A pretty quick BIR moment

I WAS pleasantly surprised with how fast I took me to file my income tax return at the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) district office, which is about a hundred meters away from city hall. In about 15 minutes or so, it was all over, notwithstanding the fact that today is the last filing day.

Ordinarily, one has to contend with the so-Filipino habit of doing everything at the last minute, which easily translates into hundreds of warm bodies that can be packed like sardines in that BIR office.

My experience last year was just like that, when I had to wait for more than an hour and patiently suffer through selfish efforts of some filers to get ahead of the line, no thanks to callous people who accommodates hand-ins from others. Today, there were none of those, as clients patiently waited for their turn.

The BIR staff were also very professional. The management, I think, put up more people and tables in strategic locations -- particularly at the city center -- which will accommodate the rush of deadline-beating taxpayers. It should explain why the volume early this afternoon was visibly thinner than last year's.

Now, if only the BIR will start allowing filing of electronic ITRs in the coming years; that certainly will be more convenient, particularly for 'wired' individuals like myself.

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If public office were just today's phone line

IN NOVEMBER 1992, then Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew addressed the premier gathering of Philippine businessmen, including newly elected President Fidel V. Ramos, and quipped that "98 percent of Filipinos are waiting for a phone line, and the other two percent are waiting for a dial tone."

That incident, I think, provided FVR the impetus to liberalize the telecommunications industry, so that by 2002, there was already a glut in the fixed line business. A landline connection became accessible, even for peripheral communities like Grandview which is 9 kms away from the city center, and my Sagrada hometown before that, which is 4 kms away from the Pili poblacion.

The rise of wireless telephony exacerbated the woes of fixed line operators like BayanTel, but greatly benefited the Filipino consumer. Last December, penetration rate reached 45% -- largely unexpected when Manny Pangilinan took over PLDT and Smart about three years back; the conventional thinking then was that 35% or thereabouts represents the upper limit of the Philippine market.

Now, imagine if the same singlemindedness were trained on the constitutional provision prohibiting political dynasties, in the process leveling the playing field and lowering the barriers to public office. Do you think it will encourage greater interest in politics, which Manolo feared is losing out to the so-called "cult of the market"?

It will not be the cure-all magic bullet, but I think it is a necessary first step towards Randy David's proposal for campaign finance reform -- which is even more bloody controversial -- and Urbano de la Cruz's redesign of our democracy that should eventually tie in the loose ends.

Popular opinion is against the continuing proliferation of political dynasties, as my previous post indicated. The intent of the framers of the 1987 Constitution is clear for all to see; the modernistic aspiration is self-evident in that particular provision.

The problem is they equivocated and left the definition of what a political dynasty is, and its enabling law, to Congress which is dominated by conservative dynasts. It is just like mandating that having a progressive telecommunications system connecting every nook and cranny of the archipelago is in the national interest, yet maintaining the old PLDT's monopolistic stranglehold on the industry.

Jose Sison's column today in the Philippine Star puts Camarines Sur -- with five competing families: the Houses of Andaya (1st district), Roco and Villafuerte (2nd district + provincial capitol), Fuentebella (3rd district) and Alfelor (4th district) -- at a better footing compared to other provinces where a single clan has dominated public life for many generations.

But that is far from reassuring: The internecine conflict within the House of Villafuerte (LRV vs. nephew Jesse Robredo, and lately LRV vs. son LRay) is currently providing a semblance of free-market competition that cuts both ways: on the one hand, it has blessed Naga with a modernistic leader in Robredo; but on the other, it has resulted in opportunity costs arising from the lack of critical collaboration between the city and the provincial governments (which I will discuss in a future post).

But who knows what the future will hold, with status quo being maintained by an increasingly conservative, traditional Congress that, by its nature, cannot be expected to go up against its members' vested interest?

The disillusioned local elite will continue to tune out, opting to let the market, here but more and more outside local shores, fulfill their aspirations and the economic freedom they bring. The poor, on the other hand, powerless but not stupid, will continue their triennial raid on state resources, and the politicians' electoral kitty fattened by illicit money, because that is the time they -- and their vote -- are at their most valuable. The winning overlords will then make use of the interregnum to prepare for the next political wars.

Political economy can actually explain much of what is happening. Without a more level playing field, this vicious cycle will be difficult to break because our politics operates like inefficient natural monopolies.

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The 'bubwits' and Peñafrancia Resort

THE daughter, who lately began sounding like the feisty widow badgering the threatened judge, won out in the end. So yesterday morning, we motored to Peñafrancia Resort some four kilometers towards Mt. Isarog for a much-needed dip in the pool.

"We" did not include the two boys who not only had the advantage of an overnight swim at Nato beach during the Holy Week but are also preparing for the opening ceremonies of the summer basketball tournament in Grandview later in the day.

The resort, which had long been a fixture in Naga since my childhood, has two new big pools, both designed for kids and teenagers -- and of course, adults who can't swim:) They were tiled differently so that one had a continuously flowing blue Pacific waters, the other green Mediterranean.

They are surrounded by strategically located cottages accessible by car (particularly the ones overlooking the pools), so that one can park it just beside your chosen cottage. Entrance is P80 for adults, P50 for children above 3 years old; cottage rental is P200 (negotiable).

The hands-down scene-stealer yesterday were my two "bubwits," which is how we call Patricia Anne aka Nokie and Ophelia Bianca aka Buddy. The two pictures here give you an idea why, and how refreshing cool waters of a mountain resort can be in the hottest of recent summers.

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'Somos' comes back to Naga

YESTERDAY, as I was about to leave the office, I got a text from Bobby Ursua, our School Board pointman: "Gud pm. Iriga na ako." It was a short message from Ruby Abundabar, former officer-in-charge of the Naga Division of City Schools, confirming she had just been transferred to nearby Iriga City.

This is what Winnie Monsod wrote about towards the end of her Inquirer column this morning. Which Mayor Robredo complained about in this letter to Civil Service chair Karina Constantino-David. Apparently to no avail now, as Education Secretary Jesli Lapus was reported to have washed his hands on the matter, as he did in the aborted Bicol multimedia computer purchase.

What worries me is the scenario painted by Vice Mayor Gabby Bordado, who went on air yesterday morning to denounce what he believes as a brewing attempt by the camp of Rep. Luis R. Villafuerte to manipulate results of the upcoming local elections in Naga. Abundabar's transfer, according to Bordado, is confirmation that a 'grand design' is coming to fruition.

This portion of Monsod's column is central to the effort: "The division superintendent is, by the way, a member of the board of canvassers, where wholesale cheating can take place."

At the city level, the board of canvassers is defined under Section 221(b) of the Omnibus Election Code:

City board of canvassers - the city board of canvassers shall be composed of the city election registrar or a lawyer of the Commission, as chairman, the city fiscal and the city superintendent of schools, and one representative from each of the ruling party and the dominant opposition political party entitled to be represented, as members.

Ordinarily, presumption of regularity can be accorded to public officials as representatives of their own institutions. But it is difficult to do so these days, with this newest political machination and a city fiscal who was a Villafuerte partisan before his appointment to the DOJ, both taking place under a regime that has "plumbed the depths of cynicism," as John Nery calls it. With a distrusted Comelec yet to settle the issue of the dominant opposition party, it is even probable that the Robredo administration (allied with the Liberal Party-Drilon wing) might end up unrepresented at all in the board of canvassers.

These give credence to the so-called reprise of the 1980 election results for the Naga mayoralty, which is being whispered hereabouts. In that election, former congressman and Naga city mayor Ramon Felipe, Jr. (already a well-known national figure who would later chair the first Comelec after EDSA 1986) shockingly lost to then Vice Mayor Carlos del Castillo. That infamous incident happened at the height of Martial Law, when LRV was Marcos's trade and industry minister.

His current position as Kampi kingpin and putative House Speaker of the next congress approximates that zenith of Villafuerte's continuing political influence, his looming large in Camarines Sur politics. It appears "somos," as Inquirer columnist Manolo Quezon III calls the new golden rule -- he who has the gold makes the rules -- is back in Naga with a bang.

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Two quick notes on the CCCom briefer

THAT RATHER staid preliminary meeting called by the Caceres Commission on Communications (CCCom) at the Basilica yesterday afternoon spun a number of interesting sub-plots that would make for good storylines.

As a backgrounder, the CCCom has been conducting a series of Political Fora for the past four elections now, Danny de Leon said in his briefer. For the May 14 elections, there are three on sked, all of which will be held at the Plaza Quezon. The program proper starts at 7pm, with full media coverage spanning not more than three hours:

• Congressional candidates for the 1st and 4th districts: Friday, April 20
• Congressional candidates for the 2nd and 3rd districts: Saturday, April 21
• Candidates for Camarines Sur governor and Naga City mayor: Friday, April 27.
  

The following only dawned to me this morning after I connected some dots:

1. Will Dato Arroyo show up? I will not be surprised if he doesn't. His representative, lawyer J. Agapito Tria II (who used to be NIA assistant administrator for administrative services, but apparently not anymore), begun laying "the predicate yesterday," to borrow the language of former Chief Justice Hilario Davide.

"Will you allow a representative to speak on behalf of a candidate: a proxy in other words?" he asked. Nope, CCCom said.

"What if a candidate really wants to attend, but is prevented from doing so for some reason, will it be OK if the moderator just reads his speech?"

"It is very possible in Dato's case, especially with the FG's medical condition," Doming Alarkon, representing 2nd District congressman Luis R. Villafuerte, chimed in.

The CCCom did not answer categorically. Danny de Leon, for one, thinks it is not acceptable -- who will answer on the candidate's behalf if the public raises questions about the speech? Fr. Louie Occiano said they will soon come up with a definitive decision. As I left, I saw Pito Tria in huddle Fr. Wilmer who is also a Tria, one of the moderators for the fora, apparently arguing his case.

We will have an idea by the afternoon of Wednesday, April 18, as the deadline for confirmation of participation by all invited candidates was set for 12 noon of the same day.

2. Character will be an issue. Especially how Gov. LRay Villafuerte relates to his father, which remains a primetime news stuff. The third general guideline of the fora states

The fora will strictly focus on relevant issues and concerns only. Character and personal assault, directly or through insinuation, are unacceptable.

The most active participant in the briefer -- an articulate Treo-toting guy whose name I did not get, but I have a feeling was there to represent former Tourism Secretary Eduardo Pilapil, who was put up by the elder Villafuerte to run against his son -- took issue with this guideline, considering that the second of three suggested items for each candidate's presentation dwells on personal integrity. (The others are competence and commitment to the common good.)

In the end, I think he got his way: the CCCom greenlighted a more acceptable rephrasing of his original loaded question, both of which centers on how a son treats his father. Final say, however, rests on a "panel of interrogators," whose composition will only be announced during every forum; they will screen all incoming questions to ensure they are within bounds of the CCCom guidelines.

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What I will do if I had DepEd's P150 million

AT THE MIDDLE of the election season, this story just breaks my heart. The lead gives it all away, but I will subtitle it as "DepEd-Bicol's equivalent of DPWH-Cebu's street lamps":

Malacañang has released P150 million to the Department of Education office in the Bicol region for the procurement of 600 desktop computers, along with educational compact discs, for elementary and high school students at a cost of P250,000 per set, according to sources at the DepEd.

Now, if I were DepEd-Bicol Regional Director Dominador Layon, what can I do if the P150 million suddenly falls on my lap? Assuming the transaction is straightforward and free from shenanigans, it can fund any of the following:

• 9,585 entry-level PCs at P15,650 each. This is what the Naga City School Board paid All-Electronics for the computer acquisition it made for the just concluded school year. That will allow each of the 3,117 public elementary schools in the region to have 3 computer sets each, with 18 units to spare for each of the 13 schools division offices comprising Bicol. The datasets on public elementary schools in the country can be accessed here.
  
• 20,833 units of the US$150-One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) notebook PCs at P7,200 each. These will allow all public elementary schools in Bicol to get six units each -- one per grade level. In addition, it will make available 164 additional units for each of the 13 divisions, allowing them to put up three pilot classes (at 55 pupils per class) where every child will have one laptop each for his use.
• Two 29" TV sets and free Knowledge Channel connection to all public elementary schools in Bicol. The basic assumption is each connection costs US$50 (or P24,000 per set), based on the pricing structure here.

But then again, the Naga City School Board is not DepEd-Bicol, and the Robredo administration on top of our city hall is not President Gloria Arroyo's regime.

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Asuncion's bleeding hearts

SAVE for a much earlier post which attracted 17 comments, 14 of which were spam, my most commented entry here already had 13, thanks to two persistent, anonymous commenters whose hearts, it seems, bleed for the fate that befell sacked Court of Appeals justice John Elvi Asuncion.

"Friend of a concerned court employee" picks bones with the legal aspect of the Supreme Court decision dismissing Asuncion for delayed action on pending cases, gross ignorance of the law, and manifesting undue interest in the PNB case.

"Anonymous," on the other hand, finds Asuncion's dismissal totally unfair, claiming half of the judges and magistrates in our courts are as guilty as he is, and opines that politics is behind it.

Both found my basic argument -- that if Asuncion truly feels he has been wronged, he should come clean and help in cleansing our courts by fingering his other equally guilty colleagues in the judiciary -- wanting, accusing me of being prejudiced on this case.

In the Planet Naga aggregator of the city government, a related news item on Asuncion earned another anonymous comment, asking whether it "means the city of Naga holds grudges."

This compelled me to read the SC court decision again, and visualize the events it described, hoping to find arguments or grounds that will support the position of my two persistent commenters. I am not a lawyer, but I think I can understand English well enough to make an informed, less biased assessment. (I remember Dean Bocobo writing something about this point on language and the law when the Panganiban Court was about to release its decision on E0 464.)

Unfortunately for them, the more I reread that decision, the more I am convinced that the High Court did the right thing. I may be prejudiced as a Naga resident and someone who works for the city government, but I already factored that in. And I still came to the same conclusion. Maybe it will help if "Friend" and "Anonymous" will also reread that decision with a more open mind and lesser bias for Asuncion.

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But only if we really try

My column for this week's issue of Vox Bikol.

ACCORDING to the 2006 report of the Department of Tourism, for the first time in years, Naga and Camarines Sur topped Legazpi City and Albay in terms of tourist arrivals (about 259,000 vs. 133,000), drawing in twice as more tourists as the erstwhile top regional destination.

What is lost in the above data is the remarkable fact that foreign travelers to this part of the region increased by 505%, from only around 4,300 in 2005 to about 26,000 last year. It also meant that in 2006, one of every 10 tourists who visited Camarines Sur came from abroad; the previous year, only it was only 3 of every hundred.

Why am I mentioning all these? Because according to former NEDA director general, now Ateneo de Manila professor and Inquirer columnist Cielito Habito, “the easiest and fastest way to create the additional jobs we so direly need is to further boost tourism in the country.”

Conventional theory requires the presence of the so-called four As – access, assets, accommodation, and activities or events – for tourism to take off. In a previous column, I already touched on access, pointing out that we are losing a big chunk of the market by default, owing to the Naga Airport’s short runway that cannot accommodate the new Airbus jets of Cebu Pacific Air, the country’s premier low-cost carrier.

Let me now focus on accommodation. To be sure, the city has fine hotels, like Villa Caceres, which is gearing up for yet another expansion. Fresh from their success with Avenue Square, the FLC Group is building its own 50-room hotel just behind their crowd-drawing property in the vibrant Magsaysay Strip that will be accessible from both Magsaysay Avenue and Balatas Road.

But what our local hotel operators are missing -- and this is true with practically all secondary urban centers in the country -- is the sea-change in the travel industry that is being powered by the Internet. Riding the coat-tails of eTicketing that has redefined how airlines fill their seats – by selling them directly to consumers – online hotel reservation services have empowered the individual, bypassing intermediaries like your friendly travel agents.

This comment by Romulo, a Pinoy who is now based in Europe, is typical:

I travel a lot in Europe and had always used the internet with all my bookings (to) get the best prices there could ever be. And choices that are a year advance so you can plan holidays a year ahead. Foreign nationals, especially Europeans, love to travel (to) sunny places but they plan things so far in advance. If the Philippines wants to bring in the money from tourist, travel companies based (there) should think about this.

In December 2004, our six-man study team -- consisting of then DepEd superintendent Nenita Ramos, Councilor Miles Raquid-Arroyo, Camarines Sur National High School principal Nely Abad, and my city hall colleagues Tess Zapata and Bob Ursua -- experienced the convenience first-hand. Armed with a credit card, internet savvy and a sense of adventure, we crisscrossed continental America on board the low-cost carrier JetBlue, starting from Long Beach, California and back, with stops in Oakland, New York and Washington D.C.. In every step of the way, we already knew our seat assignments in each flight, and had a hotel room waiting for us at every stop, even before we left Manila for the Los Angeles International Airport.

Now, imagine if you are a foreign national who wants to visit Naga to learn from its participative governance firsthand (like the 20-odd Canadian graduate students we are expecting next month), or a balikbayan wanting to have fun at the Camarines Sur Watersports Complex, and you have the same online travel planning capability that has been the standard elsewhere for many years now. Wouldn't you feel empowered and even more encouraged to push on with the planned trip, precisely because you have the first option to fix things online? And just imagine how many more travelers it can add to the record number of foreign visitors we attracted last year.

There are constraints, of course, to these types of transactions and to Philippine e-commerce in general, and the most recent issue of the PIDS Development Research News -- available here -- details them very well. The top reason why businesses won't try it -- cited by 45% of all respondents -- is their being not listed in an e-commerce portal or website.

But every time I make my hotel booking in Manila via AsiaTravel.com, and see that it covers distant places like Bacolod, Laoag, La Union, Butuan, and even Cotabato and Zamboanga far down south makes me certain putting Naga in the list is not an impossible dream. But only if our local hoteliers were to really try.

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Every Juan can now fly, but not rebook online

FROM the GMANews website, there's an interesting blog entry by Ruben Canlas Jr. comparing the eTicketing services of Philippine Airlines (PAL) and Cebu Pacific Air (CPA). No surprise there: CPA again trumps PAL in this department, highlighting the newfound superiority of the Gokongweis over Lucio Tan in the passenger aviation business.

What struck me though is this comment by Romulo, a Pinoy now living in Europe, especially the following money question, which he wants answered:

"How come the Philippines is not that known when the rest of the region is competing heavily in the tourist industry?"

Having stayed in the UK for a year, I can vouch for the same observation. For instance, there's this popular travel company -- STA Travel -- that specializes in providing for the needs of students. Aside from the de rigueur online presence, it regularly publishes a glossy travel guide covering popular destinations all over the world, especially during school breaks. An accompanying world map highlights most of Southeast Asia in brilliant colors, but grays out the Philippines. It made my heart sink.

Romulo's experience in arranging travel to the Philippines, I think, has part of the answer. While it is good that CPA, PAL and South East Asian Airlines (SEAir) already offer online booking and eTicketing services, the other leading carriers -- Air Philippines and Asian Spirit -- have yet to do so. To avail of their services, you will still need to go through the hassles of contacting a travel agent.

Unfortunately, even CPA and PAL's industry-leading eTicketing service is still short of international standards. Why? Because if your travel plan changes (and in all probability, it will), prompting the need to rebook your ticket, you cannot effect the change online. At best, you will have to call a telephone number (and go through the hassle of waiting on queue if others called in ahead of you, and being subjected to boring company spam), talk to a customer service rep, and then dispose of your business.

Compare that with Southwest, Ryanair and JetBlue (particularly the last two, with which I have had a pleasant first-hand experience) and you will see why to me, CPA and PAL's online services are still wanting. When I went through the hassle of rebooking my first CPA eTicket late last year -- still unused, with my everchanging travel plans -- I suggested this to the lady CSR. I even remember emailing the same to the company email add. I am still waiting.

If you want an idea how important the online revolution is, and the potential it represents, check out Wikipedia's entry on Southwest, the little Texan airline that started it all. The following tidbit is particularly enlightening:

southwest.com is the number one airline web site for online revenue according to PhoCusWright. Nielsen/Netratings also reports that southwest.com is the largest airline site in terms of unique visitors. In 2006, 70 percent of flight bookings and 73 percent of revenue was generated from bookings on southwest.com. (Italics mine)

If eTicketing in the Philippines is still not up to par, we haven't even talked about hotels yet, especially for the secondary provincial destinations that include Naga and Legazpi. But I will, for my Vox Bikol column this week.

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