ONLY a true Bisdak (Bisayang Daku) can appreciate the nuance of this greeting — both a curse and a benediction. The year 2020 was one of contrast, not unlike the contrapuntal opening lines of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…”

To juxtapose, 2020 was a year of deprivation, fear and solicitude. Yet, it was also a time for renewal, introspection and intimacy. We were never as forcibly occupied with our families than at any time in our lives; in my case — my third generation; being acquainted with their growth, hopes, dreams and particularly their unarticulated fear of that which is unseen — the specter of death. This virus pervaded our lives, distorting our narratives such that the stories old men tell their descendants are twisted by the veracities of today. We are not even guaranteed Santa Claus appearing this Christmas. It could be the Grim Reaper knocking on the door!

And the worst is yet to come. A Harvard classmate, a retired Pan-American Health Organization director, Dr. Primo Arambulo 3rd, advanced the idea that our proclivity for disinfecting everything, “washing our hands while singing Happy Birthday…ends up killing protective bacteria on ones skin.” Worse, this kills the weak microorganisms, leaving the strong coronavirus to mutate and be more virulent. This is now happening in Europe!

2020 annus horribilis
The new year in a real sense is not a profound milestone. Midnight of December 31 to the dawn of January 1 is no different from any other day to the next. The ancients regarded other dates as portentous. The Egyptians consider August 15 more significant. It signals the flooding of the Nile, the birth of new life, coinciding with the rising of the star Sirius toward the East.

During the winter solstice, the earth is tilted away from the sun resulting in the shortest day and the longest and darkest night. In the Northern Hemisphere it takes place between December 20 and 23. It’s the opposite in the Southern Hemisphere where it occurs in June. The Druids, the Incas and the Japanese, among others, celebrate these dates as the start of a new year with bonfires to encourage the sun’s return.

Filipinos and the Christian world impute symbolism on January 1. Traditionally, we go through the pains of reflection hammering out a “to do or not to do” list, primarily based on a cursory assessment of our behavior, failures and successes, crafting out corrective measures with 10 or 20 New Year’s resolutions (NYRs) one promises to faithfully adhere to.

First 4 NYRs
Not immune to this quaint tradition, I have my own list. First, I continue to lose weight, a resolution enacted since September, not as altruism on my part, but upon my wife’s nagging and doctor’s orders. If I continue along the path of obesity — I die! And I have already accepted my granddaughters Sylvie’s and Claudia’s invitations to their weddings. Both are six and five years old, respectively. (Sabine has not yet decided to marry or enter the convent. She turned one year old two weeks ago.)

My second resolution is a character overhaul, again upon the direction of my spouse, Sylvia, spurred perhaps by an unfortunate but correct observation by a favorite sister-in-law. It seems that as one advances through antiquity, the values and virtues of humility, humor and warm personal interactions acquired through a moral though poverty-stricken upbringing enhanced by an excellent Jesuit education erode and in their stead, a patina of arrogance and a sense of invincibility grows. I agree this is deplorable.

The Donald’s nonelection
The third resolution pertains to my advocacy — writing a newspaper column. I intend to diversify and depersonalize issues. Of the 52 weekly articles published, the pandemic obviously was dominant (13 op-ed) followed by President Donald Trump and the United States elections (nine articles). The Donald, as America’s worst president ever, is a fascinating caricature. Why a bigot, an inveterate prevaricator and a psychopath was chosen by the Republican Party to run in 2016, losing the plurality of the votes but winning the electoral college boggle the mind. Trump’s subsequent behavior, after both the universal and electoral votes losses last November 3, 2020, is simply incomprehensible. But the fact that 74 million Americans voted him a second term subsequently fanning his delusions that this election was stolen from under him by an unsubstantiated massive fraud in five “critical swing states” (and not in the others where he won) is simply preposterous and downright irrational.

The contagion
On the other hand, my pandemic articles simply reflected global concerns on public health and collapsing economies with the initial column written in February even before the spread of the contagion; going on to inflict to date some 77 million cases and 1.7 million deaths. The US comprises 4.26 percent of the world’s population yet 18 percent of the totals are American deaths. Currently US coronavirus deaths are running an equivalent to one daily New York’s Twin Towers attack. Many Americans themselves lay this tragedy at Trump’s feet — on his non-leadership, criminal incompetence and continued denial.

But I leave these conundrums to the American people to resolve. It is their country, after all. I may have lost friends and perhaps family members on my penchant for dichotomizing Trump. I look forward though to one more op-ed this January 20, when the Donald is physically evicted from the White House.

The Deegong
My fourth resolution has to do with my critique of the alpha-male, misogynist, gutter-mouth Rodrigo Duterte in deference to my family’s wishes, particularly my son who wrote an article extolling candidate Duterte’s virtues. This essay went viral on social media establishing Carlo’s credentials as an original Dutertista, consequently fomenting an internal filial feud. I have been a strong critic of the Deegong’s malfunctions but equally complimentary and exultant on his accomplishments — though I confess there are more of the former than the latter. But I accede to my family’s demands.

The rest of the NYRs
The fifth to 10th items are commonplace yet as eclectic as a politician’s ideological colors. These are about one’s health, lifestyle and financials.

5. Drink less alcohol — perhaps after the holidays.

6. Eat less meat and more veggies. Cows eat grass converting this to steak. Steak is therefore intrinsically veggies.

7. Find a girlfriend — my wife objects.

8. Find a boyfriend — my wife objects even more.

9. Earn more money — my wife does.

10. Get out of debt — my wife did.

Thus, I approach the yearend, tongue-in-cheek, but determined to produce positive changes. Items 1to 4 are well thought out and will probably be achieved. Items 5 to 10, have been an annual “feel-good” ritual intended to be kept by Jan. 1, 2021.

And promptly forgotten by Jan. 2, 2021.

Maligayang pasko sa inyong tanan!

Reasons to amend the 1987 Constitution were raised anew in the House of Representatives, this time by a ranking official who insisted that ridding the Charter of restrictive economic provisions is necessary in addressing the economic devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a privilege speech, Quezon Rep. David “Jay-jay” Suarez said constitutional reform could significantly improve the country’s chances of regaining huge economic losses not only triggered by the current pandemic but also by recent and future natural calamities.

“There is no better time to discuss Constitutional Reform than now,” declared Suarez in a privilege speech delivered on Monday, Dec. 14.
The former Quezon governor underscored the need to ensure that the Constitution reflects the current needs of Filipinos, most of whom are suffering from the devastation brought by multiple calamities on top of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“If this is an extraordinarily difficult time, then it is also the high time to explore and pursue extraordinary solutions,” said Suarez, assistant majority leader in the Lower House.

Speaker Lord Allan Velasco has also batted for amendments to the 1987 Constitution that would relax the country’s investment regulations in order to attract more foreign investments, especially in agriculture and manufacturing sectors.

While admitting that there may not be enough time to pursue the amendments, Velasco told leaders and members of the Joint Foreign Chambers of Commerce of the Philippines (JFC) and local business groups that the House of Representatives will have to continue tackling the constitutional proposals.

“Notwithstanding, this overdue constitutional amendment should be tackled and addressed with finality in the next Congress,” Velasco told the JFC during a virtual meeting the other week.

Suarez, who is also vice chairman of the House Committee on Appropriaitons and on Good government and Public Accountability noted that in July 2020, 1,400 mayors in the country supported the call for Charter Change.

He also disagreed with the stand of certain senators that Charter change is “dead before it even starts.”

Suarez rejected this observation, saying that the timing is a chicken-and-egg conversation that cannot be resolved without having a conversation to begin with.

“Our responsibility as lawmakers and representatives of the Filipino people is to build trust, initiate a sober and people-inclusive discussion, and exhaust all means to enlighten our people about the issue,” he argued.

The administration lawmaker acknowledged the apprehension of Filipinos, but reminded that “the lack of trust does not prove the lack of need.”

“Even if we do not realize it in this Congress, our debates and deliberations will be a stronger foundation in the future. To me, that is a more meaningful legacy than shooting the topic dead before it even lived,” he said.

Suarez cited the country’s declining Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) as clear proof of the inability of the 1987 Constitution to provide the best framework to cushion the effects of the pandemic.

“According to the World Investment Report 2020 of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, our net FDI declined to 5 billion dollars in 2019, from 2018’s 6.6 billion dollars. That’s a 24 percent decline in investments, Mr. Speaker,” lamented the lawmaker.

He said the Philippines is experiencing ballooning unemployment as a drastic effect of the pandemic. Currently, there are around two million Filipinos whose unemployment was a result of businesses and workplaces being forced to close down.

The FDIs from 2019 alone could have greatly cushioned the pandemic and helped vulnerable stakeholders like poor families, teachers and students, and farmers among others.

Suarez also stressed that in comparison to other ASEAN countries, the Philippines is lagging behind in foreign investments.

“Opening our economy guarantees not only more funds to be used for people’s agenda, it also ensures that foreign partners have a direct and strong stake in our fast recovery and economic stability,” the lawmaker stated.

THE title is a paraphrased from the 1985 book of Gabriel Garcia Marquez (GGM), El Amor en los Tiempos del Colera, perhaps one of the most compelling love stories of all time. The title reflects partly the seeming incongruence of love within the grip of a pandemic. In a parallel context this yuletide season, the Christian world commemorates the birth of Christ, traditionally a time for love, merriment and gift-giving. The deadly irony is that the intimacy of exchanging gifts is perverted by the protocols of the contagion — wearing of masks, maintaining social distance and minimal contacts while awaiting a vaccine that may thwart Covid-19. This article and the book’s similarities ends at the title, Love in the Time of Cholera. (But Florentino biding his time for Fermina for 53 years, seven months and 11 days is a poignantly riveting love story).

But a year since the coronavirus burst into the scene, we are aberrantly condemned to the confines of our abodes. Many families are in dire straits. I can sympathize how government has been on its wit’s end providing for these poor souls. Millions of Filipinos have been deprived of jobs and means of livelihood, unable to put food on the table during this lockdown period. But the alternative is a possible contraction of the disease — or just an egregious attempt at instilling fear and panic by those whose interests are served and for reasons opaque to us all; thus, we are all caught between a rock and a hard place.

Coping and making do
But there are still countless others who can at least afford to cope, uncertain when this will all end — this contest of perishables, our resources versus our resilience. And some of us may be the lucky ones in a country where the disparity between the haves and the have-nots is a deep chasm, where the 10 percent owns 50 percent of the wealth. Many of us are embedded in the resilient fraction of the upper 90 percent. And God help us if we have few more months of this pestilence.

So, we are left to our devices, enduring and making do. For what it’s worth, these past months provided me the time with which to use them with unsparing generosity compared to when I had so little of it. Thus, I poured time profusely with my grandchildren that child psychologists assured me prolongs my years on earth, in direct proportion to the daily hours spent based on a nebulous formula. I suspect however that these hours aggravated with cries, shouts and the general ruckus produced by the 5-, 6-, and 8-year-old dynamos are inversely proportional to my timeline of 75 years. A year less for each month may not be farfetched.

100 Years of Solitude
Consequently, for a little privacy I devised a schedule where daily I would repair to my man-cave and assume sole control of some space-time to review the books in my library accumulated over a lifetime, some of which have never been unsealed but displayed prominently, still enclosed in their original book jackets that I made sure did not clash with the furniture. Quite a few of these tomes are from impressive authors though only the titles and a page or two had been read by me, inclusive of the preface. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novels however came to the forefront, suggested in part by a co-sufferer, Flora Nimfa Santos vda de Leocadio y de Aguinaldo (’66 PWC). I never really appreciated this Columbian author until his 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature. Cien Años de Soledad was one that I tried to read in the original during my years of pretentious intellectual arrogance. It was such heavy reading that somewhere along the 417 pages I promptly abandoned it except for some unforgettable passages: “Many years later as he faced the firing squad, Coronel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

This is the first sentence of what I rediscovered to be a really fascinating book, but this time comfortably rereading it in English — complemented by a downloaded audio book and a movie format in Spanish with English subtitles. Reading GGM’s opus had me parsing over seven generations of the Buendia family characters growing old and dying, “only to return as ghosts or seemingly reincarnated in the next generation.”

This epic compendium of passionate romance, unrequited, dangerous, and sometimes incestuous love backgrounded by civil wars and political conspiracies propelled Latin American literature and GGM into global prominence. Also, the novel introduced a unique literary genre where supernatural phenomenon interspersed within the natural flow of the stories are depicted in a realistic and matter-of-fact cadence; known as “magical realism,” it has spawned several noteworthy novels worldwide and computer-generated images (CGI) in movies.

Another classic story
Despite this pandemic, the vaccine, if it can really defeat this contagion, is welcome and timely this Christmas season as the ultimate gift for humanity or at least those lucky enough to be vaccinated before the wretched ones are ravaged — and be part of the gruesome global statistics now approaching 70 million cases and 1.60 million deaths. Nearer yet is the Philippines where we have now almost 9,000 deaths out of almost 500,000 infections. We can still consider ourselves fortunate compared to our “kababayan” in the US where the delusional outgoing President Trump leaves a legacy of 16 million cases and 300,000 dead Americans. Comparatively, our own President Duterte who did not shirk from his responsibilities may have to be seen through a new prism of leadership. At this juncture, I would like to share with him and with my readers excerpts from an essay written by Fr. Horacio de la Costa, a Jesuit professor of Dinky Munda (Class ‘65 AdeM, Class ’60 high school AdeD).

“Christmas is when we celebrate the unexpected; it is the festival of surprise… when wise men go on a fool’s errand, bringing gifts to a prince they have not seen, in a country they do not know… This is the night when we are told to seek our king, not in a palace, but in a stable.

“…We were promised a savior, but we never dreamed God Himself would come and save us. We know that He loved us, but we never dared to think that He loved us so much as to become one of us.

“…But that is the way God gives. His gifts are never quite what we expect, but always something better than we hoped for. We can only dream of things too good to be true; God has a habit of giving things too true to be false.

“Now, more than ever, living in times so troubled, facing a future so uncertain, we need such faith. We need it for ourselves, and we need to give it to others.

“We must remind the world that if Christmas comes in the depths of winter, it is that there may be an Easter in the spring.”

Maligayang Pasko sa lahat! And be safe, everyone!

N.B.: For the complete essay, please access Dinky Munda Jr.’s FB.

WITH the introduction of a vaccine at this time when Covid-19 is running out of control, speculation is rife as to who should be benefited first – with the rest of the global population queuing up.

Based on wealth, it is a no-brainer for the richer countries to have prior access with the surplus, if any, allocated to whoever offers the better deal, economically or politically. Historically, countries per se are never altruistic. Their own citizens come first, and within each society, segmentation exists between those privileged versus the disadvantaged. This is simply how it is; the world following the dictates of political economy highlighted by the imperatives of the Malthusian catastrophe (“Revisiting Covid and the Malthusian trap,” The Manila Times, Dec. 2, 2020). If there are no interventions in the exponential progressions towards overpopulation and the earth’s capacity to produce the equivalent resources, a disequilibrium will eventually be breached – a worldwide catastrophe.

Darwin and natural selection
Complementing Malthus’ postulates is one that may decide for society where all these will lead to. At some point, Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection will kick in. Darwin, the English naturalist, stated that all species on earth – even man – develop, over a great expanse of time minute, inherited variations, subsequently imprinted in its DNA that increase the species’ ability to compete, survive and reproduce or replicate itself. This is the basic concept of evolution. Darwin further suggested that the species or organism that best adjust to its environment survives.

Inevitably the fittest of these species/organisms survive and flourish, and those that don’t, perish. Thus, the dictum “survival of the fittest” coined by another scientist, Herbert Spencer, hews closely to Darwinism: “Survival of the form that will leave the most copies of itself in successive generations.” Only this time, the slow process of evolution will, in fact, be accelerated tremendously.

Nature’s triage
In battlefield hospitals where wounded soldiers are taken, they have a system of priorities, designed to maximize the number of survivors. A “triage officer” must sort out and decide which of the wounded has the best chance of surviving.

Over the millennia, man deliberately intervenes on what is perceived to imperil man’s immediate existence. On population control, national policies are encouraged as in family planning, late marriages and celibacy – the solutions of choice spearheaded by the Christian churches and evangelicals. A drastic approach is one imposed by totalitarian regimes. China’s one child policy distorted population patterns with preference for the male species, resulting in an unforeseen and unwanted consequence – mass abortion of female fetuses.

War and societal conflicts are offshoots of the disparity between the haves and the have-nots with the former having greater access and control of the earth’s resources – the negative effects of globalization – not to mention genocide and ethnic cleansing all over the globe; all for the survival of the few and fittest.

But in her own peculiar way, nature intervenes when things get out of hand and she or her creatures are imperiled. Man’s abuse of its environment over the recent 100 years on the untrammeled march towards industrialization has, for instance, increased average global temperature, causing melting of ice in the poles and glaciers, contributing to the sea-level rise, inundating low areas and cities and distorting weather patterns; causing hurricanes, floods and tide surges.

But the more deadly sanction nature visits on her dominion is the pandemic. The deadly ancient and Middle Ages diseases, known then as plagues and the “black death,” have decimated up to half the world’s known population. Man’s advances in technology has, thus far, mitigated these pestilences. But can man survive the lethal combination of the pandemic and the Malthusian catastrophe? Nature has the final word in terms of an accelerated Darwinism: the elimination of the unfit, resulting in the survival and flourishing of the remaining homo sapiens – a more healthy and fit population.

The Philippine setting
It has been touted lately that the Deegong has caused government to set aside P73.2 billion for the vaccination of 60 million Filipinos. Finance Secretary Dominguez has these amounts available. Well and good. But for 2021, only 20 percent of the population will be vaccinated, building up to 60 percent for the next years toward achieving “herd immunity” – a concept pushed by Secretary Duque that failed in Sweden.

But the availability of the vaccine is not only the critical question. The more fundamental consideration is who will benefit first while the rest of the Filipino population are continually being ravaged and the economy in shambles. The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) has to come out with priorities. And this is key to the continued survival and well-being of the community and the continued legitimacy of this government.

Alternative scenario
It is obvious that the frontline workers have top priority. These are the people in direct or indirect contact with the Covid-stricken patients that are at risk and in a very real danger to contract the disease themselves. There are also the people, who assure the populace of continued production and delivery of the basic necessities for communities to thrive food, medicine and sundries and, more importantly, those that maintain peace and order and enforce the law.

After these people are those that must be weighed in against their contribution to society. This involves confronting ethical conundrums. Logically, the question of the needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few. But for scarce resources, whose needs are preponderant? Over the ages, utilitarian judgments for the greater good in moral dilemmas have always confronted individuals. But one of the raisons d’etre for the existence of governments and its leadership is the burden of decision-making.

What are the basic principles prioritizing scarce vaccines to beneficiaries while advancing societal and cultural imperatives? Aren’t we obligated to ask a series of collective questions that Philippine society and our political leadership must ask for the greater common good?

Are we going to allocate vaccines for the pasaway (irresponsible), who put other people at risk by not wearing masks and not practicing physical distancing? How about those suffering terminal illnesses?

Do our political leadership and their families have precedence? Do we need to allocate vaccines to the hardened criminals now imprisoned in our congested prisons? What level of priority must society assign to the deprived, the disabled and those that could not contribute to society, but instead be a burden at large? Will we allocate some to the New People’s Army? The Abu Sayyaf? Will our political and civic leadership even face these questions dispassionately and create public awareness to at least confront these questions and shape the debate?

On a universal level, among the one percent that holds half of the world’s wealth, this is a foregone conclusion. It is to its interest that the pandemic runs its course and wreaks havoc among the world population. It still has the one-third and whoever survives among the two-thirds with whom to work.

Perhaps, as in every country, the Philippines not excepted, these questions are now timely and may be mirrored. Mother Nature is neutral and will not make choices. Man will have to.

FIVE years ago, in August of 2014, I first wrote about an epidemic, “Ebola virus: Is this the end of the world?” It was prescient as today’s coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) has the same infectious footprint as the Ebola, the 1918 Spanish flu, 1957 to 1958 Asian flu, 1968 to 1969 Hong Kong flu and the 1981 HIV/AIDS. These five pandemics claimed 126 million lives. Prior to these were the Black Death of the bubonic plagues of the Middle Ages, which wiped out one-third of the earth’s population.

From the first known case in China, in less than a year, 63 million cases claimed 1.4 million lives, a 2.3-percent morbidity rate — a far cry from the European Black Death. Looking back, the world should have learned better, but it did not. Its institutions such as the World Health Organization (WHO) failed, leaving member countries fending for themselves. Countries that traditionally assumed global leadership in similar crises such as America did not measure up. Smaller countries with far better systems of governance — Vietnam, South Korea and New Zealand, among others — fared better protecting their citizens and economies.

A vaccine against this virus has been dangled to the world since September. Big Pharma are all over themselves in a mad rush to be first in the market — no doubt cutting corners along the way as the prize would spell billions in revenues. The race has become highly political; Russia and China boastful of their own vaccines; as well as outlandish — a clinic in Zambales, Fabunan Antiviral Injection claiming a cure.

Vaccine’s promise
Leading scientists maintain that even with United States President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed (OWS), that kept on promising a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine before the November 3 elections, these may not come out this year. Trump has been moving the goal posts since September, tantalizing voters driven by his own personal political dynamics. With Trump still in denial as to his election loss, the supply chain that needed to be set up awaiting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s and the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine approval may be in jeopardy. It is imperative for the incoming Biden administration to have a handle on the situation, grab the bull by the horns and land on its feet running by January 20 next year before Trump’s negligence causes another 50,000 to 100,000 deaths. With just 4 percent of the globe’s population, America’s Covid deaths disproportionately comprise 19 percent.

There are currently 150 coronavirus vaccines under development across the globe, but only a few are players. The vaccine could cost Big Pharma billions and the market is too huge for one company.

Multinationals may have to band together to segment the market – for after all, dispensing global health is still big business. By the end of the year, vaccines from different companies with differing degrees of potency are slated to be introduced into the global market. Among the leading ones are AstraZeneca (United Kingdom-Sweden), Pfizer-BioNTech (US-Germany), Sinovac (China), Moderna Therapeutics (US), Sputnik V (Russia), Bharat Biotech (India), Novavax (US), etc.

With huge global profits propelling cut-throat competition, the efficacy of the vaccine may not take precedence and therefore they are highly dubious. The normal number of years to develop vaccines for distribution and safe use was 10 to15 years. Reportedly, the fastest was the vaccine for mumps (paramyxovirus) that required four years in the 1960s. Through Trump’s OWS initiatives, at best 300 million doses of vaccine will be available early next year at a final cost to the consumer of between $4 to $20 per dose. “The World Health Organization is also coordinating global efforts to develop a vaccine, with an eye toward delivering two billion doses by end of 2021.” (Amy Mckeever, National Geographic, Nov. 23, 2020.) But does the world have the resources to thwart the pandemic?

Global wealth and poverty
The latest World Bank data on wealth and poverty thresholds are dismal. The richest 1 percent now owns half of the world’s wealth. Of the 7.655 billion inhabitants, two-thirds (5.10 billion) live on $10 a day. But below these are still the 10 percent (765 million) living on $1 a day, “the poorest in the world (who) are often hungry, have much less access to education, regularly have no light at night, and suffer from much poorer health.” (Global Poverty, World Bank Data.) These two-thirds can ill-afford the vaccine.

It is quite obvious then that with America’s wealth, the 300 million doses may solely be for its citizens; likewise, other wealthy countries that can afford the vaccines — Russia’s 150 million, China’s 1.4 billion, the European Union’s 446 million and Japan’s 126 million. But India may have a problem covering its 1.3 billion population. And this goes for the rest of the world’s destitute.

The WHO’s 2 billion doses by end of 2021 is nowhere enough to cover the 7.655 billion souls in the planet. Meantime a few more millions will be infected and die. At this point, an enigma: Who gets to benefit from this vaccine first? Who gets to play God?

A contrarian view
There is a bold contrarian view proposed to help shape the global debate. I introduced in one of my articles a hypothesis of an 18th century philosopher, Thomas Malthus, whose writings centered on world population and its capacity to consume the earth’s resources. Malthus postulates that population grows geometrically while world food production only arithmetically — eventually, more mouths will need more of earth’s resources, so that population growth at some point will outstrip food supply and famine and deprivation reigns.

Along with overpopulation, was the world’s industrialization that has gone berserk causing deep disparity in wealth accumulation and resource utilization. The use of fossil fuels became the main impetus for the industrial revolution of 1760 to 1820. Majority of scientists now declare this as causing air, water and environmental pollution and global warming — pushing inexorably towards the planet’s death. Thus, this deadly permutation of overpopulation, unmitigated poverty and the Covid-19 scourge have merged to take center stage.

Mother nature has a way to correct imbalances– thus perhaps the series of pandemics intermittently visiting planet earth over the millennia. Human extinction is unthinkable. So true, but this might not be Mother Nature’s intention to wipe out the entire human race. We are his best creation, the predator on top of the food chain. She will not destroy her “obra maestra” but perhaps just occasionally warn us, humans, that we are responsible for ourselves – for each other and our environment. She may just tolerate sanctions towards the planet’s continued existence. Depopulation!

A case for depopulation
I rephrase what I wrote: “There are two ways to reduce the earth’s population. One by nuclear holocaust with the ensuing collapse of the world’s economy with the resultant possible annihilation of the human species. War is too messy, and nobody wins. The efficient method is by attrition, depopulation spaced over time so as not to inflict too much trauma to the world’s economy. Covid-19 is presumably re-engineered to eliminate the elderly with pre-existing health vulnerabilities.” (“Covid-19 conspiracy theories,” The Manila Times, April 1, 2020.) And other age groups too.

To the conundrum: “Who gets to benefit from the vaccine first? Who gets to play God?”

Why, the 1 percent of course and whomever they decide to help of the remaining one-third of the world’s population!

I WROTE a four-part series of articles on the United States elections, beginning at a time when the US polls were predicting a Biden win. The trend held but the actual voter turnout was unexpected and unprecedented with 153 million Americans turning out to vote, the biggest this century; 52 percent of whom voted for President-elect Joe Biden, awarding him 306 electoral college votes — a landslide. Six swing states that made the Donald president in 2016 flipped from Red to Blue (Democrats), making Donald Trump a loser. This makes Trump only one of six one-termer presidents in US history —– not to mention that this impeached president lost the popular vote twice (2016 and 2020).

But what is remarkable is the 48 percent Trump supporters, a substantial segment of which US media identified as the “true believers.” They irresponsibly risk exposing themselves to the coronavirus in droves to attend Trump’s political rallies. Exit votes later confirmed their profiles to be mostly “white older men (50 to 65-plus years), noncollege degree holders populating small rural towns and evangelical Christians.” These are the Trumpers.

Laying the ground for a massive fraud
Predictably, Trump negated the results, as he declared, “The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged,” attempting to cast doubt on the process itself. First, he laid the predicate for his accusations by discrediting mail-in ballots, traditionally the voting preference of minorities and blacks, predominantly Democrats, months before the actual voting — an implausible indictment as he is the sitting president and has control of the levers of power. This subversion continues by launching frivolous lawsuits brazenly instigating reversal of the results, even bullying state election boards.

A mandatory hand-recount in the state of Georgia, a Republican stronghold, confirmed the same results — Trump lost. The Georgia secretary of state, a Republican whose office oversees the voting process unequivocally stated that there was no election fraud. Trump now questions the recounted results, insanely demanding another recount.

No evidence of fraud
Trump’s allegations of massive fraud are now fraying at the edges with charges either thrown out by the courts, haphazardly filed then dropped or their own lawyers simply withdrawing from the cases. His pathetic schemes to undermine state legislatures to delay or reverse certification is his desperate throws of Hail Marys and may constitute a felony. Trump’s own appointee, Christopher Krebs, of the Department of Homeland Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) which spearheaded efforts to protect the 2020 elections declared that “…this 2020 election was one of the safest and most secure in recent history — despite a raging pandemic, a surge in mail-in voting, the looming specter of foreign interference, and an unprecedented firestorm of disinformation, the election largely went off without a hitch.” Next day, he was fired!

The results also suggest that the voters’ intent was primarily to kick Trump out from the presidency rather than a wholesale repudiation of the Republican party. And here is the rub. Republicans even gained seats in the House with the Senate still to be contested. And the complicit Republican leadership, particularly Mitch McConnel, Lindsay Graham and the spineless Ted Cruz, among others, held their own. What remains to be seen is whether the ideological pendulum will swing back to the center-left with Biden at the helm after four years of Trump propelling the radical swing to the right with copious amounts of bigotry and racist undertones. It may be a safe conjecture that America grudgingly exposed itself as still the land of the entitled white folks albeit struggling to fulfill its forefathers’ dictum of a more perfect union. Seventy-three million Americans endorsed this appalling perception.

Trumpism’s triumph
Pundits, historians, academics and political technocrats will take years to dissect and divine the effects of these 2020 elections. The real casualties are America’s revered values preached to the world for a hundred years: freedom, tolerance and equality of opportunity; and its vaunted concept of democracy, all tied neatly to its global prestige and status. Trump unmasked the lie taught about America, a romantic notion of “a city on a hill, a shining beacon to other countries.” Countries like the Philippines and the rest of the world may now look down pathetically at a once great country, self-righteous and quick to condemn the very same acts by which America is now guilty of. What is unconscionable is the hypocrisy of it all. America has reduced itself into a category she has always looked down upon and scorned — a despot-headed Third World country. The South American, Middle Eastern, and Asian countries may be too civilized to gloat. America has established a unique niche for itself — a deteriorating First World industrial giant with a Third World political psyche.

The pandemic
The other catastrophe that continues to define Trump is how this pandemic was confronted and handled with the acquiescence of his base and his complicit GOP cohorts. It was a monumental failure of leadership, one that is heroically demanded by its citizens in times like these – a contagion and economic dislocations. The world too invariably look up to an altruistic American leadership. Instead, its leader choked. His months of vacillation and underestimating the lethal effects of the virus was impelled more by parochial political calculations than concern for public health and safety. He was up for re-election and he was protecting his phony reputation as the president best able to reign over the economy. He took a gamble on people’s lives on a vaccine as a deus ex machina playing between opening up the economy, doing away with lockdowns versus the observance of minimal safety protocols by enforcing universal use of protective masks and social distancing. This was a false choice. He bet all-in and lost, along with 262,000 American lives.

Trump had many chances to stop the contagion’s spread once it broke out from China. It was his arrogance that prevented him from confronting the looming danger. And it was his narcissism and lack of empathy that blinded him to people dying and suffering.

Timelines of death
In early January when Covid-19 cases were but a handful, with hubris, he declared: “We have it under total control. It’s just one person coming in from China…it’s going to be just fine…this is a hoax…one day just like a miracle, it will disappear.” Health Secretary Azar and Peter Navarro, erstwhile members of his coronavirus task force, warned Trump about the “possibility of pandemic that could cause 500 million deaths.” He scoffed at them. Later, in an interview with author Bob Woodward in early February, Trump confessed he knew that coronavirus was airborne and that “It’s more deadly than your strenuous flus…I wanted to play it down.”

By mid-March there were just 2,700 cases and 57 deaths; by March 31 with an accelerated 1.07 million Covid testing, 164,620 cases, 3,170 deaths. “This will go away by Easter,” he said.

By April 30, 1.04 million cases and 60,966 deaths; May 31, 1.77 million and 103,781; June 30, 2.5 million and 126,140; September 22, there were 200,000 deaths; by election day, 100,00 new cases daily; by November 23, there were 12.5 million cases, 262,000 deaths.

This man has blood on his hands. His legacy. The beginning of a new American century. God save America!

Last of 4 parts

US President-elect Biden is largely unknown. It’s different with Trump. The man is an open book from the time he dominated the GOP slate during the 2015-2016 primary debates and subsequent campaign sorties, where he bullied his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. Many thought his election in 2016 was a freak and Putin’s interference gave him the presidency. But the election last week revealed another peculiar perspective.

He will not have his second term. He lost the popular and the electoral votes. But in some bizarre way, Trump won this election. His doctrine, Trumpism, has found traction in the mainstream of America’s political conversation. He won because he has set Americans against each other, undermined the legitimacy of its institutions and arrogated upon himself the Republican Party’s agenda.

Trumpism as defined is “…a compendium of warped beliefs underpinning a cult of personality, producing policies centered on the whims, caprices and behavior of this narcissistic US president. Overall, a perversion of the once vaunted conservative leanings of the Republican Party.” (“America’s precarious fling with Trump,” The Manila Times, Nov. 4, 2020.)

Trumpism and the American dream
What I assumed as a school of thought and a concept of governance acceptable only to America’s fringes were in fact the conscious choice of 72 million Americans who voted for Trump. Not all may have understood the nuances, but this is a larger segment of the American public, beyond Hillary’s “basket of deplorables.” On the positive side, it’s all about aligning America back to its traditions primarily as a conservative society that spawned the proverbial American dream, that Americans have equal opportunity in the Jeffersonian concept of “pursuit of happiness.” But there is a dark side to it. An editorial contributor to the Atlantic, Noah Berlatsky, put it succinctly: “Trump, in all his incompetence, brutishness and cruelty, embodies one powerful, ugly, and persistent version of the American dream.”

It is the influx of non-white immigrants pursuing that dream that diluted the narrative for white Americans. Trump struck a chord championing America First that formed the essence of Trumpism, propelling him to resuscitate Reagan’s 1980 slogan, “Let’s Make America Great Again.” The Donald was flagrantly propagating his bigotry, his open racism and what can only be construed as his contempt for the rule of law, fortified by his now famous declaration that “…Article II of the US Constitution gives the President the right to do whatever he wants.” His emasculation of the electoral system has produced chaos. He has sown the seeds of discord that will only grow in the years to come. This will further polarize America long after his exit and his persona becomes irrelevant. Trumpism could flourish and be the cancer that will continue to eat into American politics for decades to come. Trump, the loser has become Trump the winner through this aberrant legacy he leaves behind. This is America’s curse for the coming years.

Biden’s inhibited America
And what a legacy! He was obsessed to undo what Obama accomplished and set out to dismantle them. The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which 80 percent of Americans support, has been his bete noire from the get-go and he wants this repealed — without a substitute in place. This will effectively deprive 20 million Americans of health care insurance coverage at a time when Covid-19 is wreaking havoc with more than 11 million cases and 250,000 deaths.

In four years, Trump presided over the waning of the American hegemony and may even have accelerated its economic decline. Prior to the onslaught of the pandemic, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) declared that China had overtaken the US as the world’s largest economy. Using purchasing power parity (PPP) rather than the traditional market exchange rates (MER), China’s economy is worth “…US$24.2 trillion compared to America’s US$20.8 trillion.” (EurAsian Times Desk, Oct. 18, 2020.)

Trump initiated a trade war with China with devastating effects for the two economies. The Brookings Institute estimated “US exports to China dropping $30 billion while imports fell by over $70 billion.” This did not solve the original purpose for which the trade wars were meant to resolve — contracting the trade deficits which in 2016 stood at around $346 billion.

Bloomberg Economics Reports estimated the trade war would cost the US economy $316 billion by the end of 2020. Moody’s Analytics studies shows the trade wars causing the US 300,000 jobs — even before the onset of the pandemic — hitting the American agricultural sector heavily and bankrupting farmers. China on the other hand, with its totalitarian government, has managed to mute the effects on its people.

NATO-Middle East-TPP-Iran deal
He corroded the Western alliance that underpinned the balance of world power that assured a modicum of what could pass for world peace from 1945 toward the end of the Cold War in 1989. He has alienated old allies at NATO and played to old adversaries.

In the Middle East, he recalibrated relationships drastically and unilaterally reversed decades of painstaking negotiations between Israel and the Arab and Palestinian states. He recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital transferring the US Embassy there. This threatened to upset President Obama’s efforts at diplomacy and cooperation among protagonists that earned for him the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize — a recognition that Trump insanely coveted for himself.

Earlier in his regime, he withdrew from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP). This agreement was to advance US geopolitical interests in the Asia-Pacific region, expand US trade and investments, spur economic growth, lower consumer prices, and create new jobs. Effectively this reduces the member countries’ dependence on China.

The Iran nuclear deal, signed in July 2015 between the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, meant to reduce Iran’s capability to create its own nuclear devices towards a safer world, was not certified by Trump.

Climate change mitigation
Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change signed by 196 countries in 2016, to combat climate change and global warming. This was the first comprehensive climate agreement among a community of nations that deals with greenhouse-gas-emissions mitigation, adaptation and finance.

All these pales in comparison with what Trump has done in the wake of his electoral debacle. His ultimate and continuing act is undermining America’s election process and what could be construed as the perversion of the American brand, its cherished principles collectively called “Democracy.” This concept which for years was the bedrock of American governance and peaceful transfer of power separates it from fascism and totalitarianism. But it allowed a deviant to worm its way into the system and putrefy it from the inside. America may take decades to survive this trauma.

The fact that 72 million Americans supported this dysfunctional man and all that he stands for tells us about this nation’s state of mind and the extent of America’s deep divisions. But more importantly, it tells us about how low America has fallen. Could President Biden persuade all Americans to look into themselves and find a common ground — one that will bring back democracy’s adversarial dialogues in lieu of hostile protocols?

President Rodrigo Duterte once again invoked the country’s arbitral victory against China in the South China Sea dispute, saying no country, no matter how powerful, should ignore the ruling.

In his speech during the plenary session of the 37th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit on Thursday, Duterte said the arbitral award is an authoritative interpretation of the application of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or Unclos.

“It is now part of international law. And its significance cannot be diminished nor ignored by any country, however big and powerful,” he said.

In July 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, The Netherlands ruled in favor of the Philippines, which had filed a case contesting China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Last September, Duterte, in his speech before the 75th United Nations General Assembly, said the country would reject attempts to undermine the ruling.

China refuses to acknowledge the ruling.

Duterte said the dispute in the South China Sea must be resolved peacefully and in accordance with international laws.

“As I have said before, the South China Sea issue is Asean’s strategic challenge. How we deal with this matter lays bare our strengths and weaknesses as a community. We must act with haste,” he said.

Duterte called on the Asean to expedite the conclusion of a Code of Conduct (CoC) for the South China Sea.

The CoC is a set of rules for Asean claimant states to avoid conflicts in the disputed waters.

“The Philippines is one with Asean in transforming the South China Sea into a sea of peace and prosperity for all,” the President said.

“We are committed to the immediate conclusion of a substantive and effective Code of Conduct in the South China Sea. And if I may add, it has been a long time and it is a long wait,” Duterte said.

In August 2017, the Asean and China adopted the framework that would be the basis for the negotiations for the code. In 2018, an initial draft was agreed upon by Asean and China.

During the 22nd Asean-China summit in 2019, the regional bloc adopted the three-year timeline proposed by China for completing the CoC.

It was not the first time Duterte has called the Asean to speed up the conclusion of CoC.

During the 2019 Asean summit, he expressed disappointment over the delay in negotiations for the code. Duterte said the longer the delay, the higher the probability of maritime incidents happening.

The Philippines is the country coordinator for Asean-China Dialogue Relations until 2021.

Palace spokesman Harry Roque Jr. said the President also expressed Asean’s appreciation to China for its pledge to contribute to the Covid-19 Response Fund.

Roque said Duterte also affirmed that Asean encourages close cooperation and collaboration with China in the development and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.

The President’s spokesman added that Duterte also said the Asean welcomes China’s pledge that Asean countries will be among the first to benefit once a vaccine becomes available.

SENATE Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Monday lamented that the Philippines will not be able to access millions of dollars in grants from the Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC) because the country was given a failing mark on corruption.

The Washington-based MCC gave the Philippines a failing mark on corruption control, rule of law, freedom of information, health expenditures, immunization rates and access to credit, “thus the country becomes ineligible for a new aid compact in 2021,” Drilon said.

“Another missed opportunity. We missed a great opportunity to get funding aimed at reducing poverty and strengthening good governance,” he said in a statement.

In a statement on November 9, the MCC said: “The scorecards are a key component in MCC’s annual competitive selection process that determines which countries are eligible to develop a five-year grant agreement, known as a compact, with the agency. To be considered for an MCC compact, countries are expected to first pass MCC’s scorecard, passing at least 10 of the 20 indicators, including the Political Rights or Civil Liberties indicator, and the Control of Corruption indicator.”

“It saddens us that the government’s inability to curb corruption has affected our access to critical grants such as the MCC,” Drilon said.

“This underscores the need to combat corruption. Otherwise, we risk losing several funding, grants and incentive programs that can help alleviate poverty in the country,” he stressed.

The MCC extended $434 million worth of aid to the Philippines during the Aquino 3rd administration. The money was used to modernize the Bureau of Internal Revenue to strengthen tax collection, provided community-driven development projects to far-flung and high-poverty communities, and rehabilitated a critical secondary national road on Samar Island.

Drilon said another MCC could have helped the country recover faster if it accessed more funding in 2021.

“The country has lost not only grants but a chance to change lives and create impact,” the senator said.

Drilon said the MCC aid also implemented 4,000 small-scale development projects in poor rural areas and renovated 222 kilometers of a national road “that serves as a lifeline for numerous towns and municipalities in one of the poorest and most typhoon-prone areas of the country.”

Third of 4 parts

IT’s all over but for his whining! My last two columns on the US elections hewed close to the polls predicting Joe Biden’s win. They came out fairly accurately, negating wholesale fraud. Even if there was, then Biden was a better cheat than Donald Trump. I went out on a limb on the following prognostications: that popular votes for Biden will be overwhelming while the electoral votes will be tight; that Trump will stick to his playbook declaring an early victory while the same-day vote counts were in his favor, agitating for a stoppage before mail-in votes are counted. Trump’s appearance on national television to claim victory at dawn when vote counting barely began was a study in absurdity and incoherence bordering on insanity — classic Trump. He wanted to stop the counting in some states where he was leading and continue in those where he was winning. He asserted that massive fraud, all unsubstantiated, was being perpetrated by the Democrats to steal the election. Trump’s ridiculous and pathetic post-midnight hysterics was unprecedented and unconscionable — even if solely for the consumption of his despairing base.

The election process was no rocket science. Trump advised his base to vote in person on election day while Biden cautioned the Democrats to mail in their ballots earlier, mindful of CDC protocols on social distancing, avoiding packed voting booths amid a pandemic. Thus, in most states, early counting results invariably favored GOP voters.

Where I was wrong was my speculation that this contrived mail-in voting fraud would precipitate immediate chaos spilling out to the streets. Thankfully, this did not happen. Biden’s soothing call to be patient and let the election process run its course was reassuring. While leading in the electoral college, he did not declare victory, unlike Trump. And more importantly, his first public appearance as President-elect in his home state on the night of his victory was simply inspiring. Biden’s exhortation that he will be president not for “the blue states or the red states” but for the United States of America was what people on both sides wanted to hear. The healing must begin.

In retrospect
American pundits are almost unanimous in their take that these elections were the most contentious and polarizing in the past 50 years since the height of the unpopular Vietnam war where President Lyndon Johnson, repudiated by his Democratic party, decided not to seek a second term in 1968.

The great paradox is that LBJ’s presidency ushered in the modern liberalism of his “Great Society.” Under his administration, the civil rights acts which he shepherded through Congress when he was majority leader was one of the centerpieces of his domestic policies. He initiated his “war on poverty” while growing the economy, in effect elevating millions of Americans from poverty. His Voting Rights Act protected African Americans and other minorities from being disenfranchised and reformed America’s immigration system through the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. He expanded Medicare and Medicaid — in some ways a precursor to the Affordable Care Act of 2010, or Obamacare — ensuring wider access by Americans to affordable health care.

The maverick
Trump tried to upend many of the gains of the last five Republican and three Democratic administrations painstakingly built over 50 years — from Nixon to Obama. But Trump, an outsider, burst into the American political scene like the proverbial “bull in a china shop,” repudiating even the Republican party’s conservatism substituting his egomaniacal doctrine — Trumpism (see “America’s precarious fling with Trump,” The Manila Times, Nov. 4, 2020). His erratic attempt at dismantling the politically familiar adversarial protocols in a two- party presidential system within a federal government structure surprisingly resonated with many of the voters in 2016 who were tired of the decades of “politics as usual” practiced by the denizens of D.C. partnering with Wall Street predators. The economic and political realities after the Obama regime demanded change. But the Democrat’s standard bearer, Hillary Clinton, wife of a successful Democratic president, but of another era, was viewed as the continuation of flawed governance dynamics — more of the same. More drastic change was needed.

Then Trump happened. A prisoner of a persona derivative of his reality-TV image of a no-nonsense business executive, he played this make-believe role to the hilt. Unable to extricate himself from this media-hyped creature, he became very attractive to the media-fed and TV-fare gorging Americans whom Hillary Clinton disparaged as a “basket of deplorables.” Projecting himself as a billionaire tycoon, boastful of gaming the system — although bankrupted several times — mocking his peers for paying taxes, he exuded extreme vanity, declaring himself a “very stable genius.” He played to this crowd, incongruously identifying himself among them —– a mix of racists, white supremacists, bigots, and plain ordinary white folks — providing this lot some sort of legitimacy and false hope. Possessed with charisma, his base and the spineless GOP stalwarts were mesmerized by a larger-than-life personality not seen before in US presidential politics, bullying his way around and intimidating his opponents within and outside of his political party. His declaration to “drain the swamp” at the political power and financial centers was a euphonious populist call to arms, tailor-fit to this segment of disenfranchised Americans.

He was given to tired old hyperbole with an impoverished vocabulary, boasting “I know words, a lot of words!” His lies and atrocious claims were gargantuan, beating Goebbels in his heyday. Policy statements reflecting gut instinct unvetted by the executive branch professionals spurted out through tweets daily. Bureaucrats had to divine his intentions as the man’s illiteracy was pervasive and was showing signs of cognitive decline. More than 30 of his professional cabinet, advisers and consultants — many career people experienced in governance, some in the world of business and the armed services — had to leave, fired, discredited and oftentimes publicly humiliated. Such was the messy profile of governance for several years. And this man with his complicit party mates and sycophants determined the direction of the American ship of state and, by inference, half of the Western world. In the past four years, he managed to weave an intricate fabric of a semblance of a structure of leadership underpinned by a castrated Republican party.

The emperor has no clothes
Then the pandemic arrived, exposing the weaknesses of this charlatan of a president, and this fabric began to unravel. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are dead. Many more will die. On constant denial, he obviously didn’t care. What was paramount was securing another four-year term. The US economy collapsed. Jobs disappeared. America was in dire straits.

This election had the greatest number of voters ever in US history who would kick him out. A popular vote of 74 million against 70 million. After last night, America’s experiment ended. Trump has not conceded and is now creating another alternative world. I’m afraid his strategy has morphed into “scorched earth.” If he goes down, he will bring the country with him — flawed democracy and all. There is no method to this man’s madness!

(To be continued)