It is characteristic of good myth that one “sees” connections where there shouldn’t be. Dune won a Hugo Award in 1966 yet we can draw parallels to it. How the Filipino, in many ways is like that Fremen in the desert with their religious fatalism and fragmented society. How the Fremen of the deep desert distrust their City-based brothers and sisters. Can’t we draw parallels too between House Corrino and the Arroyos and the Landstrad and our Congress? How we cry out “Mahadi! Lisan al-Gaib” How often do Noynoy’s supporters think he is that voice from the outer world that would save them from the Harkonnens? How running for higher office is a trap for an Aquino? For better or worse, how often have their family been drafted for a cause?

The themes are familiar, don’t you think?

If you’ve read Dune, you would know this. Leto Atreides looked out a window into the desert with his son, Paul by his side. Tired and exhausted, the Atreides Red Duke felt like an animal trapped. And he pointed to a Green and Black flag and spoke these words:

“To hold Arrakis,” the Duke said, “one is faced with decisions that may cost one his self-respect.” He pointed out the window to the Atreides green and black banner hanging limply from a staff at the edge of the landing field. “That honorable banner could come to mean many evil things.”

Would an Aquino be faced with a similar choice? That to achieve all that which this country needs— to wage a battle to wipeout corruption, must he do evil things to achieve it?

So something was troubling me. Why are people up in arms against Recto joining the Liberal Party? Yeah, there is something “morally wrong” with it.

But I have to ask you these questions:

1) Would you choose to cut off your arm, just because you hit your brother with it?

“Do you think you could lift your hand against me?” Paul asked. Stilgar began to tremble. “It’s the way,” he muttered.

“It’s the way to kill offworld strangers found in the desert and take their water as a gift from Shai-hulud,” Paul said. “Yet you permitted two such to live one night, my mother and myself.”

As Stilgar remained silent, trembling, staring at him, Paul said: “Ways change, Stil. You have changed them yourself.”

Stilgar looked down at the yellow emblem on the knife he held.

“When I am Duke in Arrakeen with Chani by my side, do you think I’ll have time to concern myself with every detail of governing Tabr sietch?” Paul asked. “Do you concern yourself with the internal problems of every family?”

Stilgar continued staring at the knife.

“Do you think I wish to cut off my right arm?” Paul demanded.

Slowly, Stilgar looked up at him.

“You!” Paul said. “Do you think I wish to deprive myself or the tribe of your wisdom and strength?”

In a low voice, Stilgar said: “The young man of my tribe whose name is known to me, this young man I could kill on the challenge floor, Shai-hulud willing. The Lisan al-Gaib, him I could not harm. You knew this when you handed me this knife.”

“I knew it,” Paul agreed.

Stilgar opened his hand. The knife clattered against the stone of the floor. “Ways change,” he said.

2) On the question of morality, people want to refuse to wall ourselves up from outside forces because the latter worked for GMA. Isn’t it better to turn that weapon against others? isn’t it better to take that weapon before someone else does?

In the eternal words of Sun Tzu: “Thus one who excels at employing the military subjugates other people’s armies without engaging in battle, captures other people’s fortified cities without attacking them, and destroys other people’s states without prolonged fighting. He must fight under Heaven with the paramount aim of preservation. Thus his weapons will not become dull and the gains can be preserved. ”

If one considers Recto and Santos-Recto as captured force that is now for the Liberal Party, would that make you more comfortable?

As I’ve mentioned in previous entries, the battle for 2010 is much larger than simply winning the election. Anyone alienated is one more person who could be an enemy. Recto and people like him— are mistrusted by a lot of people. We think he and his kind are like Yueh (and like Judas), forever disgraced because he betrayed the Atreides. In our case, because he betrayed Filipinos by siding with GMA.

It is either take that small victory or risk letting Recto and Santos-Recto’s influence to go to someone else, not just for May but post election day. It would be foolish to turn away people who want to join the campaign. With all the small victories the Liberal Party is making, it is fast becoming the next Lakas. Is it better to absorb them and preserve the party’s strength than to chop it off and let others have those spoils? If Recto and Santos-Recto had gone to Villar, do you think it would have made winning 2010 that much easier for Noynoy? Who else can help him carry vote rich Batangas?

Do not forget we are at War. We might find that yellow banner, like that green and black rag to be bloodied and dirty before the six years of an Aquino presidency is over. So what, I ask, if the conditions for victory are achieved? Recto is not Yueh, and we have bigger battles to fight before the war is over.

* * *
Mike Gonzalez (TheCoffee) published the image of Ralph Recto under Creative Commons and used here based on that.

Intruding upon one of the most debatable issues of Gloria Arroyo’s economy – one exponentially escalated by the Expanded Value Tax (E-Vat or R.A. 9337) additive he had aggressively pushed through congress – former National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) Executive Director Ralph Recto released a bomb with clearly populist ordinance. To the immediate consternation of the Energy Department, Recto announced that the oil pump prices across the archipelago were over-priced by as much as Php 8.00 per liter.

When it exploded, it exploded indiscriminately. The most incisive shards sliced through the Energy Department’s vulnerable credibility gossamer. Not only was the department self-declared impotent against oil price increases, it was evident that what powers the deregulation statutes empowered it to prosecute unreasonable pricing, it could not employ. Never mind that it had a well of relevant data that, when intelligently analyzed, backstops its charge, the department appeared clueless as to what reasonable fuel pricing was.

It was not easy to take sides between the Department of Energy and the NEDA. One, headed by a thrice-previously bypassed appointee, was popularly condemned ineffective and incompetent. The other, incredulous.

Initially, Recto’s accusation of a Php 8.00 oil price fudge was an absolute, a Euclidian Frankenstein clearly computed. But how credible is it?

After his name had been appended to controversial tax impositions, to political analysts, Recto had lost the trust of the general constituency and was handed his just deserts when flatly rejected for another term at the Senate.

E-Vats cumulative infliction was substantial. Recto’s R.A. 9337 removed exemptions on the importation of petroleum and imposed additional collections on electricity sales thus exponentially escalating universal input costs and dumping the whole shebang on the already victimized consumer.

The counterpoint is that, for Arroyo’s bureaucracy, the run-away deficit, self-inflicted through unproductive spending, was somewhat tamed. From a deficit of Php 167 billion prior to the E-Vat, the tax provided a respite until revenue collections fell below 70% efficiency and Arroyo’s over-budget spending resurged to Php 188 billion, approaching Php 255 billion before the yuletide compels official shopping sprees, more dining and pigging out.

That the E-Vat is inflicted on even mundane school supplies among shoeless schoolchildren was not lost on voters. It was also slapped on gas royalties (a tax on a tax), oil products, electricity and gross receipt taxes (all price multipliers) thus increasing aggregate prices despite the appeals that these be exempted.

Recto’s Php 8.00 fudge is now a permanent fixture of political polemic. Special interest groups quote it to demand from oil companies the opening of their books. Others use it to lobby a return to oil regulation. Militants love it. It looks good painted on bright red banners. While the DOE feigns cluelessness, to test its accuracy, let us regenerate it in a virtual Petri dish

Recto’s Php 8.00 oil price fudge is based on prevailing pump prices between the end of the first quarter and into the first weeks of April 2009 when Dubai Crude was US$ 50 a barrel. Those pump prices averaging at Php 40.00 per liter last April were benchmarked against pump prices between February and March 2005.

Using Dubai Crude as the basis, in February 2005 Dubai Crude was US$ 39.70 per barrel while in March 2005 it rose to US$ 45.84 per barrel. Pump price averages for that period rose respectively from Php 27.37 per liter in February to Php 29.22 per liter in March or an average of Php 28.30 before E-Vat. After FOREX differentials, the logic to compare 2009 to 2005 is NEDA’s. Impose E-Vat and the average pump price increases to Php 31.70 per liter.

Compare Php 31.70 to the average pump price in April 2009 of Php 40 per liter and, viola!, the difference is Php 8.30 or a scant Php 0.30 off Recto’s sound byte. (To derive NEDA’s exact Php 8.00 amount, use the median instead of the average)

Never mind inventory pricing, timing and forward hedging. Never mind different tank farm capacities among oil companies. Never mind those who import refined fuels and not Dubai Crude. Never mind benchmarking on Dubai Light Sweet applies only to products refined by two refineries. Direct importations of refined can be based on the heavier grades. Never mind all other factors save for overly simplistic two-dimensional straight-line iterations. Is it too much to expect that agencies apply more than one brain cell when declaring anomalies?

Never mind further that alternate methods in determining the price fudge yielded lower differences between Php 6.00 and Php 8.00 per liter. It is disingenuous to cherry-pick the price with the most alarming difference simply to prosecute the argument of an overprice.

Again, it is a question of credibility. If this is the kind of mediocrity behind brazenly declaring a Php 8.00 fuel price fudge, one wonders what crappy fiddle-faddle analysis had backstopped legislating the E-Vat that continues to wreak havoc on family incomes and aggregate prices.

STO. TOMAS, Pangasinan, Philippines – President Arroyo has ordered economic managers to study the proposal of Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ralph Recto for the government to set up a fund to extend temporary unemployment insurance to workers who lose their jobs, with money to be provided by the Social Security System (SSS) and the national government.

Recto proposed during the Cabinet meeting that P5,000 or P10,000 be given monthly for six months to SSS members who lose their jobs due to the economic crisis.

I’m sure people will find ways to game that dole out so it doesn’t actually find its way to the poor starving masses.

This country already has an informal welfare system called the OFW. It is a mechanism by which Filipinos working abroad pay for their relatives studies, expenses in the Philippines. This country doesn’t need to institutionalize a welfare state further.

What does the government need to spend money on? It needs to reaffirm hard work. It needs to reward hardworking Filipinos in Government and in the Private Sector. How can government do this?

Through the tried and tested formula of spending on better infrastructure projects. Build more and better roads. It needs to build up telecommunication infrastructure, it needs to rapidly expand trains and whatnut. So get a government network up and running. Buy IT, buy a network infrastructure that will in turn get Globe, Smart and myriad Information Technology companies a contract with the government, which in turn feeds more people.

Create jobs and jobs mean money for people to actually buy more goods and services. This economy needs to circulate money. It needs to grow and thrive in the Philippines and not wind up going abroad to gather dust and interest. It is the classic multiplier effect that real jobs in the private sector mean more money for government.

Instead of providing six months to SSS members, increase pay for existing government health workers. Buy more medical equipment for hospitals (which in turn fuels the local medical equipment business). Better government hospitals mean increase in competition for Privately run hospitals who in turn will have to respond appropriately. So funnel money into those institutions government already have. In turn, those people will spend more on their loved ones. They’ll buy more with greater purchasing power, and hospitals get to save more lives.

Give police better pay. Whether they spend that money on their real wives or their mistresses doesn’t matter, right? the fact that they’ve got money to spend means it goes to Jollibee, it goes to Smart and Globe and to National Bookstore for kids come June 2009. Also buy police real gear— communications and fuel and real training and I’m sure the local ammunitions industry will benefit as much as the local oil industry.

We need better schools and better teachers and better gear for government.   Government needs to buy more teacher training, and find more efficient ways to spread education. The kind of education that makes people think, and not just the ability to give out facts and figures that anybody with a brain can google.

Government needs to spend money where it can count and not waste its time on dole-outs.

The Philippines needs to keep the wealth it gets and circulates it in the broader economy. Jobs and Infrastructure are classic tools of government. Government needs to spend what little money it has and make it count. Make this wealth grow and thrive. That’s the best way to endear yourselves to people’s hearts and not to artificially buy their votes. Because in the end, the consummate politician will talk dole-outs masking as a bleeding-heart for the poor while missing the broader picture that actually changes lives. That would be the difference between a statesman and a politician, I guess.

thanks to Rom and Marck for the heads up on the news article.