Undecided nation

From a friend recently returned from working in Dubai: Some Filipinos there decided to go and register themselves with the Philippine consulate. They spent the day waiting, and ended up leaving after wasting the day trying to get themselves registered.

The latest Pulse Asia survey has newspapers looking at various findings in that survey. A sampling: Philippine Daily Inquirer: 3 out of 10 Filipinos want to leave RP; Malaya: Few Filipinos believe there is democracy; most see oligarchy in control; Business Mirror: Poll shows rising public pessimism.

In its editorial, the Business Mirror points to two sets of thought-provoking figures from the survey:

The message of the people is loud and clear: 41 percent of the Filipino people feel their destiny is controlled by an oligarchic few; 29 percent believe the mobs will soon rise in violent action after losing faith in democracy; 21 percent feel that the “country is hopeless”; and 30 percent would rather migrate to other countries if they had the chance…

Another disturbing aspect of the Pulse Asia survey result is the growing percentage of the undecided. The survey says that 41 percent is undecided on the issue on the oligarchy; 41 percent undecided on the prospect of Philippine democracy; 32 percent undecided on martial law; 30 percent undecided on whether or not “the country is hopeless”; and another 30 percent undecided on whether or not to migrate….

…A growing number of people simply don’t care about anything anymore. This is certainly bad for the future of democracy in this country.

Perhaps an equally important message the people want to send to the country’s political and economic masters lies in the historical trend of those who disagree with the questions raised in the survey. In July 2002, Pulse Asia said 68 percent of adult Filipinos disagreed with the statement “this country is hopeless.” Since then it has been on the downtrend, to reach 49 percent in July 2006. Meaning, fewer people disagree with the proposition the country is hopeless.

This figure seems to indicate that the country is suffering from what Rep. Teddy Boy Locsin of Makati City called a “declining capital of hope” in a recent commencement speech at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business.

Read the report on the survey for yourself:

In other news: the House Committee on Justice declares 8th impeachment complaint sufficient in form. This, after hours of debate on the question of who should inhibit themselves from proceedings because of fertilizer scam allegations (seems hardly any congressman, from both sides of the aisle, would have been left standing). NPA attacks Mayon troops; a huge chunk of PLDT shares declared part of the ill-gotten Marcos wealth by the courts; and US House delegation arrives on Friday for talks. It’s led by Rep. Henry Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee. Newsbreak on the general who took a nap.

It takes the average Filipino worker 81 minutes to work to earn enough to buy a Big Mac; the global average is 35 minutes.

Parliamentary maneuvers in Australia on the question of asylum.

In the punditocracy, my column for today is Bastusang Pambansa.

The Inquirer editorial says the proposal to dust off the controversial counting machines for ballots has a sneaky agenda behind it:

So what is Makalintal, with obvious encouragement from Malacañang, trying to do? It seems that after realizing that the main door is shut tight, he wants to sneak through the backdoor to clean up the mess using, as his broom, practicality, expediency and the need to make next year’s elections clean and honest. If he can persuade the Court to let the Comelec use those machines, the case against Mega Pacific and the Comelec crumbles.

Then it would be pointless for the government to try to get back what it has paid to Mega Pacific and it would be very difficult to prove that Abalos and company had approved a deal that was disadvantageous to the government. And then, of course, the Supreme Court would find itself eating its own words and effectively revoking its own order directing investigating agencies to pursue the case.

Connie Veneracion refuses to be drawn into the condemnation of “extra judicial killings” because the accusations are tainted by politics.

John Mangun: economic growth is like the Lotto, easily dissipated; economic development is like a job, the stuff on which the future is built.

Adrian Cristobal, Jr. on trade secrets.

Billy Esposo on how the President’s health has been mishandled by her handlers.

Tony Abaya on how the question of legitimacy should rightfully scuttle talks if the purpose of the talks is to sidestep the legitimacy issue.

A national malaise in Thailand? Sounds familiar.

In the blogosphere, after -what, nearly a decade?- seemingly unstoppable conservative influence by conservative bloggers, a victory for liberals in the American blogosphere takes place. William Saletan in Slate Magazine describes how Sen. Joseph Liebermann lost the fight for his party’s nomination. The issue became Libermann’s enthusiastic support for the war in Iraq. Liberal blogs fanned the flames of the issue; and the Liebermann fight to retain the party nomination flaming out was demonstrated by the candidate’s blog going kaput on election day. Michael Weiss, also in Slate, describes the reactions of American bloggers to the whole thing. Liebermann is threatening to run as an independent in the actual senatorial election.

During the American presidential election in 2004, Mystery Pollster came to prominence in the blogosphere. He’s a professional pollster and explains surveys to the public. He has a bunch of entries on the Liebermann primary election: A Lesson Learned the Hard Way, and Connecticut Epilogue make for interesting reading.

Moro Film: indigenous peoples declare unity; the country apparently chickened out of ratifying the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. For shame.

Parallel Universes: on the nursing exam leak and why something needs to be done soon.

down to the wire & squirming: people still read the news, but what the news is, and so forth, deserves examination.

Madame Chiang on how Filipinos adore humor -and code-switch when delivering the punch line to a joke.

My Life As A Nursing Student almost gave someone the finger.

Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub: today’s the 61st anniversary of the dropping of an atom bomb on Nagasaki.

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