I’m glad Manolo brought up the example of the Oil Prize Stabilization Fund. With deregulation now in place, the consuming public (a phrase I hated on sight, when I was editing copy in an economics think tank, but which even I must admit has its uses) has learned to contend, or at least to accept, “market forces” at work. Yes, as Manolo pointed out, some subsidies are still part of the mix, but by and large it’s the market that now dictates pump prices in the Philippines.

But does this partial success —- and I think it must be considered a success, because the government no longer needs to run up an enormous bill merely to cushion the public from oil price fluctuations —- mean that the public no longer sees a role for the government in oil price setting?

Last Saturday, I saw the usual man-on-the-street interviews the TV networks run when presenting an economic story; in this instance, the story was about a new increase (an average of 50 centavos) in oil prices. The various people interviewed for their reaction had the usual things to say: a number of them, however, complained that there was no adequate advance notice. The increase took them by surprise, they said; they should have been warned in advance.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

THE Inquirer editorial and Fr. Joaquin Bernas, SJ both focus on the party-list campaign. The editorial points out the most recent controversy: allegations by Danton Remoto (Chairman of Ang Ladlad, which was denied accreditation by the Comelec) that accreditations are for sale. Fr. Bernas, on the other hand, agrees with those who are asking party-list groups to reveal their nominees, but he suggests that those who want the Comelec to do something, should go to court. The Comelec’s hands, he says, are tied.

Pulse Asia’s released its survey findings on awareness of the party-list, and voters’ preferences, from those safely within the 2% threshold, to all the rest who aren’t doing all that well at all. The survey points to how far the party-list system still has to go, in terms of public awareness and most of all, participation.

JOHN’S entry has me thinking of one very good example of how the traditional view of government as end-all and be-all has given way to a more modern view. And that has to do with gas prices. Once upon a time we had a Oil Price Stabilization Fund, as part of the 1990s reforms it was scrapped; and where once, governments lived in mortal dread of negative public opinion due to increased gas prices, over the last few years our government’s learned that it can take, at the very least, a more nuanced approach to whatever public commotion world gas price increases cause.

Instead of subsidizing everyone, government subsidized gas prices for public utility vehicle operators (who traditionally were at the forefront, together with the labor unions, of threats to mobilize strikes). The middle and upper classes that own vehicles have been left to fend for themselves, while the commuting public is cushioned by the subsidies for public transport operators. Now it might just be, that the appeal of a strike has been blunted in great part, because the tremendous number of Filipinos abroad (and sending news to loved ones at home) has taught the public that there are certain things governments can’t really control -or decide not to control.

John suggests the unwritten premise in my previous entry, “here is a tectonic shift in the public’s view of the role of government”; he suggests that there remain far too many who expect government to do too much, and that this attitude has remained pretty much the same over the past few decades. He and I obviously disagree, too, on the impact of the New Society, which I view had a massive (and on the whole, negative and almost fatal) effect, while John believes it had a more incremental effect, hardening our society’s attitudes towards government (if you recall my entry on We Filipinos, there is much going for John’s views.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

With apologies to the late, great Ernst Cassirer, let me appropriate the title of his last (in fact, unfinished) book, to organize my thoughts on Manolo’s latest post. “The Cult of the Market” is one of the more provocative of Manolo’s disquisitions; I cannot, however, bring myself to agree with him.

To be sure, I think I do understand Manolo when he says he is worried about the ascendancy of this cult, which he helpfully defines as

the idea that politics has become less relevant to people’s lives, because it can’t deliver change or an improvement in lives better than attending to business -and letting the “free market” sort the things that politics used to consider its mission to sort out.

I agree with him that politics has become, as far as this is possible to ascertain, “less relevant” in our lives. I see what he means when he says more and more people simply want to let the “free market” sort things out, but I doubt whether this attitude (however defined, as a resigned fatalism to or an aggressive embrace of, those ubiquitous market forces) is in fact shared by many.

(Admittedly, there is no science here; it’s all judgment based on limited experience — but what is experience if not defined by its limits?)

I disagree with Manolo, therefore, on the main but unwritten premise: That there is a tectonic shift in the public’s view of the role of government. I think, in fact, that the public, a large majority of it, continues to expect the same things — that is, too much — from the government of 2007 that the Filipino people learned to expect from, say, the government of 1976.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

THE Cult of the Market is something that’s been bothering me for some time. To me, this is the idea that politics has become less relevant to people’s lives, because it can’t deliver change or an improvement in lives better than attending to business -and letting the “free market” sort the things that politics used to consider its mission to sort out.

In his column today, Amando Doronila points to something I’ve been trying to say for some time: there are some trends emerging which point to old assumptions no longer being valid. For example, as Doronila points out, the obsession with actors entering politics. Some UP MassCom students interviewed me about this a few weeks ago, and I told them that politics is as susceptible to fads as fashion is; and just like fashion, political fads will peak then subside after a certain point. He makes a larger point, which is, that our society is more innately conservative than is convenient to admit -and if so, another point could be made, which is that there is a clash between modernity and tradition that won’t go away, and may even be intensifying.

In my main blog, I once wrote about how I was very enthusiastic about Adam Curtis’s documentary, The Power of Nightmares (see music like dirt which has more on the man and links to his documentaries).

[Read the rest of this entry »]

I used to read Tony Lopez, when he wrote for Asiaweek. Reading him again after all these years, after Manolo pointed in the direction of his Manila Times column, makes me realize his copy then must have had the benefit of rigorous editing.

He writes:

Eight of its 11 candidates [that is, the opposition’s] are likely to win—if you believe surveys, which in the past had been dead wrong.

He is referring, I reckon, to the latest Pulse Asia survey, conducted April 3-5, which showed an 8-5-2 outcome. But his putdown of that survey, and other surveys showing an opposition trend, is worse than sly; it is, in fact, downright dishonest.

Lopez suggests that it is reasonable to summarize the history of opinion polling (”which in the past had been dead wrong”) by its handful of egregious mistakes. Yes, of course, there have been some real stinkers: The most famous (at least among the established democracies with a tradition of political surveys) was surely the 1948 US election; the image of Harry Truman holding a copy of the Chicago Tribune, with its Dewey Defeats Truman headline, is almost iconic.

The most recent major event which surveys got “dead wrong” was the United Kingdom’s 1992 General Election, when all surveys pointed to a Labour victory over John Major’s Conservative Party. (The trend led to the Sun’s notorious Page One.)

[Read the rest of this entry »]

AS I did it before, I’ll do so again. In response to John’s yoeman’s job of posting the survey numbers, here’s my graphed version of the same thing, to visualize the trajectory of the leading candidates (you can look at Eleksyon 2007’s bar graphs, too, which strictly looks at results within the campaign period for the top 24 candidates and for the top 12, part 1 and part 2, in alaphabetical order):

[Read the rest of this entry »]

In the latest Pulse Asia survey, conducted between April 3 and 5, Chiz Escudero has outpaced Kiko Pangilinan and Ping Lacson, to tie for third place. Manny Villar is more firmly in second (more firmly, that is, than in the last SWS survey), while Loren Legarda has pulled away. She is now in the statistical stratosphere, with 60.8 percent of “representatives adults 18 years and older” saying they would vote for her.

It must be mentioned, however, that the same six candidates figure in the first six slots, except that there has been a rigodon in standings (Loren excepted). The same thing holds for the next six candidates: They appeared in the bottom half of the first 12 in the last Pulse Asia poll, but their positions have changed.

Note that Joker, despite an impressive barrage of TV and radio ads, has actually slipped, from 34.5 to 31.6. A pity, because I thought that his campaign commercials, especially the one for TV, were the best of the lot: They actually showed a candidate standing for something. (One of the ironies of the 2007 campaign: Joker’s ad actually makes the case against some of the Arroyo administration’s repressive policies — the calibrated preemptive response, for instance — while Chiz’s ads are generic; if we didn’t know any better, we would think the House Minority Leader was not even a member of the opposition! Of course, they are meant to be crossover ads, but more about that in a future post.)

Ed Angara has solidified his position; he seems to be going from strength to strength. The numbers are also more robust now for Gringo Honasan and Tito Sotto (which is bad news for good friend Koko Pimentel and John Osmena, both of the opposition).

Sonia now leads the charge of the within-striking-distance candidates: from 22.4 in the last Pulse Asia survey (itself a tripling in her numbers), she has now positively taken flight, at 30.5.

The chart incorporates the ratings from five Pulse Asia surveys, from July 2006.

HOLY Week marks the last period of rest and reflection the politicians, media, and the public will get until election day in May. Black Saturday marked the restarting up of the national campaign and the revving up of local campaigns, both of which are now running in tandem.

Last week, an editorial in the Inquirer expressed skepticism over the administration’s assertion that its machinery would sweep away all opposition. Today’s Inquirer editorial, in a sense, reiterates last week’s observation that the Palace is trying to condition the minds of the public for an administration sweep, but that the polls are disproving that effort at conditioning. A counter-push by administration spokesmen was kicked off to mark the resumption of the campaign, but as Amando Doronila points out, the damage has been done: the juggernaut’s a bit too creaky for comfort.

An interesting three part series began today, by Winston Marbella, discussing the changing nature of political campaigns in the country. Among his assertions is that an old kind of political culture has died, and a new one has taken its place; in a sense, politics has become more scientific. At the very least, it’s become more cost-effective for some, and a non-starter for others, because of how media-dominated elections have changed the political landscape. But what the landscape is, itself, is for other kinds of experts, such as sociologists, to discuss.

In a March 11 column, Randy David, our country’s most conspicuous sociologist,  I think situated the election itself best of all within the context of our changing society. I myself have tried to point out the difference between our old and new society, but I’m less optimistic than he about how different people really are, or how young people are poised to be a dynamic force. But I am as convinced as David that we’re in an in-between period, where the old ways are dying, and a new way is waiting to be born.

I was struck by the following coincidence of theme (or, to be more precise, agreement in metaphor) in three must-read pieces in today’s Inquirer.

Ceres Doyo, the only reporter in the paper with a regular column, wrote this newsfeature even before Palm Sunday. Its publication was, wisely enough, moved to Easter Sunday. The best quote, at least for newspaper-reading purposes, comes from Bo Sanchez, the Catholic lay preacher: “God is a fierce lover who will never let go.”

This is, of course, an old refrain — from the Song of Solomon, even. Sister Marie, a Carmelite nun, offers a more recent reference: “As Richard Hardy, a doctor of theology, said in a conference on St. John of the Cross, God loves us with an erotic love, with passion. In God, eros and agapé become one.”

The theme of lover is echoed in Patricia Evangelista’s weekly column, although we are in eros territory, rather than agapé.

Boracay sand is a persistent lover. It stalks you in the shower and slips beneath bed sheets. It strokes eyelashes, slides into every cleft and crevice, then sweeps into the sweat and heat of summer dreams long after the plane’s last shuddering stop on the airport tarmac.

Every cleft and crevice: I hope for young Patricia’s sake this compelling image is in fact an act of imagination, rather than experience recollected in some tranquility.

The peerless Gilda Cordero Fernando has another piece in today’s paper (she had one yesterday), this time about, well, the intimacy of connection.

No wonder the definition of one-ness is so hard to comprehend. Because it’s not something you can get by reading or intellectualizing or analyzing. It is an experience. And it’s momentary, a flash, a brief contact with the divine. And you can’t have it either just any old time you want it.

Gilda’s essay may strike some as positively asexual, which may be a good thing. But it did seem to me, insufficiently spiritual animal that I am, that her inventory of forms of connectedness, of one-ness with everything, missed out on one thing: lover becoming one with beloved. 

I think even Augustine had a thing or two to say about that.