To the Point

Throwing good money after bad

By Emil Jurado

My wife and I, together with my daughter Nina (she has to help us senior citizens) spent the weekend in Singapore. I must say we will never be able to catch up with that city state. It is now a first-world state.

During our trip, we saw the Ninoy Aquino International Airport—the worst and most hated—and compared it to Changi Airport, ranked as the best airport in the world. The airports in Hong Kong and Seoul ranked second and third, respectively. I wanted to cry. Santa Banana, all those airports are cities by themselves!

Airport manager Angel Honrado said he had already spent P500 million improving Terminal 1. I went around Naia before boarding my flight, and all I saw were those sari-sari stores and shops, lined up in the cramped terminal building that can pass off as a garage of Changi.

The building constructed several decades ago has outlived its usefulness. I wonder what those designers could do to improve it so it can meet international standards—and to the tune of P1.1 billion at that!

My gulay, that’s throwing good money after bad when government can privatize the terminal (Manny Pangilinan has expressed interest to buy it), and use the money to start relocating to Clark. Actually, this should have been done two decades ago.

They say the airport toilets now have running water and toilet paper. Well, at least nobody has to hand you toilet papers anymore and you don’t have to fetch water from a tank. The toilets are still cramped by international standards.

Flights inevitably get delayed because Naia has only one runway. You have to wait 30 to 45 minutes before you can fly.

The only improvement I saw was that at least the arrival cards no longer have the Belo advertisement. Still, theyare not really cards but pieces of paper you cannot even write your name properly on. I saw foreigners having ahard time writing—how embarrassing!

Reports have it that three experts from the Changi airport came to the Philippines to see Naia. They must have been shocked but decided to be polite. After all, they were guests of Transportation Secretary Manuel Roxas II, and a guest is not supposed to say what he really thinks of your house when he sees it.

Terminal 1, if sold and privatized, can be used for domestic flights. They do this in other countries. And let’s do away with this nonsense of having designers work on the terminal. It’s like Vicky Belo giving a 70-year-old woman a makeover!

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I saw Singapore in the sixties when it won itsindependence, and when there were only three hotels—Raffles, Singapura on Orchard Road where I stayed, and Goodwood. Orchard Road, the shopping area, had only one department store—Robinsons—at that time. Now Singapore must already have over a hundred hotels, and the most luxurious at that!

Singapore has a per-capita income of a little less than $20,000 and its economy has a growth rate of 6.1 percent. On a weekend, its population doubles with tourists from the Philippines, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India and the Middle East.

With Sentosa and the newly-developed Marina Bay Sands malls and casinos, Singapore, which is usually a staid city where you can get fined for littering and chewing gum and spitting it out, Singapore has become a family entertainment city.

That’s what Pagcor’s Entertainment City along areclaimed 71-hectare land along Roxas Boulevard intended to do to get a slice of the $100 billion gaming and entertainment industry in Asia.

But it seems that the new Pagcor management is making it difficult for four gaming and entertainment giants —Genting Highlands, Azure from Japan, Bloombury from Australia and Henry Sy’s SM—that intend to invest $10 billion each.

The reason? Simply that the idea was conceived by former Pagcor Chairman/CEO Efraim Genuino.

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With Malacañang fixated against prosecuting and jailing former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, it is lamentable that Aquino’s economic managers are not focusing on what matters most for the country, like economic sustainability.

Now comes this report that the economy has slowed down for the third consecutive quarter through September to 3.2 percent from 7.3 percent last year. Growth was slowed by declining exports, weak public spending (in an effort to show that the Aquino administration is not a spendthrift) and low agricultural output. As a result, the gross domestic product expanded by only 3.6 percent in the first three quarters from 8.2 percent a year ago.

Despite what critics and political enemies say of the former President Arroyo, she succeeded in focusing her efforts on economic sustainability. The country did not fall into recession. What is sad is that the people do not realize it since sustaining economic viability is not as popular as fighting graft and corruption.

Worst of all, we have a President who is so enamored with the 1987 Constitution framed during his late mother’s incumbency. He believes it must not be amended despite its restrictive protectionist provisions, that in turn make it difficult for foreign investors to comein. While our neighbors have opened their doors to foreign investors, we are still stuck with the 60-40 equity sharing where foreigners get the minority.

Look at India, a very nationalistic country, opening its door to foreign retailers!

Santa Banana, we have become a laggard of Asia. Compared to the Philippines third-quarter performance, Indonesia has 6.5 percent; Vietnam’s 6.1 percent; Singapore’s 6.1 percent; Malaysia’s 5.8 percent, and Thailand’s 3.5 percent. When will the Aquino administration over wake up, if ever?

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It is lamentable that narrow political interests and commercial greed often prevail over public interests and derail economic development in many regions and provinces.

This is particularly true with the cleanup of the polluted and heavily-silted Marilao-Meycauayan Obando River System, known as MMORS. The clean up has been delayed.

But last November 22, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the provincial and local officials of Bulacan, on one hand, and Ecoshield Development Corp., developer of the sanitary landfill, on the other hand. People of Bulacan find this helpful in efforts to clean up and revive polluted rivers.

In a meeting of the MMORS Water Quality Management Area, a coordinating body to encourage and guide the cleanup of the rivers, local government representatives gave reports indicating a high level of interest in reviving the rivers and restoring them into their former productive state. With the help of the DPWH, dredging and desilting are now ongoing. Bulacan Gov. Wilhelmino Sy Alvarado and Environment Management Bureau Director for Central Luzon Lormelyn Claudio believe that the Ecoshield Sanitary landfill solves the problem of what to do with the dredged mud and other toxic wastes.

With its technology and design, Ecoshield landfill has the capability to receive, process and dispose of solid wastesin a manner that will not pose dangers to community health. It has a multi-barrier system, embankment and engineered high-density plastic layerings that prevent seepage of contaminated waters.

Media disinformation has come from some sectors, like politicians to cover up for their failure to solve river pollution. A company that has been operating its own landfill in Navotas is also believed to be another source of disinformation because it considers Ecoshield a business competitor.