May 2009 Archives

This is a question posed by quite a few bloggers active in the effort to reverse the policy of imposing import duties on books.

La Nueva Liga Filipina has been the fiercest in insisting that the battle isn't over yet, and that if political momentum has been generated, it must be sustained:

We now have the initiative. We have the enemy on the run. We must maintain the momentum and not let it go to waste. Guys, we have a good thing going here.

Entonces, I now recommend that we push on and now demand the resignations of Undesecretary Sales and Customs examiner Rene Agulan for embarrassing our country before the international community.

village idiot savant has a similar point of view:

Even its resolution calls for some pause. It looks and feels like Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has struck a blow for book-lovers everywhere. Remember: it was her Secretary of Finance that imposed the tax in the first place, and being a cabinet position, it was, effectively, an extension of her office. If she caved, it was because it was an opportunity to look good, not to acknowledge the DoF's and the BoC's violation of the Florence Agreement. It cannot be properly called a victory without censure of these offices' flawed interpretation of the law.

Both also say that it isn't enough to identify problems, but that work needs to be done to propose solutions. He is not alone in pointing this out. 1ReAd2 says there remains the problem of public libraries:

There is still a need to develop other avenues by which everyone can avail of the book and one of this is develop our public library system. Promote and develop them.

Not everyone can afford to buy a book. Not everyone has a credit line to buy a book. This is where or this where a library, public or otherwise can fill the gap.

Or that returning to the status quo ante is not particularly something to cheer about, as My World describes it, lifting book duties will have an effect on prices that are still high:

A “really good (imported) book” in the Philippines, hard bound, excellent paper quality written by a noted author can command a price of upwards 2000 pesos. The paperback edition of such book with nice paper quality sells at around Php1500 to Php2000. A “good book” (one in which the author is not that popular) with a nice paper quality typically sells around Php1000 – 1500. Between Php800 – Php1000 are the “downsized” version of a typically good book or the so – called mass paperback copies. Below Php500 are books whose printed pages are of newsprint quality. By comparison, in China, a paperback edition book with nice paper quality costs around Php300 – 400 (converted already) tops. As a matter of fact, last December, during my vacation in China, I’ve bought 7 books for 341 RMB or roughly Php2500 total. Imagine 7 books for the price of 2 or maybe even 1 bought in the Philippines (the books I’ve bought in China are scholarly works on Chinese History). Now that is expensive. It is due to this high price of books that book buying and collecting is fast becoming an expensive “hobby” of the “well – to – do”. A “financially struggling” individual can’t “afford” to read and collect books even if he loves books. It is for this reason that an imposition of a few percentage points of custom duties on the cost of books would only make books more expensive and the matter worse. However, it won’t be that bad if we have a “functioning” public library system instead of a pathetic one that we have now.

School Librarian in Action noticed the lack of engagement by librarians, as organized professionals, in the issue, but takes a positive attitude:

I'd like to think that most Filipino librarians are battling their own professional issues and problems that to make a noise on the TGBB is just too much to do for now. I would like to think that somewhere out there, Filipino Librarians are quietly transforming their libraries into places where the public can freely access information from printed and online media.

Philippine Commentary would be somewhat pleased with the above, because in his view, the call of the times is to hasten the demise of the book and to encourage, instead, the consumption of books as digital files.

Indeed it seems to me that the healthy thing about online advocacy is that it helps cure -or remedies- a basic weakness of public causes and those involved in them, which is, the disinclination of many participants to take stock of what took place, so that lessons, hopefully, can be identified, learned, and institutionalized.

There seems to be a lot of angst in that the supposedly successful resolution of the whole campaign has revealed it to be a primarily Middle Class cause. As Cocoy put it in Filipino Voices:

Victory is sweet. Who would have thought we could change Government’s mind?

The sad part of it, as much of our people care more about Kho’s, Belo’s and Halili’s sex life. We won this victory without 95% of our people understanding why it was fought in the first place and why this is important. We fought this battle largely without network television and hardly any support from the daily newspapers. Heck, I don’t think they know it was fought at all.

The frightening and dangerous thought is that if this was won largely without popular support, in the next engagement, should we bother getting them onboard? That to build this nation, do we still need them? Are they immaterial to the larger war? Dangerous question, correct?

People saw the book blockade, this war on book taxes and duties as a war of the elite. How many people who joined this crusade who are actually multimillionaires but instead are ordinary people, living ordinary lives who love books?

Now there were those ambivalent about the issue from the very start, because of its bourgeois characteristics or, to be more accurate about it, because of their disdain for anything smacking of the bourgeoisie. This was clearly expressed in stuart-santiago and by caffeine_sparks in Filipino Voices, but the answer may be in another portion of the same entry by sparks:

“Did you see who carted away the books first?” I murmured a negative, having come a bit late. He motioned his head to the inhabitants of the Manila Bay area, skin darkened from sleeping underneath the naked sky. To be clear I said, “You mean the Great Unwashed carted most of the books away?” In a conspiratorial way only journalists would ever be able to manage, he murmured an affirmative. “You see, we the so-called enlightened ones like to assume the hoi polloi would never care for books. But right there, before my eyes, was proof that isn’t true.” Indeed. The printed word is a luxury for many. In our little enclaves we tend to forget the great privilege of being able to make sense of letters strung together. What jewels they must be for those whose precious monies must be spent on not starving.

Now this may or may not suggest by even the Divided Left had both its main branches speaking out against the book duties, but was it out of genuine concern for issue, or a desire to pander to the Middle Class, a manifestation of United Front politics? Nonetheless, Stuart-Santiago's, caffeine_sparks' point of view was also echoed by The Zeppelin's Mezzanine:

But I just can’t help but wonder. If the power of the Internet-driven Pinoy community was that great, it’s a wonder people haven’t tried to levy for a decrease in gasoline prices via Facebook. Or they hadn’t called for the exposition of First Gentleman Mike Arroyo by Twitter. Heck, it’s actually a wonder that there aren’t any online petitions calling to end Jejomar Binay’s plans to run in the 2010 elections.

See what I’m talking about? The curious variable in this whole mess was that the only reason these guys went to the streets – er, what’s the Internet equivalent? – was because it involved something they held to be important. This only serves to point out the old adage of infernal dynamics: The energy required to move an object in the correct direction, or put it in the right place, will be more than you wish to expend but not so much as to make the task impossible.

Meaning people will only move when they think the cause is worth their while. But as to what my own demographic considers important, well. You could say that that’s a whole new ball game.

Personally, I believe our civic sense to have become so thoroughly enfeebled, that any small victory -and the victory, perhaps small though it may be and possibly even temporary, becomes a large one, if only because there have been so few instances where domestic public opinion actually led to official action and someone in officialdom relenting- is worthy of celebration in and of itself.

Also, surely it's also worth considering the perspective that Middle Class empowerment is a good thing, and a necessary thing, if politics is to be about the national community and not just a winner-take-all battle between its constituent parts. If there is to be pluralism and not just triumphalism on the part of segments of the population, then the entire apparatus has to be seen as responsive to a Middle Class that has been so enfeebled, politically, as to have boycotted the country by voting with its feet and pursued permanent emigration abroad.

Now on to something else that Cocoy thinks, which is that,

This battle was won largely because the diverse group used cyberspace to get our message across. We were heard in the halls of the US Embassy. We were heard in twitter and facebook. We were heard in the UN. And those entities helped put in pressure on our government who would normally wait for the storm to pass.

The Internet isn’t just a delivery mechanism for sex scandals. It is a delivery mechanism to help change the world.

Perhaps a bit premature, methinks, and a tad colonial-minded in that "we were heard in the halls of the US Embassy" seems to be perceived as an achievement in itself. We do not know, and there seems no reason to think, the US Embassy lifted a finger in terms of this issue; although it is remarkable that the Americans -or, to be precise, an American in the embassy staff- told David Hemley that the issue made them reconsider their previous low opinion of the effectiveness of the Internet when it comes to mobilizing people.

I do believe that the the Internet made possible the story's emergence in the first place. David Hemley -an American, one less inclined to take official impositions sitting down, which is what Filipino book importers were inclined to do- wrote about it online.

His story was tremendously easy to reproduce, because of that; and a constituency was revealed because of that story. More remarkably still, the story was enriched because of the initiative of blogs like Philippine Genre Stories that didn't just take Hemley's word at face value, but dug around deeper. The online buzz forced at least a token nod in the direction of all the online agitation going on, on the part of mainstream media, though I personally suspect mainstream media viewed the issue with ambivalence because it tends to view most things through the same Class Struggle lenses that made some bloggers ambivalent about the issue, too.

Anyway, if the story would not have otherwise emerged, if not for the internet; if the story wouldn't have spread, without the internet; if the internet made possible people not only expressing personal indignation, but discovering they didn't exist in impotent isolation, but actually formed a constituency, then the view of Cocoy is valid.

But I'd like to point out one shortcoming, and that's of official perception and even, of what gets officials to act. In a sense, even as online media and organizing proved its clout with this issue, it also demonstrated the residual power of the traditional print media: if only because the ferocity of print commentary kept the issue from being totally shrugged off by both print reporters and radio and TV media.

I must say though, that I'm on shaky ground on this one, as I might simply be seeing this through the self-satisfied eyes of a print opinion writer. Though I was told that it was the direct challenges to UNACOM that prodded it into hastening the release of its statement, which the Department of Finance never wanted released at all.

There are officials, though, who are surely of the impression that the whole issue had nothing to do with the internet, or put another way, that the internet was irrelevant in the resolution of the issue. What resolved it was media noise, which gave one faction within the President's official family, the nerve to challenge another; but that in the end it was a matter of getting the President's ear, and her stepping in to stop the official squabbling.

But be that as it may, perhaps the celebrations and soul-searching are premature. See Gov’t urged to totally scrap tariffs on imported books in BusinessWorld. As The Grin Without A Cat says, vigilance!

 After yet another query asking about yesterday's "missing" column (for some reason, it cannot be easily located on Inquirer.net; I had to Google it), I thought I should post it here on Current. Let me know what you think! Published on May 26, 2009 When it comes to everyone’s favorite pastime—no, not watching the latest Hayden Kho sex video but handicapping favorites in the equally rough-and-tumble world of presidential politics—everybody has an opinion. But this emphatically does not mean that one man’s guess is as good as any other’s. I say this not simply because I have a vested interest in professional commentary and political journalism; I say this because certain factors are already in play, and opinion that does not take them into account is worse than useless. Political facts, of course, may be read differently. In the interest of greater accountability, I would like to advance the following five theses, with which I propose to frame my reading of 2010. Thesis 1. Under our post-Marcos Constitution, we are unlikely to elect a majority president. Not impossible; just improbable. The nearest thing we had to a runaway winner since 1986 was the massively popular Joseph Estrada in 1998, and yet he received only 39 percent of the vote. In part this is because our Constitution’s new-found conviction in pluralism encourages multiple candidates to contest the highest office—but without providing for a second, run-off election between the top two candidates, as in, say, the French system. It is true that some presidential elections under the 1935 Constitution featured more than two viable candidates; in 1957, for instance, Jose Yulo (27 percent), Manuel Manahan (20 percent) and Claro M. Recto (8 percent) contested the presidency with Ramon Magsaysay’s successor; Carlos Garcia returned to Malacañang with 41 percent of the vote. But under the 1935 Constitution, the odds and the advantages were stacked in favor of the two dominant political parties. Since 1986, all presidential elections have been multi-candidate races, with many candidates (all seven in 1992, seven of 10 in 1998, four of five in 2004) heavyweight political personalities. The most famous beneficiary of this pure first-past-the-post system is Fidel Ramos, who won the 1992 elections with only 23 percent of the vote. Thesis 2. In 2010, and despite the even more prohibitive cost of a presidential campaign, more than two candidates will contest the presidency. In part this is explained by the imperatives of political positioning and the example of mid-term senators running for higher office. Senators Loren Legarda, Francis Escudero and Panfilo Lacson have very little to lose by running in 2010; they still have three years left in their term, and by throwing their hat in the ring they keep their names current and their 2013 options open. (I should include Sen. Manny Villar in this privileged list, because his Senate term ends in 2013 too, but he is currently threatened with expulsion by a suddenly resolute Senate.) In part, too, we can look forward to a multi-candidate scramble in 2010 because the system does not only allow multiple candidacies, it positively enables them. Money is the only limit. Thesis 3. There are two kinds of presidential mandate: the 20-percent presidency and the 40-percent presidency. The inevitable multi-candidate race in 2010 will follow either of two templates: the 1992 elections, which saw four evenly matched candidacies (with two more viable enough to end up with at least 10 percent of the vote), or the 2004 elections, which were marked by two candidacies of relatively equal strength. (With a little help from Garci, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo won with 39 percent of the vote, against Fernando Poe Jr.’s 36 percent.) It will probably take us until December this year or January next year to define, with any certainty, what kind of mandate will be at stake in the May elections. But unless the political dynamics change, even the most popular candidate with the best-funded campaign in 2010 can look forward only to a 40-percent mandate at the most, not a majority vote. Thesis 4. The election prospects of a johnny-come-lately like Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro hinge on a multiple-candidate scenario and a 20-percent mandate. I earlier misread Teodoro’s political affiliation; he is no longer with the Nationalist People’s Coalition but is firmly in President Arroyo’s camp. At any rate: Considering the President’s high negatives, a campaign by somebody like him (or, say, Bayani Fernando) can only succeed if the ratings of the current front-runners (Vice President Noli de Castro, Villar, Legarda, Escudero) continue to cluster together. In other words, somebody like Teodoro who has not yet figured prominently in the surveys can only, realistically, have a shot at becoming president if the threshold to Malacañang is as low as 1992—that is to say, around 20 percent. (Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago fought Ramos down to the wire, and garnered 19 percent of the vote.) If the 2010 election resolves into an essentially two-person race, Teodoro (or Fernando) stands virtually no chance. At this late stage, a 40-percent goal is out of reach. I would think the same limits apply to Lacson’s second presidential run, or to Sen. Richard Gordon’s first. Thesis 5. The ambition of a consistent front-runner like De Castro or Villar posits a 40-percent mandate despite a multiple-candidate scenario. The list of preferred presidential candidates remains thick at the top—partly because survey respondents are allowed to name multiple preferences. The picture should become clearer when the survey questionnaires begin to require a single choice. But for De Castro and Villar, as well as Legarda and Escudero, and perhaps for Sen. Mar Roxas, the template to follow is 2004: convert a high-teens to mid-20’s rating into a 40-percent mandate. jnery@inquirer.com.ph/johnnery.wordpress.com

My understanding is the House of Representatives is tackling the so-called "Right of Reply" Bill, which is essentially an Obligation to Publish Bill. Like all issues politicians seize upon, there is a kernel of validity in what they are proposing, although the manner in which it's being accomplished is entirely wrong and patently self-serving. The only thing helping the legislators' cause is public skepticism over the assertions of a kind of sacred sovereignty on the part of media.

A Right to Reply is actually mainly of interest to people who are private citizens, do not live in the public eye, have no access to the powers-that-be, and who find themselves dragged into public scandal or controversy, without any means to properly defend themselves.

This is only my opinion gleaned from talking to readers, including some whom I've urged to write to challenge things they consider unfair or offensive to themselves. Generally, their answer is, it won't accomplish anything, anyway, because the only thing as bad as an antagonized politician is an antagonized media person.

This goes to the heart of a problem many media people have, which is, that over the years, every time media has faced official hostility, there is a significant, even dominant, portion of the population that derives a kind of delight over media's being on the defensive. Media people have a problem with this, because most of the time, they're used to being praised and flattered by the public, which calls on them to expose and condemn the things the public finds wrong with officialdom.

But the power of the Fourth Estate comes not from public belief in the integrity or idealism of media, though individual media people do earn the respect of the public in terms of integrity and idealism, but rather, from the general cockfighting approach of the public to politics and public issues.

Media has gained its power and become convinced of its importance because it is used as a proxy by the public, in fighting officials the public couldn't otherwise challenge, either institutionally or politically. But the usefulness of media shouldn't be confused with public affection or respect for the profession and industry as a whole. It is all a proxy fight, and the proxy is only useful so long as a citizen or group of citizens find media fighting for their pet causes; but as for media itself, the widespread public attitude, it seems to me, lumps media practitioners with the politicians as part of an Establishment that bullies its way to get what it wants, regardless of the public good.

Were Congress to pass a law giving ordinary citizens the Right to Reply to articles/stories/broadcasts they believe unfairly slurred them, I think the public would applaud. But such a law would have to distinguish between ordinary citizens and those who, by virtue or position or affinity are public figures (for example, the ridiculous insistence of the Palace that the President's husband is a "private citizen").

Current proposals in Congress do not make any distinctions of this sort, and many of the arguments made by representatives like Monico Fuentebella and even former Senate President Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. points to politicians wanting to pass the law because they feel slighted and aggrieved over media handling of their actions. But if there's one thing public officials don't lack, it's access to media to give their side on any story.

From my understanding of his arguments, Locsin believes Congress has dug a legal hole for itself with this effort to compel media to give politicians the right to seize equal space to reply to stories concerning them.

On the one hand, as a media person himself, he knows that libel presents a clear and present danger to media:

Even if a libel suit is eventually won, the expense of defending against it can be so prohibitive. Libel suits are a powerful deterrent to press freedom and a potentially fatal financial threat to media. Respected jurists noted this after the highly defective New York Times v. Sullivan decision unleashed a firestorm of libel judgments from outraged state judges protective of the reputation of their constituents. That was when the “dancing in the streets [only of journalists over the NYT decision] stopped.”

But he makes a point probably noxious to media people, which is, that libel is not a question of free speech and disputes the assertion that press freedom is a kind of sacred right:

US Chief Justice Rehnquist said that freedom of speech is a value, sure but it is not the only value protected by the Constitution; personal honor is another. And while Thomas Jefferson extolled press freedom as essential to democracy, he changed his mind after four years in the presidency, saying words to the effect that press freedom is as much of a threat.

In short press freedom is not a sacred right because, as everyone knows, journalism is not a priestly calling. None of its practitioners practice celibacy except when they have no choice. Indeed, there is nothing sacral about journalism—not by a long shot—even if its practice involves excessive intakes of heady beverages, frequent complaints about the shortness of “bread”, repeated grousing about the failure of media owners to multiply their wages combined with the overcompensation of former colleagues who are unaccountably transubstantiated into editors and publishers. All this followed and preceded yet more frequently by blasphemous takings of the Lord’s name in vain—or, worse yet, someone’s mother. (The PI invective made famous by a presidential candidate uttered when copy is read.) Any journalist who takes himself too seriously is not a serious journalist and is probably an academician or a media watchdog. As Samuel Johnson may have said, “Why do writers write? It’s a job.”

But he does believe that legislation is in order to provide what he calls "The Chance to Answer and the Right to Retract":

This is the Chance [not Right] to Answer aspect of my short substitute. Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim, who asked for a second chance [to redeem an act of cowardice or—in the present case—recklessness] inspired the second aspect. To wit, a journalist should have the right to retract and thus be spared the liability or expense of a libel suit by voluntarily “eating his own words”—if they aren’t worth his trouble to keep the words out there for someone to sue on.

So instead of imposing something, the law would encourage something, a difference in attitudes that avoids the dangers of prior restraint on the press:

My substitute bill, aside from possessing the rare quality of brevity and being environment friendly, removes the smallest element of compulsion. It is this element, the US Supreme Court said in the Miami Herald case, that was the only objectionable aspect of a right of reply bill, saying that the right to compel publication is a step away from the right to repress it. Talk about hyperbole.

He argues, you cannot assert a right to reply, unless libel has been established. To establish that, you need probable cause, as established by a Fiscal.

You'd have to file a case and get a finding of probable cause for libel. Only then could you go to a media outfit, armed with the finding of probable cause, and demand equal space to rebut an offending story.

But to compel a media outfit to do so would then be tantamount to prior restraint, since it's only probable cause, and not proven in court.

Theoretically speaking, the best that the legislator might be able to do is to declare that if a media outfit refuses to publish an apology or a statement from the offended party, the refusal could be taken as a presumption of malice. But he doesn't see how Congress can "legislate malice."

And there are other problems with the proposed legislation as it stands:

Finally, if a right of reply bill passes, where would that put a right of rebuttal on the part of the publication? Would the rebuttal be protected from libel? If not, then why accord the right of reply? Where is the win-some, lose-some aspect of such a bill. What if the rebuttal is allegedly even more “libelous”? Would that occasion another right of sur-rebuttal? And so on? Indeed, what if the original reply is libelous, can the publication sue for libel? This is a bill that requires more thought, though not outright suppression into the archives.

And in the sense that no politician has ever put forward a proposal unless he feels there is some sort of support, in terms of public opinion, that can provide an issue on which to base a cause, Locsin is correct. Media will do itself more harm than good by ignoring skeptical public opinion concerning not only itself, but the ethics and principles media people often grandly proclaim but which the public believes media people ignore every bit as blithely as politicans ignore the commonweal.

As it is, as he himself summarizes his bill -

In my bill, if the reply of a victim of an alleged libel is published, he loses any right to sue the writer and the publication, civilly or criminally.

It achieves what the public wants, and yet protects the media's Constitutional rights; it gives a positive incentive for media outfits to respond to complaints of unfair coverage, accords citizens a means to get themselves heard, and potentially eliminates many unecessary suits before the courts.

Here is the statement from which I lifted the blockquotes above, in full:

Press Statement of TLL

And here is his proposed substitute bill, which has been introduced as an amendment -a substantive one- to the bill that will probably be discussed in the House tonight.

HB No. 3306

Sonny Pulgar puts forward this piquant quote:

As Vittorio De Sica remarked, “moral indignation in most cases is, 2% moral, 48% indignation, and 50% envy.”

And along the way he points to one lesson from contemporary political history: an incumbent must always seek an inferior successor:

Erap and his nocturnal Malacanang pirates were shoved in the calaboose. Immediately we mounted a moral pygmy onto our own pedestal pining for a “gentler, and better presidency.” We were soon disillusioned when we were introduced rudely to her incredibly rapacious estranged espouse. (Erap in hindsight was nanghihinayang with the unbeatable team up of Erap with Lito Lapid in May, 1998. He harassed Lito with myriad Ombudsman cases that led to the latter’s suspension early on the former’s presidency. Had Lito been Erap’s Vice President, Ramos and company could have thought a million times before undermining Erap’s helm).

Asked why he had not replaced Spiro Agnew on the 1972 ticket, Richard Nixon replied, that Agnew was his “insurance policy” because “no assassin in his right mind would kill me.”

(Incidentally some time ago in To cheat is patriotic, he put forward this very shrewd look into the moral framework, politically-speaking, of the President; I happen to agree in that the fundamental lesson she took away from her father's presidency is, nice guys finish last).

So for every effort at constituting a Moral Majority, the President can underscore the timelessness of Machiavelli's dictum that the appearance of virtue is more important than virtue itself. I have been pointing this out since June 14, 2005, and once more, with feeling, is Machiavelli's advice:

Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite…

For this reason a prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the above-named five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious.

And so in response to Hayden Kho and his documenting his conquests, the Elected are proposing all sorts of legislation to penalize public exhibitions of penises. Which makes for the Law as less a means to enforce public morals but rather, to camouflage the public's voyeuristic proclivities, Government as Fig-leaf, if you will.

So anyway let's go on to public dissatisfaction over other public sins like profligacy with the public purse.

Even if you grant that Pulgar's De Sica quote has a kernel of truth, still, that can only give an insight into the hidden motivations of public outrage over official spending at a time of public want.

Domestic news and public opinion have completely ignored the rather remarkable goings-on in the United Kingdom, where, for the first time in 300 years the Speaker of the House of Commons ended up confronted in such a manner. Things came to a fascinating head during a stormy parliamentary session, in which the embattled Speaker tried to make an Arroyo-style "I am.. Sorry" speech which only poured gasoline on an already-raging fire.

Accounts of the tumultuous parliamentary session particularly struck me because of the elephantine institutional memory of everyone concerned. Aside from most commentators pointing out it's been three centuries (not since 1695 to be exact!) since a Speaker of the House of Commons has been prematurely removed from office, Sir Patrick Cormack, in responding to the Speaker's apology-flop, brought up the Norway Debate (in which Neville Chamberlain lost the confidence of the Commons in 1940). Bloggers picked up on the reference as well, see From a Vauxhall Velox:

You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!

The words of Leo Amery in the Norway Debate have never had such resonance and appropriateness as they perhaps have had today in the House of Commons. Sir Patrick Cormack referenced the great debate of 1940 during what can only be described as the shambolic statement by Mr Speaker Martin today.

And Leo Amery, a partisan of Churchill, in turn used the famous lines of Oliver Cromwell when he dismissed the Long Parliament on April 20, 1653, perhaps one of the most vitriolic speeches ever made by a politician against his peers:

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter’d your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil’d this sacred place, and turn’d the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress’d, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!

Although SnarkMarket points to research suggesting the speech may have entered legend but without a basis in historical fact! But puts forward this genuine account of a genuine example of vintage Cromwellian ire:

Lt. General Cromwell (I am sure of it) very loud, thumping his fist upon the Council table, til it rang again, and heard him speak in these very words or to this effect; I tell you, Sir, you have no other way to deal with these men, but to break them in pieces; and thumping upon the Council table again, he said, Sir, let me tell you that which is true, if you do not break them, they will break you; yea and bring all the guilt of the blood and treasure shed and spent in this kingdom upon your head and shoulders; and frustrate and make void all that work, that with so many years’ industry, toil and pains you have done, and so render you to all rational men in the world as the most contemptiblest generation of silly, low-spirited men in the earth, to be broken and routed by such a despicable, contemptible generation of men as they are; and therefore, Sir, I tell you again, you are necessitated to break them.

It's interesting how the fallen Speaker's defenders tried to turn the tables, at first, on their critics, see To labour is to struggle:

The Speaker may appear to be a victim of misdirected anger, a scapegoat. However it was Mr Martin who actively blocked attempts to use the FOI act to reveal the spending habits of MP’s. His response has been muted in public and obstinate in private. He is totally out of touch with the public mood. His example (his wife’s taxi fares) before this blew up, his failure to step forward as an impartial representative of the house of commons and his subsequent (in)actions clearly warrant his demise.

His supporters have long suggested that his opponents are waging war on a nationalistic (Mr Martin is scottish) class front. Mr Martin is brusque at best and rude at worst but these are traits present in many of our business and political leaders. He has however been accused (below the parapet) of a lack of impartiality in his running of the house.

But the public mood was definitely not only sour, but indignant on a nationwide scale. A commentary in The National Newspaper outlines the whole issue, including some of the more lurid revelations:

The cause of the MPs’ decline is the publication of their expenses, leaked to a newspaper. It is the detail that has caught the public imagination, rather than any huge sums of money. Yesterday it was revealed that a Conservative MP installed an ornamental floating island in his garden to protect his ducks from being eaten by foxes, at a cost to the taxpayer of £1,645 (Dh9,500). A fellow MP claimed for cleaning the moat around his country manor. No one can see how these expenses were necessary for them to carry out their jobs, especially at a time of deep recession.

More seriously, several top politicians, including cabinet members, have manipulated the rules so that they can avoid paying the taxes that they legislate for other people to pay. Others have claimed for reimbursement of the interest on non-existent mortgages, which looks like fraud and is being investigated by the police.

The scandal might have been contained but for the fact that a succession of MPs have explained their conduct by saying it was “within the rules”. But the MPs themselves set these rules and fought hard to keep them secret from outside scrutiny. Many still cannot see that it was their responsibility to change a patently unreasonable and immoral system, not to go along with it. Some caught with their hands deepest in the public purse have blamed the Fees Office – the body which approves and reimburses their expenses – for not cracking down on them.

MPs are paid a relatively low salary – £64,766 a year – so they can enjoy projecting an aura of frugality. By comparison, a B-list news presenter on the BBC was forced by an angry parliamentarian to admit that she received half as much again – £92,000 pounds. In order to bump up their pay – and provide for having two homes, one in London and one in their constituency – MPs have been allowed to claim generous allowances. These have ballooned into covering the cost of food, gardening and refurbishing homes that can then be sold at a profit, tax-free.

Suspicions about what the MPs were claiming were heightened when they fought to keep their allowances secret, retaining an exclusion from the Freedom of Information Act. The public mood was already one of anger at the elite: the reckless greed of the bankers – abetted by a complacent government – had driven the country into recession.

With hindsight it is clear that the British parliament was blinded by its own traditions, which date back to the 13th century.

The New York Times editorial today also says the issue is one of official salaries not being in keeping with what the jobs may really require:

Members do have a legitimate compliant that they are paid too little: less than $100,000 a year, compared with about $170,000 for a member of the United States Congress. Britain’s taxpayers want changes. They want to make Parliament’s doings more open, which is a good thing. They also want to cut out these fat and far too easily abused expense accounts. That’s good too. But they will also have to find a way to pay their representatives a better wage.

The Daily Telegraph has been at the forefront of the issue.

As this article (Selangor to enact Freedom of Info law ) shows, increasing demands for public access to official records may be part of the Zeitgeist.

Official allowances have also been controversial, domestically, and economic downturns often lead politicians to trim their salaries as a sop to public opinion, while finding other ways to maintain their income (see my October 31, 2007 entry on official allowances).

This whole thing is extremely relevant in light of the ongoing efforts to muster public support for a Freedom of Information Act. Public indignation was sparked by journalists using the UK's Freedom of Information Act of 2000 to secure official information damaging to officialdom.

See A Very Important Notice in Filipino Voices:

While the Supreme Court has upheld the enforceability of the constitutional right to information, its effective implementation has for the past two decades suffered from the lack of the necessary substantive and procedural details that only Congress can provide. There are also no effective sanctions that will deter the violation of the right.

The passage of an enabling law has come closer to reality when the Lower House approved on third reading and transmitted to the Senate its counterpart measure last 12 May 2008. What is left is for the Senate to pass its counterpart measure. Initially we had difficulty moving the Senate committee concerned. However, during the change in Senate leadership last December 2008, Senator Alan Peter Cayetano became the chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Information and Mass Media. He has committed to take the measure forward, and has made good his promise by conducting the necessary public hearings and technical working group meetings.

A draft committee report is now ready, and a final committee hearing on it is scheduled on Monday, 25 May. After the committee members sign the committee report, the next step is its sponsorship before the Senate plenary. The fighting target is to have the sponsorship on Wednesday (27 May).

I support a Freedom of Information Act but with the understanding that it may be very much a Dead Letter even if enacted. Its effectiveness will depend on an institutional awareness of the importance of record-keeping, and the safeguarding of official records -which brings up the problem that much of what is of public interest is not being recorded at all.

For example, minutes of official meetings, and institutional diaries and so forth; not all government agencies are created equal in this regard and even those with a tradition of record-keeping, have their records protected by new interpretations of existing laws or concepts like Executive Privilege. This can only make getting to the bottom of current events even more difficult than it already is.

As Tony Abaya says of himself and Tony Gatmaitan, people commenting on politics are all looking through a glass, darkly; you are as liable to get things wrong as you get things right; but sooner or later you will be proven either right or wrong. What is worth pointing out in addition, is that it takes some time for what is often bruited about in politically-active circles, to percolate into the public domain. Let me give you an example.

If you'd read this blog entry by Mon Casiple mere weeks ago,

However, various scenarios threaten to replace the election scenario or at the least vitiate or weaken its regime-changing role. One, of course, is the current charter-change move. Other possibles are the attempts to manipulate or–failing–to sabotage the automated elections (and revert back to manual election system), the creation of artificial political atmospheres to justify various forms of state of emergency, and the scheme to form a caretaker government premised on a nationwide failure of elections. Various combinations of these are also possibles.

You might have considered him unduly alarmist. At the time, officialdom was confident that it could accomplish the full automation of national elections by 2010. Even as late as the other week, when iBlog 5 took place, by all accounts, James Jimenez of the Comelec was upbeat; though one has to wonder if he wasn't already aware of the looming problem of the bidding for automation not being successful.

Indeed, not very long after Jimenez' smooth reassurances at iBlog5, the Comelec's own chief was publicly speculating on No-Election scenarios. Personally, whether a conspiracy exists or not, it's the public indifference to the issue that's pregnant with political meaning. Public opinion -or the lack of it- has a direct relationship with however things unfold, politically.

This brings me to something Ellen Tordesillas blogged about in more timely fashion: the response of Judge to her (and my) view that he was out to get himself inhibited. Vera Files published a transcript of the Judge's response:

Q: Balikan ko po ang isyu: Ano pa po ang pressure ng Malacañang na sinasabi ninyo at pinag- iinhibit kayo?

A: I am a trial lawyer, may mga ginagawa na idedeny lang nila. Frankly, sino ang gagawin kong witness? Yung gumawa sa akin e di syempre pag ka tinanong nyo siya, idedeny nya. So yung tangible lang ang itotouch ko dahil isa akong trial lawyer nga ako. Dati, ang tagal kong nagproprove ng kaso, ang tagal ko sa piskalya. So I will touch on the tangible ones.

Itong pressure, marami pa itong kasunod, tinatawag nga akong ignorant. Ang nakakatawa dito, doon sa Internet, chini-cheer nila ako e. Maganda ang May 4 order ko, may lumalabas na gross ignorance of the law.

Q: Saan nanggagaling?

A: Yung tama ang ginawa ko? Sa mga blogsites. Ang daming bloggers na pinupuri ang aking mga decision. Tapos may tumitira na ignorant ako of the law. Pero ang matagal na tayong judge. Umpisa lang ito, I'm sure meron pa yan.

Kaya lang nga, ang masasabi ko sa kanila. Kahit anong gawin ninyo, hindi ako mag-iinhibit dahil ayaw ko ipasa ito sa mga mahal kong kapwa mahsitrado. The temptation to inhibit is very great. All I have to is, o sige, inhibit and then balik ako sa dati kong buhay. Kawawa naman judge na mag-iinherit ng kaso, ganon ba dapat, hindi e, trabaho ko ito.

Q: May mga demolition job na ho.

A: Umpisa na ito after hearing today's news. Expected nyo na bukas na may motion to inhibit na. E hanggang ngayon wala.

Q: Tangible po itong demolition job. May nabanggit kayong intagible, maaari nyo ba kaming bigyan ng clues?

A: If I mention the name of the person, he will just deny e, syempre tao lang ako, syempre natatakot din ako. Kahit anong tapang ko, kung may ahas dyan o bayawak, lintik na itik, yung famous words ni Jamby Madrigal, kung may lintik na na pinepressure ako, baka matakot ako. Kahit itik yan, kung may pangil ang itik na yan di ba?

Q: Ano po ang ginawa ng taong yan, Judge?

A: Hindi nga. Ganito na lang, kahit ano pa gagawin niya sa susunod, hindi ako mag-iinhibit sa kaso.

Balik tayo doon sa order ko May 4, ito lang yata in Philippine history na pinost sa Internet. Yung mga bloggers medyo pilyo ito, sina Manuel Quezon III, si Ellen Tordesillas ng Malaya. Meron silang theory na kaya ko raw inisyu yan para ako mag-inhibit. Well, I would like to correct, although binasa ko ang blog ni Ellen Tordesillas, naiyak ako e. Kasi marami palang nagdadasal sa akin na pagpatuloy ko raw to. Kaya lang ang misis ko tinutukso ako kasi meron din doon ano ba yun, kaklase ko yata yung judge na nakikipagusap sa dewende. Tawa sya ng tawa. Tinitira ka dito. Sabi ko, oo nga no. Ganun lang, may freedom of speech.

Q: Sino sa Malacanang ang nag-pressure sa iyo?

A: Syempre, hindi sila personally magpapadala nyan, si di ko alam,. Di ba pag may conspiracy, ang main conspirator hindi nagpapakilala. Hanggang ngayon hindi nga natin alam sino nagpapatay sa ating hero.

Q: Pero lumapit po sa inyo? Tinawagan kayo?

A: Hindi ako crybaby. Kahit elementary ako, kung suntukan, suntukan, kung karate, karate. Pero matanda na ako, ayaw ko na makipagsuntukan.

Marunong din ako matakot, kahit anong pananakot nila, tuloy ang kaso sa akin.

A little later in the interview, he says he wrote his bistering opinion to pique public interest, and as a means of self-protection:

Q:Ano po sinabi?

A: I will be consistent, hindi na. Ito na lang mas importante.

Puro sa news... baka hindi nyo nakikita ang plano na mag martial law?

Balik tayo kina Manuel Quezon III at Ellen Tordesillas. Sabi nila mag-iinhibit lang ako kaya ko ginawa yung funny order. One of its kind, pero hindi eh. I intentionally wrote it that way para maging interested ang tao para pag nagsalita ako ngayon, madali na.

Q: Hindi ba kayo natatakot at mas lalo kayo pag initan?

A: Tao lang, syempre matatakot ako. Just the same, hindi ako mag-iinhibit. Tuloy ang kaso sa akin. Wala pa naman akong motion to inhibit. Ano gusto nila? Dahil sinabi ni Lolo Gonzalez na mag-inhibit ako? Wala nga motion sa akin e, paano ako mag inhibit?

Voluntary inhibition, ayaw ko nga mag-voluntary inihibit. Ayoko ipasa ang problema sa kapwa ko judge na mga mahal ko kahit yung iba hindi ako mahal...

Q: Motibo?

A: God-fearing kasi eto nga. I hope I'm very wrong in my analysis na magkakaroon ng martial law. All these are moving towards martial law. Pero kung hindi ko sinabi ito ngayon, I will not be able to forgive myself, my conscience will be bothering me for the rest of my life. Kasi maraming nagsasabing hostile witness role na hindi nakita ng iba, tawa sila ng tawa kung pwede ko daw bang ipaaresto ang presidente. Sabi nga sa isang dyaryo ignorant daw ako, hindi daw pwede, pero si former Secretary Drilon sinabi pwede at hindi nakakatawa.

In the meantime, read this glowing account of the preparations in Indonesia for their coming presidential elections, and weep: Indonesia Clears the Decks for a Presidential Election.

This morning I got an e-mail from Davao City, bringing an article to my attention, and asking me to do an episode of The Explainer on it.

Let me quote from that e-mail:

I wonder if you have discussed the issue on 'online writing' in your show...

Pity that I didn't run a thread before working for them. It turned out that we were writing academic papers for lazy students abroad. But while on it, I would receive follow-up phone calls at 12 midnight or 4am from who I believe to be a Filipino call center agent (the accent). It's like Filipino professionals helping foreigners to rip off Filipino professionals.

I asked the sender if the information above came from person experience, and here's a portion of the reply:

It's a shame Sir, but I did for almost 2 weeks this April 09. I remember making a historiographic essay on Joan of Arc and an architectural analysis of The New York Times Heardquarters building...

Then, I saw this report on Fox (or CNN, not sure now) which discussed about the triviality of the homework and a local school's effort of purging the practice due to the number of essay mills offering custom papers for a pay.

So I quit and run a thread online. I learned that a number of Filipino writers (and Indians) have been scammed since 2006! Most of them got quite nasty while a few felt like their passion was ill-used (helping students to cheat).

Finally, this person's views on why the issue needs to be discussed:

As a Filipino and a teacher at that, I feel like in the losing end if this will be discussed by foreign media. The question on ethics, plagiarism, the parasitism of the third world, the (in)dignity of the Filipino professionals, the practice being currently adapted in our colleges and universities... among others... I guess, need to be comprehensively discussed.

The article in question is Cheating Goes Global as Essay Mills Multiply: From Virginia to Manila: on the trail of papers for cash published in The Chronicle of Higher Education.In a nutshell, the article is an expose on companies that write academic papers for a fee. A case study of sorts is used in the article, focusing on entrepreneurs from Ukraine who set up dummy American companies and then operate an academic paper sweatshop in the Philippines:

Call any of the company's several phone numbers and you will always get an answer. Weekday or weekend, day or night. The person on the other end will probably be a woman named Crystal or Stephanie. She will speak stilted, heavily accented English, and she will reveal nothing about who owns the company or where it is located. She will be unfailingly polite and utterly unhelpful.

If pressed, Crystal or Stephanie will direct callers to a manager named Raymond. But Raymond is almost always either out of the office or otherwise engaged. When, after weeks of calls, The Chronicle finally reached Raymond, he hung up the phone before answering any questions.

But while the company's management may be publicity shy, sources familiar with its operations were able to shed some light. Essay Writers appears to have been originally based in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. While the company claims to have been in business since 1997, its Web sites have only been around since 2004. In 2007 it opened offices in the Philippines, where it operates under the name Uniwork.

The company's customer-service center is located on the 17th floor of the Burgundy Corporate Tower in the financial district of Makati City, part of the Manila metropolitan area. It is from there that operators take orders and answer questions from college students. The company also has a suite on the 16th floor, where its marketing and computer staff members promote and maintain its Web sites. This involves making sure that when students search for custom essays, its sites are on the first page of Google results. (They're doing a good job, too. Recently two of the first three hits for "buy an essay" were Essay Writers sites.) One of its employees, who describes herself as a senior search-engine-optimization specialist at Uniwork, posted on her Twitter page that the company is looking for copy writers, Web developers, and link builders.

Some of the company's writers work in its Makati City offices. Essay Writers claims to have more than 200 writers, which may be true when freelancers are counted. A dozen or so, according to a former writer, work in the office, where they are reportedly paid between $1 and $3 a page — much less than its American writers, and a small fraction of the $20 or $30 per page customers shell out. The company is currently advertising for more writers, praising itself as "one of the most trusted professional writing companies in the industry."

It's difficult to know for sure who runs Essay Writers, but the name Yuriy Mizyuk comes up again and again. Mr. Mizyuk is listed as the contact name on the domain registration for essaywriters.net, the Web site where writers for the company log in to receive their assignments. A lawsuit was filed in January against Mr. Mizyuk and Universal Research by a debt-collection company. Repeated attempts to reach him — via phone and e-mail — were unsuccessful. Customer-service representatives profess not to have heard of Mr. Mizyuk.

Installed in its Makati City offices, according to a source close to the company, are overhead cameras trained on employees. These cameras reportedly send a video feed back to Kiev, allowing the Ukrainians to keep an eye on their workers in the Philippines. This same source says Mr. Mizyuk regularly visits the Philippines and describes him as a smallish man with thinning hair and dark-rimmed glasses. "He looks like Harry Potter," the source says. "The worst kind of Harry Potter."

So there you go. The article includes a presentation, Journey to the Center of an Essay Mill, which gives an online tour of what essay-mill writers see when they log on to the company's website.

Last week, a Leadership Forum was held in the Ateneo de Manila where putative presidential candidates subjected themselves to questioning for the first time. Today Inquirer editorial called the exercise an example of Maturity unfolding. It suggests that the public is keen on watching candidates confront each other, and that dodging debates, as Joseph Estrada, Fernando Poe Jr. and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo did, won't wash with the electorate anymore. It's interesting to compare how a grizzled old veteran like Amando Doronila (in a nutshell, he says Nobody got away undiminished) and young observers who blogged their reactions, compare to each other in terms of their reactions to the debate. I particularly enjoyed the blog entries of So far, so good, Philippines Rising, jessie's wicked world of reality and Jolly Life. The respective media teams of the various candidates will gain a valuable insight into what young people, in particular, thought of the whole exercise. But once again, let me revisit John Nery's February 10 column, in which he pointed out that there was something remarkable about how The 2010 race is set. The public, acting as a communal self-limiting mechanism on politics, has, quite early on, narrowed the field. And let me point to another, more recent column of his from April 7, on how The vice-presidency is subtraction:

[M]y hypothesis: Since the snap election, the principal role of the vice-presidential running mate has changed. To be more precise, since 1986 the winning presidential candidate’s decision-making process for selecting a running mate has turned from addition to subtraction. In other words, the main value of the vice presidency in election politics is tactical: It provides a presidential candidate the best way to sideline a strong rival.

The classical dictum of electoral politics, as famously expressed by the late Eulogio "Amang" Rodriguez, is that "politics is addition." But since 1992, in the absence of rules and other mechanisms that foster majority presidencies, the opposite has become political conventional wisdom: from "dagdag-bawas" to coalitions formed, not to create large movements, but to hobble others, politics has become subtraction. It has also, as a result of demographic trends, become less national, in a sense. We saw this emerge in 1986, when, for the first time since national elections for the presidency began in 1935, the "North-South" rule was junked, in putting together both the administration and opposition presidential and vice-presidential teams. Marcos-Tolentino and Aquino-Laurel were both all-Luzon tickets; and while in 1992 and 1998, no single ticket won, both Ramos-Estrada and Estrada-Macapagal ended up all-Luzon presidencies and vice-presidencies. When, for the first time since 1986, a unified ticket "won" both the presidency and vice-presidency, the Macapagal-de Castro ticket was an all-Luzon one. And there's a simple reason: Luzon matches the votes of the Visayas and Mindanao combined; and in particular, the extended National Capitol Region, which encompasses, in political reality, vote-rich areas of Southern Luzon, is a bloc capable of giving the presidency to a candidate in closely-fought, multi-candidate contest. Consider the implications of the data in this image, which distills the relative populations of Luzon vs. Visayas plus Mindanao, and the accessibility of radio and TV to the population. I bring this up because of a column Tony Abaya recently published (see Crystal Balls) in which he boils down the points put forward by Tony Gatmaitan, another grizzled veteran of the political game. I've slightly re-ordered the relevant details, as reported by Abaya. First, here are the issues that will matter in the presidential campaign:

That the issues will be the core issues of economic recovery, accountability, graft and corruption, peace in Mindanao, poverty alleviation, foreign policy, the environment.

Second, that the personal characteristics the electorate wants to see in candidates are:

That the qualities being sought by voters in a president are: magaling (good, competent), madaling lapitan (easily approachable)., mapagmalasakit sa mga mahihirap (will work for the benefit of the poor).

Third, that the electorate, as a subset of the larger population, is as follows:

32.4 million voters are expected to vote, out of 45 million registered voters.

Fourth, that the candidates will be competing on the basis of what has been demonstrated before, in terms of the vote-getting power of past candidates:

[T]he previous top vote getters in a presidential/vice presidential election have been Estrada (10 million) and De Castro (15 m); in senatorial elections: Roxas (19 m), Legarda (18 m).

Fifth, that if these are the benchmarks in terms of what is "doable," in terms of courting votes, then the political math works out as follows:

[I]n a three-way race, 11.8 m votes or 30 percent are enough to win. In a four-way race, 9.1 m votes or 28 percent; in a five-way race (most likely), 7.8 m votes or 24 percent, would be enough to win. In the 1992 seven-way presidential elections, Fidel Ramos won a plurality of only 23 percent.

Sixth, the electorate will be courted, not by means of old-style barrio-to-barrio barnstorming and stump-speeching sorties, but by means of what's called the "Air War":

In 2010, television and radio would be the main field of combat and will account for 50-55 percent of candidates’ expenses: ground level logistics and organizational expenses 30-35%; and cyberspace – internet, texting propaganda – only 15-20 percent.

(Gatmaitan first put forward the idea of how cellphones and to a much smaller extent, cyberspace would matter, politically, in 2008, see my entry for May 14, 2008 see, also, a May 8, 2008 news report by ABS-CBNNews.com ). At this point, let me put forward what all the candidates have in common, in terms of viewing the public as an electorate, and that is, they are approaching things according to the perspective of the advertising industry. Let me put forward my personal opinion that Advertising methods and approaches have become dominant, in no small part, because of changes in the composition of society. Formerly significant sectors, organized as blocs, have shriveled away and except, perhaps, for the mobilizing power of some churches and parties, there's no other way to attract and mobilize people, except by means of the strategies employed to get the same people to buy soap, etc." The advertising industry looks at the broader population by breaking it down into segments, based on income and lifestyle: Another way of subdividing things, on the presumption you vote according to your wallet (and the lifestyle its contents can buy you), with AB being High Income, C being Middle Income, and DE Low Income: You could then zero in on various subsets of these groups, whether in terms of age, or in terms of location (particularly useful for courting regional voting blocs, or where households are more likely to vote as blocs), or say, in terms of urban versus rural populations: So this would be the picture, nationally: And here is the equally-relevant (if not actually more so) picture of the NCR: So if you're a candidate in a crowded field, what do you do? Who do you go after? Again, let's reproduce the breakdown: Class AB, your Captains of Industry and the Boards of Directors, will probably have its heavy-hitters flee the country or go on vacation come election time, or make their clout felt by financially supporting candidates. In any case, statistically, even in a close elections, their votes matter less, because liable to be too independent to court as a demographic. Class C, the Middle Class, has two components, really. C1, the Upper Middle Class, is your aspirational class, your Professional Classes who have their own vehicles and own their own homes, your Upper Management, aspiring to the status of, and sharing many of the values of, AB, will vote as AB does. That is, unpredictably. Even if you got them as a demographic, you'd have to ask if the resources and time required would be worth it. C2 your Broad Middle Class, Midlevel to Lower Management, with a steady income but still renting rather than owning homes, may feel more ambivalent about, if not resentful of, AB, yet shares with AB and C1, a resentment and fear of, E. Therefore, it can be nudged in one direction or another, as a demographic. Though one politically-active advertising person I talked to says Classes ABC are better off treated as one chunk, with similar aspirations (and perhaps, prejudices?). And put together, ABC can compete with D and E. Class D, the Working Class, according to one advertising person I spoke to, can be broken down as follows: D1 holds jobs; your salaried employees in factories, etc. D2 occasionally works, whether seasonal work or without the benefit of permanent jobs, for example your SM salesgirls. Put together, Class D has the lion's share of the votes. Will it likely share more in common with E, in terms of the values that will mobilize its members to vote for one candidate or another (emotional or idealistic or pragmatic appeals?); can it be mobilized in solidarity with, or opposition to Class E? Whatever the case, Class D is large and broad enough for all candidates to be willing to exert effort to actively compete to get a piece of that segment. Class E, the Unemployed, is, perhaps, almost exclusively the preserve of the Machine politicians, in that they are more likely to already be incorporated in the command vote networks. This is a picture that essentially underlines what is a perennial frustration of the blogger demographic, which everyone basically assumes is a largely Middle Class one: that as a constituency, the Middle Class is relatively unimportant, politically: Still, how would you motivate people to vote for you? Appeal to idealism? Reform. A Better Philippines. A Fresh Start. Change. Appeal to pragmatism? Jobs. Benefits. Security. Stability. Discipline. Order. Ideally, appeal to both sides, the Yin and Yang, of as many people as possible? Or bring in the Fear Factor? Here is where the Republican Playbook (its continuing evolution can be seen in this entry in The Treatment and in a Miami Herald story), used to such effective advantage by the present administration, comes in: Republican Playbook: How to scare the American public into voting. Next time, I'll explore, further, information that might be relevant in exploring the pocketbook-as-vote-getter.

(Above: scans of AAQ's and MLQ's bookplates; though rarely used today, bookplates used to be a highly-developed form of personal expression) I've been meaning to start a series on we, the people, as the political strategists and advertising people understand us, and the ongoing controversy about the Book Tax has helped kick-start the process. This entry was triggered by blogger 1ReAd2 asking,

I wonder if the present policy is a reflection if we really are a book reading country. For several years we have been touting our literacy rate … Yes we can read but do we read? Or is reading the enclave only for the privileged and for the lucky ones. And is there a place where people who cannot buy books go and get to read books. Do we have enough libraries and does government support and promote such libraries to be alternatives for people to do research and read?

Well, what, indeed, do we know? Back in December 12, 2007, I mentioned the latest National Readers Survey, commissioned by the National Book Development Board. It was the second of its kind, the first being in 2003. The NBDB's recommendations, based on the 2007 survey, makes for ironic reading today:

The challenge is for booksellers and publishers, printers and paper and ink manufacturers, to make more books affordable. The government can facilitate this, as well as the financing of technology upgrades to make operations more efficient and economical.

How many of us read, and what do we read, and have the percentages changed? The following chart, based on overall national percentages, indicates a consistent decline in the percentages who read various types of reading materials: As Queena Lee-Chua put it, in 2007 (see readings below),

Generally, the survey shows that reading has slightly declined in our nation. Only 92 percent of respondents say they read, down two percent from 2003. The reading of books, comics, newspapers, and magazines has gone down, by seven, 13, 14, and 15 percent, respectively. Ninety-six percent of urban respondents read, compared to 88 percent in the rural areas. This may be explained by the lack of access to reading materials in areas far from city centers. Reading has also declined across all socioeconomic groups, except those in the AB class. Public school students now read fewer books, newspapers, magazines, and comics than they did in 2003, and as for private school respondents, the slight increase in reading today is only among those reading comics.

However, take a look at the demographic breakdown of people who read, by age, socio-economic class, and by region. You'll notice that there's a healthy improvement overall (tremendously so in the Visayas, followed by Mindanao), except in the National Capital Region, and it's the decline in the NCR that seems to have affected the overall national percentages: Again, Queena Lee-Chua's explanation:

Why the decline? One culprit is the National Capital Region (NCR). Surprisingly, the NCR is the only cluster in the country where reading has decreased, by five percent. In Luzon areas outside NCR, readership has actually increased by two percent, and in Mindanao, readers have held steady. Despite the proliferation of bookstores, publishers, and libraries in the NCR, book readers have decreased by a whopping 31 percent, from 95 percent in 2003 to 64 percent in 2007. Magazine readers in the NCR have decreased by 27 percent, comics readers by 12 percent, and newspaper readers by 10 percent. But there is good news elsewhere. In the Visayas, general readership has increased by four percent. Readers of books in the Visayas increased by 11 percent; comics readers, by 10 percent; magazine readers, by one percent. (Newspaper readers have decreased by four percent.) It is interesting to note that NBDB has done a lot of intervention programs in the Visayas, such as the Booklatan community reading activities, which may possibly have accounted in part for the increase.

And here are figures concerning the age at which people start getting into reading non-textbooks (people are getting into the reading habit at a younger age): Queena Lee-Chua puts it this way, as good and bad news:

The youth are leading the way. They start to read non-school books at age 16, on average, one year earlier than in 2003. Again, NCR is the poor exception—young people here start reading non-school books at age 18 on average, two years later than the national norm. Unfortunately, reading has declined across all age groups, except again for the youth, those in the 18 to 24 age bracket, where the percentage of readers has in fact gone up.

Another chart suggests that if you look at people who read, the percentage of those who read books other than textbooks, is increasing sharply: Here are additional details concerning our national reading habits, mainly concerning books other than textbooks (which are required readings). Here are the top influences on our reading habits: And a NBDB pie chart on the reasons people give for not reading: Here are answers to the question, "When did you last read a non textbook book?" And how often do people read books? There seems to be a decline in monthly book reading, and an increase in the percentage of those who read a non-textbook less than once a year. Could it be because we seem to be highly utilitarian readers, with only a small minority who read for pleasure? Or could it be a factor of language? Here are figures comparing the languages in which books are published, and read, with the languages people actually prefer: And also, here are our preferences when it comes to domestic, foreign, or a mix of foreign and domestic authors: When it comes to the kinds of books we like to read, these are the top-rating titles or types: Followed by these kinds of books: (proponents of the Reproductive Health Act will notice the increase in popularity of the Bible; and yet, that books on Family Planning are pretty popular, too, but possibly subsumed within the subset of non-Bible fans?) As to the means people use to acquire books, it seems many more get their hands on books by borrowing them or being given books as gifts, than actually spend money to get books: Could it have something to do with whether it's easy or difficult to find a bookstore or library? When it comes to noticing things about the books we read, here's what sticks in people's minds: Some added details: And some more: So Queena Lee-Chua summarizes things as follows:

Pinoys read anytime they want. Evidently, reading non-school books is not a habit for most people, except for some who read before going to sleep. The number of books read in the past year is seven on the average. An average of seven books a year is not too bad, but what is alarming is the median number of books read, which is a low three. This means that even if half the adult population of the Philippines have read three or more non-school books in the past year, the other half have read only at most three, or worse, no books at all. Why do we read? More than 85 percent of the respondents read to gain knowledge or more information. The rest read for enjoyment. Almost half of the readers read books by Filipino authors only, while the other half read both local and foreign books. However, the majority of the respondents, whether they read or not, have few books at home.

But something that I think ought to be emphasized is the relatively small volume of books bought and sold, when you set aside textbooks. Here are some interesting figures taken from the NSBC website on the volume of books imported (presumably by commercial firms, and not by the public at large) compared to the volume of books we export: And an interesting set of figures provided by Dominador Buhain (see readings below) concerning the publishing and book-related firms that have flourished and those that haven't (book importers and bookstores had negative numbers): In connection with the above, let me point to two versions of a speech by Tony Hidalgo, who is an innovative publisher, and who is never loath to share his knowledge (and opinions) with others. The earlier (and longer) version of his speech dates to July 29, 2005 and was reproduced in FilipinoWriter.com; the later version dates to December, 2007 and appears in the website of his firm, Milflores Publishing. Here's an extract from the earlier speech, which answers the question posed at the beginning of this entry:

It is simply not true that Filipinos don’t read—they do. In fact, the Inquirer recently ran a story on an international survey that shows that Filipinos, on the average, read more books than the Chinese, Koreans, or Indians do and that our readership of books is pretty high when compared with other Asian countries. A 2003 SWS survey of reading attitudes and preferences of Filipinos showed that 90% of Filipino adults have read books and 68% have read non-school books. Filipinos read books that they think they need or want. This accounts for the sustained success of large publishers that specialize in romance novels in Filipino and in religious books.

However -and this is where Tony Hidalgo, referring to the original, 2003 Survey, helps make sense of the findings- there is a problem of language:

One of the most dramatic findings of the survey was that 57% of Filipino adults prefer to read non-school books in Tagalog (Filipino), 30% prefer English, and 13% prefer Cebuano. According to the survey, there are nearly twice as many readers who prefer to read in Filipino than those who prefer to read in English. Alternatively, we could say that local books in English cater to less than a third, or 30%, of the potential market for books in the country. I have discussed this finding with many friends who are involved with books as writers, editors, publishers, intellectuals, etc. and it never fails to inflame passion. I have concluded that this is because the finding is counter-intuitive to those whose first language is English and who think that the rest of the country is like them. Yet, the SWS survey finding is supported by other data. Rey Duque, when he was editor of Liwayway a couple of years ago, told me that the circulation of his magazine was a hundred thousand during bad times and 250 thousand during good times. Compare this with the circulation of magazines in English that also carry short stories, like the Free Press and the Graphic, which sell far fewer copies per issue. For me, of course, the best corroborating evidence to the SWS survey are the book sales of my own company. I wrote a series of four manuals (two with short stories) on cockfighting originally in English. Then, I translated all four into Filipino. These books have identical content and their covers and illustrations are by the same artist, Manuel Baldemor. They are sold on the same shelves in the same bookstores. The only difference between them is that the English books are sold at P190 per copy because they are in book paper, while the Filipino books are sold at P150 because they are in newsprint. Except for this difference, the framework approaches that of a laboratory experiment so that any difference in sales between the English and Filipino versions could be confidently attributed to the language used. The Filipino versions have been outselling the English ones for more than a decade now by a ratio of about two to one.

A little later in his speech, he explores this question in greater detail:

Another important constraint is the mismatch between the books that the best Filipino minds write and the needs and preferences of readers. Most Filipino books are still written in English though most readers prefer books in Filipino. The best Filipino writers still concentrate on writing fiction (novels, short stories, plays) and poetry in English, while 9 out of 10 book buyers want information books. Because of class differences in lifestyles and experiences, the content of the best Filipino literature in English is often at odds with what most readers want from fiction, so they turn, instead, to the movies, telenovelas, and romance novels. The gap between most readers and the best writers exists in many other ways—even in the visual aesthetics of books. The covers and layouts of books on the Philippine literature shelves are highly Westernized—clean, crisp, modern, and sparing in the use of space. Those on the more masa shelves like the spaces for the romance novels in Filipino and the texting humor booklets are more crowded and baroque, closer to the aesthetic of the masses. Most readers ascertain which books were written for them through their visual look, so they shun the literature shelves and crowd the other ones. The small, but affluent, A and B market is fluent in English and should be the natural market for Filipino literature in English by the best writers. Unfortunately, this segment is also highly Westernized and prefers books by foreign authors. Some of them are even unaware that there is now a fairly large body of work by Filipino authors in English.

Hidalgo also looks at the utilitarian aspect book reading, and this brings up the question of cost (as well as demographics and the health of various demographics):

According to the SWS survey, 91% of those who had read a non-school book did so to get information or gain additional knowledge, while 9% read for enjoyment or amusement. Again, our sales figures validate this finding. Our best-selling information book, Grammar Review in our English grammar series, sells nearly a thousand copies a month, while our best-selling literary title in our humorous essays series, Suddenly Stateside, averages a little less than a hundred copies a month, although, of course, the former book is only about half the price of the latter book, so that some of the difference in sales could be due to price. The survey found that young adults from ages 18-24 read more non-school books, five per year on the average, than older adults. This finding must be coupled with the unique demographics of our country. We have one of the highest population growth rates in the world at around 2.3% annually. This means that each generation is much larger than the previous one, for there are more and more parents in each generation to beget even more children in the next one. To understand this exponential population growth, we need only consider that our population in the mid-fifties was a little more than 20 million, while now it is more than 85 million. Obviously, the young far outnumber the old in our country because of our demographic trends. The dominance of young readers in the market is further heightened by the fact that not only do they outnumber the old, but they also read more books than the old, on the average, because they are more curious and have better eyesight. Another important finding of the survey was that a large majority, 58%, of those who bought non-school books for personal reading spent P200 or less on these books for the entire year. Obviously, affordability levels for books are quite low because of the widespread poverty in our country.

He also points out that

The limited reach of bookstores in our country is another limiting factor. All publishers sell the bulk of their production through bookstores, since this is more efficient than direct sales to the general public. Therefore, the market for books of publishers is basically that portion of the total market that has access to bookstores. In an article in the December 2004 issue of Book Watch, Karina Bolasco of Anvil Publishing, Inc. (a sister company of National Bookstores and one of the larger publishers) said that Anvil’s research in 1995 showed that there are, at most, 2,500 bookstores in the entire country, or one bookstore, on the average, per 34,000 people. The Anvil mapping of these stores showed that most of them were concentrated in Metro Manila and the National Capital Region (NCR). In Mindanao, there are far fewer bookstores and the average in Regions 9 and 12 is about one bookstore per 200,000 people.

And finally, an interesting insight into the backwardness of some aspects of printing, as well as the toll browsing takes on publishers' profits:

At the operational level, local printing, though relatively cheap because of lower labor costs, is generally of poor quality due to outdated technology and poorly trained workers. We sometimes get as much as 5-10% rejects in our print runs. This forces us to inspect each and every book to protect our readers and our reputation. This is costly because the print runs of some of our most popular books in our English grammar series are 10,000. Some printers also try to cut costs by using paper of lower quality than that specified by the publisher. An operational problem stemming from poverty is that some readers use bookstores as public libraries—they read books while standing without buying them. This destroys many books—our rate for popular books is about 5% of the books we place on the shelves. All bookstores simply return damaged books and publishers have to take the loss. This has forced us to wrap all our books in plastic to discourage reading without buying, and this has increased our production costs.

Further readings: The various surveys have been reported and analyzed as follows: The extracts by Queena Lee-Chua came from her article, Do Pinoys read at all? November 27, 2007. Some blogs with additional details are Malikhaing Komiks, in DEVCOMPage, (focusing on educators), in WowPare, The highlights of the 2007 National Readership Survey, from which most of the images above came from, were very kindly provided by the NDSB, and their hard copy version's been scanned and posted online by me: see NDSB Readership Survey 2007 on Flickr. The article The Romantic movement, by reporter Johanna D. Poblete in BusinessWorld, has publishers talking about Romance novels:

"Romances are the bestsellers," Anvil Publishing Inc. assistant general manager and publishing manager Karina A. Bolasco told BusinessWorld at the sidelines of a book launch last February — echoing an article she wrote, "Emerging Trends in Philippine Publishing" (BookWatch, December 2004), wherein she stated that romance novels sell the most number of units next to textbooks. At the time, around 20 romance novel titles were being produced in the country each month, with 20,000 copies per title, generating a monthly gross of P14 million. These days, production is deemed lower, with some publishers diversifying their product line, but insiders still refer to the romance novel as the "backbone" of the publishing industry. Bookware Publishing Corp. alone has a regular target of 12 titles, but releases an average of eight titles, with 12 copies per title, amounting to 96 units in a month (or 96 titles, 144 copies, and 1,152 units per year). Also, they sometimes make reprints, dub-bed "Bestsellers" of their My Special Valentine series, which placed no. 1 (in-house) in terms of sales. Not too shabby, considering that an average of only around 5,000 titles each year (5,518 in 2007, 5,713 in 2006, 5,429 in 2005, and 5,139 in 2004) are issued an ISBN number as monitored by the Philippine National Library. Employees of National Bookstore charged with purchasing books confirmed in an official e-mail to BusinessWorld that "absolutely the romance genre, consistently, has been a significant contributor to the overall sales for Fiction & Literature, both in terms of sales quantity and [revenue] amount." In general, almost half of the sales of locally published titles under Fiction & Literature are either Tagalog romances or chick lit (also referred to as "chic lit") novels by local authors in English. For imported titles, it’s the bestselling sub-category next to general fiction and the literary classics. Notably, local romance novels (both in English and Filipino) sell about five times more in quantity than imported romance novels, but total sales amount is almost equal at National Bookstore.

Here is a 2001 exhaustive survey of the Philippine publishing industry, by the Center for Business and Economic Research and Development of De La Salle University: Printing and Publishing Industry 2001 In 2005, Atty. Dominador Buhain, President of the Philippine Association of Publishers, gave a presentation in Bangkok on Publishing Today (Philippines), which updated some of the information above. Some interesting snippets (rearranged for thematic purposes):

Book sales of both local and foreign titles account for only fifteen (15) to twenty (20) percent of total store sales of National Book Store, the country's largest book retailer which has about eighty (80) stores. nly 15% of the total elementary student population and 45% of the total high school population comprise the private school market. These are the areas where private publishers compete with one another. ...private publishers have developed all basic textbooks for the public elementary and secondary schools and have printed and distributed close to 45 million copies of pupils' texts and teachers' manuals during the last six years. Printruns for the private schools range from 50,000 to 80,000 per title. In both public and private schools, the lifespan of a textbook program is five years--the same edition may be used for five successive years. Next to textbooks, romance paperbacks or pocketbooks are bestsellers in the country. About 20,000 copies per title are sold every month. Each month an average of 20 titles are released. Romance novelettes have won over a large portion of the comics readership.

Philippine Genre Stories, by way of a regional comparison, had an interesting entry in 2008 on bootleg books in Vietnam.

Per The Curious Couch, the Dean of the UP Law School, Marvic Leonen, is interested in filing a case. Please be aware that:

you do NOT have to pay taxes to claim your book purchases/packages at the post office. Books are tax-exempt. Marvic Leonen is interested in filing a case to put an end to this kind of fiasco and has asked me to dig up my old receipt to get the case going. I have spent the last hour or so trying to find the receipt, to no avail. I am usually very good at filing even the most irrelevant documents, and so I am starting to get that sinking feeling that I must’ve thrown it away. I’ll keep on looking for it, but in any case, if you’ve had a similar experience–paying taxes for books at the post office–and you still have the receipt, please get in touch with me at chingbee(dot)cruz(at)gmail(dot)com. I’d like to collect as many receipts of this kind as possible and turn them all over to Marvic.

"Where is your evidence? Bring it to the proper forum!" Here's an attempt to cobble together a timeline of events 1950: June 17 The Florence Agreement is concluded under the auspices of Unesco. How is this, and subsequent revisions to it, supposed to be interpreted? Narrowly, or broadly? The Unesco's own Guide to the Florence Agreement and Nairobi Protocol: Emphasizes the following:

Under the Agreement, books, newspapers, periodicals and many other categories of printed matter are granted duty-free entry. Printed music, maps and even tourist posters are similarly exempt. All the items of this annex to the Agreement, except architectural plans and designs, enjoy exemption from customs duties regardless of destination. Books are the most important category. The exemption granted to books is not subject to any qualifications as to their educational, scientific and cultural character.

That is, interpretation is supposed to be as broad as possible. 1952: August 2 President Elpidio Quirino signs the Florence Agreement. Unesco lists the formal Ratification of the Republic of the Philippines as having taken place on August 30, 1952. Although another Unesco link dates Philippines' signature on August 7, 1979 (this may be a discrepancy reflecting the Philippines' acceptance of the Nairobi Protocol?) 1957: June 22 The Congress of the Philippines passes Republic Act 1937, revising the tariff and customs laws of the country; it incorporates the undertakings of the Florence Agreement into Philippine law. 1973: September 3 Ferdinand E. Marcos issues Presidential Decree No. 205 authorizing the republication of foreign books domestically if the prices of books becomes "so exorbitant as to be detrimental to the national interest." He also issues Presidential Decree No. 284 substituting existing provisions in the Customs and Tariff Code with the following provisions:

Section 1. Subsection (s) of Section 105 of Republic Act Numbered nineteen hundred thirty-seven, as amended, is hereby further amended to read as follows: "s. Economic, technical, vocational, scientific, philosophical, historical, and cultural books and/or publications: Provided, That those which may have already been imported but pending release by the Bureau of Customs at the effectivity of this Decree may still enjoy the privilege herein provided upon certification by the Department of Education and Culture that such imported books and/or publications are for economic, technical, vocational, scientific, philosophical, historical or cultural purposes or that the same are educational, scientific or cultural materials covered by the International Agreement on Importation of Educational, Scientific and Cultural Materials signed by the President of the Philippine on August 2, 1952, or other agreements binding upon the Philippines. "Educational, scientific and cultural materials covered by international agreements or commitments binding upon the Philippine Government so certified by the Department of Educational and Culture. "Bibles, missals, prayer books, Koran, ahadith and other religious books of similar nature and extracts therefrom, hymnal and hymns from religious uses."

1976: November 26 The Nairobi Protocol to the Florence Agreement is signed. 1977: September 27 Ferdinand E. Marcos issues Presidential Decree No. 1203 amending his earlier order, granting the payment of royalties to authors affected by the domestic republication of books. 1978: June 11 President Ferdinand E. Marcos issues Presidential Decree No. 1464 consolidating existing Customs-related laws and decrees into the Tariff and Customs Code of 1978, including the following under Section 105, Conditional Duty-Free Imports:

s. Economic, technical, vocational, scientific, philosophical, historical, and cultural books and/or publications: Provided, That those which may have already been imported but pending release by the Bureau of Customs at the effectivity of this Decree may still enjoy the privilege herein provided upon certification by the Department of Education, Culture and Sports that such imported books and/or publications are for economic, technical, vocational, scientific, philosophical, historical or cultural purposes or that the same are educational, scientific or cultural materials covered by the International Agreement on Importation of Educational Scientific and Cultural Materials signed by the President of the Philippines on August 2, 1952, or other agreements binding upon the Philippines. Educational, scientific and cultural materials covered by international agreements or commitments binding upon the Philippine Government so certified by the Department of Education, Culture and Sports. Bibles, missals, prayer books, Koran, Ahadith and other religious books of similar nature and extracts therefrom, hymnal and hymns for religious uses;

1990: November 27 President Corazon Aquino issues Executive Order No. 438 imposing a 5% duty on all imported items except those enumerated as duty-free under Section 3 of the order, which includes "those conferred by effective international agreements to which the Government of the Republic of the Philippines is a signatory". 1995: June 7 The Congress of the Philippines passes Republic Act 8047, the Book Publishing Industry Development Act, which among other things, exempts foreign and domestic books from the Value Added Tax (VAT):

Sec. 12. Incentives for Book Development. — ...In the case of tax and duty-free importation of books or raw materials to be used in book publishing, the Board and its duly authorized representatives shall strictly monitor the quality and volume of imported books and materials as well as their distribution and the utilization of the said imported materials. The Board shall also recommend to the proper prosecuting agencies any violations of the conditions of the duty-free importation. Books, magazines, periodicals, newspapers, including book publishing and printing, as well as its distribution and circulation, shall be exempt from the coverage of the expanded value added tax law.

The Law also mandates the following:

Sec. 4. National Book Policy. — The National Book Policy shall conform to the policy provided for in Section 2 hereof and shall have the following basic purposes and objectives: (c) to ensure an adequate, affordable and accessible supply of books for all segments of the population;... (j) to reaffirm and ensure the country's commitment to the UNESCO principle of free flow of information and other related provisions as embodied in the Florence Agreement and in other similar international agreements;...

2003: Roland Benzon notes in a May 6 at Philippine Genre Stories comment that attempts to tax the importation of books were already taking place at this time:

so i have shipped books and magazines by surface and air since the 80s, all for personal consumption and collection; some donated to public libraries. all tax-free. as recent as 2001, i air-shipped books from amazon. air freight is pricey, but the books were not taxed. i first encountered book taxation around 2003, when i claimed a parcel of books from the makati post office. citing the florence agreement and my long history of importing books, i argued my case. the postal clerk just played dumb, and countered with "new law" and "just doing our job". in disgust, i told them to return the books. i refused to be a victim. attempting to bypass the post office, i ordered books for door-to-door delivery. i was more willing to pay a premium than fill pockets of crooks. but when dhl delivered the books, same thing: customs duties. in resignation of the inescapable, i paid the taxes and vowed never to ship by air again. i do not remember the taxes, but i can tell you this much: it was not 1% or 5%, which i wouldn't have blinked at. it was 15%, at least! heck, it might have even been close to 50%.

2005: January 25 The Congress of the Philippines passes Republic Act 9335 providing for "a Rewards and Incentives Fund and a Revenue Performance Evaluation Board" for the Bureaus of Customs and Internal Revenue; The Trojan Bore suggests this may have provided the motivation for officials to seek every means possible to meet revenue targets. 2008: September 23 My entry on how Post Office and Customs attempts to levy 5% duty on a shipment of books, plus VAT (see a similar experience in The Curious Couch and in Boomarked!). BIR officials opine no such levies are warranted. 2009 The Great Book Blockade (for additional details see Philippine Genre Stories, Bibliophile Stalker, and Bahay Talinhaga): January 26 Air shipments of books are stopped and held by Customs authorities. Cause? As reported by Robin Hemley,

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer... an international best seller, had apparently attracted the attention of customs officials. When an examiner named Rene Agulan opened a shipment of books, he demanded that duty be paid on it... Mr. Agulan told the importer that because the books were not educational (i.e., textbooks) they were subject to duty.

January 27 Department of Finance tells Customs to release the books; "but their order was ignored by the aforementioned examiner Rene Agulan." Bahay Talinhaga goes on to suggest this provided the impetus for the bureaucracy to confer "and eventually, Customs and the Dept. of Finance, found common ground on this issue." Hemley summarizes the goings-on as follows:

Throughout February and March, bookstores seemed on the verge of getting their books released—all their documents were in order, but the rules kept changing. Now they were told that all books would be taxed: 1 percent for educational books and 5 percent for noneducational books. A nightmare scenario for the distributors; they imagined each shipment being held for months as an examiner sorted through the books. Obviously, most would simply pay the higher tax to avoid the hassle. Distributors told me they weren't "capitulating" but merely paying under protest. After all, customs was violating an international treaty that had been abided by for over 50 years. Meanwhile, booksellers had to pay enormous storage fees. Those couldn't be waived, they were told, because the storage facilities were privately owned (by customs officials, a bookstore owner suggested ruefully). One bookstore had to pay $4,000 on a $10,000 shipment.

March 5 Date of a letter to to "Atty Pasion-Flores of the NBDB, the examiner refused to release the books despite the fact that all previous requirements had been met, including a 'certificate of membership with NBDB.'” Somewhere during this time, officials from the Department of Finance apparently engaged in consultations with members of Congress. March 16 Usec. Sales meets booksellers. As reported by Robin Hemley:

Customs Undersecretary Espele Sales explained the government's position to a group of frustrated booksellers and importers in an Orwellian PowerPoint presentation, at which she reinterpreted the Florence Agreement as well as Philippine law RA 8047, providing for "the tax and duty-free importation of books or raw materials to be used in book publishing." For lack of a comma after the word "books," the undersecretary argued that only books "used in book publishing" (her underlining) were tax-exempt... Likewise, with the Florence Agreement, she argued that only educational books could be considered protected by the U.N. treaty. Customs would henceforth be the arbiter of what was and wasn't educational. "For 50 years, everyone has misinterpreted the treaty and now you alone have interpreted it correctly?" she was asked. "Yes," she told the stunned booksellers.

As reported by Kenneth Yu:

After this meeting with the Congressmen, Undersecretary Sales and her team also met with various booksellers. She said that her meeting with them was cordial, good, and respectful, as she made all these details clear to them. In other words, her meeting with them went well with no untoward incidents, which is why she was surprised at what came out in the Hemley article. Everything was spelled clearly to the booksellers.

March 17 First of the stopped shipments are released "a day after Undersecretary Sales spoke with importers and book sellers, and storage fees were paid." According to Hemley:

The day after the first shipment of books was released, an internal memo circulated in customs congratulating themselves for finally levying a duty on books, though no mention was made of their pride in breaking an international treaty.

March 24 The Department of Finance issues Department Order No. 17-09, published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Easter Sunday, April 12: The Department Order institutes a regime in which all books brought into the country are deemed subject to Customs duties until or unless a complicated process of obtaining dispensations from the authorities are resorted to; and which further assumes that titles must be in small quantities and not for sale, barter, or trade to qualify for any Customs duty exemption. The Order furthermore institutes an elaborate series of definitions for books covered by existing Duty-free importation privileges, which are definitions different from the broad classifications in the Florence Agreement; and furthermore, restricts the interpretation of the National Book Development Act to apply only to the duty-free importation of books "used for book publishing." The duties imposed are 1% for "educational, technical, scientific, historical or cultural books" and 5% for all other books, according to the Department of Finance's new definitions. A backgrounder on how the Order above was put together. Here is Usec. Sales' version of events as reported by Kenneth Yu:

First of all, Undersecretary Sales and her team at the DOF spent a lot of time studying the rules/laws/regulations involving this matter beforehand, and found that in Sec. 105 of the Tariffs and Customs Codes, there really is a provision for a 1% duty on imported books ("educational, cultural, etc.") that are for sale and for profit, and she said that the Florence Agreement was addressed here in this specific section. This 1% has been in existence since way long ago, and in fact, has not been implemented for that long a time. After Undersecretary Sales and her team studied all these laws, the results of this was that this regulation should be followed because it is the law, and forthwith published this information on Easter Sunday 2009, with implementation to follow 15 days after Easter Sunday. From what I understood of what she said, there will be no duty only if these imported books are donations to public schools, readers' groups, etc., that is, if the books imported are not for sale or for profit. This 1% is for, to use her words, "control/monitorinig" of the imported books coming in. She used the example that if a bookseller brings in P100,000.00 worth of books, the duty on this is only P1,000.00. She told me that she would like to also make clear that vat on books is still 0%, no matter what.

Now, if a book or title does not fall under "cultural, educational, etc.", then that duty goes up to 5%. However, she points out that the DOF is not the one who determines a title's labeling of whether it is "educational, cultural, etc." She said that this labeling belongs to other organizations (she mentioned the DepEd and Unesco)... I also asked her about books ordered, say, on Amazon, and picked up at the post office. Should that duty be paid there too? She said, "Yes, but only if that hasn't been included in the original payment." In other words, check your receipt and your emails of the online transaction. If duties had already been paid via Amazon or whatever online bookseller, then print that receipt/email and bring that proof with you to show that duties have already been paid. If however your receipt/email doesn't show this duty, then you are obliged to pay for that duty.

Abdon Balde says Rep. Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. proposed amendments to the Department Order but these were not viewed favorably by Usec. Sales. Here is Kenneth Yu's report on Usec. Sales' mentioning consultations with Congress:

These laws which she and her team researched were brought up in a respectful meeting with various Congressmen. She said that at first, a number of them were against it, but when she explained that this duty has been in existence in law for so long and really has just not been implemented, they agreed to it. She said that if the Congressmen really want to make it 0% duty for all, then they must pass that law first before the DOF can implement it. In other words, the legislative part of the gov't, Congress, has to pass it into law before the DOF, the executive branch that "executes" these laws, can enforce it. As of now, after all their study, Undersecretary Sales and her team have seen that this duty exists in law, and they are doing their job in enforcing it.

April 27 The Department of Finance Order goes into effect. May 1 Robin Hemley's The Great Book Blockade of 2009 is published online in Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency. May 5 Kenneth Yu publishes the results of his interview of Undersecretary Salas, giving the Department of Finance version of events for the first time (and so far, the only time). May 6 Louie Aguinaldo establishes the Facebook group, FILIPINOS AGAINST THE TAXATION OF BOOKS BY CUSTOMS. May 7 Jessica Zafra in her blog publishes the Position Paper of the Book Development Association of the Philippines Re: Tax and Duty Free Importation of Books May 24 RockEd will hold a "book giveaway": Here's a roundup of bloggers who've blogged about the issue: andrewdrilon, Animetric's World, Bahay Talinhaga, Bet.cha.by.golly.world., Bibliophile Stalker, Bitter Pills & Breathing Spaces, Bookmarked!, Bittergrace, Fish in a bubble, Star in a bowl, castles in the air, Daily Musings, From Donelle's point of view, everyday reads, Glass half-empty, Hibernating Bear, Hmmm... that's interesting, Indolent Indio, Internet451, i hate twilight, Jarminator :-), Journal of the Jester-in-Exile, JessicarulestheUniverse, Karotitay.com , Komikero Comics Journal, Life is like a game of poker, Love and Choices, mzeid, Mnemosyne Writes, opinionated thoughts of a cubicle dweller, Original SIM, >> Press Start >>, Purpose Driven Paul, Random Thoughts, Refine Me, My Thoughts Exactly, Notes of an Anesthesioboist, Pine for Pine, Pop ups of my mind, Philippine Genre Stories, Random bits of life and media, Street but Sweet, Scratching Post>>, The Trojan Bore, THE GRIN WITHOUT A CAT, The Age of Brillig, The Curious Couch, The Pelican Spectator, The Misadventures of Wonderboy and His Broken Hearts, The Pork Sword Chronicles, The Unlawyer, To the Tale, and Other Such Concerns, Twilight Sucks, Twilight Coven Philippines, Tales of a Backpacker, touyatouya, The Pageman in Kabul,  uneditedmara, What lies beyond the furthest reaches of the sky?, Wandering Star, vinzmondi, xairylle, and see also On The Book Blockade put up by the UP Hobby Gamers' Circle.

Ellen Tordesillas published it in full first, over at Vera Files, and people have been rolling in the aisles ever since. Just in case you have any doubt that really wrote what he did, here's the facsimile of it: Judge Lorredo Order 4 May 09 The background to the order being, that the Judge formerly dismissed Mike Defensor's perjury charge against Lozada, was overruled by a superior court, and so has to handle the case. Blogger Et Cetera Et Cetera was frankly puzzled by the order, while Manila Bay Watch was pleased as punch and Smoke was certainly amused. Every lawyer I've talked to says this order is unprecedented in terms of the, shall we say, pungent language used. Some lawyers think that aside from the personal pleasure the Judge undoubtedly derived from penning this order, the legal consequences of it will be to ensure that Defensor's lawyers have a strong case with which to insist that the Judge recuse himself from the case -or be forced to do so, again by a superior court. Manuel Buencamino in his Business Mirror column today takes a cue from Mark Anthony's funeral oration in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and proclaims Mike Defensor an honorable man: see Mike Defensor does not lie ("He just sees things in a different light"). A word on Ako Mismo, which certainly has gotten tongues wagging (and Martin Perez's blog, AKOMISMO, getting deluged with stray hits), and not a few people feeling patriotic -or merely lusting after one of the attractive dog tags the website offers as an incentive for signing up. When the site was heralded by a TV ad and a two-page spread in a major daily, I personally wondered if it wasn't a trial balloon for the presidential candidacy of Manuel V. Pangilinan. Business circles have been abuzz for some months now, about the tycoon's possible, even probable, presidential aspirations; and there have been those quietly circulating in order to sound out opinions on whether a Pangilinan bid for the presidency would get public support. One of the site's endorsers, Maxene Magalona, has come out with a categorical statement that her participation in the ad campaign for the site has nothing to do with anyone's presidential aspirations. Smart Communications has categorically denied being the owner of the site. From what I've heard from people who claim insider knowledge of PLDT, their boss in not interested in the least in becoming the country's chief executive. There will be some disappointed by these disavowals, as there were those whose interest was genuinely piqued by the prospect of an MVP bid for the presidency. There are two blog entries that help explain why the website caused some misgivings in the days leading up to Magalona's statement. The first is in Baratillo@Cubao, the other, in Constant Random Change, who approach the site from two different ends (one, shall we say, philosophical, the other, technological) but with similar conclusions: the site was opaque in certain respects and the opacity provoked skepticism. It shouldn't have required a Whois search, for example, simply to determine who owned the site: an advertising agency that has also categorically stated the campaign is its own, as part of its corporate social responsibility efforts.

Something bothers me about the opposition in some quarters, to the idea of champion pugilist Manny Pacquiao throwing his hat in the electoral ring. Which is a greater indictment of democracy -that Pacquiao has the nerve to consider himself fit for public office, or that some of his fellow citizens consider it unthinkable that a boxer who made it good, dares to aspire to a government job that will be decided by the outcome of a popular election? The truth is, both may be approaching the same question but from opposite ends of the spectrum. If democracy is the rule of the majority, and the majority of the population happen to be of a certain economic standing or level of education or culture, then naturally their financial and cultural circumstances will affect those they consider worthy and desirable to represent them. The only limits on their ability to do so, are explicit requirements for office that would automatically, and drastically, limit the representative options available to the electorate. But those explicit requirements have never been there; and, indeed, were never necessary back in the day when there was a greater similarity between leaders and followers because the laws limited those qualified to be electors. However, these limitations have been lifted over time; which makes the assumptions on which the slender, mandatory, qualifications for office now in our laws utterly obsolete. That being the case, who is to say it is either undesirable or unworthy for Manny Pacquio to aspire to elected office? He is qualified by law on two counts: as an elector, the fundamental qualification that governs all additional qualifications for office (to be an office holder, you must be qualifed to be a voter), and qualified, too, as far as the explicit qualifications required of legislators, for example. As for whether these qualifications are enough, or should be all that are required, there is the other counter-question: but in this and all similar cases, the public will decide. And doesn't sovereignty reside in the people? The objection to his running is fundamentally an objection to the people and the way they manifest their will. But then, isn't this a challenge to the whole majority rule nature of democracy? What is happening here is a fulfillment of the law of unintended consequences, which we should examine if we are to get a grip on the crisis of democratic representation we've been undergoing since Joseph Estrada's election to the presidency in 1998. There are other dynamics at work here, of course, and that includes alienation on the part of voters no longer impressed with, or downright hostile to, the credentials of those formerly deemed solely qualified for public office. "Where have all these bar topnotchers brought the country?" was the dismissive argument you heard going into 1998, from many quarters. That, and the inability of the topnotchers to unite to confront Estrada politically, too. But the social resentment and alienation angle has been explored thoroughly elsewhere. What I want to examine is how we are dealing with the unintended consequences of democratization : how changes in the rules in one aspect of governance, affects other aspects. First, let's review the development of we, the people, as the electorate of the Philippines. The following have been the qualifications required for voters. Emilio Aguinaldo, in his capacity as "egregious dictator," issued a decree for the organizing of municipal and provincial governments on June 18, 1898, and another on June 23 transforming the dictatorship into a Revolutionary Government detailing the means of selection of representatives to the Malolos Congress, including the means to ensure that roughly half of the representatives were appointed by with the other half, elected. The provisions of Aguinaldo's June 18, 1898 decree describing the electorate is particularly interesting (as reproduced in The Laws of the First Philippine Republic):

Icalaua. Pag-naagao ang bayan sa cuco ng mga castila, ay ang mga mamamayang matangi, dahil sa liuanag ng caisipan, pagcatao at cabaitan maguing sa loob ng bayan maguing sa mga nayon ay magpipisan sa isang daquilang Kapulungan at dito pipiliin at ihahalal ang pagcaisahan ng marami ng maguing Puno sa bayan at maguing Pangulo, sa baua't nayon, at dito'y sa ngalang nayo'y cabilang ang loob ng bayan. Macahaharáp sa Kapulungang itó at maihahalal naman ang sino mang magtaglay ng mga casangcapang nasasabi sa itaas, cun mapagquilalang may pag-ibig sa casarinlan ng Pilipinas at may dalauang pu at isang taóng singcad.

(in contrast, the English translation is less illuminating: "After this has been accomplished all select citizens of every town shall convene in a big assembly and elect by majority vote the town mayor and the head of every barrio in every town..." It sidesteps completely the emphasis in Aguinaldo's decree, the qualifications, both for electors and officials, of certain characteristics that, you could argue, immediately conditioned the public not only to to select leaders already prominent in their communities, but to limit those entitled to acting as electors). In the 1899 Constitution, the Malolos Congress ordained that citizens would elect representatives who, in turn, would elect a President for the Republic. Legislation for this was called for, but since no further elections were ever held, the point is moot. But it is important, to my mind, to note that qualifications to be an elector and an office-holder can be of two kinds: substantive ones, or the intangible kind. The decree of Aguinaldo focused on the intangible kind: "liwanang ng kaisipan, pagkatao, kabaitan," whether "within the community or outside of it," are qualifications by virtue of, well, virtues that are assumed to be commonly-recognized as existing and worthy by a community. In contrast, there are qualifications that may, indeed uphold certain virtues (for example, the assumption that being a property-owner makes for a sober and responsible citizen) as manifested by material possessions or by dint of professional or educational credentials. Even prior to, and including the Philippine Bill and up to to the Jones Law that superseded it, the requirements for electors was described as follows in A decade of American government in the Philippines, 1903-1913:

The conditions of suffrage remained as originally provided in the Municipal Act of 1901, l which had followed somewhat the provisions of the " Maura Law " proclaimed by the Spanish government in 1893. Voters were restricted to male persons twenty-three years of age, not subjects of any other power, with a residence of six months in their district, who, prior to August 13, 1898, had held local office, or who owned real property to the value of five hundred pesos, or who could speak, read, and write either the English or Spanish language.

Under the Jones Law, the following provisions served as the criteria for participating in elections:

Sec. 15 ...Every male person who is not a citizen or subject of any foreign power twenty-one years of age or over (except insane and feeble-minded persons and those convicted in a court of competent jurisdiction of an infamous offence since the thirteenth day of August, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, who shall have been a resident of the Philippines for one year and of the municipality in which he shall offer to vote or six months next preceding the day of voting, and who is comprise within one of the following classes: (a) Those who under existing law are legal voters and have exercised the right of suffrage. (b) Those who own real property to the value of 500 pesos or who annually pay 30 pesos or more of the established taxes. (c) Those who are able to read and write either Spanish, English, or a native language.

In the 1935 Constitution, the founding fathers of our present system of government decided the requirements for voters would be as follows (Article V, Suffrage):

Section 1. Suffrage may be exercised by male citizens of the Philippines not otherwise disqualified by law, who are twenty-one years of age or over and are able to read and write, and who shall have resided in the Philippines for one year and in the municipality wherein they propose to vote for at least six months preceding the election. The National Assembly shall extend the right of suffrage to women, if in a plebiscite which shall be held for that purpose within two years after the adoption of this Constitution, not less than three hundred thousand women possessing the necessary qualifications shall vote affirmatively on the question.

(In 1937, women voted overwhelmingly to grant themselves the right of suffrage.) These requirements were liberalized under the much-amended so-called 1973 Constitution (Article VI, Suffrage):

Section 1. Suffrage shall be exercised by citizens of the Philippines not otherwise disqualified by law, who are eighteen years of age or over and who shall have resided in the Philippines for at least one year and in the place wherein they propose to vote for at least six months preceding the election. No literacy, property or other substantive requirement shall be imposed on the exercise of, suffrage...

(Marcos had experimented with lowering the voting age, for his "plebiscites," to 15; the elimination of literacy requirements grew out of the political ferment of the 1960s and 1970s to more thoroughly democratize elections, and followed at the heels of other changes such as the elimination of bloc voting in the early 1950s) So at present, the 1987 Constitution (Article V Suffrage) says the electorate is composed of anyone who fulfills the following broad criteria:

Section 1. Suffrage may be exercised by all citizens of the Philippines not otherwise disqualified by law, who are at least eighteen years of age, and who shall have resided in the Philippines for at least one year, and in the place wherein they propose to vote, for at least six months immediately preceding the election. No literacy, property, or other substantive requirement shall be imposed on the exercise of suffrage.

In general, the requirements for suffrage began as exceedingly strict; as the requirements have been relaxed, the requirements for legislators and the chief executive have hardly changed. The Jones Law (which served as the Philippine Constitution from 916 to 1935) imposed the following conditions on representatives:

Sec. 13 ...No person shall be an elective member of the Senate of the Philippines who is not a qualified elector and over thirty years of age, and who is not able to read and write either the Spanish or English language, and who has not been a resident of the Philippines for at least two consecutive years and an actual resident of the Senatorial District from which chosen for a period of at least one year immediately prior to his election. Sec. 14. ...No person shall be an elective member of the House of Representatives who is not a qualified elector and over twenty-five years of age, and who is not able to read and write either the Spanish or English language, and who has not been an actual resident of the district from which elected for at least one year immediately prior to his election...

The 1935 Constitution, in Article VI, Legislative Department:

Section 4. No person shall be a Senator unless he be a natural born citizen of the Philippines and, at the time of his election, is at least thirty-five years of age, a qualified elector, and a resident of the Philippines for not less than two years immediately prior to his election.

Section 7. No person shall be a Member of the House of Representatives unless he be a natural born citizen of the Philippines, and, at the time of his election, is at least twenty-five years of age, a qualified elector, and a resident of the province in which he is chosen for not less than one year immediately prior to his election.

In Article VII, Executive Department:

Section 3. No person may be elected to the office of the President or Vice-President unless he is a natural born citizen of the Philippines, a qualified voter, forty years of age or over, and has been a resident of the Philippines for at least ten years immediately preceding the election.

The 1973 Charter, in Article VII, the President and Vice-President:

Section 3. No person may be elected President unless he is at least fifty years of age at the day of his election as President, and a resident of the Philippines for at least ten years immediately preceding his election. However, if no Member of the National Assembly is qualified or none of those qualified is a candidate for President, any Member thereof may be elected President.

In Article VIII, the National Assembly:

Section 4. No person shall be a Member of the National Assembly unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines and, on the day of the election, is at least twenty-five years of age, able to read and write, a registered voter in the district in which he shall be elected, and a resident thereon for a period of not less than one year immediately preceding the day of the election.

Which brings us to the present, 1987 Charter, in Art. VI, Legislative Department:

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines and, on the day of the election, is at least thirty-five years of age, able to read and write, a registered voter, and a resident of the Philippines for not less than two years immediately preceding the day of the election.

Section 6. No person shall be a Member of the House of Representatives unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines and, on the day of the election, is at least twenty-five years of age, able to read and write, and, except the party-list representatives, a registered voter in the district in which he shall be elected, and a resident thereof for a period of not less than one year immediately preceding the day of the election.

In Art. VIII, Executive Department:

Section 2. No person may be elected President unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines, a registered voter, able to read and write, at least forty years of age on the day of the election, and a resident of the Philippines for at least ten years immediately preceding such election.

These examples are instructive for the following reasons: 1. In general our laws, particularly our Constitutions, have gradually opened up and liberalized the qualifications for voting, so that now, the requirements are few; they have, on the other hand, while instituting minimal standards for being representatives, been more conservative in maintaining basic requirements for office. 2. However, the requirements for legislators and the presidency were formerly very few, in large part because they were crafted in eras when the electorate itself was limited; in other words the limits on qualifying as electors served as means of maintaining those strict qualifications when it came to the officials elected. 3. But as electoral requirements have been relaxed, the result is that the bar for representation has also been lowered. A high bar for qualification for public office was deemed irrelevant to mention in the past, because it was assumed that a limit on those qualified to be electors would naturally have an effect on those elected into office. That assumption has not held true since the 1950s, when matinee idol Rogelio dela Rosa was elected senator and then made a bid for the presidency in 1961. There was a trend, for a time, towards dissipating the influence of the old clans, and even freeing the clans themselves of the stranglehold of their elders. See Families Remain Strong in Congress, but their Influence is Waning by the PCIJ in 2001. But that trend has been checked and is being reversed. And it has, as its motive power, a backlash from the educated, the property-owning, the managerial, entrepreneurial, and professional classes whose established notions of qualifications and self-worth, are made irrelevant in a government setup that imposes minimal qualifications for voting or holding office. But their notions are traditional notions, deeply-held, even revered ones of duty and fitness; see how they were expressed in Aguinaldo's decree; these objections to Pacquiao holding office are expressions of a traditional way of life and of seeing things -of traditional values of worth. Those minimal qualifications for holding office were never intended because fundamentally related to previously-existing limits on those qualified to belong to the electorate. But as legislators and constitution-makers responded to public opinion demanding an opening up of the electorate, they seem to have overlooked the manner in which the first cut, so to speak, ensured by limiting the electorate, disappeared when that electorate was expanded. Or maybe not! After all, at no time has it been mandated that a legislator must be a lawyer, for example, even if legislators make laws. Where being a lawmaker is required is where it matters -in the courts, including the Supreme Court, which can declare laws unconstitutional- but not in the legislature. So again: if what the public in a particular part of the country, be it Sarangani or Quezon City, want is for a retired boxer to represent them, and if their wish conforms with the Constitution, then who can object? If objections to Pacquiao are rooted in traditional notions of fitness and worth, that public office and those who hold it are venerable, then there are other deeply-rooted notions at work in those championing Pacquiao's running for office -and Pacquiao's seeking it- of empathy, primarily, for example. One argument is, Pacquiao can do more good elsewhere. One comment I often encounter is, "if he wants to do good, let him establish a foundation." Which is simply institutionalizing "balato," isn't it? And yet if you ask Pacquiao himself, the same reasons would apply to his wanting to serve in the House: "to help others," to do good, to spread the wealth, etc. Another form of institutionalized "balato." The only difference being some people think the only wealth Pacquiao should be spreading is his own, while Pacquiao -who has earned enough to know the limits and effectivity of spreading his own winnings around- seems to think the best way to do this is to be in office. And here, he has a point too: for that public purse, which the House (in theory, though not practice) controls, is derived from the people.

My column tomorrow will be on Robin Hemley's latest Dispatch from Manila, as published in Timothy McSweeny's Internet Tendency. It details the months-long embargo on book importations that resulted from the Bureau of Internal Revenue's discovering it could reinterpret international treaties with impunity, until booksellers, faced with escalating storage costs, cried uncle and surrendered to the BIR by paying the fees it demanded.

This brings up my past entry, What the?? concerning the long-standing problem any booklover's had with our government -which is, its trying to impose tariffs and duties even though the law grants exemptions to the public and others.

In contrast, blogger-turned member of parliament Jeff Ooi, in a recent entry on income taxes in Malaysia, pointed out the Malaysian government makes book and computer purchases tax-deductible.