"Who the hell do they think they are?"
"Who the hell do they think they are?"
As this is our first column for the new year, let me join every reader in wishing that this leap year will add many stones to the edifice that is the Filipino nation.
There are so many things that we as a nation will need to do if only to be able to catch up with some of our Southeast Asian neighbors. The current leadership is doing so many of these undertakings all at the same time: From fighting criminality and eliminating the scourge of illegal drugs to keeping the peace, minimizing corruption in government, ending civil strife and decades-long insurgency, building major infrastructure that is the cornerstone of continued progress, to growing the economy, creating more jobs and reducing poverty.
But leadership, no matter how well-intentioned and how purposive, needs the support of the citizenry, and the best way to help is for citizens to be united, disciplined and imbued with a high sense of nationalism and national purpose.
Let us all start the new decade by being conscious of our duties, more than our rights even, as citizens of this sovereign nation which could, despite the failures of the past, rise up to become not only a strong economy but a more equal society.
* * *
Having stated our New Year wish, let me now focus on something that we should all unite against—the outright intervention of some American legislators who think they still have colonial powers over our land.
So they will deny Filipinos entry permits to their country on the say-so of an imprisoned legislator who is facing charges under our judicial system? Who the hell do they think they are?
If taking the word of Leila de Lima about her “persecution” and accepting her list of people who participated in her alleged persecution is not an insult to our sovereignty, how else could you describe that? Why, one of her lawyers even threatens on national television that De Lima is preparing a longer list of those who have persecuted her. The gall!
Which is why President Duterte is right in also banning their entry into the Philippines, and more than that, requiring American citizens other than those with dual citizenship, the other being Filipino, to apply for entry visas to our country should they wish to come.
After all, we Filipinos have to line up on Roxas Boulevard and face their consular officers who without need of any reason whatsoever, can deny us that entry permit to their country.
And how many Filipinos have likewise been humiliated by intense grilling from their immigration staff in their ports of entry? Is it all worth it?
So tit for tat. So what if they deny some or even all of us entry into their country?
If you examine closely the number of “American” tourists who come in to the Philippines, you will note that most of them are “balikbayans”—Filipinos who are either green card holders or who have become American citizens, either by birthright (the jus soli principle) or who have lived there long and have taken another citizenship.
So if we allow visa-free entry to those dual citizens and deny the same to singularly American citizens regardless of race or color, then why ever not? The loss in visitor arrivals would be marginal.
But our pride as a sovereign nation should not, and should never be taken for granted by foreigners who act like they are pro-consuls who can hector us on what we should or should not do.
* * *
Senator Bong Go’s suggestion that the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority should organize another all-Filipino film festival in the summer, perhaps the week beginning Easter Sunday and nine days therefrom, is well-taken.
The movie industry needs assistance, especially those producers, directors, scriptwriters and actors who want to elevate the artistic taste of the people and who tell the history of our country in stories that imbue a sense of national identity to our younger generation.
But not to further the profit-seeking of those who pander to low-level tastes, who churn the same fare year after year, cinematic “block-busters” bereft of any redeeming artistic value and merely pander to slapstick comedies with “sure-fire” box office formulas.
For starters, could Senator Bong Go and Secretary Danny Lim please require the reshowing of quality films with true artistic merit in the last Metro-Manila Film Festival which the powerful lords of cinemas (SM, Robinson’s and even Ayala) summarily removed from their theaters after a few days of showing because of low box office results?
And replaced them with the usual Vice Ganda, Coco Martin and Vic Sotto starrers simply because they could not compete?
Talaga bang pera-pera na lang lahat?
The problem is that every business venture in this country is captured by rent-seekers.
Yes, that economic evil called rent.
In businesses that are subject to regulatory capture, be it telecommunications, water service, power. Or even the “boundary system” that is the practice of bus companies, taxis and even the lowly jeepneys. That too is “rent”.
Even cinema. Do you know that a producer shares 50-50 the gross receipts in the box office with SM, Robinson’s and all those other malls where movies are shown? That is pure rent.
Which is why quality movies like Culion and Mindanao are pulled off their theater assignments to give way to the trash that comes from the usual productions of Vice and Vic.
What a country!
Insulted by foreigners and abused by rent-seekers whose every act is motivated by profit, indeed, greedy profit.
* * *
Just as I am preparing to lay this column to bed and transmit the same to our editors Saturday morning, I am deeply saddened to learn that the inimitable Ninez Cacho Olivares passed away.
Ninez was a dear friend and mentor, who in the latter days of the Marcos rule, gave me space though anonymously in her Manila Bulletin columns. And sometime in August of 2001, I started writing twice-a-week articles in The Daily Tribune, which she “husbanded” bravely through more than 20 years despite all adversities including the bare-faced attempt of the Arroyo administration to close it down.
We have since been close friends, even traveling together with common friends, the last being to Hokkaido in the winter of 2017. She will be dearly missed.
Hail and farewell, NCO.