senseneres

THE POTENTIAL OF COOPERATIVES

2011-04-30T07:06:00.001-07:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 066
By Ike Señeres 04/30/2011

THE POTENTIAL OF COOPERATIVES

Many cooperatives in the Philippines have failed or are failing because of corruption. This problem in the local cooperative movement is indicative of what is happening in the broader society that is also beset with corruption. In other words, the problem in the cooperatives is a microcosm of the corruption that is happening in our country as a whole.

Regardless of the pervasive problem of corruption in our country however, we have to other choice because we only have one country, and we could not replace it. What we could replace however is the conduct of our society, so that corruption will be decreased, to a point where it will become more of an exception than the rule itself.

Comparing the state of corruption in our country and the state of corruption among the cooperatives however, I would say that there is no other alternative for the cooperative approach as an instrument for the more equitable distribution of wealth, or in other words, for the democratization of economic opportunities for everyone in our society.

I have looked all over, time and again, and I have always arrived at the conclusion that there is really no alternative for the cooperative approach. That being the case, we have no other choice really except to reform the conduct of the cooperative movement, so that corruption will be lessened.

I know that some critics might disagree with me when I say that my goal is only to lessen or decrease corruption, and not to remove or eradicate it. The fact is, corruption is a product of greed, and it will always be around as long as greed remains as a human weakness. It could only be reduced, but not removed.

The law says that cooperatives should appoint professional managers, but it seems that only a few of them are obeying this law. Good business practice says that coops should not appoint their own members to work as professional managers in order to avoid conflicts of interest, but again, many coops are going against this rule. Not unless the coops will obey these two basic conditions, they will never be able to get out of their present problems. As an incentive to the coops that are willing to reform, they could avail of free management training right away.
Since it is part of my work to identify and integrate information and communications technology (ICT) solutions for business applications, I already have direct access to ICT resources that could readily be used by the coops. I am ready and willing to share these resources with all coops, provided that they would agree to implement the two basic solutions.

Aside from management, marketing is the other most common problem of coops. The solution to this is of course simple, and that is the identification of a good buyer. Not so much to start with, but I have already identified good buyers for cacao, rice and tree seedlings, among others. These buyers are potentially able to issue letters of intent already.

Automation is the biggest challenge of business enterprises today, and that also includes cooperatives. Automation should include manufacturing and marketing systems as well. So much could be done in these two aspects in terms of enabling increased revenues and saving more money. In short, the bottom line of coops could really improve, if only they could adopt the right technologies.

Most Filipinos could not afford to invest in big business, and could not also buy the stocks of big companies. That being the case, the only practical alternative for them is to invest in the coops. Most Filipinos are also unable to manage their own business, and that is what the coops are supposed to do for them, provided of course that the coops would hire professional managers.

The idea behind the coop concept is to pool together small amounts of money from small investors, so that it would turn into bigger capital. Since that is the idea, why not pool together the money of professionals so that they could invest in the infra that they need to practice their professions? This idea could work for doctors, nurses, sailors and ship captains, and why not for drivers and mechanics too?

Doctors and nurses could pool their money to put up coops that would own clinics and hospitals. Sailors and ship captains could put up coops that would own ships and barges. Drivers and mechanics could put up coops that would own buses and taxis. The list could go on and on with more imagination applied. The idea about buying ships is interesting because we have so many sailors and yet they do not own a single ship, despite the fact that they collectively earn so many millions.

Tune in to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Join Coffee Clutch Fridays

PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY

2011-04-30T07:05:00.001-07:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 065
By Ike Señeres 04/22/2011

PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY

I met Atty. Cita Garcia for the second time. She is one of the staunch advocates of the adoption of the jury system here. It was a good time for me to be reminded that participation in a jury is one of the rights and obligations of citizens in a real democratic system, a right that is equal to the right to vote, as a matter of fact.

The right to vote in an election in a manner of speaking gives us the means to participate in the executive and legislative processes, because we are the ones who chose the people who run our government and make our laws, even if indirectly. The adoption of the jury system will in effect complete our rights to participate in the three branches of government.

I received an email from Mr. Andy Rosales, and in that email he reminded me that there is another means for us citizens to participate in the executive process, but unfortunately we are practically ignoring the said means. I am referring to the rights and obligations of citizens to participate in the mandated development councils at the barangay, municipal, provincial and regional levels.

It is ironic to think that while the people in the Middle East are giving their lives for the sake of democracy, we on the other hand are wasting our opportunities to take advantage of the democratic process. Citizen participation in the development councils is supposed to be through the involvement of local non-government organizations (NGOs), but this set-up is very much disorganized now.

In order to address the disorganized state of NGOs at the local levels, I believe that it is now time to organize local chapters of the Socio-Economic Development Alliance (SEDA) at the barangay, municipal, provincial and regional levels, all managed by a central office at all regional centers. Needless to say, the officers at the central office should also be the ones who will attend the meetings of the Regional Development Councils (RDCs).

In order to establish order in the regular meetings of SEDA at all local levels, I have written a set of protocols that will be used in these meetings, along with Robert’s Rules of Order that should also be used. Any organization that is interested in getting a copy of this protocol may contact me and I will send it via email. If you have any contacts at these local levels, please let me know.
The Medium Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP) is supposed to be the overall framework of all the mandated development councils. All the reports of all local councils are supposed to be submitted to main office of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), where the secretariat of the MTPDP is located. Fortunately, NEDA is also the secretariat of the Philippine Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD), and because of this dual role, NEDA is really in a position to coordinate all developmental and environmental concerns.

In the same manner that we get what we pay, we also get the government that we deserve. President Noynoy Aquino is correct in saying that we the people are his “boss”, but that does not mean that the government should be doing all the work, and we the people should just remain as passive spectators. Since the mechanisms for participatory democracy are already in place, let us now become active in good governance through the local chapters of SEDA.

As a service to the nation, SEDA should become active in continuously monitoring and reporting all the socio-economic indicators that could be used by NEDA in particular and by the government in general. This should include the poverty rate, the illiteracy rate, the mortality rate, the crime rate, the unemployment rate and many other known measures. On top of these, we should come up with new measures that are still relatively unknown, such as the hunger rate and the homeless rate.

The poverty rate, the illiteracy rate and the mortality rate are measures that are being monitored by the United Nations under the framework of the Human Development Index (HDI). It would be fair to say that the mortality rate is directly related to the crime rate, and that the poverty rate is also directly related to the unemployment rate, therefore we should be conscious of these inter-relationships.

Since mortality, illiteracy, hunger and poverty appear to be our four biggest national problems, I have come up with a collective approach that will deliver Health, Education, Agriculture and Livelihood solutions, otherwise known as the HEAL framework. This is going to be the working framework of SEDA. Health is the solution to high mortality. Education is the solution to illiteracy. Food is the solution to hunger. Livelihood is the solution to poverty. People will always die because of one reason or another, but at least, we could lower the mortality rate.

Tune in to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Join Coffee Clutch Fridays

POVERTY AND STARVATION

2011-04-30T07:03:00.000-07:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 064
By Ike Señeres 04/14/2011

POVERTY AND STARVATION

We should all be shocked to learn that 25% of Filipinos are “experiencing hunger”, and 50% consider themselves to be poor, not just President Noynoy Aquino. Thanks to the Social Weather Station (SWS), this grim reality is now known to all of us, and we should all do something about it.

According to economist Mr. Butch Valdez, “hunger” is actually a mild term to use, because the more accurate term is “starvation”. I recently interviewed Mr. Valdez and Dr. Ernie Gonzales in my TV show, and both of them said that not unless we change the economic policies that are now in place in our country, the poverty and hunger problems here will worsen, possibly even destroying our entire country in the years to come.

Reacting to their statements, I asked them why is it that our government and our people are not yet seriously alarmed about the situation, considering that it appears to have already reached a very critical stage. I then offered the explanation that perhaps the reason why we are not yet alarmed, is because people are not yet dying in the streets, unlike what has happened in India.

It was Dr. Gonzales who explained that in our culture, we still manage to take care of the sick and the dying in our homes, and that is why we do not see people dying in the streets. His explanation is acceptable, but if that is the case, we should still find out how many people are dying because of poverty and hunger, directly or indirectly. If we have to require our hospitals and our funeral parlors to do that, we must do so, because we need the data to be able to guide our policy actions.

I am not an economist myself, but I would venture to offer an explanation that we still do not see people dying in the streets, because the problem of homelessness here has not yet worsened as it has in India. What I mean however is that people here still manage to have a place to stay even if it is just a shanty. If however we strictly define the standards for decent habitable homes, these shanty dwellers would all technically become “homeless”, even if they have placesto stay.

One does not have to be an economist to understand that the problem of hunger is directly related to the problem of poverty, and the problem of homelessness is directly related to both also. During the interview, Mr. Valdez said that we should not be surprised if the poor people will die as they do, because they they have nothing to eat, and when they are hungry, they get sick, and when they get sick, they have no means to get medical attention, so they die. To that, I will add that if they are homeless, there is a higher probability that they will get sick, because they are not protected from the elements.

Three Filipinos are executed in China, and we are all scandalized. The fact is, about three thousand poor people die here every day according to Mr. Valdez, and we are not scandalized. I understand that there are many economic policies that need to be changed in order to solve the problem of poverty related deaths, but first of all, it has to change with our change of values, about what we consider to be important, and what is not.

Of course it is important for us to plan a good future for our people, but first things first, we must first deal with the present triple problems of poverty, hunger and homelessness. The first order of business is to declare a NATIONAL STATE OF EMERGENCY to address the problem of HUNGER. We are preparing for the eventuality that people could die in case of an earthquake, but we are not doing enough to deal with the present reality of HUNGER.

The best place to start is at the barangay level, where serious and real POVERTY MAPPING should be done immediately, leading to a DATABASE that should include data about poverty, hunger, sickness and homelessness. These are the four DATA SETS that should always be gathered together, not one at a time. Everyone should get involved in this exercise, and anyone who needs help in putting up a DATABASE should let me know, because I can help.

It is not yet in our national consciousness, but it is now about time for local government units (LGUs) to put up HOMELESS SHELTERS. We are all aware of the existence of street children, but the fact is, there are STREET FAMILIES already if we just bother to look. It goes without saying that STREET FAMILIES are in effect homeless, but we should also include in that category all families that are staying in shanties, because in effect, they do not have real homes. For my part, I will assign myself the homework of organizing a FOOD BANK starting in Metro Manila, so that food companies and restaurants could donate their surplus foodstuffs to these HOMELESS SHELTERS in exchange for tax credits.

Tune in to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Join Coffee Clutch Fridays

THE PRO-POOR MANIFESTO OF 2011

2011-04-14T17:55:00.000-07:00

April 15, 2011
THE PRO-POOR MANIFESTO OF 2011
The time has come for all Filipinos to acknowledge the reality that HUNGER as a social problem has now reached alarming critical levels, and therefore it is time to declare a STATE OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY.
We the signatories of this manifesto hereby declare a STATE OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY in order to address the problem of HUNGER on our own, and we at the same time call upon the GOVERNMENT to do the same, to also declare a STATE OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY on its own, in order to make this declaration OFFICIAL.
We the signatories of this manifesto hereby call upon all Filipinos everywhere, those who are in the Philippines and those who are overseas, to acknowledge the following realities:
About 50% of Filipinos now consider themselves to be POOR;
About 25% of Filipinos have experienced HUNGER at least once for the past three months;
About 10% of Filipinos have a life threatening SICKNESS and are in danger of dying because they could not afford medical care, and many of them could die without even seeing a doctor;
About 5% of Filipinos are now HOMELESS, not counting those who are living in shanties and makeshift dwellings under subhuman conditions.
We the signatories of this manifesto hereby call upon the GOVERNMENT to immediately implement the following programs:
POVERTY MAPPING- To establish a database of POOR Filipinos, in order to know who they are, and where they are, down to the barangay level;
FOOD BANK- To establish a system of feeding the HUNGRY by collecting surplus foodstuffs from food companies and restaurants, in exchange for tax credits;
HEALTH CARD- To establish a system of giving identity cards to indigent Filipinos who are suffering from SICKNESS, so that they could see a doctor and avail of medical care;
HOMELESS SHELTERS- To establish a system of providing temporary shelters so that HOMELESS Filipinos could have a place to during the night, with breakfast in the morning.
We the signatories of this manifesto hereby call upon the private sector to support the GOVERNMENT in implementing the above programs as soon as possible.
1. Ike Seneres, iseneres@yahoo.com, +639997333011
2.

A NEW CULTURAL REVOLUTION

2011-04-08T20:14:00.001-07:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 063
By Ike Señeres 04/09/2011

A NEW CULTURAL REVOLUTION

I remember an old debate way back in my Diliman days, about who is really the prima donna of the social sciences, whether it is economics or political science. Of course I was on the political science side at that time, but when I graduated and moved on to the corporate world, I realized that it is really money that drives the politics of a developing nation.

It is the development aspect that makes the difference, because in politically mature societies, there is no doubt that it is politics that drives everything, including the economic aspects. To be precise however, politics and economics of the same coin, given the fact that many politicians enter politics in order to protect and preserve their economic power.

Into this picture enters Art Valdez, the leader of the Philippine Mount Everest team, and the Balanghay Voyage team. An iconic leader with impeccable credentials and unquestionable credibility, he now says that what we need now is a new cultural revolution. He explains that way back in our early history, our territory was inhabited by a highly civilized, dignified and proud people, adding that we should recover and restore that pride in order to move forward as one united country.

Art cited the example of China, a country that was once devastated by war and humbled by national defeat and economic failure. He said that it was because of the cultural revolution of China that enabled the Chinese people to rediscover their national identity, and as a consequence they also restored their national pride, a factor that enabled them to move towards a clear path of progress.

In a manner of speaking, Art is in effect saying that culture is more important than economics and politics, suggesting indirectly that a new cultural revolution will give us the strenght and the inspiration to move forward economically and politically. As it turned out, it now appears that the conquest of Mount Everest by Filipinos and the succesful journey of the Balanghay boats are actually part of this emerging new cultural revolution.

Not the type who would stop while he is ahead, Art is now about to start an expanded Balanghay voyage that will take his team to more ports of call in the Philippines, in a sort of seaborne roadshow that will take five years to complete, a mission that could kindle and inspire the whole nation towards a new cultural revolution. True enough, Art told me that aside from the medical, dental missions that are being planned, the roadshow will also include the documentation of native and indigenous arts and cultures.

In our private conversations, Art told me that during the Mount Everest climbs and the Balanghay voyages, he and his teams realized the importance of disaster preparedness and emergency response readiness. Because of this realization, Art has now added disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) to his advocacies, saying as well that DRR and CCA seminars will always be part of the new voyage activities.

Art and I are fellow American Field Service (AFS) scholars. Another well known AFS scholar is Tony Meloto of Gawad Kalinga. Sharing a common bond, we have agreed to work together for the good of the nation, possibly also bringing in Tony into the joint efforts. We still have to work out the specifics, but the general idea is to build lasting institutions in all the ports of call where the boats will go.

Among other specific ideas, Art and I talked about establishing Command and Control Centers (CCC) in every region, similar to the CCC project in Makati that I supported as a computer consultant. A CCC is the nerve center of all police, fire, ambulance, rescue, hospital and traffic information and communications within a locality, and logically it should also be the base of all DRR and CCA operations.

We also talked about establishing a Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) branch in every region, also a Marine Biodiversity Center (MBDC) in each region. These are big and tall ideas, but are surely within the realistic reach of a true visionary who has proven himself in the achievement of near impossible goals. In so many ways, he believes that our natural diversity is part of our cultural heritage.

As part of the MBDC project, Art has agreed to promote the replanting of mangrove trees in all the coastal areas where the boats will dock. Needless to say, this will include the Manila Bay, and this is where MABIADO will come in. To know more about it, visit http://sedablog.blogspot.com/2011/04/manila-bay-integrated-area-development.html. Join the new cultural revolution now!

Tune in to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Join Coffee Clutch Fridays

PROTOCOL FOR MULTILATERAL MEETINGS

2011-03-31T01:47:00.001-07:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 062
By Ike Señeres 03/30/2011

PROTOCOL FOR MULTILATERAL MEETINGS

I have written this piece about protocol for multilateral meetings, in the hope that it could help unite organizations of all kinds that are trying to work together for common causes. Sets of protocols are like “terms of engagement “ that would define how many sides would relate to each other. In particular, I am hoping that this would work towards the unity of the environment sector.

Let me start by saying that having a set of protocols for meetings is not the same as using Robert’s Rules of Order. Protocol defines who could attend meetings and how the attendees should relate to each other. Robert’s Rules define how the meeting should be conducted and in what order the attendees should be allowed to speak.

More often than not, the attendees or the prospective attendees of meetings would tend to disagree with each other. It is because of this reason that they would rather not attend the meetings, or if they would decide to attend, they would not want to sit next to each other, or would not want to be near each other. As it usually happens, the lack of a defined set of protocols would prevent meetings from being convened in the first place, thus defeating the purposes for convening the meetings in the first place.

A classic example of disagreements that would have led to protocol problems happened in the summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum in 1996. At that time, there were still three “Chinas”, and even before the start of the meetings, it was very difficult to bring them together to sit in the same conference table. To cut a long story short, it was fortunate that they all agreed to adopt a set of protocols, and the summit was successfully conducted.

It could be said that among the three, Hong Kong could be considered the passive element. It was a British Colony at that time, and they considered the other two Chinas as separate countries, even if their own handover to the mainland was just around the corner. It was the People’s Republic of China (PROC) that would not attend the summit and would not sit in the same table as the “other China”, if it was recognized as the “Republic of China” (ROC). After rounds of pre-summit negotiations, ROC finally agreed to be recognized as “Chinese Taipei”, and PROC agreed thereafter to attend, provided that they are not seated to each other.

The key to the amicable entry of the three “Chinas” into the APEC is the legal fiction that it is a forum of “economies”, and not a forum of “countries”. This is the reason why there are no flags in APEC meetings. It is also the reason why the delegates to the forum are recognized as “Heads of Economies”, and not as “Heads of State”. Otherwise, PROC would not attend any meeting where Hong Kong and Taiwan are also recognized as “countries’ carrying their own flags, and represented by their Heads of State.

The key to the success of APEC (and also of the ASEAN) is the sequential approach of doing the substantive work first in the level of the Technical Working Groups (TWGs) as a first step, before elevating the process to the next level of the Senior Officials Meetings (SOMs). For practical reasons, the TWGs are attended by those who have the rank of Director, while the SOMs are attended by those with the rank of Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister.

After the work process is completed by the SOMs, the substantive outputs are elevated to the level of the Foreign Affairs Ministers, in the Minister’s Meetings (MMs). Thereafter, the last and final steps are the Leader’s Meetings (LMs) that are attended by the Heads of Economies (or Heads of State, in the case of the ASEAN).

In the case of local inter-organizational meetings, the TWGs could be attended by their own sectoral committee heads, and the SOMs could be attended by their Vice Presidents. Going up the ladder, the MMs could be attended by their Presidents or Corporate Secretaries, while the LMs could be attended by their Chairmen or Board Members. In the case of local inter-municipal meetings, the TWGs could be attended by their assistant department heads or their senior sectoral staff members and the SOMs could be attended by their department heads. Going up the ladder, the MMs could be attended by their Vice Mayors or Senior Councillors, while the LMs could be attended by their Mayors or Administrators.

For practical reasons, all places (seats) at the conference table shall be marked by nameplates. All delegates shall be requested not to move the nameplates in order not to disturb the order of protocol. It might sound funny, but the importance of nameplates is taken lightly by many, not realizing its key role in protocol.

Tune in to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Join Coffee Clutch Fridays

KALINGA SA BAYANING PILIPINO

2011-03-24T08:24:00.001-07:00

NFS Foundation Ministry, Inc.
2650 AHI Bldg., A. Bonifacio Street, Bangkal, Makati City
Tel No: (02) 889-3935 L558 | Fax No: (02) 889-3939
Email: dina_v@armadillo.ph

The FS Foundation Ministry was registered with the SEC on September 20, 2000 as non-stock, non-profit religious organization. Its primary task is to minister among the people and equip men spiritually.

FS Foundation Ministry is focused in three major areas, namely: a. Corporate Modelling- reaching out to the business communities by equipping and discipling able men/ believers in Christ.; b. Local Church Modelling – reaching out to the cities for Christ through the unity of the Elders of the City and the Body of Christ and c. Missions Modelling – reaching out through link-ups with organized Missions organizations.

Currently, FS ministers to the employees of Armadillo Holdings, Anito, Kabayan, Balikbayan, Legend and Status Hotels. They also provide prayer rooms in these hotels that are open at anytime of the day. FS also partners with Mission Organizations and with the Local Government of Pasay City and Palawan.
May I request your donations for the NFS Foundation Ministry, Inc., who is now leading the project to convert the old Anito Lodge in Caloocan into a refugee center for displaced OFWs from Libya, Egypt, Japan and other countries. The project is also called KALINGA SA BAYANING PILIPINO.
The project aims to turn the refugee center into a one stop shop that will provide lodging, counselling, training and financing for the displaced OFWs. It will also have a medical clinic that will provide medical and psychological treatment for those who need it.
Please send your donations via bank deposit or remittance to:
BPI Account Number 0681001425

For more information, you may send me email at iseneres@yahoo.com or text me at +639997333011
Very truly yours,
IKE SENERES

NATION BUILDING AND CLIMATE DAMAGE

2011-03-24T07:32:00.001-07:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 061
By Ike Señeres 03/24/2011

NATION BUILDING AND CLIMATE DAMAGE

In a recent television interview with former Senator Sonny Alvarez who is now the Chairman of the Philippine Climate Change Commission, I ended with the comment that all our efforts for nation building will go to waste if what we build will just be destroyed by the damage brought about by climate change.

Dr. John Topping Jr., the founder of the Climate Change Institute in Washington, DC was also my guest in the same show, and he told me the story about how mangrove trees were able to reduce the damage of a tsunami that ravaged the coast of Ceylon.

From my interview with Chairman Alvarez and Dr. Topping, I was able to draw the conclusion that even if climate change is a macroeconomic issue, it has a direct impact on so many other microeconomic issues that affect the daily lives of people everywhere. Much more than that, climate change is literally a threat to their lives.

In that same interview, I pointed out to both of them that the importance given by the general public to the threat of climate change is directly influenced by their awareness of the gravity of the problem. Alvarez was quick to add that earthquakes and tsunamis are just potential threats, whereas climate change is already a real and an existing problem that is already happening.

Taking a cue from the good Chairman, we could actually conclude that technically, climate change is no longer a threat, because it is already a reality with a verfiable scientific certainty. Hearing this, I am reminded of another technicality that mathematically speaking, a problem does not exist if it could not be solved. Fortunately or unfortunately depends on how you look at it, we still have a problem with climate change, because it could still be solved.

Strictly speaking however, the problem of climate change could no longer be solved and all we could do is to adapt to it. That is what is meant by climate change adaptation . In other words, all we could do is to live with it, in such a way that we could minimize the damage that it could bring to us. On the upside, we still have the oppurtunties to prevent the problem from worsening, from the already bad state that it is in now. That is what carbon reduction is all about. All of these are tied in to the issue of money, in particular to the concept of carbon credits.
Whether we like it or not, the problem of climate change will always be tied in not only to the issue of money, but also to the issues of livelihood, health and public safety. A good example of this is the issue of emmissions from the diesel engines of jeepneys. The emmisions directly threaten public safety, but aside from that, it also threatens the health of the jeepney drivers. If we ban the jeepneys, it will affect their livelihood, and it will also paralyze our transportation system.

Dr. Toppings told me that an Australian company will soon introduce a device that will cut down the emmissions of jeepneys. What is remarkable about this initiative however is not the technology used, but the financing scheme that was developed in order to start and sustain it. In effect, the devices will be on lease to the drivers for one peso a year, but the proponents will make money from the carbon credits, supposedly sharing some of the incomes with the drivers in the long run.

Foreign technologies may be good, but there are local technologies too that could be just as good, perhaps even better. AreoNox is one good example. It is a device that not only brings down fuel costs it also lowers emmissions. Developed by local inventor Erano Evangelista, it has recently won a Presidential Award for science innovation. Pertua is another good example it is a fuel additive that also lowers fuel costs and emissions, developed by local inventor John Simon.

Disaster risk reduction is the logical adjunct of climate change adaptation. As we adapt to climate change, we could also reduce the disaster risks that are climate related. Seemingly looking like a chicken and egg situation, we could also adapt to climate change by taking care of our environment, through environmental restoration, protection and preservation. If we do all these, we will also reduce the disaster risks that are environment related.

Moving on in the chain of inter-relationships, we could also ensure our water supply and our food security if we restore, protect and preserve our environment. In this connection, I commend the initiative of former Congressman Allen Quimpo to create the Aklan Rivers Development Council (ARDC). Because of ARDC, all the 17 towns of Aklan are now united in cleaning their rivers, and tapping these for economic purposes. On the invitation of Congressman Quimpo, I am now organizing a team of scientists that will assist ARDC in the river cleanup, and in developing hydro energy, irrigation, municipal waterworks and inland fisheries.

Tune in to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Join Coffee Clutch Fridays

REVIVAL OF THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT

2011-03-24T07:31:00.001-07:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 060
By Ike Señeres 03/18/2011

REVIVAL OF THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT

I was a victim of the inefficiency of two cooperatives, and that is why I lost interest in the cooperative movement for so many years. In one case, a coop forfeited my shares for the simple reason that I was no longer connected with the government agency that I used to work for. It gave me a bad feeling, because I was instrumental in giving them a profit center that enabled them to earn millions even after I left. In another case, the coop has not given me my shares of stock for so many years until now, citing the reason that they could not locate my records.

Had it not been for Dr. Virginia Teodosio of the University of the Philippines School of Labor and Industrial Relations (UP-SOLAIR), I would not have restored my faith in the cooperative movement. She showed me the true picture that many cooperatives are now successful, and are now being run efficiently. Thereafter, it was Mr. Orly Peña of Asian Business Consultants (ABC) who convinced me that the cooperative movement is actually our last chance now to democratize the fair distribution of wealth in this country.

In a manner of speaking, it could be said that the failed or failing cooperatives in this country reflect a microcosm of the bigger reality in the Philippines. Their leaders are probably corrupt, and their members are seemingly indifferent. In the same manner that the new leadership is showing a determination to move away from the path of corruption, there is now a chance within the cooperative movement to reform, and move towards a righteous direction.

Since the apparent problem is not just corruption but also the mismanagement of the cooperatives, the logical solution is the training of their managers so that they could be professionalized and be properly equipped to lead their members towards a more orderly and a more profitable conduct of business. Before that however, they should comply with the basic requirement of the cooperatives law that tells them to engage the services of professional managers, and not to appoint managers from among themselves.

Just like any modern enterprise, it is now time for the cooperatives to adopt new technologies in order to improve the conduct of their businesses, and that should start in the computerization of their business processes. This should of course include the adoption of new information and communications technologies (ICT).
For so many years now, I have been thinking about ways that would make it possible to make use of ICT to benefit agriculture in this country. I have thought of many ways, but recently I had the chance to come across some new ways of using programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to control the quality of fruits and vegetables, so that this would conform exactly to the specifications of the buyers. To some extent, it could be said that PLCs are the heavy duty versions of personal computers (PCs).

In theory, PLCs could be used to control any outcome in any process, and that is why this technology is very useful in manufacturing, and happily now in farming or agriculture too. This would include controls in color, shape, size, temperature, humidity and even in the pattern of looks or appearances. In some ways, optical mark reader (OMR) and optical character recognition (OCR) technologies could also be used for this purpose.

As PCs and laptops have become smaller, so have point of sale (POS) machines, thus making it now possible for small and medium enterprises, of course including the cooperatives to use these devices since these are now affordable. As an extra benefit, these gadgets now come in handheld versions that are equipped with transmission and communications features, thus making them ideal for use in electronic commerce transactions.

In the same way that big corporations are now making money and saving money by using ICT, small enterprises and cooperatives could do that too now, and there are no more limitations for them to do that. The best way for them to start however is to plan their systems very well, and they should know that we are not lacking in local talents who could help them to do it right.

As additional good news to the cooperatives, ICT technologies have now moved towards “cloud computing” sometimes called “software as a service”. What this means is that small businesses could now computerize their operations without having to buy their own servers or without putting up their own data centers. In this approach, they would just pay per transaction or per service provided. As usual, I would say that machines are just tools for people to use, and having said that, I would now emphasize that what is more important is for the leaders of cooperatives to modernize their thinking first, for the good of their businesses.

Tune in to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Join Coffee Clutch Fridays

UNITY IN GOVERNANCE

2011-03-09T23:38:00.001-08:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 059
By Ike Señeres 03/10/2011

UNITY IN GOVERNANCE

A new show will soon replace the old Government Financial Institutions (GFI) show in the Global News Network (GNN), also known as the GFI Hour. I am going to produce this new show that will be named Government United in Action (GUIA). It will be a show about the entire government being united in its action to deliver programs, projects and services to the Filipino people.

This unity will take the following forms: (1) Unity of the Executive and Legislative branches. (2) Unity of the national government and the local government units (LGUs). (3) Unity of the mainstream government agencies and the government owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) and (4) Unity of the civilian government and the military establishment.

GUIA will be a live weekly show every Monday from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM. I am planning to have one theme for each week, as follows: Week One, Unity in the Social Agenda. Week Two: Unity in the Economic Agenda. Week Three: Unity in the Political Agenda. Week Four: Unity in the Scientific Agenda.

The idea of unity in the scientific agenda might sound alien to many of us, but we do need to have a clear agenda for science and technology in our country, in order for us to progress and keep pace with the other developing countries. In the usual practice of the government, the social agenda and the economic agenda are usually lumped together as the socio-economic agenda.

The importance of the political agenda is not pronounced, and the scientific agenda is usually not mentioned. In the case of GUIA, I propose that the more practical approach is to combine the socio-political agenda on one hand and the techno-economic agenda on the other hand.

It is good to know that both the Legislative and Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) and the Philippine Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) have started meeting again under the new administration. LEDAC and PCSD were very active during the past administrations, but both practically died under the Arroyo regime. In a manner of speaking, the LEDAC somehow enables us to have the functionality of having a parliamentary system of government without resorting to Charter change.

Aside from being the producer of GUIA, I will also be producing the newly improved daily GNN coverage of the House and Senate proceedings, now known as CONGRESS TV. In the past years, the usual practice was to just install fixed cameras in the session hall, and no reporters and commentators were assigned. This time around, we will be interviewing the Congressmen and Senators about their bills and resolutions, before and after the sessions.

This new format of CONGRESS TV will give all private citizens and interest groups to participate more in the legislative process. As time and resources would allow, we will also cover the LEDAC meetings, so we could report the complete picture of the process as it flows. In fairness to the lawmakers, we are going to submit our questions to them ahead of time, so that they could study the questions in advance. My own show KA IKING LIVE will also be renamed soon to ASEAN POLITICS, to take advantage of the expanded reach of G-SAT all over Asia. Two new shows, ASEAN ENVIRONMENT and ASEAN TRAVEL are also planned.

DR. ERNESTO GONZALES WROTE: Please count me in as one of your resource persons for GUIA. I know the issue because this had been the focus of my scholarship and eventually dissertation and published by the London School of Economics (LSE). This is a strategic move to influence the dynamics of narrow conflicts as is common to democratic system in order to realign to the bigger dimensions of nationhood for the country. Yes, media through your TV program could provide a strong indirect force to unify all sectoral efforts towards a unity of action for our much awaited convergence of concerns and passions to start working to build the Philippine nation. A unified framework is urgent. The Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP) of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) which is based on the Neoclassical Philosophy of the Free Market Forces to industrialize our country is currently on a freeze with Civil Society advocates. In this area of the unified framework, you need a mastery of the Sustainable Development Philosophy. I will send you a copy of my research done at the LSE about this dilemma of humanity today. The title of this paper is "Piloting a Unified Framework of Sustainable Development: Asian Perspective Philippine Experience. This was published by LSE last 2005, but nobody appreciated it in the Philippines. Maybe it was written well ahead of its time. Your current search is related to it.

Tune in to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Join Coffee Clutch Fridays

KEEPING TRACK OF FILIPINOS WORLDWIDE

2011-03-09T23:37:00.001-08:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 058
By Ike Señeres 03/02/2011

KEEPING TRACK OF FILIPINOS WORLDWIDE

Whether we like it or not, there will always be Filipinos abroad who will fall under the category of being “undocumented”. Since they have apparently not complied with the documentation rules of the Philippine government, they are supposedly on their own, and the government has no legal obligation to rescue them in times of danger. In actual experience however, the government still has the moral duty to help them, and that is when the problem of looking for them starts.

Fortunately for them, most Filipino communities abroad are tightly knit, and they more or less know each other’s identities and whereabouts, thereby making it easier to find them in critical situations, regardless of whether they are documented or not. This is of course generally speaking because many of them shun the rest of the other Filipinos, fearing that their “undocumented” status could be discovered.

Despite frequent calls from our embassies and consulates urging Filipinos in their jurisdictions to register with them, many of them who are “undocumented” would rather not do that, fearing that our diplomats and consuls would report them to the local authorities. Truth to tell, there have been instances in the past wherein they were reported by these officials who fell for the temptation of collecting rewards.

At the outset, I would say that if we really want to, we could build databases of all Filipinos regardless of where they are, and regardless of their legal status in their host countries. What could make this easier to do however is a new law that would protect their privacy as soon as they are included in the database, meaning to say that it would be illegal under our own laws to report them to foreign authorities.

As it is now, many of our embassies and consulates have set up local phone numbers that would enable overseas Filipinos to call them in the event of problems and emergencies. It would be better however for the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to set up a call center back here in the home office for any Filipino in trouble to call toll free, using any available mobile phone or landline.

It is ironic that the Philippines is the call center capital of the world, and yet our own foreign ministry does not have a call center that could cater to our own overseas citizens. It could be argued that this could be a very expensive proposition, but there is really no price to the safety of our own citizens.
Due to its current relevance, I will again mention what I wrote last week, that the government should have an integrated database and communications systems for the purpose of tracking down and servicing overseas Filipinos, meaning a system that would work seamlessly and jointly as a combined database and communicator. This is a systems development strategy that I have already used and tested when I supervised the creation of the APEC Communications and Database System (ACDS), during the 1996 APEC Summit here in the Philippines.

For the second time, I will again say that as an ideal systems development strategy, all government agencies including the COMELEC should build integrated database and communications systems, this being a very practical and useful approach. So much could be said about the advocacy of convergence, but suffice it to say that for now that it would make information and communications systems not only safer, but also cheaper, being able to combine two goals in one.

According to the law, all Filipino citizens abroad should be given the option to vote where they are, and this is already being done to some extent. This being the case, it would be reasonable to think that the COMELEC database, should it have one that is accurate and reliable, could also be used as the same database that could track down Filipinos all over the world, assuming that they would come out to register where they are now staying.

Vice versa, whatever data that could be gathered abroad because of overseas registrations could be used to update the local databases that are being kept over here. What is important is for us to know what data to get, and what data to use. With all the high tech assets that are being used in database management, what is still most important is the database design, meaning the rhyme and reason for it.

The President has expressed his intention to appoint a COMELEC Commissioner who has an ICT background. That is a step in the right direction, because almost everything that the Commission is mandated to do has something to do directly or indirectly with Information and Communications Technology (ICT). As it is, the acronym ICT already denotes convergence, and that by itself is a good clue. With a Commissioner who has an ICT background, the Commission would have a better chance of making right what has been done wrong before, in terms of wrong technologies, and the wrong approaches to database management.

Tune in to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Join Coffee Clutch Fridays

CONVERGENCE OF DATABASES AND COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS

2011-03-09T23:36:00.001-08:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 057
By Ike Señeres 02/24/2011

CONVERGENCE OF DATABASES AND COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS

As the political situation in the Middle East worsens, two important questions are now being asked in connection with the rescue of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) who are caught in the turmoil there. How do we know who they are and where they are? How are we going to communicate with them assuming that we will know who they are and where they are?

Even if these are basically political questions, I could see the technical aspects instead, leading me to conclude that these two questions are basically related to database and communications issues. Simply put, we would know who the OFWs are and where they are, if we had databases that would record their identities and whereabouts. We would also know how to communicate with them under normal conditions, but the equation changes when crisis situations would occur.

Any time now, the plain old telephone systems (POTS) and the cellular phone systems there could go down, possibly even their Internet connections. With these three systems knocked out, how could we continue to communicate with them? With all terrestrial systems out of commission, the only other technology that could be used internationally is satellite radio, and this is sure to work. I hope that our rescue team going to the Middle East would make use of this technology.

Of course, single side band (SSB) radio could still be used locally. When I was the head of telecommunications and management information systems (MIS) for the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), we were still able to communicate during the Gulf War when the POTS and the Internet went down there, simply by using SSB relay from post to post. This could still be used today, but our diplomats and consuls will not be able to communicate to the home office from the field where our OFWs are.

It was during my DFA days when I had an actual experience in making databases and communications systems work together, in tandem with each other. Included in that stint was my being head of the APEC Communications and Database System (ACDS), during the 1996 APEC Summit here in the Philippines. The system was later lauded by the APEC Leaders Forum for its excellence in data security and versatile communicability.
The success of ACDS was attributed to the fact that the computerized databases and the communications systems were planned and implemented as one combined design from the start. In other words, the addition of the communications system was not an afterthought that was added later. This has a lot to do with being compatible and seamless with each other, aside from the added advantage of being designed to be uniformly secure as joint system.

During the last election, it was evident that the computerized databases (whatever they had at that time) and the communications systems of the COMELEC were apart from each other, and were in fact bid out separately. Even if this appears to be the case, the situation is not hopeless, because many improvements could still be done in order to make these two components work well with each other. Of course, the underlying goal here is to secure the data as these are stored, and as these are transmitted, two parts of the same system that should work seamlessly.

As it is now, it would appear that the DFA had to wait for crisis situations to emerge in the Middle East, before they could realize that they have no data to help them track down the endangered OFWs, and that they have no critical means of communicating with them. Having learned this lesson, the entire government should now review their systems to anticipate database and communications related problems in the future, and that includes the COMELEC.

As a side note, it would also appear that neither the Bureau of Immigration (BI) nor the Department of Tourism (DOT) has a dependable system of tracking the data related to the departures and the eventual destinations of all migrant Filipinos, not just the OFWs. If this not true, then the DFA would not have any problem now in knowing where the OFWs in the Middle East would be, and how they could be contacted.

I find it unusual that some members of the mass media are justifying the fact that it is impossible for the DFA to track down the OFWs in the troubled spots, because there are too many of them. To me, this is just a computing challenge, because that is what computers are supposed to do, to keep records of large numbers of data sets, no matter how many entries are involved. I could not imagine disfranchising some voters, just because the number of citizens is just too many to handle.

Tune in to Universal Access 2 to 3pm Monday to Sunday in DZRJ 810 KHZ and KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Coffee Clutch Fridays 3 to 6 PM at the Elks Club

ACCURACY MUST TRUMP SPEED

2011-02-18T22:54:00.000-08:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 056
By Ike Señeres 02/19/2011

ACCURACY MUST TRUMP SPEED

Reader Mr. Jose Z. Osias says that there should be no debate between the choices of speed versus accuracy when it comes to the issue of what is important in the automation of the election process. He explained that truth could be twisted by speed if only the partial and unverified results are transmitted early to create trending. He concluded that the goal of achieving accuracy should start with the Voters List.

In the many years that I have planned and managed computerized systems, I have always followed the three pronged framework of Manpower, Infrastructure and Content, or MIC for short. Like my favorite dish of the Ilocano region where Mr. Osias comes from, the anchovies, tomatoes and okra must always be present and should converge to complete the menu, with no element missing. Without MIC coming together, there could be no complete computerization.

At this point, I remember what veteran Management Information Systems (MIS) expert Mr. Rene Relucio always tells me, that in the end, it is the MIS systems administrator who is king, because he holds the keys to the system. While it is true that in the end, content is the real king, Mr. Relucio is absolutely correct, the systems administrator holds the keys to the content, including what could be read from it, and what is written into it.

As a political scientist, I would always say that there should be a balance of power or equilibrium between Manpower, Infrastructure and Content, but in the real world out there, it is the Manpower who holds the real power, being the only living and thinking element of the trio, the other two being innocent and harmless non- living inanimate elements.

Each time I explain the concept of computer security to other people, I always give them the analogy of Fort Knox, supposedly the most secure Infrastructure in the whole world. Of course Fort Knox is secure by design, but just like any ordinary house, it has keys that could open the locks from the outside. It is therefore not the security of the locks that is the question, but the integrity or the reliability of the Manpower who holds the keys that could be questionable.

Many years ago, some ballot boxes were stolen from inside the Congress, where these were kept in custody, supposedly under tight security. Just like Fort Knox, we could say that the Congress is relatively secure, but as it turned out, somebody either gave the keys to someone from the outside. What could be worse than that, is that somebody might have opened it from the inside, disregarding the need for keys. In other words, it could have been an inside job.

Going back to what Mr. Relucio said, it is the systems administrator who is the king, because he holds the power to grant the rights to read from the system, or to write into it, either acting on his own, or under the authority of his superiors. He also has the power to command what data could be stored, or what data could be forwarded or transmitted. “Read and Write” and “Store and Forward” are two computer jargons that watchdogs of computerized systems should memorize.

Also going back to what Mr. Osias said, it is the systems administrator who has the power to decide which data to store and which data to forward and when to store and when to forward the data, indicating that data could actually be withheld due to human intervention, or conversely, it could be forwarded ahead of time, to show a trend that could influence the outcome of the voting, assuming that it is still ongoing at that time.

On the subject of Content being the king, we should all remember that the Voters List is the core of the COMELEC data, the “soul” so to speak. In a manner of speaking, it is the Infrastructure that is the “body” of the system. Even in layman terms, it would not be right for a “body” not to have a “soul”. In the past elections, so much importance has been given to the process of forwarding or transmitting the data, but how could we bring out the true will of the people if many qualified voters are not even in the Voters List?

In technical terms, the characters and images that are seen in the COMELEC Voter ID cards are just simply the printouts of the data that are stored in the Voters List. In other words, the ID cards are just derivatives of the Voters List, the latter being a database. Following the dictum of “Garbage in, garbage out” (GIGO), the Voters List could only produce ID cards for the citizens who are in the list. “What you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) is another dictum that we should bear in mind.

Tune in to Universal Access 2 to 3pm Monday to Sunday in DZRJ 810 KHZ and KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Coffee Clutch Fridays 3 to 6 PM at the Elks Club

SPEED VERSUS ACCURACY

2011-02-11T23:35:00.001-08:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 055
By Ike Señeres 02/12/2011

SPEED VERSUS ACCURACY

A concerned citizen asked me a layman’s question that needed a technical answer. He wanted to know what is more important in the automation of the COMELEC voting system. Is it speed or accuracy? I told him that that is precisely the challenge in the automation goal, to strike a good balance between speed and accuracy.

The equilibrium between speed and accuracy is needed because without it, the result could tilt towards one of the two extremes, and that could spell disaster. In either case, speed without accuracy or accuracy without speed would not be good for the system. By comparison however, accuracy would have a higher order of importance, because it would reflect the will of the people. Nonetheless, data derived from a slow process would still be questionable, because the people would suspect that the data might have been compromised in between.

Before the idea of automation came to the COMELEC, all votes were cast, counted, tabulated and transmitted manually. During the last election, the votes were counted and transmitted electronically, but the casting and tabulation stages were still done manually, at least from the technical standpoint. By comparison, the objective of speed was achieved, but some issues were still raised about the issue of accuracy.

There is a general impression that the casting of the votes in the last election was already automated. This notion is debatable, because the votes were still cast manually by using the Optical Mark Reader (OMR) technology. In using the OMR technology, the manual voting method simply changed from the use of hand written characters to the use of shaded dots, the latter representing optical marks. In a figurative sense, the second step of the voting was also manual, because the OMR ballots were manually fed into the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine.

There is also a general impression that the tabulation of the votes was automated, but this too is debatable. The reason for this is that the Compact Flash (CF) cards were manually removed from the PCOS machines so that these could be inserted into the CF card readers that were attached to personal computers (PCs) that were running on Windows Operating Systems (Windows O/S).
It could be said that the majority of the people were happy with the fact that the last election was able to deliver the expected results, even if the scope of the automation was only partial, so to speak. What is good however could be made better, more so because the law requires full automation, and not just partial. The law is the law, and we have to implement it, even if we are already happy with what we see.

When I chaired the COMELEC Modernization Committee twice in the past, I always encountered the issue of the disparity between what the law requires, and what our culture promotes or allows. The tolerance of partial automation is just one example, but there are more examples like the use of COMELEC identification cards as a requirement for the issuance of official ballots, and even as a control for the entry into the polling places, for security reasons.

What is the use of issuing COMELEC identification cards if these are not really required at the polling places? This is a good question that a reader asked me. A reader also asked me about the wisdom of using the Unified Multi-Purpose ID (UMID) as an alternative identification card. UMID is issued by the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), but it is now being proposed as a unified card for all members of the Social Security System, PHILHEALTH and PAG-IBIG as well.

The issue of accuracy is directly related to the need for data integrity and data security. It is irresponsible for any organization to claim that their system is “hack-free”, because in theory all systems are prone to being hacked either partially or fully. This is precisely the objective of data security systems, to see to it that it could not be hacked quickly or easily, and to make it too costly for anyone to even try to hack it. The word to use is “super-secure”, not “hack-free”.

Conversely, there are technologies that would prevent a system from being fully hacked. This is a question of techno-economics; because the more money invested into the system to secure it would make it more costly to hack it. All told, the most secure data security system is one that would combine hardware encryption and software encryption technologies, not just one or the other. Crucial to this is the full legal ownership of all source codes and all passwords.

Go for the good life! Tune in to Universal Access 2 to 3pm Monday to Sunday in DZRJ 810 KHZ and to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or send text to +639997333011for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

THE BOTTOM LINE IS DATA

2011-02-05T10:34:00.000-08:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 054
By Ike Señeres 02/05/2011

THE BOTTOM LINE IS DATA

The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) is back in the news this week as two Commissioners retired and left two positions open. The word is out that the President wants to appoint a Commissioner with an Information Technology (IT) background. This development has opened new discussion about what really has to be done at the COMELEC computer wise, and what the new IT oriented Commissioner has to accomplish in his or her term

If you ask me, my answer would be very simple. I think the COMELEC should go back to the basics, and what could be more basic than putting the Voter’s List in good order? I would say that issuing Voter ID cards to all qualified citizens is also a basic concern, but experience tells me that an ID card is really nothing more than a print out of the data within a database, meaning to say that without data to back it up, it is not possible to produce reliable and accurate ID cards.

I was fortunate to be the Chairman of the COMELEC Modernization Committee twice, at one time appointed by the Commission en banc, and at another time appointed jointly by the Commission en banc and the Senate. In both stints, I remember that the discussion always hovered around the issue of Voter’s Lists and ID cards. I also approved the Information Systems Strategic Plan (ISSP) of the COMELEC at one time, and these were the two key issues too at that time.

Without a reliable Voter’s List, the COMELEC could not issue reliable Voter ID cards. Without these two working together, the Commission would have no legal and technical basis to issue official ballots to anyone. This is very basic, and nothing could be more basic than that. There are two sides to this issue. If there is no basis for issuance of a ballot, the election official on site could just deny anyone his right to vote. Conversely, if one is denied a ballot, he too would not have a basis to assert his rights.

Under normal circumstances, it would be reasonable to implement a NO ID, NO ENTRY policy in any place or event for security reasons. If only all voters would have their ID cards, this rule would be a very simple and easy rule to implement. Since not every voter has an ID card even up to now, this rule could not be implemented, thus making it difficult to control the security at the voting places. If this rule is implemented now, it would be tantamount to a denial of voting rights.
In the world of data management, it is normal and customary practice to subject the security and the reliability of the systems to the scrutiny of peers. This is often referred to as ethical hacking, but that is really an oxymoron because it is really just a form of authorized testing. To refer to this exercise as ethical hacking is about as wrong as the idea of rape with consent, obviously there is no such thing.

Good data management is precisely what the COMELEC needs, because every single thing that the Commission does is related to data and data management. When I say data management, I mean the whole gamut from data collection to data protection, the latter also known as data security. In this field, redundancy is also a common practice, but it seems that the COMELEC is now lacking in this regard, or at least their data security practices are not known to the world of data management practitioners.

The casting of votes in an election is also a data related exercise, and presumably, the data collected as the votes are cast are secured in such a way that these are not altered or modified in any way. This is another part of the data process that has to be verified and validated by professional peers in order to remove suspicions of any form of wrongdoing.

In the past election, there was a lot of controversy about the ownership of the source code. This issue is really a no brainer, because the user of a software program could only own the source code if they buy the rights to the entire system, lock stock and barrel. In the case of the counting machines that were used in the last election, it is obvious that the COMELEC could not own the source codes, because the Commission only rented the machines and did not buy them.

In the world of computer technology, it is important to understand the proper use of technical terminologies, because the wrong understanding of words could lead to the wrong decisions. For instance, a counting machine is not the same as a voting machine. Taking this analogy further, automated counting is not the same as automated voting. It could be argued that a Toyota is the same as a Mack truck because they both could move from one place to another, but a Toyota is not designed to carry heavy loads that only a Mack truck could carry. In other words, a personal computer is not the same as an industrial grade voting machine.

Go for the good life! Tune in to Universal Access 2 to 3pm Monday to Sunday in DZRJ 810 KHZ and to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or send text to +639997333011for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

2011-01-29T06:41:00.000-08:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 053
By Ike Señeres 01/27/2011

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Years ago, Mr. Arnel Doria, an executive of Honda Philippines told me that his company looks at corporate social responsibility (CSR) not as a responsibility but as an obligation. To add to that, he told me that his company makes sure that their social obligation programs should not benefit them directly; otherwise these will become self- serving. This is also what Mr. Frank Guerra, an executive of S.C. Johnson told me, that they make sure that their CSR programs would not appear to be contrived.

Mr. John Raña, the Director of the public and private partnership (PPP) program of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) tells me that there are two kinds of PPP programs that they are working on. The first kind does not benefit the company and the other does. There is actually no moral issue behind these two choices, because PPP investments are all voluntary.

Prof. Tom Lopez, the President of the University of Makati (UMAK) tells me that a real CSR program should “hurt” the company, meaning that it should cost them something, without getting any benefit back. His thinking is consistent with that of Mr. Doria and Mr. Guerra, but we could just say that this view is the norm, because there are now other views that depart from the norm.

Explaining their approach, Mr. Raña tells me further that some companies would prefer to book their CSR programs as PPP programs too, in line with the initiative of President Noynoy Aquino. Again I would say that there is nothing wrong with that, because CSR programs and PPP programs are both voluntary and it is up to the donor or investor company how they would book the use of their money.

Going back a few years, it would appear that PPP is just a new way of looking at the build-operate-transfer (BOT) scheme, with some modifications. This is where the view of Mr. Raña would become applicable, because strictly speaking, all BOT programs are money making, always contrived and self-serving so to speak. In both programs however, it is always the investment of the company triggers it.

As I understand it, each government agency is now required to put up their internal PPP program office, but the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) has been designated as the coordinating center. Up to now however, there seems to be no center that would coordinate all the CSR programs of the private sector, and that is the direction that the Corinthian Coffee Clutch (CCC) would like to pursue. Still basically a think tank in the first level, CCC now has ISIP BAYAN, a second level that is now involved in more active engagements such as program coordination and project management.

Call it CSR or call it PPP, there is now a mechanism that would enable private companies to donate anything of value to any government agency, in exchange for tax credits, or even without getting anything back, as the case may be. In the past, it has not been a practice to donate to government agencies, but it is good to note that this is now possible.

Disaster warning is one area where PPP and CSR could be applicable. Towards this end, ISIP BAYAN will be spearheading the creation of the Integrated Warning Alert System (IWAS). The system will monitor weather changes and water levels and will send out warning alerts to mobile phones, primarily to school officials and mass media practitioners.

IWAS is designed to collect data locally but it will integrate data nationally. Any local company could donate the local equipment. Only one company is needed to donate, because the system does not cost much. All donations will be eligible for tax credits. Civic groups may also donate, and individual donors who are members of these groups may also qualify for tax credits.

As an added advantage, IWAS could also provide Internet connectivity to the schools that are enrolled in the system. As a true gesture of private and public partnership, we are also going to share our data with PAG-ASA, so that they could improve their own warning systems. In the spirit of open sharing, we are also going to give the data to the Philippine Red Cross.

There are many other areas of cooperation where PPP and CSR could be applicable. What is important is that all donors should be joining their efforts with others, instead of doing things in many directions on their own. Hopefully, many would accept the offer of ISIP BAYAN to become the coordinator and integrator of donation or investment programs for the public good.

Go for the good life! Tune in to Universal Access 2 to 3pm Monday to Sunday in DZRJ 810 KHZ and to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or send text to +639997333011for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

SAVING THE COOPERATIVES AND THE STATE UNIVERSITIES

2011-01-22T04:19:00.000-08:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 052
By Ike Señeres 01/21/2011

SAVING THE COOPERATIVES AND THE STATE UNIVERSITIES

We may not see the problem yet, but our cooperatives and state universities are in danger, and they need to be saved. The culprit in the case of the cooperatives is globalization, and in the case of the state universities, the culprit is rationalization, whatever that means. The cooperatives are losing business because of the entry of imported and smuggled goods, as the case may be. The state universities are losing steam because of mandatory budget cuts as decided by our Congress.

These two types of institutions are completely different from each other, but in the bottom line, their problem is money, and that is also the solution, meaning that they need money in order to survive. Given the fact that the government is not likely to give any more subsidies to either of them, there is a challenge now to build new revenue sources for both of them, sources that are not just good for now to solve the present problem, but for good, for their continuing sustainability.

Like two damsels in distress, there is now a way for the cooperatives and state universities to work together in such a way that both of them will make money and survive, with the added advantage of possibly helping the nation not only to survive, but also to grow and expand its economy. This solution is not exactly new, but for it to work, there is a need to modify and improve it to suit the present needs.

As it is now, there are corporate locators already in the University of the Philippines campus in Diliman, and perhaps in other state university campuses. The deal in Diliman is very simple. The corporate locators construct the buildings, and they turn it over to the university after 25 years. It is a win-win solution for both sides, because the locators get free real estate, plus access to the social capital inside the campuses. On the other hand, the universities get free buildings, and also some rent money in between.

There are about 30,000 cooperatives in the country, and about 30% of them have money to invest on their own, without tapping other sources. The other 70% have some money to invest, and could possibly pool their money with other coops or some other business partners. All told, acting alone or with others, the coops could do the same thing that the corporate locators are doing in the universities now, and that is to build offices or factories inside the campuses, as the case may be.
For all intents and purposes, the legal basis for cooperatives to invest in economic zones inside the state university campuses already exists, and there is hardly any need to pass more laws in support of this idea. As it is usually done in most economic zones, the locators would also build housing for their employees, thus putting in place a two in one strategy of providing employment and shelter at the same time, in a way that is doable and sustainable.

Many years ago, I predicted that programmable logic controllers (PLCs) will cause an industrial revolution that would equal if not surpass the impact of the steam engines. In a manner of speaking, PLCs could become the new “steam engines”, being the little machines that could control the manufacturing process in any factory, big or small. In effect, PLCs function as “industrial computers”, as opposed to the less powerful “personal computers” (PCs).

Since then, the price of PLCs have gone down to a point that these are now as affordable as PCs. The good news is, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) has already defined the certification standards for the manpower base that would support both PCs and PLCs, the latter now referred to as the science of “megatronics”. I am proud to have contributed to the definition of these two sets of standards, in cooperation with TESDA.

As it is now, the individual cooperatives are like tribes that exist on their own, hardly minding the business of other cooperatives. The time has come for them to come together and unite, just like the way that the tribes of early England joined together under Oliver Cromwell to form the Commonwealth of England. In my own small way, I am now laying the groundwork for them to unite under an advisory council composed of the eminent leaders of the cooperative movement.

By itself, “cooperative housing” is not a new concept either. The UP Employees Housing Cooperative (UPEHCO) in Diliman under the leadership of Dr. Virginia Teodosio has already built several housing projects by combining the financial capital and the social capital that is available to them. The livelihood component is always present in all the projects, putting in place the two in one solution. Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) leave the country to pursue the goal of having their own houses and their own businesses when they come back. Let us make that happen.

Go for the good life! Tune in to Universal Access 2 to 3pm Monday to Sunday in DZRJ 810 KHZ and to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or send text to +639997333011for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

CHARITY AND ADVOCACY

2011-01-14T19:36:00.000-08:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 051
By Ike Señeres 01/16/2011

CHARITY AND ADVOCACY

I look at charity and advocacy as two sides of the same coin. The bottom line is the same, to help people in need where they are, in whatever possible ways there are. The difference perhaps is the depth and reach of the help given. The effect of charity is apparently short term, to help people for a day perhaps. The effect of advocacy is long term. Taking the case of livelihood, giving people fish to eat is charity, teaching them how to fish is advocacy.

Whatever it is, whether it is charity or advocacy, I have now found a way to help the people who are giving help to others. I now have a donation service that will enable charity and advocacy organizations to promote their cause on one hand, and to collect donations on the other hand. The promotion side will be done through multimedia, and the collection will be done through an online and mobile service.

To be specific, the promotion side will be done through a continuing series of public service announcements that will be aired by participating media outlets. These will be in the form of public service announcements that will run for one minute, and sponsored by corporate responsibility programs. I am happy to announce that Global News Network (GNN) and Rajah Broadcasting System (RBS) have already agreed to join this project.

To be specific as well, the collection side will be done through a website and a mobile gateway. Through these two facilities, anyone can donate anything anytime from anywhere, using either their computer or their cell phone. To make it easy for those who are not electronically connected, we will also set up service booths in the malls and supermarkets.

Many Filipinos here and abroad want to help the country in whatever way they could, either through charity or advocacy means. The problem is, it is not easy for them to do that, not having the convenient means to do it. Until now, there was also no way for them to give small donations in any amount, but that is doable now using this system.

Unknown to most people, it is actually possible to donate anything to any government agency, including the local government units (LGUs). These donations could actually be rewarded with tax credits, in effect turning the whole exercise into a voluntary tax procedure. Of course, this could not be used to cover for all tax dues, but this procedure could be an option for those who want to make sure that part of their tax money would go to a purpose that is in line with their priorities.

In developing the software, I made sure that aside from goods and money, people could also donate their time and talent. With this in mind, I asked the software developers to make the service compatible with the Local Exchange Trading System (LETS) concept, a system that is already popularly used in many countries. LETS is actually a barter system that allows participants to buy and sell goods and services without any money involved.

Public and private partnership (PPP) is a big concept but anyone could actually help in whatever small ways they could, more so now that there is already a donation service in place. The best way to help is to donate to an existing government program that is already up and running. One such program is run by the National Development Support Command (NADESCOM) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

NADESCOM has already built more than 800 school buildings and health centers all over the country, particularly in depressed and war torn areas. The structures are already built, but these are all lacking in equipment and supplies such as tables and chairs. Fortunately, the PCSO has already committed to equip the health centers. Any individual is welcome to donate anything, in cash or kind.

In cooperation with NADESCOM, the Corinthian Coffee Clutch (ISIP BAYAN) is now helping the Montalban Planters Agro-Development Association (MAPALAD) in Barangay Macabud, Rizal so that they could turn their community into a model village. It is ironic to note that this village is only 45 minutes away from Quezon City, and yet it has no water, no electricity and no health center.

NADESCOM has already pledged to build the water system, the mini power plant, the feeder road and the health center, but donations are still needed to complete everything. This is an ideal site to build a model community, because the people are willing, and the local government is friendly. Fortunately, NADESCOM has approved my proposal to adopt the Integrated Area Development (IAD) approach.

Go for the good life! Tune in to Universal Access 2 to 3pm Monday to Sunday in DZRJ 810 KHZ and to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or send text to +639997333011for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

PARTNERING FOR NATION BUILDING

2011-01-08T04:33:00.002-08:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 050
By Ike Señeres 01/08/2011

PARTNERING FOR NATION BUILDING

It’s a new year, and it’s time for some changes in my media projects. Starting next month, KA IKING LIVE will be replaced by the television version of Universal Access, my radio program in DZRJ. Both the radio and television versions are about nation building, but you have to tune in to know what that means.

The Corinthian Coffee Clutch is also about nation building, and we have now given it the vernacular name of ISIP BAYAN. If you want to help in nation building, join us every Friday at 3 PM at the seventh floor of the Corinthian Plaza Building in Paseo De Roxas in Makati City, inside the Elks Club.

Starting next week, ISIP BAYAN will be holding weekly meetings hosted by the National Development Support Command (NADESCOM) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), for the purpose of helping them in their mission of nation building, which they are doing through the construction of classrooms, clinics, feeder roads, power plants and water systems.

ISIP BAYAN is very clear in its position not to directly get involved in the peace process, particularly in the peace talks. However, we believe that by helping in the improvement and enhancement of basic infrastructure in the underdeveloped areas of the country, we are somehow contributing to the attainment of peace, knowing that it is poverty and discontent that breeds wars and rebellions.

Starting next month, ISIP BAYAN will be advocating the use of a water disinfectant in cooperation with the World Health Alliance (WHA). The disinfectant also doubles up as a preservative for fruits and vegetables, in effect extending the shelf life as it disinfects. This would be an ideal enhancement for the water systems projects of NADESCOM.

ISIP BAYAN is also cooperating with NADESCOM in converting an old motor hotel into a charity hospital that will also function as a teaching hospital, to train doctors, nurses and other medical professionals in responsible medicine that is oriented towards nation building. It will also function as a research hospital, for the purpose of developing new cures for old ailments by way of new technologies.

Although ISIP BAYAN functions primarily as a think tank in the first level, it has a second level that promotes the programs and projects of its own members. Last month, we had a breakthrough in arranging the bridge financing for one of our members who has a reforestation project in Mindoro. We also had a breakthrough in releasing the shipment of donated medicines from the Bureau of Customs (BOC) , as requested by one of our members. The disinfectant is also a project of one of our members, and we are hoping that we could help him too.

It is frustrating to think that Filipino organizations abroad always have a hard time getting their donated shipments out of the BOC. These are organizations that want to do good by helping in nation building, but unfortunately they become victims of bad elements at the BOC that are still corrupt up to now. Luckily, that is going to end now, as their shipments will now be consigned to the NADESCOM. It was NADESCOM that got the medicine shipment out of the BOC, through the efforts of its commanding officer, General Carlos Holganza.

Indeed, it is very difficult to define what nation building really is. According to Mr. Tom Lee who is one of the founders of ISIP BAYAN, anything that is good for the nation is considered part of nation building. To that, I will add that anything that translates into bringing the good life to our people is part of nation building. In the vernacular, that means “ang magandang buhay”.

Long before the public and private partnership (PPP) concept became fashionable, ISIP BAYAN was already working towards that direction. Truth to tell, the private sector has resources that the government does not have, and vice versa. As a think tank, ISIP BAYAN wants to assist the national government and the local government units (LGUs) in developing PPP projects, all for nation building.

Housing and urban development are two of the priorities of ISIP BAYAN, with environment always built in. In simple language, our people could not even think of a good life if they do not a place to stay in with a good environment. Of course, they also need access to mobility (roads) health, education, power and water, which are also the priorities of NADESCOM. Next month, ISIP BAYAN will initiate projects that will put to good use the vacant properties of the Home Development Mutual Fund (HDMF) and the National Housing Authority (NHA).

Go for the good life! Tune in to Universal Access 2 to 3pm Monday to Sunday in DZRJ 810 KHZ and 6 to 7pm Tuesday and Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or send text to +639997333011for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

EDUCATION AS A FRAMEWORK FOR DEVELOPMENT

2011-01-08T04:33:00.001-08:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 049
By Ike Señeres 12/30/2010

EDUCATION AS A FRAMEWORK FOR DEVELOPMENT

Col. Rodolfo “Boy” Santiago, the Deputy Commander of the National Development Support Command (NADESCOM) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is already implementing the strategy of building classrooms alongside school clinics, so that these clinics could also double as health centers for the local community. This two in one combination makes a lot of sense, because it serves both education and health objectives in one package.

Dr. John “Jancen” Cenica, a cosmetic surgeon wants to turn the proposed charity hospital project in Caloocan City into a teaching hospital. We agreed that the teaching hospital should turn out doctors, nurses and other medical professionals who are more loving and caring and imbued with a deep sense of social concern in the service of the poor.

The Foundation of Our Lady of Peace Mission, Inc. (FOLPMI) headed by Sister Eva Maamo employs the same approach of healing the poor and teaching them to start their own livelihood projects so that they could become financially independent. Sister Eva is a one of a kind holy person. She is not just a Catholic nun; she is also a doctor and a surgeon at that. If you are already impressed with that, let me tell you that she is also a winner of both the Mother Teresa Award and the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

Fr. Rocky Evangelista, a Salesian priest who is the founder of the Tuloy Foundation in Alabang has a similar approach. His foundation operates what is practically a boarding school where he houses and teaches former street children, turning them into productive citizens as they become employees or entrepreneurs. Fr. Rocky is a recipient of the Gusi Peace Prize and the Ten Outstanding Filipinos (TOFIL) Award.

The Delancey Street Foundation in San Francisco, California owns and operates several residential educational centers where it has successfully turned around the lives of former substance abusers and ex-convicts, thus giving them a last chance to become productive citizens. The centers essentially operate as boarding schools where the students live, work and study until they are ready to return to the mainstream of society. Needless to say, the centers also have their own medical facilities where the health and rehabilitation needs of the students are attended to.
The common denominator of the approaches of Col. Santiago, Dr. Cenica, Sister Eva, Fr. Rocky and the Delancey Street Foundation is education, coupled with another social mission such as health, community development and personal transformation. I believe that there are many more possible interpretations and variations of this approach, and we should go out of our way to find out what these could be.

In theory, prisons are supposed to be rehabilitation centers where inmates are supposed to be reformed before they are released back to society, except those who are serving life terms. In reality however, the inmates turn out to be more hardened criminals more often than not, because of the bad influences inside those walls. By comparison, the Delancey Street Foundation is doing exactly what the prisons here are supposed to be doing.

There are many lessons that the local justice system here could learn from Delancey. First of all, the State of California allocates funds for the judges so that they could transfer these funds to the foundation as they turn over the convicts to them. These funds are used in the training of these ex-convicts, who in effect become resident students of the boarding schools. Secondly, the students are put to work in real employment situations as if they are already out in the open.

Ex-convicts, substance abusers and street children are not the only possible students of boarding schools. Even the children of poor families who could not afford to commute to and from the conventional schools could become residents of these boarding schools were they could have the right environment for learning.

In the experience of Delancey, they found out that the rehabilitation and reform of students could happen more if they are in a farming environment where they are closer to nature. This is the reason why there centers have in effect become farm schools, so to speak. There are many vacant buildings and raw lands that could potentially be turned into boarding schools or farm schools as the case may be. These schools could actually be owned by the local government units (LGUs) but operated by private foundations, within the context of the public and private partnership (PPP) concept.

Go for Complete Convergence! Tune in to Universal Access 2pm to 3pm Monday to Sunday in DZRJ 810 khz or log on to www.rjplanet.com/rj-radio/
Watch KA IKING LIVE! Saturdays 8 pm to 9 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639234059174 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

WEALTH CREATION VERSUS POVERTY REDUCTION

2011-01-08T04:32:00.001-08:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 048
By Ike Señeres 12/24/2010

WEALTH CREATION VERSUS POVERTY REDUCTION

The year 2011 is just around the corner, but up to now, the government has yet to understand the difference between poverty alleviation and poverty reduction. For many of us, this is just a matter of semantics in the language of the government, but the fact is, language is the window to the mind; therefore the language used by the government reveals how it understands or interprets the concepts at hand.

Simply put, poverty alleviation means making poverty more bearable, whereas poverty reduction means making poverty less prevalent. By comparison, poverty alleviation is like a pain reliever, whereas poverty reduction is a lasting cure for the pain. Ideally, the government should set actual numerical targets as to how much poverty reduction it will aim for within a given term, for instance within six years.

I am actually not against poverty alleviation per se. I would like the government to do that too, but not as a substitute for poverty reduction. Many administrations have come and go, but none so far have set actual quantifiable and measurable targets in poverty reduction, all of them seemingly just contented with the excuse of delivering poverty alleviation only, and nothing more.

I believe that the best approach is to deliver poverty alleviation as a first aid, but only as a first step towards delivering the more lasting solution of actual poverty reduction. How I wish that now and in the future, politicians will win or lose depending on their actual delivery of set targets for poverty reduction, targets that are monitored and validated by the voting public.

One thing for sure, the incidence of poverty in the Philippines could not possibly be reduced to a less prevalent level if we would depend solely on employment as a means of income for our people. The employment base here is so low, and there is no basis to expect that it could reasonably expand to a point where most people could get jobs in order to get out of poverty.

Instead of going around in circles, the government should now grab the bull by the horn and officially recognize that the only way for the majority of our people to have a sustainable means of income is for them to have a business of our own, or if not that, to have the means to invest in the business of others. Roughly translated, this would mean enabling our people so that they could be self-employed.
Investing in the business of others is actually a figure of speech, because once an investor puts his money into any business, he becomes a part owner of that business. This is true in the case of corporations and cooperatives. In other words, if anyone would invest in either of these two options, he would in effect have a business of his own too, even if only in a figurative sense.

Needless to say, anyone could also invest in single proprietorships or partnerships. It seems however that investing in corporations and cooperatives would be a safer and more practical option for those who have no actual experience in owning or running a business. This would apply also to absentee owners such as overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

I am now the producer “Universal Access to Business” (UNAXBIZ), a radio program that is aired in DZRJ every Friday from 2 to 3 PM. The purpose of the radio program is to enable every Filipino to have a business, for every home to have an industry. In the vernacular, the slogan of the show is “Bawat Pilipino may negosyo, bawat tahanan may kalakalan”.

Starting next month, UNAXBIZ will reach out to all Filipinos here and abroad (the show is live on the Internet) in order to help anyone who wants to put up or expand his business. Since micro-financing is now available from many sources, the hosts of the show will also help applicants get business loans. On top of that, it will also offer business counseling on the air.

Poverty reduction is a good cause, but the more positive approach I think is to aim for wealth creation. Wealth creation for every home and every family, and wealth creation for every community and every province. That will of course translate into wealth creation for the whole country, for the whole nation. With more wealth created, there will be more families that will be freed from poverty.

Speaking of homes, it is necessary for every family to have a house, regardless of whether they are owners or renters. A house is not a home it is said, but how can Filipino families have a home if they do not have a house to begin with? The bottom line of this is income, and that is why a business is necessary for everyone.

Go for Complete Convergence! Tune in to Universal Access 2pm to 3pm Monday to Sunday in DZRJ 810 khz or log on to www.rjplanet.com/rj-radio/
Watch KA IKING LIVE! Saturdays 8 pm to 9 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639234059174 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

THE TRANSFORMATION OF OUR NATION

2011-01-08T04:31:00.001-08:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 047
By Ike Señeres 12/19/2010

THE TRANSFORMATION OF OUR NATION

Small is beautiful and big outcomes start from small beginnings. Trees come from seeds, and nations are born out of the union of tribes. Trees form the forests and the forests form the ecosystems that support the sustainability of life. Somewhere, somehow there is a connection between all these and the principle of subsidiarity, and it is up to us to find the connection so that we could learn the lessons that could apply to our own survival as a nation.

There are many ways of defining subsidiarity, but we could simplify the definition by saying that subsidiarity means doing at a smaller or lower level what could be done at a bigger or higher level, so that in the end, in the final reckoning, it is the totality of the actions at the smaller level that add up to the attainment of the goals of the aggregate body or institution.

As we look at the problems that are confronting our nations today, it would seem that our condition is hopeless, because the problems appear to be too big for us to solve, considering the magnitudes that these problems have reached. Perhaps we often wonder how to start or where to start, and to that I say that we should start with small solutions, in a way taking small steps that could lead to big results.

In a trip to Japan many years ago, I saw many groups of programmers in several floors, all working in a big building. I was told that all of them were programming for only one software project. In other words they were all programming small parts of a software product that will eventually be combined into one big program. The program was simply too big for just one programmer to do, and the simple solution was for many programmers to work on the same program, following one design, one master plan.

In that same trip to Japan, I also learned that the big auto makers there are not really making all the parts that go into a car model. They just make the designs of the many small parts that are made by small suppliers in many places all over the country. Eventually, all these parts are assembled in one place to form the one product that is based on one design.

At this point, it should be very clear to us now that subsidiarity could work towards our advantage, but there is a condition, and that condition is that we should have a design, in other words a plan, a master plan to follow, so that those who will be acting and working at a smaller and lower level will be synchronized and in tune with everyone else who is working at all levels, especially those who are at the higher levels, and who will eventually be responsible for putting it together into one big outcome.

The transformation of our nation is the goal of the Corinthian Coffee Clutch, a private volunteer think tank that is now known as ISIP BAYAN. As our name suggests, we think for the nation, having been formed as a group that will contribute to nation building. As a nonprofit think tank, we could do everything that a commercial think tank could do, except that we do it for free.

As a think tank, it is our role to produce plans and designs that lower levels and small organizations could follow. In the process of doing that however, we have to start with pilot projects that could serve as the proofs of concepts and the showcases of our ideas, pilots that could eventually be rolled out nationally by the national government agencies (NGAs) or by the local government units (LGUs).

As part of our work process, we form working committees that are assigned to specific pilot projects. As of now, we have already formed separate committees for Health, Education and Environment. Our Health Committee is now working on the transformation of an old motor hotel into a charity hospital, in cooperation with the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO). Our Environment Committee is working on the transformation of the Pasig tributaries in cooperation with the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission (PRRC). Our Education Committee is working on the transformation of old school buildings in cooperation with the National Development Support Command (NADESCOM) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

In the past, we have been accused of doing nothing but talking. We might have been guilty of that before, but we found a way out of that accusation. We now invite all those who are still talking but not acting to join us. Have coffee with us!

Go for Complete Convergence! Tune in to Universal Access 2pm to 3pm Monday to Sunday in DZRJ 810 khz or log on to www.rjplanet.com/rj-radio/
Watch KA IKING LIVE! Saturdays 8 pm to 9 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639234059174 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

GROSS NATIONAL NEGLIGENCE

2010-12-12T08:27:00.001-08:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 046
By Ike Señeres 12/12/2010

GROSS NATIONAL NEGLIGENCE

It was my first time last week to see the esteros in Manila and to say that I was shocked with what I saw is an understatement. I was fortunate to be invited by Ms. Gina Lopez along with a delegation from the Corinthian Coffee Clutch, a volunteer think tank that has now adopted the name ISIP BAYAN. Ms. Lopez wanted to meet some urban planners from our group, and so we went, along with some of our members who are experts in waste management and community organization.

To go direct to the point, what I saw was clearly the result of gross national negligence, and I say that because the degradation of the environment in that area is not just the fault of the government, but of everyone who lives in this metropolis, everyone who produces wastes as a result of consumption, wastes that are not properly disposed of as it should be.

I realized however that the problem is not just waste disposal, but the bigger problem it seems is the violation of river easement laws that were completely ignored by the long parade of local government officials who were supposed to implement these laws. Immediately I realized that the problem is political, because that is the only way to explain the absence of political wills that should have been there in the first place.

Ms. Lopez is correct in saying that not unless we clean the esteros that are feeding it, we could not clean the Pasig River, and not unless we clean the Pasig River, we could not clean the Manila Bay too. To that, I will add that not unless we clean the watersheds in the mountains, we could not clean the Laguna de Bay too, and not unless we clean the Laguna de Bay, we could not clean the Pasig River.

In most other countries, the richest people live in the waterfront communities, and that is because the views from that vantage are spectacular. In contrast, here in the Philippines, the poorest among the poor live on the easements of the rivers, and there is nothing spectacular about the congestion and pollution that is caused by the overpopulation of these waterfronts.

As I listened to Ms. Lopez, I understood right away what she is trying to do. By being able to succeed in the cleanup of the smaller waterfronts and waterways, she is laying the groundwork for the political will to grow as a groundswell, after the people in the metropolis could see that if we could succeed in cleaning the smaller parts of the ecosystem, we could then believe that we could clean the bigger ecosystem as well. The good news is, she is already succeeding and many people are already getting convinced that it could be done.

Beauty is one thing, safety is another. Ms. Lopez is trying to beautify the esteros and the Pasig River on one hand, but it is easy to see from what she is doing that it is going to be the safety of the people in the metropolis that will be the ultimate result of her work. It is not too difficult to understand that, because the floods have already shown us what the congested waterways could do to our environment.

It took many years of neglect to bring the Pasig River and its tributaries to its present state of decay. Certainly, it will also take many years to bring it back to its former glory, but that could only happen if everyone who contributed to its destruction would move towards its restoration. To do that, multi-sectoral and multidisciplinary efforts would have to be undertaken, and that too would take a lot of political will.

It is obvious that in order to clear the easements along the waterways, the illegal settlers would have to be relocated. Ms. Lopez believes that it is a better option to just move them to move them to more decent dwellings nearby, rather than move them to far places that would take them away from their livelihood. This is the reason why she needs the urban planners, and ISIP BAYAN is committed towards helping her in that task.

In the final analysis, it is going to be the combination of good environment, shelter and livelihood programs that will bring lasting solutions to the problem as defined. Aside from that however, I see the need to also bring in good education and health programs, and ISIP BAYAN is going to help with that too. I am sure that as we move on, we will see the need for more programs, but we will deal with that too. More than anything else, it is going to be the rollout of the good pilot experiences in the Pasig River project that will benefit the nation the most. The fact is, there are hundreds of other rivers that also have to be cleaned, but if we could clean the Pasig River, there is no reason why we could not clean all the other rivers.

Go for Complete Convergence! Tune in to Universal Access 2pm to 3pm Monday to Sunday in DZRJ 810 khz or log on to www.rjplanet.com/rj-radio/
Watch KA IKING LIVE! Saturdays 8 pm to 9 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639234059174 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

A THINK TANK FOR NATION BUILDING

2010-12-12T08:25:00.000-08:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 045
By Ike Señeres 12/04/2010

A THINK TANK FOR NATION BUILDING

Universal Access is now the title of my radio program in DZRJ that is aired daily, Mondays to Sundays from 2PM to 3PM. DZRJ can be heard locally on the 810 AM band and is also streamed live at www.rjplanet.com/rj-radio/ where it could be heard internationally. Each day, a different topic is discussed about universal access to Governance, Learning, Health, Justice, Business, Services and Banking (in that daily order).

It is easy to discern from the discussions that universal access is really all about the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as defined by the United Nations. It is also easy to conclude that it is not possible to achieve universal access without achieving complete convergence first as a requisite. By this, I mean the convergence of the components of universal access, and the convergence of the contributors to the complete process.

Universal Access is also the theme and purpose of the Corinthian Coffee Clutch, the weekly forum of Filipinos and foreigners that meets every Friday at the Dodge Room of the Elks Club in Makati City. Nation building is the main objective of the Clutch, but it is clear to all the members that complete convergence is the way towards universal access, leading to nation building. In a recent meeting of the Clutch, the members agreed to adopt “Isip Bayan” as a nickname, a Filipino term that roughly translate into nation building.

As part of its repositioning, the members of Isip Bayan also agreed to become a volunteer think tank for nation building, in the service of the government agencies and the local governments, as well as the nonprofit organizations and the private corporations. It was also agreed that the think tank will become more pro-active in the media, to bring forward to the public mind the importance of complete convergence, universal access and nation building.

Being a volunteer think tank for nation building is a tall order, but the roster of Isip Bayan is a tall one too. Included in its ranks are several businessman and professionals many of whom are scientists and experts with doctorate and masters degrees from top local and foreign universities. Aside from the locally based members, the think tank has a mailing list of foreign based scientists and experts who are all ready to help in our nation building.

As a think tank, Isip Bayan is not going to get directly involved in the project level, even if individual members may do so on their own. In line with this rule, we are now accrediting organizations that could become our partners for implementation at the project level. We have accredited two organizations so far, one for the peace process, and the other one for social medicine. We will disclose their identities soon.

For the peace process, Isip Bayan is going to host a separate weekly meeting of organizations that could participate in programs and projects that would bring peace to the country, by looking for peaceful solutions that would end our conflicts with insurgencies, rebels and other armed groups. If you are interested in this effort, please contact us.

Universal access to health is one of the most important goals in nation building. Towards this goal, Isip Bayan is now in the process of building a charity hospital that will become the “mother ship” of a network of charity clinics, all interconnected via the technology of telemedicine. With this technology, it is now possible to treat patients in remote locations.

The services provided by the commercial think tanks are usually very expensive, and most government agencies and local governments could not afford their rates. The same is true in the case of nonprofit organizations. Many private companies could afford their rates, but not all of them would be willing to invest in think tank services for public purposes.

I applaud the efforts of many nonprofit organizations that are all trying to do some good things for nation building one way or the other. On the other hand, if all of these organizations will go towards their own individual ways without coordinating with the others, it would be difficult to achieve the critical mass of results. We invite all of them to coordinate with Isip Bayan.

Go for Complete Convergence! Tune in to Universal Access 2pm to 3pm Monday to Sunday in DZRJ 810 khz or log on to www.rjplanet.com/rj-radio/
Watch KA IKING LIVE! Saturdays 8 pm to 9 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639234059174 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

SEDA FORUM

2010-12-12T08:23:00.001-08:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 044
By Ike Señeres 11/25/2010

SEDA FORUM

It has been difficult for me to explain the meaning of complete convergence, and what its correlation is to universal access. There is actually a cause and effect relationship between the two. Complete convergence is the cause, and universal access is the effect. Of course there is a quantitative side to this, because if the convergence is not complete, then the access is not universal.

In my media work and my advocacy work, I meet a lot of people who are in a position to contribute to complete convergence, in other words they are potential assets that could make universal access happen. Conversely, I also meet a lot of people who need support, in order to make universal access happen where they are. It disturbs me to see that in many cases, they do not even meet, such that their common energies are wasted.

We are facing the sad reality that by nature and by structure, the bureaucracy of the government is really compartmentalized, and that is the opposite of convergence or being converged. On the positive side, the government is already seeing the benefits of public and private partnership (PPP). That is good news, but with PPP coming into the picture, there is now an increased burden on the government to converge the actions not only of the national agencies, but also of the local governments.

It is a known fact that the national government bureaucracy is not just compartmentalized, it is also Balkanized. Agencies and bureaus within a Department are not talking to each other, how much more coordinating with each other. This is also true in the case of Departments that are supposed to be part of a cluster that should address a common concern. Whatever happened to the cabinet clusters that used to work so well before?

I do not want to blame anyone in the government in particular, but it could be said that government functionaries could not be as aggressive as their private sector counterparts, because they do not have a profit motive. I mean a profit motive for the corporate bottom line, and not for their pockets. This profit motive could have been substituted by a genuine concern for the good of their own institutions, but that is absent too, because most bureaucrats are now political appointees and are no longer career public servants.
Not that I am crying over spilled milk, but in the absence of a profit motive, the new political appointees could have been expected also to be highly motivated if they are loyal members of a political party that has a genuine and serious platform for economic prosperity and good governance. Sad to say again, there appears to be no party behavior in the pattern of political appointments. I am talking about political will, a powerful motivation that is greater than a profit motive.

In the spirit of public and private partnership, the Corinthian Coffee Clutch (CCC) has already become a clearing house not only for PPP, but also for corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects. It is my wish that PPP and CSR projects will also converge in specific geographic locations, jointly addressing common sectoral concerns such as health and education.

Please join me in the forum of the Socio Economic Development Alliance (SEDA FORUM), where we could discuss the ways and means of nation building, leading towards our socio economic development. To join, just send a blank email to SEDA_FORUM-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
SEDA has the same purpose as CCC, except that it is online. It became necessary for me to activate the SEDA FORUM, because my mailing lists for CCC are already full, and I could no longer send mass emails.

By nature, PPP programs are always profit driven, but CSR programs are not. On the other hand however, some expenses for CSR programs could be tax deductible. For one reason or another, the private sector would be very much open to helping sectoral concerns everywhere, if only they would know where to go and what to do.

I am hoping that through the SEDA FORUM, I will be able to bring together via online means the government agencies and private companies that would want to do projects together. This is also applicable to local governments. As usual, we could all meet in the CCC for real time, brick and mortar “eyeball” transactions. Online or offline, we have no more reasons not to act now.

Go for Complete Convergence! Tune in to Universal Access 2pm to 3pm Monday to Sunday in DZRJ 810 khz or log on to www.rjplanet.com/rj-radio/
Watch KA IKING LIVE! Saturdays 8 pm to 9 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639234059174 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

ECOLOGICAL CITIES

2010-12-12T08:18:00.000-08:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 043
By Ike Señeres 11/15/2010

ECOLOGICAL CITIES

“Sustainable” is still a big word in the development circles, but it seems that the bigger word “ecological” has overtaken it. These two words are actually compatible, and are in fact mutually exclusive. By comparison however, “sustainable” seems to be a spent word, because it is already given that it should be done in the first place, whereas “ecological” is still a relatively emerging word that suggests imperative actions that still have to be done.

A number of my friends pointed out to me that the correct terminology is “ecological capital” and not “ecology capital”, and I stand corrected. I also stand corrected that ecological capital is not exactly a new concept, except that it has not really gained in popularity. Perhaps what is relatively new is the notion that when combined together as joint assets, ecological capital and social capital could become a powerful resource that could generate a lot of financial capital.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and the Debt for Nature Swap (DNS) are the two huge sources of ecological capital that are still relatively untapped by both the national government agencies (NGAs) and the local government units (LGUs). This is really very surprising to note in a country that is hungry for capital, when in fact these two sources of money are already staring at us in the face.

Also known as the carbon credits scheme, CDM is quickly becoming very popular worldwide as its mechanics are becoming clearer, and as its manner of applicability is becoming more defined. Essentially designed to reduce the carbon footprints of countries in general, its methods of applicability have gone down to the level of compliant companies, and it is evolving to a point that it is now down to the level of personal carbon footprints.

Strictly speaking, the DNS scheme does not really condone our foreign debts, although that is true in a figurative sense. What actually happens is that we will in effect pay for our external debts not in the form of cash, but in the form of ecological capital that we would internally generate, by way of nature related projects. Of course we have to invest money to generate the ecological capital, but the value added we get is very much worth it.
“Green communities” is a generic term that applies to buildings and villages. In both cases, the common denominators are the building associations and village associations that are composed of the residents. On a slightly bigger scale, this would apply to barangay councils that are in effect composed also of the residents. All told, buildings, villages and barangays could now go green if their organizations would decide to do so.

In service to the nation, I have formed a consortium of experts who are now ready to provide consulting services to the NGAs and LGUs that are in search of ways and means to raise ecological capital from CDM and DNS projects. The income potential does not stop there, because even without these two mechanisms, money could be made from several choices of environment related projects.

To make it easy for its clients, the consortium will also provide the initial financing that is needed to start-up the projects, in consideration of a success driven profit sharing arrangement. Furthermore, the consortium will also handle the documentation of the carbon and nature values, as well as the marketing of these values to the world markets.

It is already a forgone conclusion that the funds that are available from the general appropriations act (GAA), the internal revenue allocation (IRA) and the countryside development fund (CDF) sources are not enough to finance the local development projects. Given this reality, it is now time for the NGAs and the LGUs to start tapping the ecological capital sources that are already widely available.

Ecological cities or eco-cities are the ways of the future. Many countries have started many years ago to create new cities or to recreate old cities in such a way that these population centers would have very low carbon footprints, while at the same time keeping or raising the standards of living that used to be fed with high carbon resources. The time to act is today, because tomorrow is already too late. If we do not act today, we will be left behind by the countries that already started their ecological moves yesterday.

Go for Complete Convergence! Tune in to Universal Access 2pm to 3pm Monday to Sunday in DZRJ 810 khz or log on to www.rjplanet.com/rj-radio/
Watch KA IKING LIVE! Saturdays 8 pm to 9 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639234059174 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

UNIVERSAL ACCESS SCHEDULE

2010-11-10T17:07:00.000-08:00

Universal Access is a daily radio program aired from 2PM to 3PM in DZRJ-AM 810 KHZ. The purpose of the show is to contribute to nation building by promoting the advocacy of complete convergence for change. Universal Access is a joint project of the Rajah Broadcasting System and the Corinthian Coffee Clutch

We believe that the complete convergence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs, Private and Public Partnership (PPP) programs and Private Volunteer Organization (PVO) programs is a necessary step towards nation building

We believe that by way of complete convergence, we will be able to provide Universal Access to the majority of our citizens, as we build our nation towards our goal of achieving sustainable development for our communities, and economic prosperity for our country

We invite all those who want to support complete convergence and nation building to attend the Corinthian Coffee Club from 3PM to 6PM every Friday inside the Dodge Room of the Elks Club at the seventh floor of the Corinthian Plaza Building along Paseo de Roxas in Makati City, in front of Greenbelt One

Universal Access is also broadcasted worldwide via the Internet, through the technology of live streaming. Log on to www.rjplanet.com/rj-radio/

Dial 8978374, 8954660 and 8954244 to join the discussions

Text +639293605140 to submit feedbacks about the radio program

Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com for online updates

The daily themes are as follows:

Mondays: Universal Access to Governance
Tuesdays: Universal Access to Learning
Wednesdays: Universal Access to Health
Thursdays: Universal Access to Justice
Fridays: Universal Access to Business
Saturdays: Universal Access to Services
Sundays: Universal Access to Banking

Governance: Includes anti-corruption issues
Learning: Includes anti-drugs issues
Health: Includes anti-hunger issues
Justice: Includes anti-crime issues
Business: Includes anti-smuggling issues
Services: Includes anti-homelessness issues
Banking: Includes anti-poverty issues

The regular anchors are as follows:

Mondays: Universal Access to Governance. Hosts are Louie Montemar and Paula Pelaez Plaza. Louie is a professor of political science at De La Salle University in Manila. He graduated from the University of the Philippines with a degree in Political Science. He also graduated from the International Academy of Management and Economics with an MBA degree. He is presently finishing his doctoral degree in Development Studies at De La Salle. Paula graduated from the McGill University in Montreal with degrees in Sociology and Political Science. She is now taking up law at the Ateneo de Manila University.

Tuesdays: Universal Access to Learning. Hosts are Dr. Ernie Gonzales and Ms. Anne Marie Gonzales. Ernie is a Fellow of the London School of Economics. He heads the Environmental Economics Program of the University of Santo Tomas Graduate School and is a Visiting Professor at the Graduate Program of the University of the Philippines in Manila. Anne is graduated from the University of San Carlos in Cebu City with a degree in English Teaching. She also graduated from the Assumption University of Thailand in Bangkok with a Master’s degree in English Language Teaching. She is the principal owner of AMCG Events.

Wednesdays: Universal Access to Health. Hosts are Melani Hicks Borra and Jet Abugan. Melani is a health advocate. She graduated from the University of the Philippines. Jet graduated from St. Louis University in Baguio City with a degree in Mass Communications. She is a market research and communications professional and is a business partner of Soup of the Day, Inc. and Consumers View Providers, Inc.

Thursdays: Universal Access to Justice. Hosts are Atty. Aquil Tamano and Atty. Bodi Pulido. Aquil has a B.A. in Philippine Studies from the University of the Philippines in Diliman. He graduated from the University of Santo Tomas College Of Law. He was formerly a lecturer at the Mindanao State University College of Law and was an Assistant Provincial Prosecutor in Lanao del Sur. He was formerly connected with Quasha Law and is now with the Kapunan, Tamano and Javier Law Office. Bodi is a corporate lawyer.

Fridays: Universal Access to Business. Hosts are Lito Averia and David Ackerman. Lito was formerly with the Philippine Stock Exchange. David graduated with a degree in Business Management from De La Salle University in Manila, and is Chairman and CEO of I. Ackerman and Company, Inc.

Saturdays: Universal Access to Services. Hosts are Cyfer Mijares and Myra Gines. Cyfer is from the HellFyre Club. He graduated with a B. S. Fine Arts degree from Allan Hancock College in Santa Monica, California. He was President of Hood View Art in Santa Barbara, California and was formerly a Consultant of the Philippine Retirement Authority. Myra is from the Call Center Association of the Philippines, having spent eleven years in the industry. She graduated from AMA Computer University with a degree in B.S. Computer Science, major in Office Administration. She also has a Certificate in Adult Education from the University of the Philippines, and is also certified in Six Sigma practices. She is also a professional singer and a former disk jockey of GVFM 99.1 radio in Angeles City.

Sundays: Universal Access to Banking. Hosts are Chris Bacud and Isabel Pelaez Plaza. Chris graduated from the University of the Philippines with a degree in B.S. Mechanical Engineering. He also graduated from the Ateneo de Manila University with an MBA degree. He is presently the Head of the Infrastructure and Operations Division of the Philippine Bank of Communications. Isa was formerly with the Department of Economic Research of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. She has an economics and economics history degree from the University of York in the United Kingdom and is now taking up a master’s degree in mathematics at the Ateneo De Manila University.

ECOLOGY CAPITAL AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

2010-11-06T02:29:00.000-07:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 042
By Ike Señeres 11/06/2010

ECOLOGY CAPITAL AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Dr. Benji Teodosio wrote to say that ecology capital is now the new buzz word in the international development circles, and the World Bank is now ranking the actions of all countries in this new measure of national performance. She said that it is now emerging as a comparative measure in relation to sustainable development, and it is closely related to the field of biodiversity conservation. According to Dr. Teodosio, it is Dr. Perry S. Ong, a wildlife biologist who is the leading expert in this field. Read his profile at http://senseneres.blogspot.com/2010/11/brief-profile-of-dr-perry-s-ong.html.

It was also Dr. Teodosio who made me aware about the significance of social capital in relation to the economic wealth of a nation in general and the reckoning of economic development values in particular. Now I realize that taking financial capital, social capital and ecology capital as a whole, we as a nation might still have a chance to elevate ourselves in the ranking of nations, possibly even defeating poverty as we progress towards economic prosperity. Hope springs eternal.

I have interviewed many mayors on the air, and all of them have expressed a desire to develop their natural resources for various reasons, but more so to ride on the growing trend towards ecology tourism. More often than not however, they would always say that they could not go ahead with their plans, because their Internal Revenue Allocations (IRAs) are too low, or may have been overused already as collaterals for their loans.

The field of ecology capital is so new, such that very few references are available even if we do online searches. Without references to start with, I am at liberty to define what it is, and what it could possibly mean. I am going to start the discussion about this subject matter, and I hope that I will get some responses from my readers who could possibly contribute to the evolution of the definition.

The Debt for Nature Swap (DNS) and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) are two possible sources of ecology capital that are already in place, but are apparently not too popular yet with Local Government Units (LGUs). I would bet all of my marbles that with DNS and CDM taken as a whole, there is more money for the LGUs to earn, compared to what they could possibly earn from their IRAs. DNS is the scheme that allows nations in debt to pay back their accounts with environment related projects. CDM is the formal name of the carbon credits scheme that came out of the Kyoto Protocol.

In a recent meeting of the Corinthian Coffee Clutch (C3), we agreed to offer the expertise of our members to all the LGUs, to help them achieve complete convergence in the implementation of their local development programs, towards the goal of achieving universal access. In this connection, I would say that since the discussions in local development would always turn to money, the contributions of DNS and CDM should always be included.

The law requires all LGUs to put up their own Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) and Sewage Treatment Plant (STP). At first glance, they would possibly view this as a problem because of the issue of money, but there is good news for them, because these two projects could now be funded through Private and Public Partnerships (PPP). The other good news is that these projects could also qualify for the CDM.

Mayor Fred Coro of Del Carmen, Surigao Del Norte attended a recent C3 meeting. Del Carmen is a fifth class municipality located in Siargao Island. Mayor Coro was a computer professional before he was elected. I invited him to C3 so that he could he could present his project to turn Del Carmen into a complete planned community, perhaps the first in Mindanao.

What is unique about Siargao is that the whole island has been declared by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) as a protected area. For one, it has the largest mangrove sanctuary in Mindanao, and it has a large population of salt water crocodiles. There are seven other municipalities in the island. The members of C3 have agreed to help Del Carmen as a start, with the intention of helping the other municipalities later, in the hope of turning the entire island into a model for planned settlements.

Go for Complete Convergence! Tune in to Universal Access 2pm to 3pm Monday to Sunday in DZRJ 810 khz or log on to www.rjplanet.com/rj-radio/
Watch KA IKING LIVE! Saturdays 8 pm to 9 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

Brief Profile of Dr. Perry S. Ong

2010-11-06T00:26:00.000-07:00

Dr. Perry S. Ong is a Professor of Wildlife Biology at the Institute of Biology, University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD). He is also currently its Director, a post he holds since June 2006. He earned his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degree in Zoology from UP Los Banos in 1983 and 1988, respectively. He was
awarded his Doctor of Philosophy from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia in 1995.

He is into biodiversity conservation research and currently focusing on research on DNA-bar coding of Philippine Biodiversity as well as into the ecology of urban biodiversity. Together with the other staff members of IB-UPD, he is also involved in the research on the biodiversity of five geothermal production fields of the Energy
Development Corporation (EDC) in Mt. Kanlaon in Negros Occidental and Valencia City in Negros Oriental and Kananga in Leyte, Mt. Apo in Kidapawan City, North Cotabato in Mindanao and BacMan in Sorgogon.

He is a member of the board of trustees of various conservation organizations such as the Philippine Tropical Forest Conservation Foundation (PTFCF), the Foundation for the Philippine Environment (FPE). He is also a member of the National Steering Committee (NSC) of the UNDP GEF Small Grants Program (SGP). He served as
President of the Wildlife Conservation Society of the Philippines (2006 to 2010); chair of the Philippine Federation for Environmental Concern (2000-2009) and of the Earth’s Rights, People’s Rights (2005-2007).

His accomplishments were recognized by the UPD as one of the 2009 Natatanging Guro Gawad Chancellor Awardees (Most Outstanding Teacher Award) and an inaugural holder of UP-EDC’s Centennial Professorial Chair in Biodiversity Conservation in 2009, which was renewed in 2010.

In 2008, he was recognized by the UP Alumni Association as the one of the 2008 Centennial Outstanding Alumni for Environment Conservation and Sustainable Development. Previously, he was the 2004 Hugh Greenwood Award for Environment Science by the National Academy for Science and Technology (NAST). He was also one of the 2000 Ten Outstanding Young Men Awardees for Environment Conservation and one of the 2000 Outstanding Young Scientist for Behavioral Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. In 2008, he was elected a member of the Phi Sigma Biological Honor Society. In 2009, he was also elected as a member of the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. These are just some of the awards he had received.

During the UP Centennial Celebrations in 2008, Dr. Ong presented a Thematic Lecture on “Anthropogenic Global Warming: Beyond the Hype- Doing the Right Thing for the Right Reasons.” He is one of a handful of scientists able to combine science, policy work and working with various sectors of Philippine society to undertake conservation work in the country. These awards were given in recognition of his unique contributions, which is dedicated to the conservation of Philippine Biodiversity and implementation of various programs to save Philippine Biodiversity from extinction.

THE BASE OF THE PYRAMID

2010-10-29T08:08:00.000-07:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 040
By Ike Señeres 10/26/2010

THE BASE OF THE PYRAMID

So much has been written about the “base of the pyramid”; an economic theory that advocates the approach of providing priority assistance to the sector that is also known as the “poorest among the poor”. This is probably the same sector that Secretary Jose Eliseo Rocamora of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) refers to as the “extremely poor”. What exactly is the opposite of this term? Is it “moderately poor”?

In their penchant for fancy words, the government has declared the “urban poor” as a sector, but did not bother however to clarify whether there is also a “rural poor” sector or not. Perhaps still in search of fancy words, the government has come up with the term “informal settlers”, apparently suggesting that the rich people are the “formal settlers”, whatever that means.

What is the difference between “extremely poor” and “moderately poor”? Is there really a difference between the “urban poor” and the “rural poor”? Words could really be confusing sometimes, especially if the definitions are coming from those who apparently do not have the real feel of what the problem really is.

In my own search for the meaning of words, I found out that the people who are now known as the “urban poor”, and are now considered as “informal settlers” are actually migrant workers from the provinces, being formerly farm workers where they come from.

The statement of Secretary Rocamora that the incidence of “extreme poverty” is not likely to rise anymore is reassuring, but it would have sounded better if he took the trouble to differentiate between “extremely poor” and “moderately poor”, so that we will be able to monitor any changes in the data, if ever.

The pyramid of poverty tells us that there are more people at the base who are “extremely poor”, compared to the lesser number of people at the top who are “moderately poor”. As he told us that the incidence of “extreme poverty” will no longer rise, Sec. Rocamora did not tell us whether the incidence of “moderate poverty” will rise or fall. This is important for us to know, because any rise or fall in the “moderate poverty” data will also affect the “extreme poverty” data.

Data is just data in the sense that words are just words. How I wish however that the government would be more honest and accurate in reporting the data about the true economic condition of the people, especially when it comes to their wellbeing.

I would agree too that the government should pay more attention to those who are “extremely poor”, but that should not be used as an excuse to pay lesser attention to those who are “moderately poor” either. Poor is poor in any language, but simply changing the language to refer to the poor does not do anything for them, if they still remain poor. Poor as they are, it does not help them to get poor treatment from the government either.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Saturdays 8 pm to 9 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

FAILURE TO MEET POVERTY REDUCTION TARGET

2010-10-29T08:07:00.002-07:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 039
By Ike Señeres 10/19/2010

FAILURE TO MEET POVERTY REDUCTION TARGET

Secretary Jose Eliseo Rocamora of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) recently admitted to the press that the Philippines is unlikely to reduce the incidence of extreme poverty by half before 2015 as targeted by the government, adding however that it is not likely to increase either. The frankness and honesty of Secretary Rocamora is commendable, but it does not excuse the government from being accountable, not even with the lame assurance that it is not likely to increase, a segue that sounds like a “consuelo de bobo”.

Mind you, Sec. Rocamora was not even talking about plain and simple poverty per se, but about extreme poverty. The distinction between plain and extreme poverty appears to be an invention of the United Nations that the Philippine government has not really defined for purposes of local usage, as a statistical measure that is.

As far as I know, the Philippine government measures only the statistic of household members who fall below the poverty line based on the number of households that could not afford to buy the imaginary basket of goods, an artificial measure that is used for statistical purposes. So far, the government does not isolate the data that would define how many percent of those who are below the poverty line are in the category of “extreme”.

Based on the usual and customary practice of statistical data gathering, all the data inputs must originate from local sources, getting these from below first, before these are elevated to the national level, for integration purposes. Again as far as I know, there is no data that is coming from below, leading me to speculate that the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) is simply fabricating (meaning inventing) the data that it is submitting to the United Nations (UN).

As a charter member of the UN, and even as a regular member, the Philippines has the moral obligation to submit only the data that are accurate and truthful, but apparently, the government has broken this rule, an action that could practically be considered as a national crime.
As a responsible member of the UN (presumably we are), we should have made it our objective to meet the poverty reduction targets as we pledged, given the fact that we had fifteen long years to make good on it. Out of our own choice, we have been spending a huge portion of our national budget to make good on our foreign debts presumably to preserve our national honor, but as it turned out, that honor is tainted now, because of this double failure of not being able to make good on our pledge on one hand, and not submitting honest data on the other hand.

In fairness to the new government, it is not directly their fault that this sad situation has come to be. Be that as it may however, we are faced with the reality that the rest of the free world does not care who is in power and who is not, all they care is that a pledge is a promise that has to be met by our nation as a whole. As far as us local citizens are concerned, we are double victims, as we are put to shame by a national crime, and as we are short changed by a government that is supposed to be working for us.

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HERE COMES THE INDIES!

2010-10-29T08:07:00.001-07:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 038
By Ike Señeres 10/14/2010

HERE COMES THE INDIES!

Indie is a genre of rock music that emerged in the 1980’s. Nowadays, Indie is better known as a genre of cinematic films that are independently produced, as distinguished from those that are commercially produced by the big studios. The term has since evolved to refer to fashion items that are independently designed, as distinguished from those that are produced by the big designer names. If the trend will continue, the term Indie could eventually apply to any product that is independently produced.

There are many products that are coming from independent sources. Many of these sources are socially oriented, for instance the small and medium enterprises, the producer cooperatives and the livelihood associations, among others. Generally speaking, they do not have a problem with production, but almost always, their problem is in marketing, meaning that they always have a difficulty in selling what they produce.

Housing and livelihood are two public policy concerns that are seemingly not related to each other, but are actually directly connected in more ways than one. When I was with the Ministry of Human Settlements (MHS), I learned the lesson that housing beneficiaries need livelihood in order to earn the money to pay for their mortgage. I also learned that they needed marketing support, so that they could sustain their livelihood projects.

As far as I know, the government has not yet officially defined the meaning of “homelessness” in the parlance of governance. As it is generally used in other countries, “homeless” persons are those who do not have a place to stay, and that is the reason why they practically “live” in the streets. Here in the Philippines, we have come to recognize the existence of “street children”, but for some reason, we seemingly do not realize that these children have parents and other relatives who live in the streets too, thus making them “homeless” in effect.

The informal settlers who live in makeshift huts and other forms of shanties all over the country may have a “place to stay” so to speak, but their quarters could hardly be called “houses”, much less homes. A house is not necessarily a home as the saying goes, but more so if it is hardly a house, it would be very difficult to turn it into a home. Since their dwellings do not meet the standards of what a decent house should be, it would be more realistic for us to accept and recognize the fact that these settlers are in effect “homeless” in the proper context of the word.

Call me sentimental, but I consider as my “unfinished business” the objective of providing marketing support to the products coming from independent and socially oriented sources. I used to do this back when I was still with MHS, and I believe that I am in a better position now to pick up from where I left. Here comes the Indies!

I do not believe that I am directly in a position to do something about the problem of homelessness, but I know for a fact that with good marketing support, people could sustain their livelihood and would eventually be able to rent or buy a house once they have enough money.

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ZERO POVERTY ZONES

2010-10-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 037
By Ike Señeres 10/06/2010

ZERO POVERTY ZONES

More than one hundred years after the birth of our Republic, we are still at the stage of trying to eradicate corruption. The new administration says that if there is no corruption, there is no poverty. This could be a chicken and egg situation, because it could also be said that if there is no poverty, there is no corruption. Both problems taken into consideration, a developing country like ours should go beyond the goal of merely eradicating corruption and poverty. Ambitious as it may sound, our more objective goal should be to achieve economic supremacy and national prosperity, both being mutually reinforcing.

In my previous column I discussed the concept of eradicating poverty at the micro level, in specific self-contained communities where targeted poverty eradication programs could be manageable, compared to bigger macro levels that are more difficult to achieve. At the core of the concept is the idea that if all of the households in a given community could have easier access to the imaginary basket of goods, it could be statistically documented and proven that poverty has indeed been effectively eradicated.

The communists have adopted the strategy of surrounding the cities from the countryside. An alternative to that approach is to eradicate poverty in small areas, until the poverty free zones will spread and eventually engulf the entire countryside and the cities too. Readers who are attuned to political theories will recognize this as an application of the principle of subsidiarity, and that is precisely what it is.

Following the criterion of being self-contained, it appears that ancestral domains and remote municipalities would be the best locations for piloting the subsidiarity principle. The reason for this is very simple. These places are more self-contained than the others, and presumably would be less prone to the influence of corruption coming from the outside.

In a meeting of the Corinthian Coffee Clutch (C3), my proposal to deploy volunteer consultants to selected local communities was already approved. Based on my experience in the Transfer of Knowledge thru Expatriate Nationals (TOKTEN) program, this deployment should follow the rule of deploying only to clients that are determined to be willing, able and ready (WAR). This is just an acronym, but indeed we are waging a war against corruption on one hand and against poverty on the other hand.

In my search for new technologies that could be used in remote locations, I came across the policy of the United States to enable more households to gain access to broadband connectivity. Over 200 million households already have broadband at home in the US, and they would like to add 100 million more households.

No data is available about broadband access at the household level in the Philippines, but it would probably be less than 50,000 households, the number recorded for the countries at the bottom of the list. Broadband access at home will eventually become an issue here in the Philippines, because of its potential in increasing household incomes, among other benefits.

Broadband connectivity is needed at the community level in order to deliver remote education and remote medicine, among other services. The good news is, it is within the reach of small communities to build their own broadband infrastructure, possibly as a service provided by their own local cooperatives.

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POVERTY ERADICATION

2010-09-24T20:34:00.001-07:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 036
By Ike Señeres 09/24/2010

POVERTY ERADICATION

I used to think that it is impossible to eradicate poverty, because it is a problem that has always been with humankind, even during the biblical times. Recently however, I realized that there is a way to remove or eradicate poverty in the micro level, and allow me to share my thoughts with you on this subject.

Poverty is an economic concept wherein all those belonging to a household that could not afford the imaginary basket of goods are considered poor or are below the poverty line. While that method of measuring poverty may still be valid technically speaking, there is yet another technicality in dissecting the difference between affordability and accessibility.

Naïve as it may seem, I would dare to say that if household members could be given access to the contents of the imaginary basket of goods, by way of reduced prices or extended payment terms, then they would be able to avail of the values of these goods, even if they are still technically poor. This analysis is of course based on the assumption that they would have the means or the mechanisms to avail of these goods.

Goods that are produced by private corporations are necessarily priced high, because they have to cover their high costs of production, distribution and marketing, citing just a few expense areas. Conversely however, goods that are produced by public cooperatives could be priced lower, because their costs could be lower in a controlled micro economy.

Assuming that the goods produced by public cooperatives could be priced lower, it would then follow that the household members would be able to afford what are in the imaginary basket of goods, in effect placing them above the poverty line. This would be difficult to do in an open market macro economy, but it appears to be doable in a closed micro economy.

In a manner of speaking, the household members in a self-contained community that is producing their own goods and services would actually in effect belong to a closed micro economy, because they will be buying the goods and services that they are also producing through their own public cooperatives. The term “public” applies here, because the cooperative shares are available for anyone to buy.

The key words in this discussion are “closed” and “self-contained”, and because of this, it would appear that the ideal locations to pilot this approach are the ancestral domains where the tribal members would be able to organize themselves into public cooperatives. For practical reasons, they need a functional cooperative structure that would complement but not compete with their existing tribal structure.

To meet the criterion of being self-contained, a location has to be small enough to be manageable. In theory, the barangay is supposed to be the smallest unit of governance, but in reality, many barangay units are too big to be manageable. The solution to this limitation perhaps is to scale down the size to the smaller unit of a zone within a barangay. This zonal approach could work in both urban and rural settings.

“Rethinking” is the buzz word in the development circles today. Perhaps we have no choice right now except to stick to the conventional method of measuring the poverty rate, but if we do not rethink the challenge of eradicating poverty, this problem will not disappear. Obvious as it may seem, the apparent solution is to make the goods in the imaginary basket reachable or accessible as the case may be, so that more households will be able to afford it.

Access to clean and potable water is a good example of explaining this concept. In many locations today, there is no access to clean water, and that is why the people in these locations have to spend for bottled water. To solve this, a local zone could put up a cooperative that will function as the water utility, providing filtered tap water to their members.

The cooperative approach has a democratizing effect in the sense that anyone could join. The approach enables members to earn from their own consumption by way of rebates and dividends. By enabling cooperatives to grow, members are not only able to afford the lower priced goods; they also earn more money that will give them more access to these goods.

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ADOPTION OF THE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX

2010-09-20T07:47:00.000-07:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 035
By Ike Señeres 09/16/2010

ADOPTION OF THE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a summary composite index that measures a country's average achievements in three basic aspects of human development: health, knowledge, and a decent standard of living. Health is measured by life expectancy at birth; knowledge is measured by a combination of the adult literacy rate and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrolment ratio; and standard of living by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita (Source: United Nations).

As used by the United Nations, the statistic of life expectancy at birth is just another way of measuring the mortality rate of a country. In a similar manner, the statistic of knowledge is just another way of measuring the illiteracy rate of the country, and the statistic of the standard of living is just another way of measuring the poverty rate of a country.

I see the need to standardize the adoption of the HDI method for our country as a whole. As a member of the United Nations, our government is already using HDI as a national measure. However, it is still not the practice of the Local Government Units (LGUs) to adopt HDI as the common method of measuring human development at the local level. Strictly speaking, the national HDI data should be derived from the actual data that is collected from the LGU level.

The HDI method does not directly use the poverty rate to measure the standard of living of a country. It uses instead the statistic of the GDP per capita, using the purchasing power parity (PPP) method of computation. PPP is a theory of long-term equilibrium exchange rates based on relative price levels of two countries (Source: Wikipedia). Setting aside the technical jargon however, the fact remains that our country has a very high poverty rate, meaning that the standard of living of the majority of our people is very low.

Right now, the Philippines ranks number 105 in the 2009 HDI Report of the United Nations Development Program, under the classification of “Medium Human Development”. On the positive side however, the Philippines ranks number 36 in the 2009 GDP-PPP list of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

I believe that our right approach should be to improve our adult literacy rate by increasing access to educational and professional services, to improve our standard of living by increasing access to legal and commercial services and to improve our life expectancy by increasing access to medical and dental services. I have named this the Educational, Legal and Medical approach, or the ELM approach for short.

As it is now, our country has a very high adult literacy rate already. On the negative side however, we have a very low gross enrolment ratio, which in the final computation effectively lowers our national measure of knowledge. I believe that the solution to this is to increase our gross enrolment ratio through alternative learning approaches.

Moreover, I believe that the our official standard for our national measure of knowledge should be raised from the basic “read and write” measure, to a more specific measure of graduating from a vocational or a professional course, so that our individual citizens could become more competitive in the global marketplace.

In my prior articles, I wrote that livelihood is the solution to poverty. I still believe in that, but under the ELM approach, I am now giving a new focus to the provision of legal services as a way to break down the barriers that are now making it difficult for our individual citizens to improve their standard of living. This could include barriers to productive employment or to owning a business, hence the emphasis on commercial services. It is good to note that many organizations are sponsoring free medical and dental clinics, and this should be encouraged, but we do need more free legal clinics too.

In a manner of speaking, the race to get higher HDI and GDP scores is like a battle among nations that should be given more importance than the World Cup and the Olympics. All of our national energies should be focused on these two priority goals, and the best place to start is putting good order into our implementation at the local level.

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INSTITUTION BUILDING

2010-09-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 2010034
By Ike Señeres September 13

INSTITUTION BUILDING

Together with some friends, I started the Corinthian Coffee Club (C3) that now meets every Friday afternoon at the Elks Club located at the Corinthian Plaza in Makati City. From the very start, we wanted it to be an informal gathering of Filipinos and foreigners who are committed to the advocacy of nation building. Originally, we wanted C3 to be simply a forum for the exchange of ideas between the proponents of nation building initiatives, and those who may be in a position to support these initiatives, particularly among the business chambers that are represented by their members.

After two months of successful meetings however, many of the members want C3 to be more than just a forum for the exchange of ideas, they now want it to be an active proponent of, and a participant in actual nation building programs and projects. In other words, they do not want to simply talk, they now want to walk the talk. At first I thought that this change in direction would be in conflict with our original purpose, but after a period of discernment, I have found a practical approach that would solve our dilemma. Rather than talk about nation building in general, our practical approach now is to lead in institution building.

After more than one hundred years of being an independent country, it would be reasonable to think that by now, we would already have very strong institutions at the local and national levels, each institution serving its own purpose for the good of the nation. Unfortunately however, instead of growing in strength, we have seen many of our institutions either getting weakened or destroyed, partly due to political reasons. The sad part is, political factors might have also prevented the establishment of some basic institutions that are now absent from the national picture.

Everyone is now talking and complaining about the failure of the Philippine National Police (PNP) to properly handle the hostage incident in Manila. After all the talking subsides, would it not be good to have permanent solutions that would prevent the problem from happening again? Just to use it as an example, the PNP is an institution that should have been built and strengthened in the first place to deal with all public safety tasks such as handling hostage situations. It is not too late to help them do it now.
If we really want our country to take its place in the global community of developed nations, we should look at the institutions that the other countries have built, and thereafter, we should make it our national goal to build these institutions in our country as an initial step, at the same time go towards the direction of strengthening and sustaining these institutions in the long run.

What could these institutions be? These could probably vary in form or character, but it would be correct to say that any facility or organization that serves the public interest in particular and the good of the nation in general could be considered as an institution. In the absence of clear directions as to what to do and where to start, we could start looking at what is obvious around us, in our own local communities.

Yes, look around you and you will see that many institutions are missing from our localities. These are either missing or lacking. If these are present at all, they are probably weak or unstable. More often than not however, we only notice the weaknesses when something bad happens. Just like what happened in the hostage incident.

To cite a few more examples, very few localities have orphanages, senior homes, first aid clinics, homeless shelters and dog pounds. Do we really need dog pounds? The answer is yes, if we really are concerned about sanitation and the humane treatment of animals. Do we really need orphanages? The answer is yes, if we really need a more long term to the problem of street children.

Many of those who attend C3 are also members of the United National Integrated Development Alliance (UNIDA). Because of this relationship, it may be practical now to formalize the cooperation of the two groups by making C3 the governing board of the UNIDA on one hand, and by making UNIDA the operating arm of C3 on the other hand.

As a practical direction, C3 could now lead in inviting volunteer consultants who could help national agencies and local governments in building their institutions. As the operating arm of C3, the UNIDA could pick it up from there to assist these volunteers in their actual places of assignment.

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REVIVAL OF THE CAREER BUREAUCRACY

2010-09-07T09:18:00.001-07:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 2010033
By Ike Señeres September 07

REVIVAL OF THE CAREER BUREAUCRACY

Word has it that the new government is having a hard time filling up the vacant positions in the bureaucracy, because of a shortage of qualified candidates. Have they ever stopped to think that there is an existing pool of career professionals that they could immediately tap? Perhaps in the rush to change the “old” appointees with “new” faces, the new government has forgotten that there is a deep bench of deserving potential appointees who are not simply qualified, they have been officially certified to take senior positions after passing rigorous tests and difficult requirements.

I am referring to the pool of professionals who have passed either the Career Service Executive Examination (CSEE) or the Career Executive Service Officer (CESO) examination, or both. The CSEE is a qualification granted by the Civil Service Commission (CSC) in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. The CESO on the other hand is granted by the Career Executive Service Board (CESB) in accordance with the provisions of a Presidential Decree. By comparison, the CSEE is a higher qualification compared to the CESO, but the government seems to have forgotten the difference between the two. A Presidential Decree is practically similar to an Executive Order, but it has the force and effect of a law since it was issued during Martial Law, nevertheless, a qualification created by the law could not be higher than one that is created by the Constitution.

The new government might have won on a platform of change, but that does not mean that it should change what is already provided for in the Constitution. To do that, it would have to go through a constitutional change, but that is apparently not in their agenda now. The platform of change implied that it should go for what is right, but that does not mean that it should ignore what is already right, even if it is already old.

The direction that the new government should be towards what is right, coming from what is wrong, and not towards what is new, coming from what is old. In this context therefore, the goal of the government should be to put up or to bring back what is right, regardless of whether the right thing to do is old or is new.
It is implied in the platform of change that the institutions that were ignored or destroyed by the previous administrations should now be noticed to say the least, or restored, to say the best. To take an inventory, it could be said that many institutions, in fact too many were ignored or destroyed by the previous administrations, but for purposes of this discussion, let us just say that the institution of the career bureaucracy should be given the topmost attention, because the career people in the bureaucracy are supposed to be the lifeblood of the institutions that they are sworn to serve and preserve, at least that is how it is supposed to be.

As it is supposed to be, based on the Constitution and our system of governance, all government officials starting from the level of the Undersecretaries all the way down to the level of the section chiefs are all supposed to be career officers. Only the Secretary is supposed to be the political appointee, and no one else. In many parliamentary systems, the most senior Undersecretary is appointed as the Permanent Secretary, and the Minister, as the name actually implies, performs only the “ministerial” functions.

Over the years, encompassing many past administrations, it has become the practice to assign political appointees in career positions, from top to bottom, practically “freezing” the career officers in the bureaucracy, bypassing them in fact to a point that they are completely ignored. As a result, we have ended up with officials who have no sense of corporate history on one hand, and have no institutional memory, on the other hand.

As it is supposed to be, Cabinet nominees are not supposed to assume their posts to perform their functions not until they are confirmed by the Commission on Appointments (CA), not even in an “acting” capacity. By allowing this wrong practice to prosper, the Executive Branch is not only ignoring the independent power of the Legislative Branch as an institution, it is also insulting a co-equal counterpart. As an unsolicited advice to the new government, they should make it their profound objective to restore the institution of the career bureaucracy, and not just simply pursue the shallow purpose of filling up vacant positions. A good personnel officer can fill up empty jobs, but it takes a good leader to restore damaged institutions.

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HACKING OF GOVERNMENT WEBSITES

2010-09-07T09:17:00.000-07:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 2010032
By Ike Señeres August 30, 2010

HACKING OF GOVERNMENT WEBSITES

There is no big problem about the issue of government websites being hacked. Most of our government sites are merely information sites, pretty much like newspapers that give out news. There would be a big problem if these sites are interactive and are connected to databases, but most of these government sites are not.

Perhaps this is one case wherein a negative turns out to be a positive. The hackers might have succeeded in breaking into the sites and in defacing them, but there is hardly any sensitive covert information that they could get out of these sites. All the information as far as I know is overt, and there are no secrets to get, really.

It’s a negative, because all government sites are supposed to be interactive in the first place, giving out as much current real time information to all citizens as much as possible. This however comes with a caveat that these sites have to be secure from hacking, complete with firewalls and the whole nine yards.

In the first place, all government sites are supposed to have mirror databases aside from their main databases, so that they could have backups just in case their main sites are compromised. The trick is to have a firewall between the online data and the backend databases, so that these are not vulnerable to outside attacks.

It’s a bad sign that it took longer for the Philippine National Police (PNP) to fix their site, compared to the Philippine Information Agency (PIA). Both sites are now back online, but it is bothersome that the PNP site was hacked in the first place, even if only for symbolic reasons, considering that the PNP is supposed to be highly secure in everything it does.

Hackers crack websites for the same reason that mountaineers climb mountains: because it’s there. The main reason why hackers would do hacking is for bragging rights, whereas mountaineers do not brag at all, they just look for the next mountain to climb.
There is a big difference between a static website and a dynamic website. A static website does not do anything except to post information. A dynamic website is interactive, and it is also transactional. There is no use for an interactive website if it is not transactional. A government website is also useless if it is only static.

In order for a website to be dynamic and transactional, it should have a real time linkage to the backend databases, and that is where the challenge lies, to open these databases to the outside world, but at the same time making sure that these are not vulnerable to attacks from the outside.

It is unlikely that the PIA and the PNP sites were hacked by government agents acting on official orders from the top. Any good Chinese hacker could have done that and that is precisely what it was, a personal attack. The attack however opened our minds to the reality that cyber warfare does exist, and that we are vulnerable to it.

Google has accused the Chinese government of waging cyber attacks against them, but the Chinese have denied this accusation. Is it possible that the Chinese government has a cyber warfare unit that is trained and equipped to stage cyber attacks? The answer is yes, and it is possible that all world powers would already have this capability.

Could an entire country become the target of a cyber attack? The answer is yes, and we have already seen that happen in Bosnia. Could the Philippines defend itself from cyber attacks? The answer is yes, but we have to go back to the basics of defining our national policies for cyber security.

How could we secure our national cyber security infrastructure amidst the reality that most of our major telecom carriers are partially owned by foreign companies? It would be unrealistic to think about keeping them out of our internal security decisions, but this is an issue that we have to resolve.

The issue of establishing our own National Internet Exchange (NIX) has died down, but this is an issue that we have to resurrect. Without an NIX, we could not even talk about securing our own Internet infrastructure.

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MUNICIPAL MADNESS

2010-08-29T09:15:00.001-07:00

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 2010031
By Ike Señeres August 27, 2010

MUNICIPAL MADNESS

The hostage incident in Manila was a police matter indeed, but it was really a municipal matter too. Mayor Alfredo Lim had the right to be there because he was the local chief executive, but was he right in giving orders to arrest the brother of the hostage taker?
The PNP is supposed to be a civilian organization, but many of its officers are still graduates of the military academy. The search and destroy mentality is apparently difficult to forget. As they say in the vernacular, “Utak pulbura”.
Why are PNP officers still using military ranks even if they are supposed to be civilian officers? Military ranks and military insignias are part of an old culture that they should already forget, because their job now is to maintain peace and order, not to fight foreign aggressors. Those among them who think like soldiers should be sent to battle against insurgents.
Hong Kong is a city but as a Special Administrative Region (SAR), it has the functionality of a province. That being the case, it is more correct protocol for MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino to deal with Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang. For all intents and purposes, MMDA has the functionality of a province.
The Senate and the House are having a heyday investigating the incident. Of course the Congress has the right to investigate whatever they want in aid of legislation, but is it not also right for the Manila City Council to have their own investigation, this being a municipal matter?
Former Manila Mayor Lito Atienza may have a chance to get back to his old post, after the COMELEC allowed him to pursue his election protest. The issue in this case is not whether there was cheating or not, nationally or locally. The issue is whether the PCOS machines used in Manila were defective or not.
Members of the media are being blamed for some fiascos in connection with the hostage taking incident. Why not blame the police instead? Media people are just ordinary civilians who would obey what the police would tell them. If the government does not want media people to make certain actions, they should just tell them what to do and what not to do in crisis situations.

DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo reported that the PNP still has a remaining budget for the modernization of their equipment for crisis situations. Well, what are they waiting for? Are they waiting for a crisis before they would spend it? That fund, whatever it is, is not like the calamity fund that has to wait for a disaster before it could be spent.
Some DEPED employees want Secretary Armin Luistro out. Is it not too soon for them to make such a demand? What is the matter with them? Is Bro. Armin making it difficult for them to go about their old evil ways? Too bad for them, he is presumed to be working on good faith, while the corrupt ones are perceived to be on the negative side.
DOT Secretary Bertie Lim is off to a bad start; after it came out that many Hong Kong residents canceled their flights and their hotel bookings. It is too soon to judge him too, because he too is presumed to be working on good faith. He is a manager, and he should know what to do.
Customs Commissioner Angelito Alvarez seems to be off to a good start, after the BOC confiscated a large shipment of illegal drugs. He should do more however, to erase the perception that he is working on bad faith, after it was discovered that he cheated on his golf scores.
Many are blaming Venus Raj for not winning the Miss Universe crown, but what would they have done if they were in her situation? We should stop while we are ahead, and we should be happy with what we get in a transparent contest where there is no corruption. What did we want her to do? Did we want her to cheat on her answers?
Some countries are funding government agencies or private foundations to discover and groom their candidates for international beauty contests. We are not doing that, in the same way that we are ignoring the local soccer teams who could possibly carry our flag to the World Cup.
What is the real score in the DOTC? Without the communications functions, should we now call it the DOT? That will be confusing, since the Department of Tourism has the same initials. Is the government pushing through with plans to create a Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT)?
It may be a good idea to merge LTO with LTFRB. That might look good, but it might not look good to see another department created while another bureau is supposedly abolished for streamlining purposes. The government should really put its act together in a logical plan of action.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Saturdays 8 pm to 9 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

WATCHING THE WATCH DOGS

2010-08-22T06:47:00.000-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (083) August 22, 2010
By Ike Señeres

WATCHING THE WATCH DOGS

A new form of activism is emerging. Tired perhaps of taking to the streets or going up the mountains, activists are now getting involved in government coordinating councils as a way of getting directly involved in governance.

Our Barangay, Inc. (OBI) is now calling on their members nationwide to join the Regional Development Councils (RDCs), Provincial Development Councils (PDCs), Municipal Development Councils (MDCs) and Barangay Development Councils (BDCs).

It’s good timing that the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) is now reviving these councils, as instructed by President Noynoy Aquino. OBI Chairman Ms. Elsa Bayani herself is ready to be appointed to the RDC of Region VI.

I wonder why these councils became inactive in the first place. According to the law, the representatives of accredited Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) are supposed to be invited to become members of the councils. As active members, they in effect become the watchdogs of the officials who are supposed to be watching over the utilization of the Internal Revenue Allocations (IRAs).

La Salle, Ateneo at Lahat Na (LAAL) is also calling on its members nationwide to join the Regional Management Coordinating Committees (RMCC) of the Department of Interior & Local Government (DILG). These committees are composed of the DILG Regional Directors, and the Regional Directors of the Philippine National Police (PNP), the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) and the Bureau of Jail Management & Penology (BJMP).

LAAL leader Mr. Patrick Pantaleon is now trying to mobilize at least 85 of their members to become active in the 17 RMCCs all over the country, in the hope of assigning at least 5 members to each RMCC. Later on, they will go down to the level of the Provincial Management Coordinating Committees (PMCCs). At that level, they have to mobilize 400 of their members to send at least 5 representatives to the PMCCs of the 80 provinces. This is democracy in action, ordinary people getting involved in governance.
The Citizens Foundation for the Prevention of Crime and Injustice (CFPCI) is also mobilizing to recruit and train paralegals who will volunteer to work with the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) all over the country. PAO is mandated to assign lawyers to more than 3,000 courthouses all over the country, but they only have less than 1,000 lawyers. Newly appointed CFPCI President Atty. JG Grapilon is coordinating this project with PAO Chief Atty. Persida Acosta, CFPCI Director Mr. Thomas W. Lee and the Sigma Rho Foundation (SRF).

CFPCI, a 30 year old foundation now chaired by Col. Octavio Alvarez is now also looking into the possibility of developing a software application that will put order into the system of assigning pro bono lawyers to serve the needs of indigent clients, using a random raffle system that is similar to the system of selecting jury members in the United States.

Speaking of the jury system, the Worldwide Filipino Alliance (WFA) led by Atty. Cita Garcia and Atty. Toto Causing is now advocating for the adoption of this system in the Philippines. I am supporting this advocacy, because it seems to be the only way to cure the corruption in the judiciary, now infested by some judges who engage in “justice for sale”. I researched on the jury system and I found out that serving in the judiciary as a member of the jury is a democratic right that is similar to the right to vote. It is a duty, but it is also a privilege to serve. Again, this is a case of ordinary citizens getting involved in governance.

It was Mr. Pantaleon who offered the services of LAAL, COMPACT, 1VOTE and 1Ganap Guardians to DILG Sec. Jesse Robredo, as a way of getting involved in the fight against corruption. These groups are now looking into ways of using cell phone cameras and video recorders to gather evidence against corrupt officials.

Governance is supposed to be a two-way process that involves the government on one hand and the citizens on the other hand, I would like this column to be a medium for reporting what is good and bad in governance, what is right and what is wrong. Send me your tips and comments, we can do this together!

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Saturdays 8 pm to 9 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

DISTANCE EDUCATION

2010-08-15T07:18:00.000-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (082) August 15, 2010
By Ike Señeres

DISTANCE EDUCATION

In my younger years when I was with the UP Mountaineers, I used to climb mountains “Because it’s there”. This is now the same reason why I am using technology to deliver on-air and online education to all levels, to all locations in the Philippines. I want anyone to learn anything from anywhere, using any available means. Why? Because it’s there!

In earlier columns, I talked about Mr. Harry Tambuatco who is helping us deliver on-air education via cable and satellite. I also wrote about Mr. Bycon Bulatao who is helping us deliver online education via the internet, through the technology of video streaming to computers. This is actually internet protocol (IP) technology that we are using.

With cable, satellite and internet working together, we have now actually achieved triple play capability to education programming. Soon however, we will be able to deliver online education via the cellular phone network, through the technology of video streaming to cell phones that have 3G access. With this move, we will be able to have quadruple play capability. Students may not want to watch lessons on a small screen, but what if that is the only means available to them? Why am I using this relatively unused means of delivery? Because it’s there!

If he is alive today, Dr. Jose Rizal would be scandalized by the fact that there are about 9 to 16 million children who are classified as Out of School Youth (OSY). By any measure, this is absolutely unacceptable, and we as a nation should be ashamed that we have allowed this to happen.

Since we are a member of the United Nations, we should realize that this very high figure is indicative of the fact that we are too far away from the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of achieving universal education. This is the reality that we must face, and there is no excuse to that we could think of to exonerate our guilt, considering that the technologies that are needed to solve this problem are already available and are affordable.

Online education is of course the more desirable, because the internet is more interactive, and the graphic effects are more powerful. Given a choice between on-air education and online education, I would go for the latter, but practical reasons, we should make use of any form of connectivity that is available and is more affordable.

The truth is, we have not even fully tapped the potential of cable television even if it is already available almost everywhere. Through the wide coverage of Destiny Cable in Metro Manila, we will soon be able to deliver on-air education via cable television to most parts of the metropolis, complemented by satellite television in areas that could not be reached by cable.

Because of the Social Education Network (SEN), it is now possible to meet the MDG target of universal education before the set deadline on 2015, assuming that all the players in this exercise will cooperate and move fast. After Metro Manila, we are going to extend the reach of the SEN project to the other cable areas in the provinces.

With the infra component practically spoken for, we are now working on the content side for the DEPED Channel. As assured by Mr. Paul Soriano of the DEPED, many top teachers are now ready to produce the content needed by this project. Prof. Mel Garcia of De La Salle University (DLSU) is also taking steps to tap the entire DLSU manpower base into this project.

In a recent development, the Commission for Higher Education (CHED) has also shown an interest in creating a separate CHED Channel for all four year courses. CHED Executive Director Atty. Lito Vitriolo said that the legal basis for this already exists, through the Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalency and Accreditation Program (ETEEAP).

The National Statistics Office (NSO) reports that our functional literacy rate is 84%, and that is generally interpreted to mean the percentage of people in the population who could read and write. That is good for bragging rights, but is no good for our people if they are not educated enough to get jobs. Newly appointed Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) Director General Joel Villanueva has hit the nail in aiming to increase the employable rate of TESDA graduates that is now 20%. To help TESDA, it may also be good to have a TESDA Channel.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Saturdays 8 pm to 9 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

NATION BUILDING

2010-08-08T01:34:00.000-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (081) August 08, 2010
By Ike Señeres

NATION BUILDING

I am a broadcaster and a columnist. Perhaps it is because of this that I get to meet many people who love our country and who would like to do something for nation building, in whatever way possible. Tom Lee is one of these people, and because of this common bond, we agreed to organize what is now known as the Corinthian Coffee Club, or C3 for short.

C3 now meets every Friday from 3 to 6 pm at the Elks Club located at the 7th Floor of the Corinthian Plaza Building along Paseo De Roxas Avenue in Makati City. The purpose of C3 is to bring together people who love our country and who would like to do something for nation building, regardless of whether they are Filipinos or foreigners.

The format of the C3 meetings is very much informal. We sit around in a table and each one is free to talk about what he or she is doing for nation building, and what kind of help he or she needs if ever. Conversely, anyone could also talk about what he or she could do for nation building, as an individual or representing a company or an organization.

As an informal gathering, C3 does not intend to implement projects on its own. Our intention is to give the opportunity to project proponents to talk about what they are already doing, or what they are planning to do. Anyone in the gathering who wants to help any project proponent could do so on his own or on her own, as an individual or representing a company or an organization.

Many people talk about nation building, but they generally do not have the ways or means to implement what they are talking about. This is precisely the purpose of C3, to help the people who want to do something for nation building, so that they could do more than just talk. There is nothing wrong with talking, but nothing will happen to our country if we just keep on talking without doing anything.

Tom is one of the founders of C3. He is a Filipino of Chinese descent who left the Philippines when he was 15 years old, and came back when he was nearly a senior citizen. Tom was an early engineer in Silicon Valley. He invented the first Apple printer and became a business guru later on. Already an American citizen, Tom founded the University Consortium (UNICON) in the Philippines, which he patterned after the Apple Consortium in the United States. Quality education is the advocacy of UNICON. Its goal is to improve the quality of education by improving the technology and the connectivity of its member schools.

Dr. Virginia (Benji) Teodosio is also one of the founders of C3. She is a professor at the University of the Philippines School of Labor and Industrial Relations (UP-SOLAIR). Her advocacy is nation building through the development of our social capital and our natural capital. Because of this advocacy, she has been very involved in expanding the economic opportunities of indigenous peoples and rebel returnees through the cooperative approach.

It was through the persistence of Benji that I met Mr. Paul Soriano who is the Executive Director of the Department of Education Adopt-A-School Program (DEPED-ASP). Paul is a professional manager from the private sector. Benji, Paul and I are now in the process of putting a DEPED Channel on the air, in cooperation with the Global News Network (GNN), through Mr. Harry Tambuatco.

It was also through the persistence of Benji that I pursued the idea of acquiring a dedicated channel from Global Satellite (GSAT) so that the DEPED Channel could be beamed down to any location in the Philippines where there is a cooperative, using a satellite dish provided by GSAT. Harry is also helping us with this, because GSAT is a sister company of GNN. The real passion of Benji is to educate the Out of School Youth (OSY) in this country who number about 9 to 16 million, according to Paul. Benji is now trying to convince the cooperatives in this country, numbering about 30,000 to acquire the satellite dishes, so that the OSY children of the members of the cooperative could go to school.

Inspired by the zeal of Benji, I am now requesting Harry to also open up a CHED Channel and a TESDA Channel. Meanwhile, we are now ready to stream the DEPED Education Channel via the internet, courtesy of my friend Mr. Bycon Bulatao of Inventiv, Inc. Technology works, but we have to make it work!

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Saturdays 8 pm to 9 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES (FINAL PART)

2010-07-31T12:03:00.000-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (080) July 31, 2010
By Ike Señeres

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES (FINAL PART)

Since financing is always the biggest problem of livelihood projects, I propose that bankers should be placed at the core of the human resources needed for livelihood delivery. This is also the other reason why I am suggesting that the DOF should be placed on top of livelihood at the local level. By bankers, I mean those coming from the private and government banks. Needless to say, the banks should be the focal points for livelihood delivery.
Since public safety issues almost always end up with a legal problem, I propose that lawyers should be placed at the core of the human resources needed for public safety delivery. The main focal points for the delivery of public safety should be the police stations where the actions of arrest are finalized, but this should also include the other focal points in the other four pillars of justice.
In a manner of speaking, the lack of livelihood is a justice issue, social justice to be exact, because it is poverty related. Directly or indirectly, the lack of livelihood could lead to crime, although I still maintain that poverty should not be taken as an excuse to commit crime. More often than not however, the poor people who are led to commit crime become the more intense victims of injustice, as they are unable to afford the high costs of justice in their defense.
Financing is just one aspect of livelihood, and it might even be the easier part of the challenge. The harder part I think is marketing, but this too has a financial dimension, because livelihood projects need the financial muscle to be able to finance not just the costs of production, but also the costs of marketing, inventory costs included.
The subject of sustainable communities implies that it should be local in scope, the more local the better. Geographically speaking, this should mean that the smaller the community, the better it is in terms of planning for its long term sustainability. Having said this, it would be best if planning is focused at the village level, meaning that it should really be below the barangay level, given the fact that there could be several villages within a barangay. The situation could be different in the provinces where a village is practically synonymous to a barangay.
I also understand that there are many kinds of banks, ranging in size from universal banks to rural banks. Regardless of the size of the banks however, I think that it should become the culture of these banks to go down to the level of the villages to look into their livelihood needs, and to check on ways through which they could help in financing. This culture formation should be encouraged by the DOF among the banks.
As a service to the nation, the United National Integrated Development Alliance (UNIDA) has been reorganized so that each of the alliance members could lead in three priority concerns namely health, education and social services.
The lead organization for health services in the alliance is now the Inter-Charity Network (ICN). The lead organization for education services is now the University Consortium (UNICON). The lead organization for social services is now the Philippine Foundation for the Prevention of Crime and Injustice (PFPCI).
The National Statistical Coordination Board (NCSB) defines social services as programs that are designated to provide meaningful opportunities for the social and economic growth for the disadvantaged sector of the population in order to develop them into productive and self-reliant citizens and promote social equity. This fits very well into the original purpose of the Foundation which is social justice.
Under this new reorganization, the Foundation shall now lead in self-employment assistance and practical skills development assistance, as defined by the NSCB. In addition however, the Foundation will also lead in legal assistance and housing assistance, also two of the original purposes.
In coordination with the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO), the Foundation will now train, certify and deploy volunteer paralegals to courthouses, police stations and barangay halls all over the country, the latter in support of the barangay justice system. These paralegals will act as deputies to the organic and volunteer lawyers of the PAO.
In coordination with the Department of Health (DOH), Inter-Charity will now will now train, certify and deploy volunteer paramedics to the school clinics, health centers and public hospitals all over the country. It will also coordinate with Our Barangay Inc. (OBI), an organization that is committed towards supporting the school clinics, health centers and public hospitals.
In coordination with the Department of Education (DEPED), UNICON will now train, certify and deploy volunteer teachers to the school libraries and Alternative Learning Centers (ALCs) of DEPED. It will also coordinate with OBI, given the fact that OBI will now also support these school libraries and learning centers.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Saturdays 8 pm to 9 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

3rd Letter to Fellow Filipinos dated July 17, 2010

2010-07-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

3rd Letter to Fellow Filipinos dated July 17, 2010

Dear Compatriots,

Dr. Virginia (Benji) Teodosio is one of the founders of the Corinthian Coffee Club or C3 for short. She is a professor at the University of the Philippines School of Labor and Industrial Relations (UP-SOLAIR). Her advocacy is nation building through the development of our social capital and our natural capital. Because of this advocacy, she has been very involved in expanding the economic opportunities of indigenous peoples and rebel returnees through the cooperative approach.

It was through the persistence of Benji that I met Mr. Paul Soriano who is the Executive Director of the Department of Education Adopt-A-School Program (DEPED-ASP). Paul is a professional manager from the private sector who was recruited by former DEPED Secretary Jesli Lapuz to run the ASP. Benji, Paul and I are now in the process of putting a DEPED Education Channel on the air, in cooperation with the Global News Network (GNN), through Mr. Harry Tambuatco.

It was also through the persistence of Benji that I pursued the idea of acquiring a dedicated channel from Global Satellite (GSAT) so that the DEPED Education Channel could be beamed down to any location in the Philippines where there is a cooperative, using a satellite dish provided by GSAT. Harry is also helping us with this, because GSAT is a sister company of GNN.

The real passion of Benji is to educate the Out of School Youth (OSY) in this country who number about 9 to 16 million, according to Paul. Benji is now trying to convince the cooperatives in this country, numbering about 30,000 to acquire the satellite dishes, so that the OSY children of cooperative members could go to school.

Inspired by the zeal of Benji, I am now requesting Harry to also open up a CHED Education Channel and a TESDA Education Channel. Meanwhile, we are now ready to stream the DEPED Education Channel via the internet, courtesy of my friend Mr. Bycon Bulatao of Inventiv, Inc.

Ramon Ike Villareal Señeres (Ka Iking/Datu Bahandi/Brother Khalid)
+639293605140/iseneres@yahoo.com/www.senseneres.blogspot.com

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES (PART TWO)

2010-07-24T09:47:00.000-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (079) July 25, 2010
By Ike Señeres

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES (PART TWO)

With all the basic needs clearly identified and incorporated into the UNIDA framework, we now have a roadmap for integrated national development. This is now the basis for integrating all the basic needs into one master plan.
The dimension of public safety is actually encompassing, because its benefits could extend towards the other three dimensions. For instance, environmental safety is really part of public safety, and this would include the other environmental concerns such as climate change and global warming. Environmental safety also affects the sustainability of shelter and livelihood projects.
As required by the laws, all municipalities (my preferred collective term for both cities and towns) are supposed to prepare their own Municipal Development Plan (MDP), in cooperation with their own Municipal Development Council (MDC). In theory, the MDP is supposed to incorporate the inputs of the barangay units, but apparently this does not happen.
Due to the lack of material and technical resources at the municipal level, it would be best to mobilize the more active participation of the private sector in the MDC, in the spirit of public and private partnership (PPP), an approach that is supported by many international development organizations.
In the past, there were already many efforts exerted by the private sector in support of the MDC, but the results have not been encouraging, due perhaps to the lack of cohesion among the participants to agree on a common framework for integrated development. This is the vacuum that could be filled by the HDI method.
Despite the large number of municipalities all over the country, it would be still be realistic as common objective to identify at least one non-government organization (NGO) that will be assigned to assist each and every municipality, at the same time promote the adoption of the UNIDA framework. In this context, civic organizations could be considered as NGOs.
On the practical side, it would be best for these local NGOs to form four technical working groups (TWGs) from among their members. Given this approach, one TWG will be able to focus on the four priority dimensions, namely health, education, livelihood and peace and order.
It is not clear which national government agency is on top of livelihood at the local level. The most suitable agency for this I think is the Department of Finance, mainly through the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA). It is clear that Department of Local Interior and Government (DILG) is on top of public safety, though the Philippine National Police (PNP).
I understand that livelihood is not generally seen as an employment issue, given the fact that livelihood generally falls under the category of entrepreneurship or small business. Looking at it another way however, livelihood could be seen as a form of self-employment. From the perspective of data management, it should really be the DOF that should know how many people in a locality would need financing for self-employment.
I also understand that public safety is more than just police work. As a matter of fact, the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) are also considered as public safety agencies under the DILG. From the perspective of data management however, there is a need to review the role of the PNP in reporting the criminality rate, because of perceived conflicts of interest.
In so many ways, public safety as a basic need is very closely associated to the delivery of justice, yet another human need. As a matter of fact, the DILG is directly involved in two of the five pillars of justice, namely arrest (accusation) and penology (transformation). The other pillars of justice are prosecution, judgment (promulgation) and parole (reintegration).
The delivery of basic services is generally affected always by the lack of human resources, and the inability to clearly identify the focal points of the delivery process. It is clear that doctors should be the core of the human resources needed for health delivery, in a similar manner that teachers should be the core of the human resources needed for education delivery. It is also clear that hospitals should be the focal points for health delivery, in the same manner that schools should be the focal points for education delivery.
In the case of livelihood however, it is not clear who should be at the core of the human resources, and it is not clear either where the focal point of livelihood delivery should be. This is also the case of public safety, wherein it is not clear who should be at the core of the human resources, and where the focal point of the delivery should be.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Saturdays 8 pm to 9 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

2nd Letter to Fellow Filipinos dated July 16, 2010

2010-07-19T20:57:00.001-07:00

2nd Letter to Fellow Filipinos dated July 16, 2010

Dear Compatriots,

In my first letter, I wrote about the Corinthian Coffee Club or C3 for short. There is really more to nation building than just C3. I will always write to you about nation building, whether it happens in C3 or anywhere else. This time however, a lot of things are happening in C3 that is why I will be writing a lot about it for a start.

In case you are wondering about my other names, allow me to give you some background. Ka Iking is my radio name. It was given to me by my Iglesia ni Cristo friends when I started broadcasting at DZEC. I still carry this name, and that is why the title of my TV show is Ka Iking Live! Datu Bahandi is my Lumad name. It was given to me when I was adopted as a Datu by the Talaandig tribe of Bukidnon, after the Council of Datus decided on it, led by my friend Datu Didilusan. Brother Khalid is my Moslem name. It was given to me by my Moslem friends led by Brother Jalil Abian, after it was discerned by a pious Imam, based on their belief that I am a Moslem at heart, although born as a Christian.

Tom Lee is one of the founders of C3. He is a Filipino Chinese who left the Philippines when he was 15 years old, and came back when he was already a senior citizen. Tom was an early engineer in Silicon Valley. He invented the first Apple printer and became a business guru later on. Already an American citizen, Tom founded the University Consortium (UNICON) in the Philippines, which he patterned after the Apple Consortium in the United States. He is also a Director of the Philippine Foundation for the Prevention of Crime and Injustice (PFPCI). He also heads the Makati City Chapter of the PFPCI.

Quality education is the advocacy of UNICON. Its goal is to improve the quality of education by improving the technology and the connectivity of its member schools. Equal justice is the advocacy of the PFPCI. Its goal is to minimize crime and injustice by empowering and equipping the men and women in uniform who are serving our nation in the government agencies within the Five Pillars of Justice.

Ramon Ike Villareal Señeres (Ka Iking/Datu Bahandi/Brother Khalid)
+639293605140/iseneres@yahoo.com/www.senseneres.blogspot.com

1st Letter to Fellow Filipinos dated July 15, 2010

2010-07-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

1st Letter to Fellow Filipinos dated July 15, 2010

Dear Compatriots,

Since this is my first letter to you, allow me first to tell you who I am, and why I am doing this. I am a broadcaster and a columnist. Perhaps it is because of this that I get to meet many people who love our country and who would like to do something for nation building, in whatever way possible. Tom Lee is one of these people, and because of this common bond, we agreed to organize what is now known as the Corinthian Coffee Club, or C3 for short.

C3 now meets every Friday from 3 to 6 pm at the Elks Club located at the 7th Floor of the Corinthian Plaza Building along Paseo De Roxas Avenue in Makati City. The purpose of C3 is to bring together people who love our country and who would like to do something for nation building, regardless of whether they are Filipinos or foreigners.

The format of the C3 meetings is very much informal. We sit around in a table and each one is free to talk about what he or she is doing for nation building, and what kind of help he or she needs if ever. Conversely, anyone could also talk about what he or she could do for nation building, as an individual or representing a company or an organization.

As an informal gathering, C3 does not intend to implement projects on its own. Our intention is to give the opportunity to project proponents to talk about what they are already doing, or what they are planning to do. Anyone in the gathering who wants to help any project proponent could do so on his own or on her own, as an individual or representing a company or an organization.

Many people talk about nation building, but they generally do not have the ways or means to implement what they are talking about. This is precisely the purpose of C3, to help the people who want to do something for nation building, so that they could do more than just talk. There is nothing wrong with talking, but nothing will happen to our country if we just keep on talking without doing anything.

Ramon Ike Villareal Señeres (Ka Iking/Datu Bahandi/Brother Khalid)
+639293605140/iseneres@yahoo.com/www.senseneres.blogspot.com

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES (PART ONE)

2010-07-18T10:22:00.000-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (078) July 18, 2010
By Ike Señeres

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES (PART ONE)

The United National Integrated Development Alliance (UNIDA) has consolidated four statistical methods into one development framework, now to be known as the UNIDA framework.
The most fundamental method among the four is the Minimum Basic Needs (MBN) approach. This statistical method measures access to basic human needs such as health, education, livelihood, food, water, clothing, shelter, public safety, recreation, transportation and the environment.
The Human Development Index (HDI) of the United Nations is a statistical method used to rank the level of human development among its member nations. The HDI has three dimensions, namely (1) life expectancy as a measure of health and longevity, (2) adult literacy as a measure of knowledge and education, and (3) economic prosperity as a measure of the standard of living, as indicated by the gross domestic product per capita.
Looking at it another way, the HDI is a composite measure of how much access the residents of a country actually have to three basic services, namely (1) health, (2) education and (3) livelihood. Also looking at it another way, the HDI recognizes the three most critical problems of developing countries, namely (1) the mortality rate, (2), the illiteracy rate and (3) the poverty rate.
In the interest of national development, I am advocating the full adoption of the HDI as a popular method of measuring access to the three basic services not only in the national level, but also in the local level, meaning the Local Government Units (LGUs). So far, the HDI method has not been used to measure local development, and we could have a breakthrough if we will become the first country to do it.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), also of the United Nations is a program aimed to achieve eight specific development goals on or before 2015, namely (1) eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, (2) achieve universal primary education, (3) promote gender equality and empower women, (4) reduce child mortality, (5) improve maternal health, (6) combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, (7) ensure environmental sustainability and (8) develop a global partnership for development.
The Non-Economic Measures (NEMs) approach quantifies the initiatives of national governments to improve the standard of living in their own jurisdictions. NEM includes initiatives in (1) social investment, (2) environment, (3) taxation and (4) quality of life.
The social investment component of the NEM approach includes (1) infrastructure, (2) education, (3) health, (4) water and (5) shelter. The environment component includes (1) pollution, (2) waste, (3) nature and (4) land use. The taxation component includes (1) tax compliance and (2) incentives. The quality of life component includes (1) material wealth, (2) mental state, (3) stress and (4) crime.
For planning purposes, I believe that the MBN approach should be the centerpiece statistical method, because it encompasses all of the human needs that are also covered by the HDI, the MDGs and the NEMs. To be more specific, the MBN approach covers health, education and livelihood which are all within the scope of the HDI.
Still in reference to the MBN approach, the following MDGs are health related: reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. The achievement of universal primary education is of course education related, and the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger is livelihood related. Ensuring environmental sustainability is of course environment related.
The last MDG might appear to be unrelated to all the other basic need, but we could actually say that developing a global partnership for development could be the basis for the acquisition of more resources from international sources, in support of the MBN approach.
MBNs such as food, water, clothing and the environment could be considered as basic services that are directly related to the health dimension, as defined in the HDI. MBNs such as shelter and transportation could be considered as basic services that are directly related to the livelihood dimension, also as defined in the HDI. In the past, many shelter development projects have failed because of the lack of access to transportation and livelihood.
It is interesting to note that in the social investment component of the NEMs, shelter is described as an objective to provide affordable and accessible housing to meet the needs of those who are in search of homes and employment. This validates the notion that shelter and livelihood are two twin strategies that should really go together.
With all the basic needs now fitting into the UNIDA framework, there appears to be only one local dimension that is left out, and that is the dimension of public safety as a measure of peace and order. As a way of adopting the framework to the local realities, I am also advocating that we promote public safety as a basic need, as measured by the criminality rate.

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DISASTER WARNING SYSTEMS

2010-07-15T11:01:00.001-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (077) July 15, 2010
By Ike Señeres

DISASTER WARNING SYSTEMS

President Noynoy Aquino has reason to get down at PAGASA officials for not being able to warn Metro Manila residents about the impact of the storm “Basyang” in the metropolis. Did he probably wonder that Gloria could partly to blame for the failure?

PAGASA is an agency under the DOST and if there is anyone to blame for the failure, it should be no other than the DOST. Not unless we start believing that an attached agency has nothing to do with its mother agency and what attached agency is under what mother agency is just legal fiction.

All throughout the nine year regime of Gloria, the DOST was under Dr. Estrella Alabastro, and you would think that that would have been enough time to fix DOST and all the agencies under it, including PAGASA.

At least, Gloria made a lame attempt to claim that she did some good during her nine years, but we have not heard anything from Dr. Alabastro, not even a report of what she has done and not done.

During the inauguration of President Noynoy, a huge banner clearly announced the sentiments of the people in the crowd: “GLORIA WE ARE NOT GOING TO MISS YOU”. I wonder if anyone is going to say that they will miss Alabastro.

I have no complaints about academics being appointed to cabinet positions, but we should treat this on a case to case basis, because heading a cabinet department is a management job, perhaps too much of a challenge for someone who is good for nothing except a teaching job.

Aside from being a management job, a cabinet position is also a policy job, meaning to say that it is the job of the Secretary assigned to review and improve the policies that would affect the sector assigned to him or her. We have not heard of any major policy changes either in the time of Alabastro, so we wonder what she did during her nine years on the job.

Newly appointed NEDA Secretary Dondon Paderanga could be an exception to the rule that an academic is not always a good manager. Dondon is actually just returning to his old NEDA post, and no President would put him back there if he is no good.

No one doubts the management savvy of Dondon, but I think that his greater strength is his policy prowess, and that is exactly what we need at this time that we are trying to rise from the damage of the super typhoon Gloria that wrecked havoc on our economy.

With all apologies to my friends in DOST and PAGASA, this whole function of warning people about disaster is all about data. It is all about getting the right data at the right time, and bringing out the data to the most number of people in the fastest possible way.

Now that Noynoy has dressed down PAGASA, he should also take a look at what the DFA might have failed to do, in connection with this function of gathering the disaster data. You might wonder why the DFA could be involved, but they do have a technology transfer division that could have brought in the equipment needed to address this problem.

I wish that I will have the chance to suggest to Noynoy about what could be done to solve this problem of disaster warnings. The bottom line here is that PAGASA is still using analog weather stations, and they have less than a hundred of this old equipment all over the country, no thanks to Alabastro.

If I will have the chance to suggest to Noynoy, I will tell him that I know exactly what to do, so that we could immediately shift to digital weather stations, and immediately installing thousands of this new equipment all over the country, without so much expense, and without asking Alabastro.

It has been said that the lack of development in this country is due to the technology lag, being the problem of delay in deploying new technologies here. I think however that the problem is in the lack of vision and drive among the people who are supposed to hasten the pace. Too bad, along with Gloria, history will tell that Alabastro wasted technology in their time.

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ALTERNATIVE LEARNING SYSTEM

2010-07-07T08:04:00.000-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (076) July 07, 2010
By Ike Señeres

ALTERNATIVE LEARNING SYSTEM

Mr. Paul Soriano, Executive Director of the Adopt-A-School Program (ASP) of the Department of Education (DEPED) says that there are about 9 to 16 million children in the Philippines who are considered as out of school youth (OSY). These are the children who should be targeted to become the beneficiaries of the Alternative Learning System (ALS) of the DEPED, a system that includes the Home Study Program (HSP) also of the DEPED.

One wonders why there would be that many children who are now out of school, considering that public schools are free to everyone who is of school age in this country. I found out that the reasons for this problem are very simple: the children could not afford the transport costs, the meal costs, and at times, could not even afford the clothing costs. One other reason, which is rather surprising, is the high incidence of teenage pregnancies, a problem that drives many girls out of school.

Dr. Jose Rizal once said that the youth is the hope of the fatherland, but what is going to be the future of this country if the youth do not have hope, do not even have the right opportunities to have brighter futures? How are we going to reconcile the past aspirations of Dr. Rizal with the present realities that the futures of these children are practically hopeless?

I consider myself lucky that after being exposed to the information and communications technologies (ICT), I have recently gained some new experiences in the mass media and broadcast technologies, particularly in cable and satellite television broadcasting. In reality however, these two technologies are very much related, and that is the reason why we are now talking about the convergence of these technologies.

Computerization and automation are the two buzz words that have become very popular in the technology circles. Because of this, it has become the knee jerk reaction of technology planners to computerize and automate everything. While I do not disagree that this is a good direction to take, these planners should also consider the cost implications of their technology choices.

A monthly subscription to a cable television account costs only about 500 pesos a month and that comes with free installation. A monthly subscription to a satellite television account costs only about 300 pesos a month, with a one time entry fee of about 7,500 pesos. These are commercial rates that are still subject to academic discounts.

A used personal computer would cost about 5,000 pesos, whereas a used television set would cost only about 1,500 pesos. It would cost several thousands of pesos to pay for educational software, whereas it would cost only a pittance to produce learning videos. Computers would require a lot of maintenance, whereas television sets are practically maintenance free. These are some of the reasons why videos are more practical to use as learning tools compared to software, at least in a developing country like ours.

Fortunately for the DEPED, a law has been passed that gives tax incentives to companies that would donate any item of value to the DEPED, for any educational use. Taking full advantage of this law, I am now in the process of establishing the Social Education Network (SEN), also to be known as the SEN Channel, a 24 hour educational channel that will be available through cable, satellite, internet and mobile broadcasting.

The primary objective of the SEN Channel is to support the ALS. The secondary objective is to support the conventional schools of the DEPED, by providing for at least one television set in every classroom. Considering the cost implications, this is a more doable goal, compared to the very costly goal of providing for at least one computer in every classroom.

As planned in coordination with the ASP, six hours of programming will be dedicated to elementary subjects, while another six hours will be dedicated to high school subjects. The rest of the remaining hours will be used for teacher training, adult education, professional review courses and vocational learning.

Through the efforts of Dr. Virginia Teodosio of the University of the Philippines, several hundred cooperatives will purchase satellite units so that the children of coop members could take all of the courses being offered.

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RATIONALIZING PROVINCIAL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING

2010-06-28T09:49:00.000-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (075) June 27, 2010
By Ike Señeres

RATIONALIZING PROVINCIAL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING

With a new batch of provincial governors either elected or reelected, the provinces now have a fresh opportunity to plan or re-plan the course of their local development, as the case may be. As they face this new or renewed challenge, they also have to reckon with the additional tasks of dealing with both climate change and global warming.

In theory, the provincial governments are supposed to organize and work with the so-called Provincial Development Councils (PDCs), but in actual practice, it is unfortunate to note that many PDCs are not operational, and even if they are, they seem to be lagging behind in their work. It is now up to the local people to demand for the activation of their own PDCs, that is if they want any development to happen in their own provinces.

I believe that there is something that is fundamentally wrong in the present structure of the PDCs. The mayors of component cities and towns are supposed to be members, but there seems to be no apparent consciousness that they are attending the meetings (if they do) not as individual persons, but as heads of their official city or town delegations.

In the Local Government Code (LGC), the “towns” are referred to as the “municipalities”, but I will write here again, as I have always written, that we need to use “municipalities” as the collective term to refer to both the cities and the towns. There is also trouble in the use of the term technical “component”, because it excludes the so-called “chartered” cities, even if they are physically located within the province.

For all intents and purposes, the PDC is supposed to be the clearing house of all municipal development plans (hence the need for a collective term), prior to the integration of the provincial development plans, in preparation for submission to the Regional Development Councils (RDCs). In turn, the RDCs are supposed to prepare their own regional development plans.

How in the world could the PDC prepare a real comprehensive and a fully integrated provincial development plan if the chartered cities are not part of their rounds of meetings? Even if the legal fiction exists that the chartered cities are technically not part of the provinces, how could they deny the fact that the chartered cities are economically, biologically and geographically part of their physical province?

The LGC stipulates that the Congressman or his representative is supposed to be a member of the PDC. It is unbelievable, but the law actually gives the Congressman the built-in excuse not to attend the PDC meetings, leaving him out of any substantive discussions that are directly related to the integrated development planning of his own constituency.

In theory, the Countryside Development Fund (CDF) is supposed to a remedial fund that will address the local needs of a congressional constituency that could not be “seen” or “appreciated” by Congress as a whole. If that is really the case, then why not subject the CDF to the disposition of the PDC, instead of the subjective determination of the Congressman?

By design, the municipal development plans are supposed to be funded by the Internal Revenue Allocations (IRAs) of the municipalities (this being my suggested collective term). In reality however, the IRAs are almost always not enough to fund the local needs, hence the suggestion that it should be beefed up by the CDF.

Also by design, the LGC allows the municipalities to enter into creative financing options in order to finance the components of their municipal development plans that could not be funded by their own revenue collections, and by their IRAs. These options include joint venture agreements (JVAs) with the private sector, and the build-operate-transfer (BOT) schemes (there are several such schemes).

By now, it should be known to all municipal and provincial officials that the business process outsourcing (BPO) approach is working very well for the private sector. Since for all intents and purposes the BPO scheme is allowed under the LGC, they should now look into this additional option. The BPO approach makes good sense for them, because it would free them from the need to buy their own equipment and to hire their own additional staff.

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A BLUE AND GREEN DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK

2010-06-20T06:49:00.000-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (074) June 20, 2010
By Ike Señeres

A BLUE AND GREEN DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK

The green advocacy is now very popular, and that is good news for everyone in this planet. Green is not everything however, because human beings have other needs that have nothing to do with being green. This is the reason why I think there is a need for another advocacy that could be in tandem with the green advocacy, and that is the blue advocacy.

Blue is the color of renewable energy, and it is also the color of good connectivity. This is the reason why a solar powered building is called a “blue building”, and the reason why a blue light turns on in your computer when you are connected to a network wirelessly.

There have been many attempts to define and quantify the number of basic human needs. On my part however, and for purposes of developing an attainable and sustainable development framework, I now propose that we define eight priority human needs, namely livelihood, transportation, health, education, water, sanitation, food and shelter, not necessarily in that order.

If we have energy, we could have more access to livelihood and transportation. Livelihood is the answer to poverty, being the answer as well to increasing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), as defined in the Human Development Index (HDI). Transportation is directly related to livelihood, because people could not go to work if they have no means of mobility.

If we have connectivity, we could have more access to health and education. Health is the answer to high mortality, as defined also in the HDI. In addition, child health and maternal health are two specific Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Education is the answer to illiteracy, as also defined in the HDI. Universal education is also an MDG.

If we sustain our ecology, we could have more access to water and sanitation. These two resources actually work in tandem with each other, because without water, there could be no sanitation. It goes without saying that in order to have clean potable water; we also have to clean our land, including what goes below the surface of our soils. Sanitation is the answer to the problem of pollution.

If we sustain our agronomy, we could have more access to food and shelter. In our definition, we should include forestry as part of agronomy, because restored forests could also give us food and shelter. We should also include fisheries in the definition, because that too, is a major source of food, most especially in an aquatic country like ours. Ending hunger is also an MDG.

As it is now, green advocates are moving in a direction that is apart from the direction of blue advocates, still a small movement as of now. My wish is to bring them together in a joint Blue and Green advocacy or BAG for short. I am hoping that this would be a natural union, because the two are very much compatible with each other.

With sustainable ecology, we could have sustainable energy, and vice versa. This is also the case of water. We could create energy out of water, and using energy, we could increase our water resources. With better and broader connectivity, we could market the outputs of our agronomy better and faster, using the powers of electronic commerce.

On one hand, agronomy will give us the inputs to create energy, plant fuels being just an example. On the other hand, cheaper energy will also enable us to irrigate our farms and process our farm outputs, thus giving us more value added for what we could produce out of the soil.

Our eight basic needs are not just for the short term survival of our people now. These are also for the long term survival of our nation in the long run, for the long term. As a people however, we should not just stop with survival as our long term goal. We should go for regional economic dominance, but first, we must survive.

As a people, we could go nowhere without a unified development framework. In the past, I have advocated for Integrated Area Development (IAD) as a framework. I am still doing that, but this time with a new twist, to meld and blend the eight basic needs within a framework that combines energy, connectivity, ecology and agronomy into one. I would welcome your comments about this framework; let us work on this together.

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POVERTY AND PRODUCTIVITY

2010-06-12T05:43:00.000-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (073) June 12, 2010
By Ike Señeres

POVERTY AND PRODUCTIVITY

The new Secretary of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) has yet to be named, but I am hoping that President-Elect Noynoy Aquino would name someone who is both technically honest and intellectually honest in reporting the poverty and prosperity figures of the incoming administration.

Technical honesty and intellectual honesty are two different matters, but they both boil down to the same thing, and that is the moral fiber of the agent, in this case the one who prepares the report (the NEDA Secretary), and the principal, in this case the one who receives the report (the President).

For many years now, the NEDA has been reporting very low poverty figures that are far below the perception of many observers as to what the real figures really are. This seems to be true also in the case of the national productivity figures, which do not seem to reflect what many believe to be the real indicators.

After nine years in office, it is not really clear how much reduction of the poverty rate was actually achieved by Gloria. She would of course claim that the economy “improved” during her watch, but are we always going to content ourselves with the qualitative claims of our leaders?

With six years ahead of him, President Noynoy now has the chance of reducing our poverty rate and increasing our productivity rate, but this time around, and hopefully unlike Gloria, he would start by having intellectually correct and technically correct benchmarks that would be measured against his actual performance and delivery at the end of his term.

In my personal and technical opinion, I believe that the data gathering for the national poverty and productivity reports should start at the municipal level, and these should be consolidated at the provincial level before these are summarized at the national level. Any other method other than this would amount to fabrications, and are therefore dishonest.

For planning purposes, I suggest that the government should adopt the word “municipal” as the common term that would refer to both the cities and the towns. Also for planning purposes, I also suggest that the government should disregard the legal fiction that the chartered cities are not part of the provinces where they are actually physically located.

In this new global paradigm where climate change and global warming takes the center stage, we should even go beyond the usual artificial political jurisdictions of the provinces, meaning that we should now begin to plan in terms of natural watersheds and biospheres.

Whether we like it or not, we could no longer plan for reductions in the poverty rate and for increases in the productivity rate without taking the stat of the environment into consideration. The same is true in the case of agriculture, because we could no longer plan for good agriculture in a bad or damaged environment.

As an economic indicator, the Gross National Product (GNP) is simply just a measure of national productivity and as such, it should reflect the honest accounting of our real gains and losses, including those that are agricultural and environmental in nature.

Adapting to climate change and global warming is one thing, reducing poverty and increasing productivity is another thing. But not unless the new administration the real relationships between the environment and our economic goals, they could be facing a dual failure in this tandem of interconnected objectives.

The outgoing administration has failed to consolidate their actions in connection with the need to preserve or restore our air, land and water resources. All of the government agencies that are tasked to care for these resources seem to be going into their own separate directions, not realizing perhaps that they are dealing with the same watersheds and biospheres.

Just a postscript to the visit of Al Gore: we paid millions just to hear a foreigner tell us what we already know. What more do we need to know?

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DATA PARITY AND DATA EQUALITY

2010-06-06T08:20:00.001-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (072) June 06, 2010
By Ike Señeres

DATA PARITY AND DATA EQUALITY

Believe it or not, it actually happens in the Philippines that the laws passed either conflict with each other, or are incompatible when placed side by side. This is the case of the apparent conflict between the Electronic Commerce Act (ECA) and the Philippine Election Automation Law (PEAL), when it comes to the issue of data dominance or data parity, as the case may be.

But first, allow me to backtrack a little. At the time that the ECA was passed, hard copies ruled the day as the dominant data form that was admissible in court as evidence, and as the legal basis for day to day transactions. At that time, there was no recognition yet of the value of electronic data forms, so it became necessary to stipulate in the law that henceforth, there is going to be data parity or equality between the two types of data forms.

When the PEAL was subsequently passed, it made the apparent mistake of stipulating that the electronic data form was going to have dominance over the hard data form. This specific provision was apparently in conflict with a general provision in the ECA, stipulating that after the ECA was passed; all subsequent laws passed in the Philippines must be and should be in line with its provisions.

As the implementing agency of the PEAL, I was expecting the COMELEC to insist upon the dominance of the electronic data form. To my surprise, it was COMELEC Chairman Jose Melo himself who started quoting the provisions of the ECA, while referring to the resolution of issues pertaining to electronic signatures. Right there and then, I concluded that the issue of electronic data dominance was dead in the water, and from that time on, it would appear that data parity is here to stay as a state of being.

Ironically, the much ballyhooed “paperless society” actually never happened, as the electronic age produced more documents that had to be printed, as more people, more than ever wanted their own “hard copies” of the “soft copies” that were actually available online or in storage media.

Long before the election actually started, Chairman Melo had announced to the world that he was against a “hybrid” solution, meaning that he did not want to have manual counting alongside the optical counting. He said this at the time that he was fully confident that the automated system was “hack-free”, without bothering to say whether it was “trouble-free” or not.

As it turned out, the COMELEC was actually moving towards a hybrid situation, because the votes from overseas were in fact counted manually. As it also turned out, many votes that were cast locally also had to be counted manually, after the Precinct Count Optical Scanning (PCOS) machines turned out to be not trouble-free after all.

Just to set the record straight, the past election was not really “automated” in a real sense. Real automation has to be “systemic”, meaning that the entire system has to be automated and not just certain parts of it. For the record, the voting system of the past election was actually still manual, because it used paper forms that had to be manually shaded.

Even the counting itself could not really be considered as automated, because the paper ballots had to be manually fed before these could be optically read. To call a spade a spade, the COMELEC actually used a system of “optical counting”; a low-end procedure that could hardly be called “automated voting”.

Following the rule of data parity, it could be said that the Election Returns (ERs) that were printed out from the PCOS and were manually signed by the Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) were actually valid and admissible, and were therefore acceptable as the legal basis for the computation of the Certificates of Canvass (COCs).

Many IT experts say that the Common Business Oriented Language (COBOL) will never die. This is a mainframe programming language that was developed in the 1950’s and the 1960’s but it is still being used today. Many think that the Disk Operating System (DOS) is dead, but it is actually alive, because the supposedly modern Windows operating system still sits on top of the archaic DOS. Paper will not die, it will co-exist with ether.

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TRUST AND ACCOUNTABILITY

2010-06-04T11:56:00.000-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (071) June 05, 2010
By Ike Señeres

TRUST AND ACCOUNTABILITY

In the matter of appointments to the Cabinet, the legal fiction prevails that the nominee, or rather the ministry of the nominee is an extension of the personality of the President, and it is for this reason that the nominee should hold his full trust and confidence. While it is the prerogative of the President to nominate whoever he thinks would hold his trust, the performance and actions of the nominee is also his accountability.

Much has been said about the pros and cons of appointing former allies of Gloria into the Cabinet, and more so in the reappointment of incumbent members of her Cabinet into the incoming official family of the perceived front runner of the presidential race. The bottom line here is that it is the prerogative of the appointing authority, with the caveat that he has to answer for whatever the nominee does or does not do while he is in office.

The legal fiction also prevails that the President is merely the appointing authority, but whoever he appoints still has to be confirmed by the Commission on Appointments (CA). Upon confirmation, it is presumed that the Executive prerogative of appointing whoever he wants is in effect substantiated by the independent authority of the Legislative Branch to confirm the nominations.

Many say that one of the major challenges of perceived presidential front runner Noynoy Aquino is the restoration of institutions that have been destroyed, ignored or bastardized by Gloria. While it is really up to the Legislative Branch to restore the full authority of the CA as an institution, I believe that Noynoy should start the restoration process by not allowing his nominees to hold office until they are confirmed by the CA.

Perhaps it is only in the Philippines where vehicles without official license plates are allowed to go around the streets, for as long as they have makeshift plates saying that it is FOR REGISTRATION. In the same manner that these vehicles should not be allowed to roam the streets until they are registered, cabinet nominees should also not be allowed to sit.

In so many instances in the past, cabinet nominees of Gloria were allowed to assume office even if they were bypassed by the CA, by way of using the legal fiction that they are only holding their offices in an acting capacity. I believe that this practice is fundamentally wrong, because they are not supposed to disburse funds and make critical decisions until they are finally confirmed by the CA.

As part of rebuilding our damaged institutions, Noynoy should now avoid reappointing nominees who are bypassed by the CA on the third attempt. If he will continue the practice of Gloria to perpetually reappoint his nominees after they are bypassed for so many times, he will in effect destroy the purpose of having checks and balances between the independent branches of the government.

While it is in effect an insult to the Legislative Branch to ignore the authority of the CA, I believe that it is also in effect an insult to the bureaucracy to ignore the fact that there are career Undersecretaries who could very well run the respective Departments while the Cabinet nominees are not yet confirmed, thus removing the need for them to sit in an acting capacity.

It is not surprising that Noynoy has announced his intention to reappoint Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo. He appears to have the trust and confidence of Noynoy, and it is well within his prerogative to reappoint Secretary Romulo if he wants to. However, given the parameters that I have mentioned earlier, Romulo should take the initiative of not holding office until he is confirmed by the CA, and he should take the lead by not agreeing to function in an acting capacity in the meantime.

I believe that it is unfair to simply brand Romulo as the Chief Diplomat of Gloria, and on that basis conclude that he should not be reappointed. I believe that when he was confirmed by the CA, he in effect became the Chief Diplomat of the Republic, fully vested by the Legislative Branch, and therefore no longer just the private diplomat of Gloria. As the institutional process goes, it should be up to the CA whether to confirm him or not, and if he is indeed confirmed, he should be allowed to reassume his post, period.

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GROWTH RATES AND POVERTY RATES

2010-05-30T00:41:00.001-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (070) June 01, 2010
By Ike Señeres

GROWTH RATES AND POVERTY RATES

It is good to know that presidential front runner Noynoy Aquino is not impressed by the 7.3 % growth of the economy as reported by the outgoing Arroyo administration. He really has to do better than that, because he promised to remove corruption as a way of removing poverty.

Senate Minority Leader Nene Pimentel almost hit the nail when he said that the prosperity of a nation should be measured in terms of the alleviation of the poverty of the masses. He is only partly correct, because the proper measure should be poverty reduction, and not poverty alleviation.

Since Noynoy is now talking economics, he should now take the trouble of finding out the difference between poverty alleviation and poverty reduction, a very important dichotomy that has escaped the appreciation of many of our past Presidents.

To his credit, Senator Mar Roxas was correct when he said that government claims about economic growth are just like “pie in the sky”, if the benefits of the growth would not trickle down to the broader masses of the people. Perhaps Mar should explain this better though, since “trickle down” economics has been debunked by many economists.

Economists would argue that the gross domestic product (GDP) and the poverty rates are two independent measures that are not exactly directly related with each other. That may be true technically, but in practical terms, a bigger GDP should translate to higher incomes for more people, and that should result in more people going up above the poverty line.

Without directly hitting the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), Nene said that the report was produced by “people who are eager to cover up the misdeeds of their masters”, suggesting that the figures might have been fabricated, since “they do not reflect an improvement” in the lives of the people. He seems to be talking in a qualitative sense, meaning that he is still talking about poverty alleviation, and not poverty reduction.

The problem with GDP reports and poverty rate data is that both of these are produced by the NEDA, thus making them prone to suspicions of cover up, a popular thinking that was expressed by Nene. Somehow, someway NEDA officials should be the ones who should see the connection between the two, one way or the other.

As far as I know, there are specific objective targets about poverty reduction, but these were apparently not reported by the NEDA, for one reason or another. Officially, the poverty rate in the Philippines is about 33% as reported by the government, but many believe that it is the other way around, meaning to say that it could go as high as 67%.

There are no specific objective measures pertaining to poverty alleviation, because these are qualitative characteristics and are therefore hardly measurable. Fortunately, these could be measured in terms of access to basic goods and services, based on the belief that having access to these goods and services could somehow lessen the impact of poverty, which is what poverty alleviation is all about.

I can understand that the Liberal Party was simply using a figure of speech when they made a campaign promise that they will remove corruption as a way of removing poverty. Now that the campaign is over, they should go back to the reality that at best they could only reduce corruption, and as a result of that, they could possibly reduce poverty as well.

By how much could a new President really reduce poverty quantitatively given a fixed term of six years? What could Noynoy possibly do in six years that Gloria was unable to do in nine years? No matter what poverty reduction target he will adopt, he will have to match that with real and practical resources and policy frameworks.

From a cloud of suspicion and dishonesty that characterized the outgoing administration, Noynoy now promises honesty and “living under the light”. Hopefully, in the coming months and years, NEDA will not be compelled by their new masters to do any more cover-ups. Hopefully too, they will know the difference between poverty alleviation and poverty reduction.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Thursdays 7pm to 8pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

PROGRESS AND DEVELOPMENT

2010-05-23T20:32:00.000-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (069) May 23, 2010
By Ike Señeres

PROGRESS AND DEVELOPMENT

American President Barack Obama won on a platform of change. It was a popular and practical platform for America, because over there, progress and development is no longer an issue. The American people still needed change, even if their country is already very much progressive, and is already fully developed.

Presidential front runner Noynoy Aquino appears to have won here also on a platform of change, albeit more specifically on the angle of removing corruption, supposedly as a means to remove poverty. For lack of a better term, I would call this a rock bottom approach, because it starts from the bottom line goal of removing poverty, without a clear goal of achieving prosperity for the nation up ahead.

What does removing poverty mean? I hope that the economists under Noynoy would be able to tell the difference between poverty reduction and poverty alleviation, a dichotomy that has escaped the appreciation of past administrations. Poverty reduction means lowering the poverty rate based on clear economic targets. Poverty alleviation means lowering the rate of suffering below the poverty line.

What is the difference between progress and development? It is very important to ask this question, because the dichotomy between the two has apparently also escaped the appreciation of past administrations. Just to give you a clue, progress could happen even without clear economic targets, and even without a development plan. Strictly speaking, progress could even happen even without development.

Here is another clue: poverty reduction is a measure of development. Therefore, it goes without saying that the reduction of poverty should be a specific goal within an objective development plan. Poverty reduction could never happen as an accident, in much the same way that accidental progress could also happen even without an objective development plan. Actually, even poverty alleviation could not happen as an accident.

For some reason, the government could only think in terms of ten year development plans, this being the function of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA). If the government would insist on looking only at the short term, they should at least think in terms of twelve year development plans, because that would exactly cover the terms of two fixed term Presidents.

Except for perception surveys, there is no practical method of measuring the removal of corruption. The good news is, there are many reliable methods of measuring the reduction of poverty, this being the more reasonable goal, instead of the removal of poverty. First things first however, the new administration should revisit the definition of the poverty threshold, since the costs of the goods in the “imaginary basket” have already changed.

The science of measuring development is exact, as a matter of fact, the measurements are already defined and prescribed in the medium term (ten year) development plan that the government already has. Other than that, there are other international means of measurement that the government could use, such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and the Human Development Index (HDI) of the United Nations.

I am hoping that at the end of the term of the new administration, they will be able to report quantitative gains in actual development achievements, instead of mere qualitative claims in terms of progress alone, such as saying that corruption is already “gone”.

I do not know how long it will take us, but I think that our real long term goal, way beyond twelve years, perhaps all the way to forty eight years, is to regain our economic dominance in the ASEAN region as a nation, a position that we used to hold until we went downwards due to the lack of development. Semantically, we could say that we progressed, but definitely, we did not develop quickly enough to catch up with the other economies.

If you have suggestions or complaints addressed to the Senate, send them to me so that I could post these in my other blog, SENERES SA SENADO. This new blog will also contain posts and press releases from all Senators.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Thursdays 7pm to 8pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

FAIRLY A FAILURE

2010-05-19T21:43:00.001-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (068) May 20, 2010
By Ike Señeres

FAIRLY A FAILURE

One day before the election, the COMELEC said that they were 98% ready. One day after the election, the COMELEC said that it was fairly successful. I do not know what barometer they are using, but the only measure should be 99.995% accuracy, as it was defined in the Terms of Reference (TOR) of the automation bidding.

Two days after the election, the COMELEC said that their critics were proven wrong, and they even issued the propaganda that some of the critics admitted that they were happy to be wrong. For the record, I now say that I was not wrong, and I am not happy about what the COMELEC has done and has not done.

I think that it is morally and technically wrong for government agencies to unilaterally declare the success of their own projects, because of an inherent conflict of interest. I have the same objection to the practice of the Philippine National Police (PNP) to declare success by reporting low crime rates, because of the same conflict of interest issue.

If government agencies are really sincere and if they would want to be transparent about their own reports of success, they should allow third party reporting and validation by disinterested groups or organizations. In the interest of good governance, the government should use these independent reports as the basis for the payment of official financial obligations, such as the case of the COMELEC automation project.

In several columns and on the air broadcast interviews, I challenged COMELEC Chairman Jose Melo to prove that their system is trouble-free, without necessarily admitting on my part that their system is hack-free. As it turned out, system trouble became the more apparent problem, with some instances of internal hacking so to speak, allegedly perpetuated by internal operatives who gained access to the security codes and the passwords.

In a manner of speaking, hacking became a non-issue somewhere along the way, as the COMELEC started removing the security features of the system one at a time. Their behavior is akin to someone who bought a very expensive car that is fully accessorized, but later on decided to strip his car of all accessories, until he is left with a stock car that actually costs lesser than the original price of his fully loaded car.

This analogy of buying a car goes back to the time when the COMELEC supposedly piloted the Direct Recording Equipment (DRE) in the ARMM election, but later on they made a decision to use the Optical Mark Reader (OMR) technology. This behavior is akin so someone who has test driven a truck, but later on decided to buy a car.

Moving on with this analogy, the COMELEC decided to deploy the OMR machines without the benefit of testing them. This behavior is akin to someone who buys a car, but decides later not to break it in, subjecting it right away to the rigors of day to day usage.

Since COMELEC started with a quantitative claim that they were 98% ready, they should have ended it also with a quantitative report that it was 50% successful, which is my own numerical interpretation of what “fairly successful” means. In mathematical terms, that means an accuracy rate of only 10,000 for every 20,000 ballots, a far cry from the requirement of 1 mistake for every 20,000 ballots, as it was defined in the TOR.

When I interviewed SMARTMATIC spokesman Gene Gregorio in Net25, he could not explain how they were able to reprogram the compact flash (CF) cards if they were really “read only”, as Chairman Melo himself claimed. I took the trouble to explain on the air that CF cards are like CD-RW disks that could be re-written several times, unlike the ordinary CD disks that could be written only once, being “Write Once Read Many” (WORM) by design. I wonder if Melo understands this.

Under the cover of darkness, the COMELEC decided to destroy the supposedly “defective” CF cards in their possession, until they were stopped by the legal action of some losing candidates. Since these cards are supposed to be government property, these should not be destroyed without following the normal accounting procedures. Since these cards are actually re-writable, what is the point in destroying assets that are still properly re-usable?

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FIGHTING GRAFT AND CORRUPTION

2010-05-14T01:06:00.000-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (066) May 14, 2010
By Ike Señeres

FIGHTING GRAFT AND CORRUPTION

The first step in fighting a war is to know the enemy. So much has been said about fighting corruption, but do we really know the enemy? My teacher Fr. Herb Schneider taught me that there are two sides to this equation. Graft on one hand is the wrongdoing of public officials, while corruption on the other hand is the wrongdoing of the corruptors who allow or assist the grafters in perpetuating their wrongdoings.

So who is the enemy then? I would say that the enemy is both, but if we say that we will only be fighting corruption, that will not defeat the enemy if we do not do anything to fight or stop the grafters inside the government. But what if we are the enemy ourselves? Meaning we, the people who allow or assist the grafters in continuing to do what they are doing?

The Liberal Party (LP) says that if there is no corruption, there is no poverty. Knowing that they have good economists in their party, they probably know that what they said is simply just a campaign slogan, because corruption and poverty are two separate forces that could influence each other, but not absolutely. In other words, even without corruption there could still be poverty, and even without poverty, there could still be corruption.

By comparison however, the campaign slogan of the LP is more grounded on the truth than the slogan of the Nationalista Party (NP) claiming that they could put an end to poverty. I am sure that the NP also has their own good economists, at least good enough to know that there will always be people who will fall below the poverty line, even if the government gives welfare support to everyone.

But not to dissuade the LP, I think that they would be doing the people a good service if they could really reduce both graft and corruption, even if they could not totally eradicate it. They could be aiming for the sky if they will target the total eradication of graft and corruption, just like the NP who made the promise of totally eradicating poverty. I just hope however that the LP will know the difference between poverty alleviation and poverty reduction, two separate goals that have confused the past administrations.

To start with the basics, the LP should no longer make the mistake of delivering basic public services, presenting these as their poverty alleviation programs. The left leaning forces have already denounced this as a farce, saying that the delivery of public services is a function or a duty that the government has to do anyway, and it should not be misrepresented as the programs to address poverty alleviation.

During the height of the debates about globalization, the government was also criticized for misrepresenting the delivery of infrastructure as forms of “safety nets”, basing it on the same argument that the building infra is a function or duty of the government anyway. As the present administration is on its way out, it is again highlighting their delivery of infra as an achievement, even if it was something that they had to do anyway.

Presidential front runner Noynoy Aquino has made a campaign promise to take us away from the broken road of corruption. I think that the first step that he has to take is to decide the kind of leadership that he is going to install in the agencies of government. Is he going to assign political appointees down to the Section Chief level, or is he going to revive and strengthen the career service by naming political appointees only to the cabinet level, and nowhere else down below?

According to the rules of the Civil Service, the only political appointee should only be the cabinet level Department Secretary and everyone else below him, from the level of the Undersecretaries all the way down to the Section Chief level should be career officials. I think that this is going to be a make or break decision for Noynoy, because this decision will determine whether he will be able to reduce corruption in the bureaucracy or not.

I am not saying that all the political appointees in the past administrations are corrupt, and I am not saying either that all career officials are not corrupt. I am saying however that political appointees would tend more to become corrupt, since they have co-terminus appointments that would expire as their patrons would go out of office. By expectation, career officials are not supposed to become corrupt, but they too could become corrupt if they see that their leaders above them are taking the broken path.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Thursdays 7pm to 8pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

AUTOMATION FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE

2010-05-12T09:54:00.001-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (066) May 12, 2010
By Ike Señeres

AUTOMATION FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE

I wrote a series of eight articles about COMELEC automation. If you are interested in these articles, please visit my blog. There has been a tremendous interest about this subject. I was interviewed in several radio and television stations about this topic, and we discussed this extensively in the GNN coverage of the elections. However, I feel that this subject has been exhausted, and therefore I am putting it to rest, at least for now.

I would like to thank everyone who supported the National Council for Commuter Protection (NCCP) in its bid to elect nominees to the Congress. The counting is still going on, so there are no final results yet. No matter what happens, the NCCP is committed to continue with its advocacy of promoting commuter rights, including the rights to commuter safety.

I also would like to congratulate Our Barangay Inc, (OBI) for its first successful project of connecting a barangay in Iloilo. In the midst of the fanfare about politics, it is remarkable how OBI led by Ms. Elsa Bayani has kept its focus on the more meaningful goal of bringing automation to the lowest unit of governance. I know that Elsa is just starting, and she is yet to do more not only for Iloilo, but also for the rest of the country.

In another development, I also would like to congratulate Councilor Junjun Binay for winning the mayoralty race of Makati City. As of press time, his father Mayor Jojo Binay is leading the race for the Vice Presidency, and I congratulate him too for a superb campaign that put him on top of the election results so far.

Just like his father who initiated many moves to improve governance in Makati City, I am sure that Mayor Junjun will continue the tradition of using technology to bring quality basic services to the people of his city. Unknown to many, Junjun is a graduate of a master’s degree in urban planning from the University of the Philippines in Diliman, so expect him to introduce many innovations in his field of expertise. With the blessings of Mayor Jojo, the Makati City ICT Council (MCICTC) which I chair will now move on to the take on new challenges under a new administration. Congratulations as well to Cong. Abby Binay for her winning her second term.

Thanks to the massive attention that was given to the COMELEC project, many people are now aware of the importance of automation for the delivery of public services. As I did my role of informing the public about the technical details about the said project, I am now focusing my attention on yet another concern that is equally important for the good of the people, and that is the automation of early warning systems for climate change and global warming.

Perhaps it is really part of our culture to be excited about certain public issues at one time, and then just forget about it as time passes. This is apparently what has happened to our preparations for future disasters that are associated with environmental threats. Since I have access to several good technologies that the public could use for this purpose, I feel that it is my duty to help where I can, when I could.

Based on my experience, local government units (LGUs) would usually cite two reasons for not installing early warning systems and these are the lack of money, and the lack of technical resource persons. I am now removing these obstacles for them, so that they could install these systems without so much difficulty.

As far as money is concerned, the early warning systems could be funded by the Internal Revenue Allocations (IRA), the Countryside Development Fund (CDF) and through the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) scheme. If these three options are not available, investors or donors could be found.

As far as technical resource persons are concerned, I have already lined up a number of experts who could help them on a voluntary basis. Most of these experts are locally based, but if necessary, we could gain access to foreign based experts. This would not be difficult to do, since I have been doing this kind of work ever since.

My offer to help is good for all LGUs, from the barangay level to the provincial level. All I ask is for them to be willing, able and ready, and I have given this the acronym of WAR, way back from my DFA days.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Thursdays 7pm to 8pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

SPECIAL REPORT-AUTOMATED ELECTION-Eight of a Series- May 11, 2010

2010-05-10T10:07:00.000-07:00

SPECIAL REPORT-AUTOMATED ELECTION
Eight of a Series- May 11, 2010
By Ike Seneres

It took me two hours to vote yesterday. One blogger wrote that in his precinct in Alabang, it took him almost nine hours to vote. Many prospective voters gave up and went home. The duration to vote appeared to be slow in some areas and fast in some, indicating that the experience was varied in many places. Hopefully, the COMELEC will issue an honest report about the average duration in most areas, because that is what the bottom line is all about.

Amidst all the reports about Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines breaking down and not working everywhere, the COMELEC says that only about 308 machines did not function, in effect claiming that less than 5% of the machines malfunctioned. This is what I mean by expecting them for an honest report, because the data coming from the field seems to contradict their claims.

Now that the voting is over, one very important question is the actual accuracy rate of the counting. According to the Terms of Reference of the COMELEC bidding, the error rate should not exceed 1%. As of last night, the COMELEC said that the error rate could go beyond this requirement. It is too early to conclude about the actual statistics however, since the voting is not yet really over.

Realizing that many voters would be unable to vote by the end of voting hours at 6:00 PM last night, the COMELEC decided to extend the voting by another hour. Despite clarifications that all those already in the perimeter of the precincts would still be allowed to vote no matter how long it takes, there were many reports that many were unable to vote, raising the issue of massive disenfranchisement.

The admission of the COMELEC that the malfunction rate is about 5% and their related admission that the error rate could go beyond what is allowable leaves open the question of how many voters were really disenfranchised. The answer to this question will become clear after we will receive the reports of third party sources. By then, we would be able to compare the two data sets. In the interest of transparency, it would be good for the COMELEC to allow third parties to do their own validation.

By force of circumstance, it would appear that the COMELEC ended up implementing a hybrid system of counting, combining both the manual and optical methods. Although some would say that there is no legal basis for manual counting, the argument is very strong that it is within the power of the COMELEC to partially use this method, for practical reasons.

Since the COMELEC prepared only for the optical method, it appears that they were not able to put together the facsimile signatures of the member of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI). Without these facsimile signatures, there is going to be no legal basis to authenticate the signatures of these members, and because of that, some enterprising lawyers of losing candidates could question the validity of the documents. To add to this issue, it appears that the COMELEC was also unable to print the paper versions of the forms for Election Returns (ER) and Certificates of Canvass (COC).

The situation appears to be the same in the case of digital signatures. As far as I know, the COMELEC was also unable to prepare a database of digital signatures. The last I heard is that SMARTMATIC was supposed to function as the Certification Authority (CA). If this pushed through, there could still be a problem of conflict of interest, because a CA is supposed to be an independent entity other than the project contractor.

Up until yesterday, the COMELEC still has not answered the question of the identity of their Project Manager, so that the background or track record of this person could be vetted by his peers. The COMELEC has also not disclosed the location and ownership of the data center that will host the server, and the security features of this overall set-up.

Also up until yesterday, there were no negative reports about failures in the transmission, canvassing and consolidation stages. That is good news, and I hope that the positive trend will continue, because there were earlier apprehensions that glitches could happen since these three stages were put into operation without the necessary testing. Some issues were also raised about the validity and authenticity of the ballots since it was widely observed that many of the BEI members did not bother to use the ultraviolet (UV) lamps that were purchased to check whether the ballots were authentic or not. This is not a reliable check, but that is another issue altogether.

Check out the complete series at www.senseneres.blogspot.com

SPECIAL REPORT-AUTOMATED ELECTION-Seventh of a Series- May 10, 2010

2010-05-09T07:25:00.000-07:00

SPECIAL REPORT-AUTOMATED ELECTION
Seventh of a Series- May 10, 2010
By Ike Seneres

It’s already election today, and all we have from the COMELEC is a verbal assurance that they are 98% ready, contrary to all the data that the media is reporting. According to ABS-CBN News, less that 30% of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines have been delivered to the precinct level as of May 7. According to same report, only about 40% of the ballots have been delivered from the National Printing Office (NPO) to offices of the local Treasurers as of May 4. I am hoping that these figures might have improved as of today, but it is hard to imagine how the COMELEC has come up with the 98% readiness report as early as two days ago.

As it is now, it seems that the COMELEC might have spoken too soon about their readiness claims. From the point that the PCOS machines will arrive at the local distribution centers, it will take a few days before these are actually delivered to the precinct level. This is also the same story in the case of the ballots, because it will still take a few days before these are transferred from the offices of the local Treasurers to the precinct level.

So far, the COMELEC has been quiet about their plans to do the testing of the transmission, canvassing and consolidation stages, but it seems that they are already too busy as it is in the testing and sealing of the PCOS machines, so there is a very high possibility that they are just going to do away with the testing of these three very important stages.

According to the new rules of the election process, the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) is required to physically remove the compact flash (CF) cards from the PCOS machines, and deliver these cards manually to the canvassing centers, in the event that they could not transmit electronically after three attempts. This appears to be an unwise procedure, because it gives the subjective decision to the BEI to remove the CF cards or not.

IT expert Jun Lozada (the whistleblower) says that in the design of the PCOS machines, all the data derived in the optical counting are stored in the CF cards only, and nowhere else. What this means is that the PCOS machines do not even have a backup copy of the data just in case something happens to the CF cards in transit. If it was too easy for politicians to snatch the big ballot boxes, how hard is it for them to snatch the small CF cards?

The COMELEC could argue otherwise, but the procedure allowing the manual transfer of the CF cards is ripe for a set-up, or even an ambush, to be brutal about it. I respect the people who are helping our democracy by working as BEI members, but what if their impartiality is compromised by hidden loyalties or threats to their lives? They could easily claim that transmission has failed, so that the CF cards could fall prey to the wrong people, compromising the election process as well.

IT expert Leo Querubin has raised another issue that has either escaped the attention of the COMELEC. Either that or they have purposely kept quiet about it, because apparently they have no more time to put it in place. I am referring to the need for the digital signatures of the BEI members. Under the new election rules, the BEI members are required to authenticate all documents, including electronic documents. Without digital signatures, how will they be able to do this?

In the event of pre-proclamation protests, only the composition of the BEI and their conduct of the procedures are grounds for protest. According to Mr. Querubin, an enterprising lawyer could cite the lack of digital signatures as a procedural lapse. He says that without digital signatures, all documents issued by the BEI could not be considered official. He added that even if the BEI will print hard copies of the Election Returns (ER), these too could not be considered as official, because the electronic source is not official.

Whether they like it or not, it is highly probable that the COMELEC will be forced to conduct a hybrid count, combining both manual and optical methods. Regardless of whether they will use manual, optical or a combination of both, they would still need the digital signatures of the BEI members, otherwise no documents could be considered legal and official.

Among all the possible ways of cheating that has been theorized so far, it seems that the “time stamp” theory of IT expert Mon Ignacio is the most plausible. He says that malicious programmers could have written two sets of programs for the PCOS, one “righteous” and the other malicious, and the latter could be activated by the built in internal time clocks of the PCOS machines, unseen by human eyes. The other theory of pre-printing invisible marks that are not visible to human eyes is plausible too, so watch out!

Check out the complete series at www.senseneres.blogspot.com

SPECIAL REPORT-AUTOMATED ELECTION-Sixth of a Series- May 9, 2010

2010-05-08T06:30:00.000-07:00

SPECIAL REPORT-AUTOMATED ELECTION
Sixth of a Series- May 9, 2010
By Ike Seneres

It’s one day to go before election day, and the COMELEC says that 98% of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines have been deployed, so it’s all systems go, as far as they are concerned. I think what they mean by that is that they have dispatched 98% of the machines, but that does not mean that all the machines have been delivered, tested and sealed at the precinct level, in all locations all over the country.

What is clear at this point however is that the COMELEC has not made provisions for the testing of the transmission, canvassing and consolidation stages, and neither have they made provisions for the dry run of these machines, including all stages all at the same time. What is also clear is that they have not verified the capability of the electrical connections in the precincts to be able to carry the load of several hours of operation with a higher wattage requirement than the usual incandescent lamp usage in these precincts.

For some reasons known only to them, the COMELEC did not bother anymore to report about the success or failure of the second round of testing and sealing that was supposed to happen after the compact flash (CF) cards were re-delivered to the precincts after these were supposed to be reconfigured. This has the effect of a media blackout, but it seems that they have to explain this later, after the election.

For the record, we now have the distinction of being the only country in the world that will attempt to roll out an election system nationally, without the benefit of alpha testing, beta testing, pilot testing and dry runs. Contrary to the claims of the COMELEC, the election in the ARMM that was partly conducted by SMARTMATIC could not be considered as a pilot, simply because the technology that they used there was for Direct Recording Equipment (DRE), and not for Optical Mark Recognition (OMR).

The behavior of the COMELEC in choosing SMARTMATIC as the supplier after the supposed pilot could be likened to someone who bought a car after test driving a truck. The analogy continues, as they proceeded to use the car even without breaking it in first, so you can just imagine the malfunctions that could possibly happen as all the rules have been broken.

Perhaps accepting the reasoning of the COMELEC hook line and sinker, the Supreme Court dismissed the petitions to shift to manual counting, citing the reason that the CF cards are “read only”. I respect the legal prowess of the court justices, but perhaps they have been remiss in determining the fact that the CF cards are designed to be re-writable, meaning that these are not “read only” as they have been made to believe. The proof of this is the fact that SMARTMATIC was able to reconfigure these cards, meaning that they were able to erase the old data in these cards and replace it with new instructions.

After all the rush that was created by the initial failure of the CF cards, no one, not even the political parties were able to inspect these after they were reconfigured by SMARTMATIC. Aside from that, no one was able to answer the issue of the “chain of custody” that was raised by IT expert Leo Querubin. As a result of these two factors, the possibility now looms that malicious codes might have been inserted in the CF cards as these were reconfigured. Either that or some of these cards might have been replaced with new cards that have malicious codes, while they were in transit.

Based on the nature of the OMR technology, it is possible for the PCOS to receive instructions via the optical marks that are printed on the paper ballots. In other words, it is technically possible to print (or pre-print) some invisible marks in the paper ballots that will instruct the PCOS to count in any other way that it is instructed, including instructions to ignore whatever marks are manually written on the ballots.

It is important for anyone who is concerned about the sanctity of the ballot to understand the meaning of DATA PROTOCOL. What this means is that a computer like the PCOS could be instructed by the operating system, or the application software, or any other input device such as the invisible marks to give priority to certain data sets, over and above any other data sets. For example, the PCOS could be instructed to give priority in counting the votes for certain candidates as these are pre-printed or pre-marked in invisible optical marks, in effect ignoring any manual marks as written by the voters.

The most likely scenario that will happen is that the COMELEC will declare successful automation no matter what happens, and they will just proceed to proclaim any candidate that has substantially won, as they see it.

Check out the complete series at www.senseneres.blogspot.com

SPECIAL REPORT-AUTOMATED ELECTION Fifth of a Series- May 8, 2010

2010-05-07T08:52:00.000-07:00

SPECIAL REPORT-AUTOMATED ELECTION
Fifth of a Series- May 8, 2010
By Ike Seneres

Two days away from the Election Day, the COMELEC says that it’s all systems go, perhaps inspired by the Supreme Court ruling in support of automated counting. It is so easy to say that it is a go, but how I wish that they would give us a running report about the number of Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines already delivered, tested and sealed at the precinct level, complete with the compact flash (CF) cards.

Since the Terms of Reference (TOR) for the automation project specifically required a less than 1% failure rate in the system, it would appear that the implementation is already a failure as it is, because the COMELEC already admitted against their own interest that the failure rate could exceed 30%. Also against their own interest, they had admitted that their back-up plan is only good for up to 30% failure, in terms of replacement PCOS machines.

In the actual tests that have been done so far, most of the sites already registered a failure rate beyond 30%. A few weeks back, IT expert Mr. Obet Verzola had already predicted that the failure rate could go as high as 75%. Mr. Verzola is no ordinary expert, he was the first Filipino to build a local computer, and he could have been our very own Bill Gates if only he got the right support from the government.

In the interest of transparency, the COMELEC is actually duty bound to give us a running report of the progress of the testing and sealing stage, inclusive of the CF card configuration and installation, especially so that they have no more time to do the other tests even if they wanted to. As it is now, they are jumping into the actual election without testing the transmission, canvassing and consolidation stages, three components that are even more important than the testing and sealing stages.

Aside from refusing to snap out of their denial stage, COMELEC officials have not been upfront in telling us the real story behind the CF cards. At one time, they said that these are a “read only” card which is technically wrong because it is actually designed as a “re-writable” card. As a result, they actually contradicted themselves when they announced that they will just reconfigure the recalled cards instead of buying new ones. How could they write over these cards if these are really “read only”?

Similarly, the COMELEC officials have not been upfront in telling us the real story behind the transmission devices that will be attached to the PCOS machines. Even if the law specifically prohibits the use of transmission devices in the PCOS machines, the COMELEC officials nonetheless went ahead with using it, claiming that these are “one way” only therefore there is nothing to worry about. There is not such thing as a “one way” transmission device, because these devices are always designed to be “two way”, so that they could “handshake” first before they could transmit.

It is already a cause for worry that the PCOS machines could receive malicious instructions from pre-programmed CF cards and from invisible marks that are printed on the ballots. With the authorized use of the transmission devices, there is now an extra threat that the results in the PCOS machines could now also be manipulated from an external source. This is not a theory, because SMARTMATIC actually did this in Wao, Lanao Del Sur during the ARMM elections there.

Since the transmission, canvassing and consolidation stages have not been pre-tested, there is a very high possibility that these will fail in actual operation. With these stages in question, it seems that the only stage in the process that is most likely to work is the manual voting stage. That is right; it is actually a manual process because it uses paper with manual marks, even if the COMELEC prefers to call it automated.

Even if there will be a failure of automation, it does not necessarily mean that there will be a failure of election. To save the day, the COMELEC could still count the OMR ballots manually, even if it takes longer than an automated count. Even if the COMELEC no longer has the time to print and deliver official Certificate of Canvass (COC) and Election Returns (ER) forms in time for May 10, they could still print and deliver these even if these are delivered several days after, so that real official forms could be used instead of the plain Manila paper that Director James Jimenez suggested. No official forms, no official results. For the good of the nation, and for the preservation of our democracy, it is better at this point not to use the PCOS anymore, because its trustworthiness has already been tainted. More so the other three stages, since these too could not be trusted also. Mistrust breeds bad faith, and it could trigger chaos and disorder.

Check out the complete series at www.senseneres.blogspot.com

SPECIAL REPORT-AUTOMATED ELECTION-Fourth of a Series- May 7, 2010

2010-05-06T11:45:00.000-07:00

SPECIAL REPORT-AUTOMATED ELECTION
Fourth of a Series- May 7, 2010
By Ike Seneres

Three days to go before Election Day, and the COMELEC has not snapped out of their denial stage. They still believe, or they would still want us to believe that they could deploy most of the 80,000 Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines before Monday, complete with the same number of compact flash (CF) cards.

As the controversy over the CF cards is heating up, a new theory has emerged, bringing out a new threat to the democratic voting process that is more vicious than the other threats. Yesterday, I received another call from a concerned citizen who informed me that he has reliable information from a COMELEC insider who could no longer hold back his conscience about a system of cheating that will completely change the outcome of the election, not unless it is exposed and stopped on its track.

Several months back, I wrote an article about twenty possible ways of cheating in the automated system of elections. I wrote that one way is to print invisible marks in the ballot itself, marks that could issue instructions to the PCOS machine, as to what to count and what not to count. What I wrote was technologically sound, because it is doable within the Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) technology.

According to my informant, some operators within the COMELEC have already succeeded in pre-programming the PCOS machines so that it will prioritize the reading (the recognition) of pre-determined invisible marks, instead of the visible optical marks. In technical terms, this has something to do with data protocol, meaning that the optical mark reader will read first (or read only) the invisible marks. In layman terms, what this means is that the machine will count the votes in favor of the pre-determined candidates as chosen by the insider operators, regardless of what the voter will shade.

As a writer and as a columnist, it is not my place to say that there will be cheating in the election. All I could say within my sphere of responsibility, within the reach of my technical know-how is that the system is vulnerable, meaning that cheating could happen if anyone wants to cheat. As far as I know, the old operators are still lurking within the COMELEC, even if the system of voting is already new.

In what appears to be an anti-climactic move, the COMELEC decided to remove several security features that would have protected the sanctity of the ballot as it was originally intended. One of these features is the built-in capability of the PCOS to automatically read ballots that do not have the proprietary ultra violet (UV) marks. This would have screened out fake ballots in the first place.

Citing some unclear reasons, the COMELEC said the PCOS could no longer read the UV marks, so much so that they had to buy separate UV mark readers. The problem with that is that they bought generic UV readers from the open market, and with that they said that Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) could now accept any ballot that has any UV mark. That is also a problem, because anyone could cheaply buy any UV marker from the open market, which means that anyone now could produce fake ballots.

Several IT experts have already said that the CF cards might have been used to insert (embed) malicious codes such as Trojan Horses into the operating system (O/S) or application software of the PCOS. In the light of this new speculation that malicious instructions might have been pre-printed as invisible marks, it would not be too far fetched to speculate that the issue about the CF cards might have been used as a smokescreen to draw attention away from the invisible marks, in which case we are talking here about the cards in effect becoming the stool pigeons.

With three more days to go before the actual Election Day, it is still not clear whether the COMELEC could really finish the reconfiguration of the cards. Meanwhile, IT expert Mr. Leo Querubin has issued a reminder that the COMELEC had actually promised to finish investigating the secrecy folder issue in two weeks time, but it is already five weeks since they made that promise, and we have not heard from them. Mr. Querubin suspects that the investigation might now be in secrecy.

It is also possible that the hullabaloo over the CF cards might have been used also as a smokescreen to cover up the fact that there are still some unfinished tests in the transmission, canvassing and consolidation systems. With no more time to do any further tests, it seems that the COMELEC will just go ahead and run these systems out of blind faith that somehow, someway, these systems will not fail against all probabilities.
Check out the complete series at www.senseneres.blogspot.com

SPECIAL REPORT-AUTOMATED ELECTION-Third of a Series- May 6, 2010

2010-05-05T11:58:00.000-07:00

SPECIAL REPORT-AUTOMATED ELECTION
Third of a Series- May 6, 2010
By Ike Seneres

Three days after the failed testing and sealing of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines, the COMELEC is still in a denial stage, and refuses to accept the reality that there is really no more time left to deploy 100% of the machines nationwide, with fully configured compact flash (CF) cards. As a token admission perhaps, they said that there will be some remote places where the machines could no longer be delivered on time, failing to note that there are many such places in an archipelagic country like ours.

Going against all rules of statistical probability, the COMELEC said that they will be able to reconfigure some 30,000 CF cards in three days time, after setting the actual track record that it took them almost three months to configure the same number of cards. As if moving on cue, the COMELEC used the problem of the cards as an excuse to delay the deployment of the PCOS machines. This led many to suspect that they were really looking for an excuse to cause some delays.

Defying all rules of time and motion, the COMELEC decided to recall some 30,000 CF cards for reconfiguration (reprogramming) they said, again failing to realize that the process of recall could take at least one week, not to mention that more time is needed to reprogram these and ship them out again. Meanwhile, they said that they are still buying some 50,000 new CF cards from China, and that means they also need more time to configure and ship out this bigger number of cards.

In an apparent conflict of statements, the COMELEC also said that they have many such CF cards on stock and the public should not worry about shortages. One wonders why they have so many reserve stocks now, when in fact they did not disclose this information before. Also in an apparent conflict of statements, the COMELEC said that in case of shortages, they will just reprogram (re-write) the defective cards. Earlier, they said that they decided to recall these cards so that these will be completely replaced. Earlier as well, they said that these cards are “read only”, meaning to say that these are not re-writable. Which is which now?

In the midst of this controversy over the delivery of the CF cards, the COMELEC might have forgotten that until now, they have not delivered the Voter’s ID card to the greater majority of registered voters. They also have not come up with a fully revalidated voter’s list. It is hard to imagine how they could fast track this far more complex process of configuring CF cards, when they could not even produce the paper based Voter’s ID card.

In an interview with Mr. Anthony Taberna of ABS-CBN, I called on the COMELEC to snap out of their denial stage as soon as possible, perhaps until today, so that they could already make a decision to print the official paper forms that are needed to support manual counting just in case we have to use that option as a fallback. It is no joke to print and deliver millions of Certificates of Canvass (COC) and Election Returns (ER) forms that is why they have to decide today if possible.

In an interview over DZMM, COMELEC Director James Jimenez said that as a fallback, the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) could fabricate COC and ER forms using plain Manila paper. This irked radio host Ted Failon, who said that even in the official forms, there are already many problems with faked reports, how much more for fabricated forms. Director Jimenez appeared to be unaware that COCs and ERs are official forms that are accountable.

IT expert Mr. Leo Querubin appears to be on his feet as he reminded everyone that amidst all the controversy over the accuracy of the CF cards, the COMELEC still has not tested their transmission, canvassing and consolidation systems. Mr. Querubin is absolutely correct, because we should not allow the COMELEC to present problems to us on a retail basis, this being a major project that needs broad wholesale solutions.

Earlier, Mr. Querubin has also warned that the COMELEC has also been silent about the fact that they have already installed transmission devices in the PCOS machines, in clear violation of the Automation Law. He explained that this is a very dangerous proposition, because this will enable SMARTMATIC to manipulate the results from a remote location, as they have already done in Wao, Lanao when they were the contractors of the automated voting during the ARMM elections. Just as the nation was shocked by the failure of automation in the case of the CF cards, we might again be shocked when there is will be a failure of transmission from many precinct locations, simply because no proper tests and pre-tests were done.

Copyright © 2010, publication by newspapers is authorized.

SPECIAL REPORT-AUTOMATED ELECTION Second of a Series- May 5, 2010

2010-05-04T07:04:00.000-07:00

SPECIAL REPORT-AUTOMATED ELECTION
Second of a Series- May 5, 2010
By Ike Seneres

In the computer industry, the name and person of the Project Manager (PM) on record is very crucial to the evaluation of his peers whether the project in question will succeed or not. This is similar to the importance of the name and person of a Chef in a fine dining restaurant, which is also the subject of the evaluation of his peers on one hand, and of food critics on the other hand.

Since the time that the COMELEC automation project started, I have been asking two questions that up to now have not been answered by anyone from their end. My first question is who is the PM? My second question is where is their data center? It would follow of course that the data center should also have a manager who is presumably working under the supervision of the PM.

Yesterday, I met with Mr. Ernie Del Rosario, an IT expert who started his career in the private sector, but at one time in his career became the IT Director of the COMELEC. Based on his credentials, Mr. Del Rosario would have been qualified to function as a PM, but he choose to resign from the COMELEC when he finally decided that he could no longer swallow the wrongdoings that he was seeing inside the Commission. He too, could not answer my two questions, and as a result, he wondered about the answers.

I have not seen Del Rosario for a long time, but we saw each other again when we were both interviewed by Mr. Anthony Taberna of ABS-CBN on the subject of the failed Precinct Count Optical Scanning (PCOS) machine testing and sealing procedure. To my surprise, we shared exactly the same position that the COMELEC should decide right away to already put aside optical counting, so that it could save the election and perhaps save the country as well from chaos and public disorder.

Yesterday, the COMELEC announced that they are going to recall the 80,000 or so compact flash (CF) cards that were supposed to be installed in the PCOS machines. These are the same memory cards that caused the malfunction of the said machines. Later in the day, it became clear that the COMELEC only has about 30,000 of these CF cards on stock, and the remaining 50,000 or so are still being procured.

Based on media reports, it took SMARTMATIC about two and a half months to configure the 30,000 CF cards that they had on hand, the same cards that were found to be defective. The COMELEC said that it will only take them three days to reconfigure (reprogram) the CF cards, without explaining how a process that almost took three months could be done in three days. Not surprisingly, the COMELEC was silent on how long it will take them to configure (program) the remaining 50,000 CF cards if and when they could procure these.

As a result of the failed testing and sealing process, the COMELEC ordered the suspension of the delivery of the PCOS machines to most of the provinces, a move that has presented a scary scenario because as it is now, they apparently do not have enough time to deliver these, along with the reconfigured or configured CF cards as the case may be.

In my interview with Mr. Taberna, I called upon the COMELEC to snap out of their state of denial, and for them to admit today or tomorrow that they could no longer meet the deadline for the delivery of the PCOS machines, so that they could already start preparing for manual counting. Mr. Del Rosario did the same thing, calling upon the COMELEC to “bite the bullet” and to face the truth, so that practical moves could already be made.

As I see it now, the lack of a PM on record could be the cause of their operational and technical problems. As the COMELEC admitted that there were indeed programming errors in the configuration of the CF cards, some IT experts wondered what other mistakes they could have made, or are yet to make, considering the apparent lack of both process control and quality control systems.

In a message sent to me, IT expert Mr. Leo Quirubin expressed some serious concerns about the “chain of custody” over the CF cards as these will be moved from the COMELEC warehouse to the precinct level. His concerns are valid, because the high possibility that these cards could be substituted or reprogrammed along the way by malicious persons. In the testing done the other day, there were strong indications that the errors in the optical counting might have been caused by malicious codes that were pre-programmed into the memory cards to favor certain candidates. Mr. Qurubin says that with an unclear “chain of custody”, these cards could be tampered along the way.
Copyright © 2010, publication by newspapers is authorized.

SPECIAL REPORT-AUTOMATED ELECTION First of a Series- May 4, 2010

2010-05-03T19:59:00.000-07:00

SPECIAL REPORT-AUTOMATED ELECTION
First of a Series- May 4, 2010
By Ike Seneres

An anonymous caller alerted me last night that in the testing and sealing procedure conducted by the COMELEC in Makati City as part of the installation of the automation project, the results were unusually slanted in favor one mayoral candidate in the optical count, but the results were different in the manual count, recording more votes for the other mayoral candidates. Clearly it was a signal that something was wrong, so I decided to go to one of the Makati precincts to find out what was going on.

I arrived at the Ramon Magsaysay High School in Barangay Olympia just in time to interview Mr. Neal Aquino, who introduced himself as a technician working for Smartmatic. He explained that the problem might have been caused by the thin paper stock that was used in the testing, suggesting that the paper stock used was not the same as the stock used for the actual ballots. I wondered about the explanation of Mr. Aquino, since I could not see a connection between the thickness of the paper and the accuracy of the scanning process.

From Olympia, I proceeded to interview Councilor Junjun Binay, one of the mayoral candidates in Makati. He showed me video footages of the actual testing, and in the videos I saw the differences between the results of the manual count and the optical count. The video also showed footages of Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) who appeared to be bewildered about what happened.

On the telephone, I interviewed Mr. Lito Averia, an IT expert who has been monitoring the COMELEC automation from the start of the bidding until now. He explained to me that under COMELEC Resolution 8785, Smartmatic is required to conduct mock elections in every precinct, using ten random voters who are present at the testing site. This is the same testing and sealing procedure that was conducted by the COMELEC in several locations. Apparently, the purpose is to test first the Precinct Counting Optical Scanning (PCOS) Machine, before it is sealed for future use on May 10, 2010.

This morning, I received reports from other IT experts who said that the COMELEC has already explained that the discrepancy in the counting was caused by the ink bleeding over to the other side, thus disabling the capability of the scanner to read the marks on the other side. Mr. Leo Quirubin, an IT expert refuted this argument, saying that if indeed there was bleeding of the ink, then it should have also disabled the capability of the scanner to read the marks at the other side.

Going back to the explanation of Mr. Aquino, it would not seem right for COMELEC to use a thinner paper stock to test the scanner, because the point in an actual test is to find out whether the same machine could read the marks in an actual situation, meaning to say that it should have been an actual simulation using the same inputs.

Based on the interviews that I have conducted so far, and based on what I saw on the video footages, I am now under the impression that some political operators might have succeeded in inserting malicious codes in the PCOS machines either at the warehouse in Laguna, in transit or upon delivery at the precinct level. This observation leads me to speculate that the results that came out in the testing might have already been pre-programmed to favor certain candidates.

Under the bidding rules, the error rate of Smartmatic should not exceed 1% of the results. By its own admission, the COMELEC has already admitted that the error rate could exceed 30%. Obet Verzola, another IT expert has predicted that the error rate could exceed 75%. Based on what happened yesterday, it would appear that Verzola is right, and that Smartmatic has already violated the terms of the supply contract.

In text messages that I sent to other IT experts, I suggested that we now change the terminology from “automated counting” to “optical counting” because I think that this would be a more accurate description. After all, the counting procedure using the PCOS is not actually automated, because it is manually fed.

In a private meeting that I held with some election lawyers, I suggested that at this point, candidates could already demand for manual counting as a logical sequel to manual voting. I argued that in the first place, the voting process as it is now is not really automated, because it is paper based, and it is manually marked by the voters. There is now a reason to set aside “optical counting” because the machines already appear to be corrupted.
Copyright © 2010, publication by newspapers is authorized.

GOOD POLITICS EQUALS GOOD GOVERNANCE

2010-05-02T09:31:00.000-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (065) May 02, 2010
By Ike Señeres

GOOD POLITICS EQUALS GOOD GOVERNANCE

I refuse to believe that good governance is an oxymoron, just like military intelligence as the joke goes. I believe however that there is such a thing as a balanced budget, not as a financial reality, but as a figure of speech that is doable if a government is honest and credible. I hope that no one will say that this too is an oxymoron.

Is it still possible to have an honest and credible government in the Philippines? This question is country specific, because there are many governments around the world that are honest and credible, and as a result, they are able to deliver good governance, whatever that means. I do believe however that good governance is actually the result of good politics, and I am hoping against hope that that too is not an oxymoron.

If indeed good governance is the result of good politics, then the best way for us to go really is to go back to our means of choosing the people who are tasked to run our government, and the only way towards that end is clean and honest elections, hoping that that too is not an oxymoron!

Veterans in the computer industry say that just because computers are there, we should not computerize for the sake of computerization. Simply put, the goal of computerization is to realize and actualize whatever the defined objectives are, and in this case, the objective really is to have clean and honest elections.

Are computers really needed to have clean and honest elections? The answer is definitely no, because clean and honest elections have been held in many countries without the use of computers. Should it be our objective to have faster results in our election system? The answer is yes, but only as a secondary objective, because the primary objective should be accuracy instead of efficiency.

For the record, we seem to be the only country in the world who is attempting a nationwide roll out of an election system that has not gone through a process of piloting and testing. Good luck to all of us, because the system should have been in place weeks before the actual voting day.

For the record as well, I could be the only person in the country who has formally and legally accepted the challenge of the COMELEC for anyone to hack their system, but unfortunately they did not make good on their challenge. Now, Chairman Jose Melo is claiming that their system is hack-free, but how sure is he that it is trouble-free?

Some members of the computer industry criticized me for accepting the COMELEC challenge, arguing that the issue is not really hacking from the outside, but cheating from the inside. I actually agree with them, because no matter how secure a system is, anyone who has the keys could open it from the outside, or an accomplice could open the doors from the inside. On this issue, could Chairman Melo say that their system is cheat-free?

A platform is something to stand on, but what we should look at are the people who are standing on it. A platform is presented by a political party, but it should be based on capability and credibility. Capability to deliver based on a track record, and the credibility to stand on their promises, based on their personal characters.

I am not against a multi-party system, but I wish that all political parties would have local chapters that would be actively engaged in local politics as well, in good politics that is. All politics is local they say, and I think that the test of that is to have local party units that will work towards good governance, whether or not they are the party in power.

The political parties have hit the nail by zooming in on poverty as the main issue, but the real issue I think is what they could do beyond poverty reduction. With that, I mean prosperity for the whole country in terms of a bigger economy, translated into bigger disposable incomes for everyone.

Good governance means the good delivery of public services. That is an output that every election winner is expected to achieve. Beyond that, the winners should do more. Protecting and restoring the environment should be expected from all the winners, because no economy could grow without the ecology as the top priority, climate change and global warming included.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Thursdays 7pm to 8pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com

SAY NO TO VAT ON TOLL FEES

2010-04-24T19:17:00.000-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (064) April 25, 2010
By Ike Señeres

SAY NO TO VAT ON TOLL FEES

I interviewed Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile in my TV show and he said on the air that the proposed VAT on toll fees by the BIR is not only unconstitutional, it is also very much like a tax on tax, meaning that it is also a form of double taxation.

As a way of explaining his point, Senator Enrile said that if the government itself builds the roads, it does not and it could not impose taxes on the users because roads are supposed to be public property on one hand, and roads are supposed to be considered as public services on the other hand. Having said this, he explained further that toll road operators build roads as toll ways for and on behalf of the government, meaning to say that the toll operators are just agents acting on behalf of the government but the actual builder is no other than the government itself.

Explaining it further, Enrile said that under the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) scheme, the government is the deemed owner of the roads at the outset, until it becomes the full owner once the roads are turned over. In the meantime, the government allows the operators to collect the equivalent of taxes by way of payments in the form of toll fees so that the operators could be paid on an installment basis. Using this as the prevailing logic, he argued that since it is as if the government is the actual builder of the roads under the BOT scheme, it should not collect any more additional taxes.

I am happy to note that Enrile supports the advocacy of the National Council for Commuter Protection (NCCP) to oppose the imposition of taxes on top of the toll fees. Even if it is very busy campaigning for the coming election as party list number 163, the leaders and members of the NCCP still find the time to campaign against the proposed tax on tolls.

The NCCP specifically works for the benefit of commuters, but as a natural consequence, it also works for the benefit of consumers, because in effect the commuters are the buyers of transport services. Pushing this logic forwards, the NCCP also argues that if and when taxes are imposed on toll fees, not only the transport fares will go up, the prices of goods will also go up, triggering a domino effect that will affect everyone in society.

In the course of the interview, Enrile also said that under the theory of governance, the government is not supposed to impose taxes on the goods and services that it is duty bound to deliver, and these should include water and electricity among others, according to him. He said that this is the reason why he is fighting for the removal of taxes on water and electricity bills.

Aside from being a good lawyer, Enrile appears to be also a good economist, and he uses his knowledge of law and economics to rationalize the imposition of taxes, for the common good. As an example of this, he also took the time to argue that when he passed the law that abolished the payment of taxes on incomes earned abroad, the government eventually benefited in the long run, because as a result of the law, remittances went up.

Ms. Elvie Medina, the founder of the NCCP, also appears to be good in economics, as it relates to the prices of goods and services. She argues that it is a good idea to give incentives to the operators of transport services, because she says that this will result in a three-in-one combination, explaining along the way that this will not just make our transports newer and safer; it will also make the fares cheaper.

On the subject of safety, Ms. Medina says that the NCCP not only campaigns for safer vehicles, it also campaigns for better liability insurance coverage for all commuters that are using public transports. Apparently, the airlines and the shipping lines already have basic coverage, but the land transports appear to be lacking in this regard. She added that victims of accidents have the rights to better and higher liability coverage.

Still on the subject of safety, Ms. Medina laments the fact that it is always a big issue when airplanes crash or when ships sink, but very little attention is given when busses collide or when they fall into ravines. She says that one way to minimize bus accidents is to require special licensing for bus drivers, adding that the NCCP will push for new laws in support of this advocacy if and when it will win as party list number 163. After some confusing news reports, it is now clear that NCCP has not been disqualified as a party list, and it remains in the ballot as 163.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Thursdays 7pm to 8pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit senseneres@blogspot.com

BETWEEN CONSUMERS AND COMMUTERS

2010-04-20T11:04:00.001-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (063) April 21, 2010
By Ike Señeres

BETWEEN CONSUMERS AND COMMUTERS

It’s amusing how people would tend to confuse the advocacies of consumers and commuters, but on second thought, these two causes are actually very much intertwined with each other. Just to prove my point, it could be said that commuters are consumers too, because they are in effect the customers of all kinds of transport services.

As part of its continuing efforts to improve its daily programming, Global News Network (GNN) has asked me to define the main thrusts of my show, so that these could be promoted in the daily merchandising plugs. In response, I choose consumer promotion, commuter protection and environmental action as my main subjects of discussion.

From the time that the National Council for Commuter Protection (NCCP) was founded about five years ago, I have already fallen in love with its advocacies. I wish NCCP all the good luck as it fields its nominees for Congress for the first time, as party list number 163 in the ballot. If you are a commuter of any kind, I encourage you to support them.

Normally, it is generally understood that commuters are the people who take public transports as they go from one place to another. In the perspective of the NCCP however, the people who own their own cars and who pass through the toll roads are also commuters and it is for this reason that the organization is also opposing the increase of toll fees every time the issue comes up. For the record, the NCCP has already done this once, as it was able to oppose the last proposed increase of the SLEX toll fees.

I do not know what has gotten into the head of our government planners, but they are now proposing the imposition of VAT over the SLEX and NLEX toll fees. I see this proposal as a form of double taxation, and I am glad that the NCCP has again picked up the cudgels to oppose this plan.

In theory, the people are paying taxes with the expectation that the government will build the roads that they need, using the taxes that they have paid. In reality however, the government collections go to the wrong purposes, and that is the reason why toll roads have to be allowed.

Looking at it from one angle, we could say that the people are kind enough to be willing to pay for the toll fees, just to be able to use the privately funded toll roads that should have been built with public funds in the first place. Looking at it from the opposite angle, we could also say that the government is cruel enough to think about imposing new taxes on the use of roads that should have been built with public funds in the first place. It is easy to say that this is a form of double taxation, but I a manner of speaking, we could also say that this is actually a form of double jeopardy.

The advocacies of the NCCP are very popular, and I would say that for as long as these are brought to the attention of the people, this party list would surely win, and its nominees would surely sit in Congress. It would be good if this would really happen, but I know for sure that win or loss, the NCCP will continue to fight for its advocacies whether or not they will have people in the Congress.

If you would like to express your support for NCCP as a party list, you could go online and register at http://nccp.webs.com. You could also contact NCCP by sending a text to 09276330526 or by calling up 331-6227. You could also send a fax to 559-3381.

As commuters of any land, air and sea transport, we should all know our rights. If you think that your commuter rights have been violated one way or the other, please request an incident report from the NCCP. If your complaint is due to land transports, you could send your complaints directly to LTFRB at phone number 426-2519.

It is unfortunate that the party list of the people with disabilities (PWD) has been disqualified in the coming election. Fortunately however, the concerns of the PWDs as commuters are included in the advocacies of the NCCP. It is for this reason that the nominees of the NCCP have vowed to carry on the mantle for the PWD sector if and when they make it to the Congress. If you or anyone in your family belongs to the PWD sector, I would encourage you to support the NCCP party list in the meantime, until your sector will have the chance again in the next election to field your nominees.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Thursdays 7pm to 8pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit senseneres@blogspot.com

BENCHMARKING OF COMMUTER SYSTEMS

2010-04-13T11:24:00.000-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (062) April 14, 2010
By Ike Señeres

BENCHMARKING OF COMMUTER SYSTEMS

Mr. Alberto Cardenas wrote to say that when it comes to commuter systems, it is a matter of benchmarking the systems of other countries where these are good, and then compare these with what we have here in the Philippines. He was reacting to my earlier article about modern transport terminals. He added that where we see tried and tested systems; we should adopt these in here in our own country.

As examples, Mr. Cardenas cited the transport systems of other countries such as the United States, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, France and China. In particular, he mentioned the transport systems of Las Vegas, Ft. Lauderdale, Hong Kong and Paris where the rides from the airports could easily connect to the hotels, malls, schools, government buildings, tourist spots and other important destinations. He added that in Thailand and Cambodia, the river transports are connected to the land transports.

Moving on, Cardenas said that even if we have the nautical highways from Batangas to Mindanao and the sea routes that go to the south, the interconnection to the land transports are not efficient, and because of that, good mobility is hampered due to the lack of efficiency. He also said that even if the connections are actually there, the commuters normally do not know how to connect from the ports to their land based rides, suggesting in the process that the government should really improve its efforts to spread this information to the general public.

Touching on a subject that is close to my heart, Cardenas complained that there are no clean comfort rooms along the way and no good places where the commuters could get affordable and clean food for all religions, saying in particular that Moslems are also commuters and yet they have no access to foods that are certified to be compliant with Halal specifications.

The list goes on, according to Cardenas, because our transport systems are also poor in directional signs and safety signs, making it very clear that these are two distinct concerns. In closing he said that our transport systems are very poor in giving out information about the schedules of ships, busses and other land transports.

Out of curiosity, I asked Cardenas if he was familiar with the advocacies of the National Council for Commuter Protection (NCCP), the party list that is now fielding nominees for Congress. NCCP is listed in the ballot as party list number 163. To my surprise, he said that he has not heard of NCCP 163, but he was glad that there is now a party list that is fighting for the rights of commuters along his ways of thinking.

As I shared the suggestions of NCCP 163 to the party list leaders, they immediately approved the idea of establishing a “Commuter Channel” initially in the Internet via the video streaming, but eventually through the local community cable systems. Watch out for this new channel as it will debut in a few weeks.

In line with their commuter related advocacies, NCCP 163 has recently established an online registration system at http://nccp.webs.com where commuters could submit their names and other information. Eventually, the system will also be used for accepting commuter complaints. Please visit this website, and ask others to do the same.

NCCP 163 has also published a primer about the rights of commuters. To get a copy of this primer, you can text 09276330526 or call 331-NCCP (331-6227). If you have complaints about the violations of your commuter rights, you can fax your complaints to 5593381.

The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) now also receive complaints directly from the commuting public. Just fax your complaints to 426-2519, to the attention of LTFRB Chairman Bert Suansing. NCCP 163 is in effect functioning as the NGO partner of LTFRB.

Congratulations to Mr. Al Cusi who was recently appointed as the Director General of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), with the rank of Assistant Secretary. This new agency takes over the functions of the old Air Transportation Office (ATO). According to the NCCP 163 leaders, they are looking forward to working closely with Mr. Cusi as well, because airline passengers are also considered as commuters.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Thursdays 7pm to 8pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit senseneres@blogspot.com

MODERN TRANSPORT TERMINALS

2010-04-05T07:04:00.000-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (061) April 05, 2010
By Ike Señeres

MODERN TRANSPORT TERMINALS

Commuter protection appears to be a broad concept, because anything and everything that concerns the safety and the wellbeing of commuters is included in the scope of this public issue. And to that the fact that almost 100% of the population are commuters of some form or another, exempting only the very few rich families who travel in their own private yachts and private jets, and you have a hot issue that cuts across the entire nation.

Since I started advocating the gospel of commuter protection, I received two interesting feedbacks that I want to share with all of my readers. I want to share these feedbacks because I have not thought about these suggestions myself, or at the very least, I had not originally connected these specific ideas to the general concept of commuter protection.

Mr. Abe Cordero, an Internet entrepreneur said that aside from lowering transport fares and stopping toll fee increases, the National Council for Commuter Protection (NCCP) should also campaign for the modernization of public transports and transport terminals for air, sea and land travel, for both the rural and the urban areas.

Additionally, Dr. Cora Claudio, an environmental expert said that the NCCP should also campaign against the bad practice of taking sidewalks and coastal walkways away from the public domain, only to be given to private companies who own shopping malls and other buildings. Apparently, she is referring to actual cases wherein some local government officials have forsaken the public interest in order to favor the big business owners who pursue their own private interests.

Directly or indirectly, Mr. Cordero and Dr. Claudio are correct in saying that their suggestions have something to do with commuter protection. I happen to know that NCCP, now running as party list number 163 in the coming elections would rather talk about what they have done in lowering fares and stopping toll increases rather than make new promises, but I believe that these two feedbacks are really worth considering.

Ms. Princess Umali, a development specialist says that she is very happy to have finally found her personal party list in NCCP 163, which is apparently her own indirect way of saying that she is a commuter too, and what she means is that she is happy that finally, a party list has decided to represent her as a commuter, perhaps in land based transports, because she works in the metropolitan area.

Mr. Thomas Lee, a business consultant sees the advocacy of NCCP 163 as a struggle for the poor people of this country, because according to him, most of the people who commute here are poor, meaning that they could not afford to buy their own transports in order to move around. He is absolutely correct, except for the fact that NCCP 163 is also helping the private car owners who use the toll highways, regardless of whether they are from the middle class or from the higher classes.

Ms. Elvie Medina, the founder of NCCP 163 says that one of the advocacies of her party list is to pass a law that would give incentives to the duty free importation of modern busses. At first glance this would appear to be favoring the bus owners instead of the passengers, but she explained that what is good for the bus owners is also good for the passengers, because the said law would lower the costs of the bus business, in which case it could possibly also lower bus fares as a consequence.

Mr. Cordero and Ms. Medina do not know each other, but it seems that they both see the importance of having more modern transports to replace what we have now, not just for convenience, but also for economy. Dr. Claudio does not know Ms. Medina either, but it seems that they both see the connection between the pedestrians who use the sidewalks and walkways, since after all; these very same pedestrians are also the commuters.

Mr. Alex Condillo, a nominee of NCCP 163 is a businessman who practices what he preaches. Together with some investors, he is already in the process of building a modern transport terminal in a congested section of the metropolis. Of course, Mr. Condillo and Mr. Cordero also do not know each other, but it seems that their mental telepathies have crossed each other, one solid proof that the good ideas of good people could really converge.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Thursdays 7pm to 8pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit senseneres@blogspot.com

COMMUTER PROTECTION

2010-03-27T21:57:00.001-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (060) March 28, 2010
By Ike Señeres

COMMUTER PROTECTION

The National Council for Commuter Protection (NCCP) has joined the party lists running for Congress as sectoral representatives. Listed in the ballot as party list candidate number 163, it aims to get the support of air, sea and land commuters, which is practically 100% of the population! The list of transports that commuters use everyday ranges from the lowly horse drawn carriage to the modern jumbo jets, but the list actually includes tricycles, jeeps, busses, taxis and even the “padyak” and the “habal-habal”.

NCCP 163 is new to the elections, but is not new to the public view. Its dynamic founder, Ms. Elvie Medina is now recognized as the public face that is always in the forefront of leading the opposition of commuters against fare hikes. If only all the commuters will know that NCCP 163 is the party that successfully led the rollback of the minimum fare to 7 pesos, it will surely get the vote of the riding public.

There is more to commuter protection than just fare hikes however. On top of the NCCP 163 advocacy is commuter safety and commuter convenience, two issues that may not always be hot, but are nevertheless important for everyone who rides any form of transport from anywhere to everywhere. Add to that the advocacy transport availability, and they will also get the support of passengers who are always fuming about not being able to get a ride when it is time for them to move.

As I see it, the bottom line in the NCCP 163 advocacy is mobility, a basic service that was recognized as one of the 11 basic needs during the time of former President Ferdinand Marcos. Nowadays, connectivity seems to be the buzz of the times, but what good is it if people are able to call and text each other but could not see each other because they could not move from there to here? Anyway, mobility and connectivity should blend together perfectly.

It is already generally recognized that livelihood is the most basic of all human needs, followed perhaps by health and by education. Comparing the three, it would be fair to say that people could gain access to health and education services if they have a means of livelihood.

They could actually buy all the other basic needs if they have livelihood, but how could they go about their livelihood if they do not have mobility? How could they go to a hospital or to a school if they do not have mobility? Of course, mobility is easy for those who are rich enough to buy their own cars, but even the rich have to ride boats and airplanes too!

Many in the middle class would wish that they could have the capital to put up a business so that they could earn more money. That is not even the problem of the lower class, because their problem is where to get the fare money that they would need to go to work. Yes my dear readers, their fare money is in effect their capital to earn a day’s wages, and that is how important the battle to freeze the fare hike was a battle that was won by NCCP 163 led by Ms. Medina.

Public safety is one thing; commuter safety is yet another thing. Even if people could afford to take a taxi for instance, they would hesitate to ride one if they fear that it is not safe to do so. Needless to say, even bus riders also fear for their lives when they get into a bus driven by maniacal characters. This is the reason why NCCP 163 is also advocating for the special licensing of bus drivers with certification exams to boot.

The rich people have their own convenience as they ride their own private vehicles, but NCCP 163 believes that the rest of the people have a right to have convenience too as they take public transports. Many of their advocacies are yet unheard of, but are actually doable. For instance, they want to have comfort rooms at the back of all busses, both for city and provincial runs. They are also advocating the use of “kneeling” busses for senior citizens, and why not?

In the advocacy of NCCP 163, they treat all drivers as their allies, and not as their adversaries. In pursuit of this goal, Ms. Medina convinced the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) to require transport operators to give SSS and Philhealth memberships to their drivers, and this is already being done now. As we witness the emergence of party lists with questionable profiles as genuine sectoral representatives, it is hard to question the legitimacy of NCCP 163 as it is led by real commuters.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Thursdays 7pm to 8pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit senseneres@blogspot.com

MORE ON NATION BUILDING

2010-03-22T18:36:00.001-07:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (059) March 23, 2010
By Ike Señeres

MORE ON NATION BUILDING

I have been writing about national development for a ling time now, but it is only recently that I realized that nation building is really a better term to use, since it is easier to understand, and is actually more encompassing. Based on this new understanding, nation building could mean anything and everything that will contribute to the fabric of our national life, and the long term stability of our institutions as a nation.

For purposes of clarification, I still would like to point out that growth is not the same as development. A nation could grow in terms of population and in many other aspects, but that does not necessarily mean that it has already developed. In this sense, nation building is really different from national development; a nation could be built without being fully developed.

By implication, development should be the outcome of a plan, as in a national development plan. Perhaps this is where nation building could really be different from national development, because nation building could be the activity of individual persons in particular and the citizenry in general, whereas national development is supposed to be a process that should be led by the government, specifically its development and policy planners.

Based on the general definition of nation building that I am now presenting, it could be said that any form or function of corporate social responsibility (CSR) could be considered as leading to, or contributory to nation building. This would include all efforts of private corporations, as well as those of privately led civic organizations.

By definition, or I should say by expectation, our national development plan should be translated into the local development plans of our municipalities and provinces. At this point, I would like to suggest that we just use the term “municipalities” to refer to both the cities in the towns. This should be a no-brainer, because up to now, even the city halls are still called “municipio”.

Up to now, I could not understand why the Local Government Code (LGC) removed the supervision and the authority of the provincial governments from the chartered cities. As a result of that, new capitol buildings have to be built outside the capital cities where these used to be located. In some cases, we have ironical situations wherein capitol buildings are located inside the chartered cities where they do not exercise authority.

Looking at it from another perspective, our national development plan could also have been based on the inputs of our provincial development plans, but it appears that that is not possible now, because of the fact that the LGC has removed the jurisdiction of the chartered cities from the provinces. At the very least, I would say that this is not good for environmental planning and management, because despite the artificial political divisions, all the provinces, including the chartered cities are in the same biosphere, and in the same watersheds.

Also looking at it from another perspective, it is really important and necessary to support and sustain all privately led initiatives in nation building, because of the weaknesses and shortcomings in the publicly led national development planning and implementation. Hopefully and with God’s grace, the private efforts in nation building could fill in the gaps that are left open by the government led national development planning function.

In theory, the government is supposed to be owned by the people, given the fact that all the officials and staff of the three branches of the government are in the payroll of the people. In this sense, it could truly be said that governance is not supposed to be the exclusive domain or function of the bureaucracy, meaning that the people should be part of the governance process both at the local and the national levels.

In theory as well, the people are supposed to be represented in the municipal and in the provincial councils, but the actual practice is very far from the theory. As it is now, there appears to be no venue where the people could actually participate in the monitoring and the reporting of the status of the local and the national development plans.

The people are also supposed to be represented in the municipal and the provincial development councils, but these do not seem to be functioning. If only these are functioning, then CSR programs and projects could also help.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Thursdays 7pm to 8pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit senseneres@blogspot.com

NATION BUILDING

2010-03-13T17:50:00.000-08:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (058) March 14, 2010
By Ike Señeres

NATION BUILDING

Are you interested in NATION BUILDING? It happens to be the goal of the United National Integrated Development Alliance (UNIDA). UNIDA is the organization behind the UNIDA PHILIPPINES Yahoo Group. If you are not yet subscribed to this group, please send any email, even a blank email to unidaphilippines-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. If you are already subscribed, please send me an email for my information.

Effective next week, I will no longer post my weekly columns in the UNIDA PHILIPPINES Yahoo Group. My weekly columns will henceforth be posted only in the SENSENERES Yahoo Group. If you wish to receive copies of my weekly column via email through this other group, please send an email to senseneres-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. As an alternative, you could also read my weekly columns at www.senseneres.blogspot.com.

If you happen to be a Filipino scientist, inventor or engineer based in the Philippines or abroad, please join the Roster of Scientists, Inventors and Engineers (ROSIE). To do this, please join first the Global Action for National Development Assistance (GANDA) Yahoo Group by sending an email to ganda_assistance-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Spouses and friends of Filipinos may also join both ROSIE and GANDA.

GANDA is an international organization of volunteers who would like to assist developing countries in planning, implementing, monitoring and reporting their national development programs. GANDA is positioned to assist all developing countries, including the Philippines. Hopefully, it will become the vehicle for Filipino scientists, inventors and engineers to reach out to the rest of the world.

Taken as a whole, I am hoping that UNIDA and ROSIE could become the active forces in leading the process of NATION BUILDING in the Philippines. I am also hoping that beyond the Philippines, GANDA could also become a force in promoting the talents of Filipino scientists, inventors and engineers abroad.

If you want to join local UNIDA chapters, please tell us your location. As we start to know where our members are, we are going to organize eyeballs so that we could get to know each other. In the case of Metro Manila, we are going to organize chapters in each city. In the case of the provinces, we are going to start with provincial chapters until we could get the critical mass to start city chapters.

It was a pleasure to meet again with Dr. Poch Macaranas, who was my boss when he was an Undersecretary for International Economic Cooperation (IEC) at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). I was first “captivated” by NATION BUILDING when I worked under Dr. Jolly Benitez when he was Deputy Minister for Human Settlements, but it was Dr. Macaranas who taught me the international dimension of this goal.

As a result of my meeting with Dr. Macaranas, I have decided to incorporate the goal of NATION BUILDING in everything that I am doing, both in my businesses and in my advocacies. As Dr. Macaranas aptly put it, this is not a difficult thing for me to do, and as a matter of fact, I could no longer “escape” it, because it is already part of me. Jokingly, I told him that he is partly to “blame” for that.

It is perhaps providential that my boss at the Global News Network (GNN), Mr. Harry Tambuatco, is also zealous about the goal of NATION BUILDING. I am now producing ten shows for GNN including my own show, and because of Mr. Tambuatco, the goal of NATION BUILDING is now the common denominator of all of my shows.

Perhaps it is also providential that Mr. Bombit Buencamino, the President of Metro Club has asked me to organize seminars for his venue, along the goal of NATION BUILDING. In particular, Mr. Buencamino wants me to organize events and seminars that would encourage cooperation between government and industry, in support of national development in general.

What is NATION BUILDING? To cut a long story short, it is the better and the more understandable term for national development. For good measure however, we should aim for integrated national development.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Thursdays 7pm to 8pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit senseneres@blogspot.com

UNIDA PRIMER (Last of a Series

2010-03-09T06:48:00.000-08:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (057) March 09, 2010
By Ike Señeres

UNIDA PRIMER (Last of a Series)

Q. How will UNIDA provide the training services?

A. The network of extension schools that will be owned and operated by the cooperatives will be equipped with connectivity to Internet, mobile and television networks. Training content will be delivered by UNIDA to the extension schools using any combination of these networks. The training content will be a combination of materials for literacy and for productivity. All courses will be approved and certified by the appropriate authorities namely DEPED, CHED and TESDA.

Q. How will UNIDA provide the connectivity?

A. UNIDA will engage the services of Internet, mobile and television connectivity providers; so that they could become the backend technology providers to the cooperatives that will operate as the front end service providers. This approach is necessary in order to provide the cooperatives with a long term source of sustainable revenues. This approach will also give the cooperative members with the triple advantage of earning from the rebates and dividends, on top of saving from group discounts.

Q. How else could the cooperatives make money from the connectivity business?

A. As of now, several cooperatives already provide cable television services. Some cooperatives also offer telephone services as Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) providers. Eventually, they could also become Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as well. There is not much room for them in the mobile phone business, but they could still make money as bulk distributors of cell phone loads. Several companies are already poised to provide Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) based telephone services to the cooperatives, offering both handheld and desktop units.

Q. How could cooperatives profit from VoIP telephony?

A. VoIP phones could enable cooperative members to call any buyer or supplier with a VoIP number anywhere in the world practically for free, paying only for the Internet connection. Towards this end, UNIDA is going to publish a VoIP phone directory, in order to help the cooperatives take advantage of this opportunity.

Q. How could the cooperatives profit from LETS?

A. A percentage of each and every LETS transaction goes to the cooperatives. Each and every member of the cooperatives will be provided with a cash card that will contain the value points that they have accumulated, including their earnings from the rebates and the dividends. The cash cards are designed to jointly function as debit cards and as ATM cards, meaning that the members could also withdraw their cash values as they wish. In addition, the cooperatives will also earn each time that the cash cards are used to purchase goods and services from participating stores.

UPDATE 1: As of February 16, I am already a producer of prime time evening shows for the Global News Network (GNN), but I will still be producing some segments in my previous assignment as a producer of the Philippine Stock Market Show in the mornings. I have also returned to my old show KA IKING LIVE!

UPDATE 2: Mr. Bombit Buencamino, President of the Metro Club near Rockwell asked me to organize seminars and other events for the club, by tapping the talents and experts that are already involved with me in my TV production business. In this connection, I organized the Penta Open Training Center, which will start operations next month.

UPDATE 3: Starting this month, I will also be co-producing the “Learning Show” in GNN from 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM. In cooperation with TESDA, GNN will be offering technical and vocational courses on the air, with corresponding hands on training in accredited testing centers nationwide. Using G-SAT which is the satellite affiliate of GNN, we will be able to deliver education even to the remote areas that could not be reached by cable TV. We are now looking for cooperatives that could host the satellite dishes.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Thursdays 7pm to 8pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit senseneres@blogspot.com

UNIDA PRIMER (Sixth of a Series)

2010-03-01T06:39:00.001-08:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (056) February 28, 2010
By Ike Señeres

UNIDA PRIMER (Sixth of a Series)

Q. How can convergence happen on the environmental side?

A. First, we have to restore our environment, and then we have to preserve it. Restoration and preservation are the twin approaches that are needed in order to ensure higher productivity and long term sustainability of the environment. Every piece of land, every sphere of air and each body of water in our territory has to be made productive, and sustained on the long term.

Q. How can we make every piece of land productive?

A. Agroforestry is the technology that UNIDA will promote to make every piece of land productive. Agroforestry is the combination of agriculture and forestry technologies, but without the plantation method. According to Mr. Joseph Reynolds, a member of UNIDA, agriculture was built on the back of slaves. This is a true observation, because it was the plantation method that encouraged the growth of slavery. Today, many plantation workers are still laboring under slave-like conditions. In agreement with Mr. Reynolds, UNIDA will pursue the biodiversity method instead; growing and raising plant life and animal life together in restored and preserved forests, both in urban and rural settings.

Q. How can we make every sphere of air productive?

A. Aerophonics is the technology that UNIDA will promote to make every sphere of air productive. Aerophonics is the process of growing plants in an air or mist environment, without the use of soil or any other growing medium. In some ways it is similar to hydrophonics, except that the latter uses water or water based solutions as the growing medium.

Q. How can we make each body of water productive?

A. Aquafarming is the technology that UNIDA will promote to make each body of water productive. These bodies of water will include the natural forms such as the seas, lakes, rivers and streams, as well as the manmade forms such as swimming pools, fish ponds and fish tanks. Mr. Enrique Macadangdang, a member of UNIDA says that fish could now be grown anywhere and everywhere, even in the mountains, for as long as fish tanks could be built, and for as long as clean water could be made available. In Europe, some countries are already growing salmon in factory buildings.
Q. What is the correlation between connectivity and automatibility?

A. Automatibility is necessary in order to achieve higher productivity. Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) are now available in the market. In a manner of speaking, PLCs are the industrial equivalents of personal computers (PCs). PCs are used for office automation, whereas PLCs are used for factory automation, PLCs are used to control machinery, running on programs that are designed to work repeatedly, such as repetitive manufacturing processes. Through the combination of connectivity and automatibility, factories could integrate their backend production activities with their front end marketing activities.

Q. What is farm automation?

A. Farm automation is the goal of modernizing all land, air and water production activities though the use of PLCs.

Q. How will UNIDA promote farm and factory automation?

A. UNIDA will offer training services and financing services to cooperatives and enterprises, leading to the adoption and implementation of farm and factory automation.

Q. What is the correlation between training and financing?

A. Many cooperatives and enterprises fail because of the lack of coordination between the training aspects and the financing aspects. As a remedy to this problem, UNIDA is going to make sure that the training provided will qualify the borrowers to pass the financing requirements of the lending institutions.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Thursdays 7pm to 8pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit senseneres@blogspot.com

UNIDA PRIMER (Fifth of a Series)

2010-02-23T07:39:00.000-08:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (055) February 23, 2010
By Ike Señeres

UNIDA PRIMER (Fifth of a Series)

Q. What is the correlation of poverty to hunger?

A. The high incidence of hunger in the Philippines is directly related to the high incidence of poverty. We believe that as we graduate people away from the poverty line, they will have the means to buy the food that they need.

Q. What is home based farming?

A. Home based farming is an UNIDA program that encourages people in a community, under the leadership of the cooperatives, to grow any fruit or vegetable, or any animal product, for their own consumption, and for the purpose of selling their surplus production to the buying stations.

Q. How will the buying stations support home based farming?

A. The buying stations will serve as the nearest location where the local people in a community could sell their fresh crops or harvest. After these are purchased by the buying stations, the crops or harvests may be passed on to the cooperative processing facilities, where these are converted into processed goods with a higher value added.

Q. What is LETS?

A. Local Exchange Trading System (LETS) is an international barter trading system that will enable local community members to trade in or barter anything of value in exchange for value points. These value points may in turn be redeemed in exchange for goods or services of any kind, including food items. As earlier mentioned, all recyclables could also be sold to the buying stations under LETS.

Q. What is the common denominator of all UNIDA infrastructures?

A. Connectivity is the common denominator of all UNIDA infrastructures. Good connectivity is the critical resource that is needed to deliver and sustain eCommerce, eLearning and eHealth.

Q. How does UNIDA define connectivity?

A. UNIDA defines connectivity as the availability of the means to connect to computer networks, mobile networks and television networks. Under this definition, the Internet is considered as a computer network. Cable TV and satellite TV are both considered as television networks.

Q. What is the common denominator of all the UNIDA solutions?

A. Productivity is the common denominator of all the UNIDA solutions. We envision livelihood as the main engine of productivity, complemented by education because people could not be productive if they are not educated, and by health, because people could not be productive if they are not healthy.

Q. What is the correlation between connectivity and productivity?

A. Higher productivity could not be achieved without connectivity, since good connectivity is the critical resource that is needed to deliver and sustain eCommerce, eLearning and eHealth.

Q. What is the correlation between convergence and productivity?

A. On the political side, convergence has to be achieved between industry, the citizenry and the bureaucracy. On the environmental side, convergence has to be achieved in the restoration and preservation of our land, air and water resources.

Q. How can convergence happen on the political side?

A. The political convergence has to be spearheaded by the citizenry, led by the academe. The academe is in possession of the sciences and technologies that are needed for productivity. The cooperation of industry and the bureaucracy has to happen at the community level, by way of projects.

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UNIDA PRIMER (Fourth of a Series)

2010-02-16T08:34:00.000-08:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (054) February 17, 2010
By Ike Señeres

UNIDA PRIMER (Fourth of a Series)

Q. What is CCA?

A. Since the climate could not adapt to the ways of man, it is mankind that should adapt to climate changes, now made worse by the effects of global warming. The simplest of these adaptation changes is recycling and waste segregation, but there are more complex adaptation changes such as the carbon reduction technologies that are prescribed under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the United Nations.

Q. What is DRR?

A. Even if disaster risks could not be prevented, their effects could either be reduced or avoided as the case may be. DRR generally involves the use of technologies such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Short Messaging Systems (SMS), incorporated into hazard mapping and master area planning.

Q. What is ERE?

A. Nature as it was created is perfect by itself, but the destruction of the environment by mankind has caused nature to be imperfect, thereby needing some structural and cosmetic changes to correct it. This is where ERE is needed, for example to re-channel the flow of water to prevent floods, and to build artificial reefs to bring back marine life.

Q. What is the positive side of high poverty rates?

A. A higher prosperity rate is the positive side of a high poverty rate. Having a good LEGAL condition, in other words being the recipient of equal justice, including social and economic justice is a primary human need, as validated by the United Nations and the other international organizations.

Q. What is the positive side of high illiteracy rates?

A. A higher literacy rate is the positive side of a high illiteracy rate. Having a good MENTAL condition, in other words being in possession of a healthy mind that is full of knowledge is a primary human need, as validated by the United Nations and the other international organizations.

Q. What is the positive side of high mortality rates?

A. A higher longevity rate is the positive side of a high mortality rate. Having a good PHYSICAL condition, in other words being in good health is a primary human need, as validated by the United Nations and the other international organizations.

Q. What is the correlation of poverty to justice?

A. In the language of the United Nations, everything is measured in terms of access, and that includes access to justice and legal services. It is a known fact that the poor people in the Philippines generally do not have access to justice on the upside, and are even denied justice on the downside. By giving the poor access to livelihood, the UNIDA hopes to graduate people from the poverty line, consequently gaining the means to have access to justice and legal services.

Q. What is the correlation of illiteracy to knowledge?

A. In the present definition of literacy, a person is considered to be literate if he or she has graduated from the primary grades. In these modern times however, new forms of literacy have emerged, such as computer literacy and climate literacy. To add to that, if we as a nation would want to be competitive in the global marketplace and get back to our position of economic dominance in South East Asia, we have to elevate the definition of literacy to mean taking on new forms of knowledge in higher education.

Q. What is the correlation of mortality to health?

A. It could be said that the high mortality rate in the Philippines (or conversely, the lower longevity rate) is largely due to the similarly high poverty rate. Despite the fact that most Filipinos relatively have access to free medical consultation in public health clinics and public hospitals on the upside, they generally do not have access to affordable hospitalization and medicines on the downside. This is the reason why the UNIDA wants to build more primary hospitals that are owned by the cooperatives, with built-in pharmacy stores where low cost medicines will be sold.

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UNIDA PRIMER (Third of a Series)

2010-02-09T17:17:00.000-08:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (053) February 10, 2010
By Ike Señeres

UNIDA PRIMER (Third of a Series)

Q. What utilities could be provided within the UNIDA housing clusters?

A. The clusters could generate their own electric power to supplement the local electric supply. The alternate energy source could be turned on and off depending on the price and availability of the local power source. They could also improve upon the power quality by controlling the power surges through a centralized Universal Power Supply (UPS). They could also improve upon the water supply through a centralized water filtering system, thus saving the residents from the costs of buying filtered water. As an alternative to buying Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG), the clusters could pipe in methane gas through a centralized biogas digester. Commonly used items such as cooking oil, vinegar and liquid detergents could also be piped into the homes. Depending on local conditions and applicable franchise rules, the clusters could also operate as retail distributors of telecom services such as cable television, telephony and Internet access. All of these services could be owned and operated by cooperatives.

Q. Where will the UNIDA housing clusters be located?

A. All the UNIDA housing clusters will be located near the train stations and the bus stations. This will correct the common error in previous housing programs wherein beneficiaries obtained access to affordable housing, but could not get access to affordable means of transportation.

Q. How will the UNIDA housing clusters be funded?

A. The funds that will be used for the acquisition of the real estate properties could either come from the local government units (LGUs) or from the cooperatives. The LGUs could be the originators of the housing projects, but in order to sustain the long term expansion of this approach, they would have to be refunded by the developers of the project, which in this case are the cooperatives. Construction costs will also be funded by the cooperatives.

Q. What are the advantages of cooperative housing?

A. Cooperatives are exempted from paying import duties and from the payment of Value Added Taxes (VAT). That means that they will be saving a lot of money when they import construction materials and equipment or if they will buy these from local retailers.

Q. What are the advantages of cooperative processing?

A. Since the cooperatives have duty free and VAT free privileges, they could also save money when they buy materials, equipment and other supplies for the operation of centralized processing facilities. These pieces of equipment could be in the form of driers, shredders and extractors. If they have these pieces of equipment, they could dry, shred or extract juices and oils from any fruit or vegetable, or any form of animal product.

Q. How can cooperative housing help the environment?

A. The cooperatives in general and the housing clusters in particular could organize the collection of factory returnable post consumer waste, which could all be sold to the buying stations. In addition, they could also produce fertilizers, fermented products, fine arts items (crafts), filler materials, fuel ingredients and other functional materials from the segregated waste. These are the six F’s of recycling as expounded by Dr. Metodio Palaypay, MD.

Q. What is the correlation of the environment to HDI?

A. The poor people are the first victims of natural disasters and manmade destructions. When disasters strike, poverty rate go up as people lose their means of livelihood. The mortality also goes up as disaster fatalities are counted. Consequently, the illiteracy rate also goes up as the people lose the support mechanisms to go to school.

Q. What are the scientific ways of reducing environmental damage?

A. Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) are the known scientific ways of reducing environmental damage, as acknowledged by most international organizations. To these two, the UNIDA has added the new scientific way of Environmental Re-Engineering (ERE) which should be a step prior to CCA and DRR.

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UNIDA PRIMER (Second of a Series)

2010-01-31T07:25:00.001-08:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (052) January 31, 2010
By Ike Señeres

UNIDA PRIMER (Second of a Series)

Q. What is the common denominator of all the UNIDA programs?

A. Infrastructure is the common denominator of all the UNIDA programs. In all project sites of the UNIDA, there will always be buildings and equipment to support the operation of the local projects.

Q. What is the UNIDA infrastructure for livelihood?

A. A network of buying stations is the UNIDA infrastructure for livelihood. The buying stations could be operated in tandem with commissary stores that will supply the basic needs of the local community.

Q. What is the UNIDA infrastructure for education?

A. A network of extension schools is the UNIDA infrastructure for education. The extension schools could be operated in tandem with public libraries that will supplement the learning needs of the local community.

Q. What is the UNIDA infrastructure for health?

A. A network of primary hospitals is the UNIDA infrastructure for health. The primary hospitals could be operated in tandem with pharmacy stores that will supply the medical needs of the local community.

Q. How will the buildings be built?

A. The buildings will be built using the Lawin system, a system of construction that was developed by Architect Resty Rosales, a member of the UNIDA. A prototype multi-purpose building was already built in Torrijos, Marinduque by the Lawin Club of Torrijos, under the leadership of Mr. Rosales.

Q. How will the multi-purpose buildings operate?

A. The multi-purpose buildings could jointly or individually house the buying stations, the extension schools and the primary hospitals, depending on the local space considerations. All of the buildings shall be owned and managed by local cooperatives.

Q. How does the Lawin system work?

A. Local Lawin Clubs, patterned after the mother club in Torrijos will be formed in each city and municipality. Club members will be the ones to gather the raw materials and will do the actual construction, as it was done in the Torrijos prototype.

Q. What is the UNIDA housing system?

A. Taken collectively, the UNIDA housing system is a network of medium rise condominiums and apartments, all built using the Lawin system, and all owned and operated by local cooperatives. This network shall be composed of individual UNIDA housing clusters.

Q. What is the objective of the UNIDA housing system?

A. The objective of the UNIDA housing system is to increase public access to affordable condominiums for sale and apartments for rent (rent-to-own). By reducing the costs of housing, UNIDA hopes to be able to increase the number of families that could afford the housing component in the imaginary basket of goods, thus making it a way of graduating people away from the poverty line.

Q. What are UNIDA housing clusters?

A. UNIDA housing clusters are composed of about 20 housing units in a four story building, designed for occupancy as condominiums and/or apartments. All clusters shall have their own provisions for common utilities, either to supplement or to improve upon the utilities that are available in the local communities.

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UNIDA PRIMER (First of a Series)

2010-01-24T08:06:00.001-08:00

NO HOLDS BARRED (051) January 25, 2010
By Ike Señeres

UNIDA PRIMER (First of a Series)

Q. What is the UNIDA?

A. UNIDA is short for United National Integrated Development Alliance. It is an alliance of individuals and organizations that are working towards the socio- economic development of the Philippines as a whole.

Q. What is the ideology of the UNIDA?

A. Competitiveness is the ideology of the UNIDA. We want to build a nation that is globally competitive, and is regionally a dominant economic power in South East Asia.

Q. What is the strategy of the UNIDA?

A. Convergence is the strategy of the UNIDA. We want to converge the delivery of public services to the local community levels, within the framework of Integrated Area Development (IAD).

Q. What is the methodology of the UNIDA?

A. Cooperation is the methodology of the UNIDA. We want the people at the local levels to cooperate so that they could lower the rates of poverty, illiteracy and mortality in their own communities, through the cooperatives.

Q. What is the Human Development Index (HDI)?

A. HDI is the framework adopted by the United Nations to measure the performance of member nations in lowering the rates of poverty, illiteracy and mortality, among other data.

Q. What is the UNIDA solution to the high poverty rate?

A. Livelihood is the UNIDA solution to the problem of poverty. We want each member of our society to be productive, so that he or she could graduate from the poverty line. We want each family to be able to afford or access the imaginary basket of goods, an economic tool that is used to measure the poverty rate at the local and the national levels.

Q. What is the UNIDA solution to high illiteracy rate?

A. Education is the UNIDA solution to the problem of illiteracy. We want each member of our society to not only graduate from primary education, but also from secondary education, as a preparation for moving up towards vocational and collegiate education.

Q. What is the UNIDA solution to the high mortality rate?

A. Health is the UNIDA solution to the problem of high mortality. We want each member of our society to have access not only to primary health care, but also to secondary and tertiary health care, using new technologies such as telemedicine and medical informatics.

Q. How can the UNIDA support livelihood?

A. Electronic Commerce (eCommerce) is the front end technology that the UNIDA will utilize to support livelihood. We want each enterprise to be able to sell their products and services locally and globally by using the Internet, backed up by strong production and product development at the backend.

Q. How can the UNIDA support education?

A. Electronic Learning (eLearning) is the front end technology that the UNIDA will utilize to support education. We want each student to be able to access all kinds of local and global educational content by using the Internet, backed up by good preparation and courseware development at the backend.

Q. How can the UNIDA support health?

A. Electronic Health (eHealth) is the front end technology that the UNIDA will utilize to support health. We want each patient to be able to access all kinds of local and global medical assistance by using the Internet, backed up by volunteer and professional health providers at the backend.

Watch my business show 9:00 am to 1:00 pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit senseneres@blogspot.com