroyo administration’s last-minute effort to meet the May 2009 deadline is reflected in NAMRIA’s P 1.2-billion budget for this year. For the first time, it is getting a P380-million allotment for the extended continental shelf delimitation project on top of the P547 million for its regular mapping and remote sensing activities. – By Ellen Tordesillas, Chit Estella, Luz Rimban, Booma Cruz, Yvonne Chua and Jennifer Santiago

Begging schoolchildren

On my way to work today, I encountered two grade 1 or grade 2 kids of Balara Elementary School. They blocked my way and asked, "Kuya, pahingi po barya", I was caught off guard by their plea since they are two uniformed children begging for coins from passersby. Still, I hurriedly said, "Sorry, wala akong barya". They replied, "Kuya kahit magkano para pambili lang ng pagkain". Honestly, I don't have a single coin in my pocket. So I told them to ask other people. And they hurriedly asked someone, a student of UP Diliman. That man told them, "oist! masama yan". So there I went to the waiting shed for my jeepney ride. Yet that experience really keeps playing on my mind. It's the first time that I was begged by schoolchildren! With that, I pity them and went back to the area where they beg, but before that, I changed my 100 peso bill so that I can give them some. On my way back, I've seen them talking to a third schoolchild on the way to school. They're telling that child or classmate maybe that they got some baon (or not) from begging. It's too late though, they're on their way to school. The third child, however sits for a while on the sidewalk, maybe reflecting on what the two begging schoolchildren had told him. So OK, I went back on my way to work, passing near him and looking at him in the eye, yet he keeps on sitting not looking at anyone, maybe because that child is embarrassed at the idea of begging. Good child! So there goes my first experience of being begged by schoolchildren.
What a pity! Just what are their parents doing? Maybe the hard realities of life in the Philippines disabled their parents to give them baon. Or it can be that their parents just told them to ask passersby for their baon. This is sick, really. I have read a study on child beggars in Metro Manila before, where the researchers conclude that it's abject poverty that drives these children to beg, as against the common knowledge that these children beg coins to buy their supply for substance abuse like rugby or to gamble at an early age. They beg because they don't have food to eat. They have hungry stomachs and dry mouths. Of course the Philippines have child support institutions and NGOs established for the plight of these children, yet these institutions, as I see it, are active only in funding campaigns. Are they around in areas frequented by begging children? No, they're absent there.
Actually, I am not into giving coins for beggars along sidewalks, or those children climbing the jeeps and wipes off passengers' shoes for some coins. I have never given them a single coin for reasons that the act of begging passengers is wrong. It's human nature, If I give them some, they will keep on begging since its profitable for them. Yet, I see those schoolchildren as exemption. It's a common thing to say that "children must be off the streets, they must be in schools. So there, those children are going to school and begging. Sigh! There must be a place for these children in Philippine society. Something must be done to stop them from begging. Poverty alleviation should be prioritized by anyone.

Kosovo

We all know the news, Kosovo, the autonomous province of Serbia declared independence this Feb 17, 2008 from Serbia. As for my opinion, I lean towards the international law where territorial integrity and sovereignty must be practiced at all times, with no exception. I'm really should not have anything to say since I'm not from the Balkans or from the concerned states, I didnt research extensively on their geopolitical history. The law lady is supposed to be blindfolded so as to weigh equitably, however, the Western powers makes the Kosovo case an exception to international law. I believe there will be negative effects that will come from this. I also think that Serbia deserves another chance to do it right. However, as they say, Kosovo's independence is the end chapter of Balkanization. I hope that will be the case, that is, only in the Balkans. It will be the horror of horrors if this will happen to all the other states in the world with homogeneous ethnolinguistic minorities.

Palawan is NatGeo Traveler best island in Asia

Palawan, the Philippines' last frontier is rated among the best islands in the world. It garnered the 13th spot with a score of 72 together with the islands of Moorea in French Polynesia and Block Island, in Rhode Island USA. The basic criteria for rating the islands is ecological balanced with tourist appeal. Read the story here.

I really don't know why Batanes is not included in their roster of 111-strong islands, as Batanes, in the northern tip of Luzon, is unspoilt by tourists. It has its old-world charms, with landscapes akin to islands in the British isles or even in Scandinavia (except the snow, of course). Since the Philippines has thousands of islands, maybe the National Geographic reviewers took into account only the major islands present in the world tourism industry. But still, Boracay and Cebu were not rated. For comparison, Cebu is consistently rated 7th best island in Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean region by CondeNast Traveler and Boracay is voted among the top 10 island/beach destination in the rest of other travel surveys including Yahoo Travel.

The score of 72 for Palawan is indeed respectable since the best island, Faroe Island in Denmark garnered a score of 87, the only island in the category of authentic, unspoiled, and likely to remain so. Palawan is categorized as having minor difficulties (scores of 66-85). This categorization is good so that the local government concerned should be enticed to protect the island from tourism overkill. The NatGeo Traveler magazine, by the way, has specially mentioned El Nido and the Calamian Group in Palawan. The worst rated island is a tie between Ibiza in Spain and St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands.