Strange Republic

Even by Philippine standards, 2003 was a strange year of ups and downs. We opened the year with spectre of war — the Iraq War — and the Philippines signing on board as part of the “coalition of the willing”. Obvious dangers aside, the war had the effect of driving oil prices upwards and of accelerating a terrorist spillover threat into other parts of the world, most notably the Southeast Asian region.

Among the many events, five stand out as having the most profound effects on the country in 2003.

The first among them was SARS, a disease no one understood and therefore underestimated at the end of 2002. Mysterious in terms of origin and the manner in which it was transmitted, SARS brought terrible effects to the aviation and travel industry as regional travel plans were cancelled or at least postponed. Even more than the terrorist threat, SARS wreaked havoc on the regional travel industry. There was, however, a silver lining behind this cloud. Domestic tourism among Filipinos surged and many local destinations like El Nido (Palawan) and Boracay, for instance, recorded heavy traffic. For domestic resorts, 2003 may have been their coming-out year and their golden opportunity to introduce themselves to new markets.

The second key event was the attempted military coup in July 2003, otherwise known as the Oakwood incident. While the coup was quelled in short order without a single shot being fired, once again judicial action against the perpetrators has been slow in coming and entering 2004, the soldiers have not even been arraigned. Making matters worse, the lessons pointed out by the Feliciano Commission which was appointed to investigate the matter have not even been read carefully, let alone heeded and followed.

The third key event was the attempted impeachment of Chief Justice Hilario Davide by the brash brat pack of Congress. Arrogant with power and too eager to flex their muscles, the brat pack misread and misinterpreted a Commission on Audit report and jumped to the conclusion that anomalies had been committed by the Chief Justice in the administration of the Judicial Development Fund. Fortunately, good sense and civil duty was exercised by ordinary citizens and the country was brought back from the brink of Constitutional crisis. Had the brat pack succeeded, they would have had long careers of muscle-flexing and political abuse and arrogance ahead of them. If ever there was a case against dynastic politics, this was it.

The fourth key event was the continuing rash of kidnappings, especially among the Filipino-Chinese community. No case exemplified the tragedy inflicted upon families more than the case of Betty Chua Sy, a young and promising business executive going about her career quietly. But for every Betty Sy case which reached the public eye, there were others which remained hidden and unreported — truly a blight and a plague on Philippine society.

And the fifth key event was one that is just waiting to happen. Already evident in parts of the Visayas, a power shortage may be in the making across the country unless new capacity is built in the next few years. The key to new capacity will be stability of prices and contracts and the predictability they bring to investors. Unfortunately, that is the one thing missing in the picture. If we are not careful, we will repeat the mistakes of the past and re-enter the vicious cycle of power shortage, take-or-pay contracts, expensive power, public turmoil, and rescinded contracts.

I wish I could say that’s all there was to 2003. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. The continuing and unfolding saga of the elections of May 2004 and the suddenly overactive Supreme Court and its decisions on everything from power rates to airport contracts to the Mining Act will loom large on our horizons and take over as the major events of early 2004. With apologies to the Department of Tourism’s otherwise successful tourism promotion program, woe Philippines.

The publisher