Editorial

Versions of truth

One expects much from a multi-lateral organization such as the World Bank. Its operations are presumed to be guided by the best principles, executed through the best processes and overseen by the best minds.

So when the Bank identifies personalities, private and public alike, as colluding to rig the bidding for projects it would fund, every Filipino sits up, listens, and is a little mortified. After all, it is the World Bank speaking.

But it comes as a surprise when, after everybody has jumped on the issue for his own purposes, and after a Senate hearing has been started on the matter, the Bank refuses to release a true and official copy of the results of its investigation into a road improvement program.

Both the Palace and the Senate have asked for copies of the report. The Senate investigation, marred by a senator’s fury over the apparent lack of concern exhibited by executive officials and another senator’s flaunting of an appointment book linking the President’s husband to the scandal, made reference to various versions of the report.

It seems that some information included in one version of the report does not appear in another. Senator Panfilo Lacson even told the chairman of the committee conducting the investigation, Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago, that her copy was the “wrong” copy even as he acknowledged that what he had were only excerpts of the supposed “correct” report.

But no, the Bank, says, only the Finance Department and the Office of the Ombudsman have been given copies and it will stay that way.

The Bank said its report was arrived at by investigators, lawyers, experts and technical staff who did field work in six countries over a period of three years. The team, as well as the effort, sounds formidable. The authority of such an output, while not to be construed as Gospel truth, will once and for all establish the Bank’s actual conclusions from the conclusions some people want to hear and force upon the public. Only then can the problem be acknowledged and acted upon decisively.

Relief from power cost
The report that about 60,000 workers would lose their jobs in the troubled electronics industry showed the devastating impact of the global economic meltdown. Intel Philippines is closing all its plants resulting in the termination of 6,000 workers while Texas Instruments has already laid off a thousand workers due to weak demand for semiconductors and other electronic products which account for 60 percent of the country’s exports.

A workable political renewal
By Teodoro Bacani Jr.
Thank God there are many patriotic Filipinos who dare to transform our corrupt political culture. They devise practical ways of changing our politics and are not content to criticize or merely talk. But often the idealism of political reformers (“transformers” would be a better word) either runs aground or breaks their necks against prevailing political realities. I do not want to ask such people to renounce their idealism. We need idealists more than ever today. But idealism should be tempered with a modest dose of realism. This I would like to suggest in this piece.

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