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It seems that the battle for political supremacy in the country is
taking a geopolitical shape that could affect our relations with
China and the United States. The Senate hearings on the ZTE
contract, although intended to ferret out corruption and to improve
procurement laws, is turning out to be an anti-Chinese investigation
that is placing the foreign office in difficulty.
Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, the chair of the
Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, is getting worried about the
direction of the probe. “The anti-Arroyo campaign should not be
turned into an anti-China campaign,” she said. With this advice,
it is perhaps time for the Blue Ribbon Committee to delineate the
distinction between the requirements of diplomacy and its mandate of
overseeing the executive.
“We should consign power plays to the domestic
arena. International relations and diplomacy are too important to
our national interest to be used as partisan political ploys,”
Santiago said. We certainly agree with her premise that national
interest should take precedence over partisan agenda.
But it seems that instead of listening to
Senator Defensor, some our senators tend to complicate our relations
with Beijing. One senator has suggested a probe on our dealings
with China with reference to oil exploration in the South China Sea.
If that happens, I hope that the investigation be done with utmost
caution, without affecting our ties with China and Vietnam.
I think it is unlikely that treason could be an
issue here. After reading the reporting about the Spratlys, nobody
in the Philippine government gave away Philippine territory in
exchange for a loan. In the first place, we still don’t have a
detailed national territory as the law is still being finalized in
Congress. In the second place, the exploration is still preliminary.
But we are already jumping to conclusion that a
crime was committed. That is an outrageous charge. Still I am for a
Senate investigation that should be done in a responsible manner,
not intended to destroy our ties with Beijing or Hanoi.
Why Ace is smiling
I suppose tourists do not consider political
noise as a basis for the growth of tourist arrivals in the country.
According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the country is a good
tourist destination and proof is that it climbed five notches above
tourism standards.
The Philippines ranked 81st among 130 countries
around the world, the Travel and Competitiveness Report of 2008
said. It scored 3.7 points in the overall travel and tourism
competitiveness index. In 2007, the country ranked 86th among 124
countries.
WEF estimates that the Philippines’ travel and
tourism industry last year amounted to $5.57 billion, reflecting a
4.4-percent annual growth with an employment of about 1.3 million
people. The travel and tourism industry contributed about $12.3
billion to the Philippine economy.
“Our study is not a ‘beauty contest’ on
the attractiveness of a country. Rather, we aim to measure the
factors that make it attractive to develop the travel and tourism
industry of individual countries. The top-ranked countries
demonstrate the importance of supportive business and regulatory
frameworks, coupled with world-class transport and tourism
infrastructure and a focus on nurturing human and natural
resources,” Jennifer Blanke, WEF Global Competitiveness Network
senior economist, said.
In terms of regulatory framework, the
Philippines scored 4.1 points; business environment and
infrastructure, 3.2; and human cultural and natural resources, 3.8
points. The travel and tourism competitive survey measures the
factors and policies that make it attractive to develop the sector
in different countries.
The WEF also scored a number of “pillars” in
travel and tourism competitiveness. It included policy rules and
regulations, of which the Philippines scored 4.4; environmental
sustainability, 4.3; safety and security, 4; health and hygiene,
3.6; and prioritization of travel and tourism, 4.4.
For air transport infrastructure, the country
scored 2.9; ground transport infrastructure, 3.2; tourism
infrastructure, 2.3; information and communication technology
infrastructure, 2.1; price competitiveness, 5.5; human capital, 3.8;
education and training, 5; availability of qualified labor, 5; and
cultural resources, 2.
Propaganda war
President Arroyo should be told that the
government is being beaten in propaganda by the opposition with a
ratio of three is to one. With a television station going all-out to
topple the Arroyo government, it seems that the Palace is not doing
much in the media war. The best response of the Palace propagandists
so far is to come up with those boring paid ad endorsements from
local officials.
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