J.A.B. Bulao & Associates

Who is FOREIGN MINISTER GEORGE YEO? He is the  kind of leader that Singapore needs most in a time of transition. To find out, please read below:

Public Lives
A turning point inSingapore

By Randy David
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:15:00 05/11/2011

Filed Under: Elections, foreigner, Asia Australia – South Asia

SINGAPORE HELD its general election last Saturday, May 7. But even in our politically obsessed society, hardly anyone took notice. This indifference is understandable. Filipinos are generally uninterested in the politics of other countries, except theUnited States.Singaporeis also one country that most people do not associate with politics. After all, this city-state has been ruled by the same party, the People’s Action Party, since it became self-governing in 1959. One cannot expect to find meaningful politics in a situation like that.

But all societies evolve. And, as we are seeing all over the world, even the most tightly ruled states must sooner or later change, if they are to avoid implosion. The problem of all authoritarian societies is the same: when people are unable to freely express their opinions, the feedback mechanism is blocked. Out of fear, citizens censor themselves, giving the impression that everything is all right. Government thus operates ever more blindly, guided only by its illusions.

Singaporeis no exception. Despite registering the highest economic growth rate in the world (14.5 percent) in 2010, its leaders could sense the simmering dissatisfaction among ordinary Singaporeans. Public housing has become more expensive, well beyond the reach of low-income groups. The latter see the growing foreign community, which now constitutes more than a third of the population, as edging them out of the nation’s jobs and limited facilities. They are not persuaded by the argument that foreign workers contribute immensely to the nation’s prosperity.

Globalization is certainly a factor. Young Singaporeans are heavy Internet users. They are more connected to their generation and are aware of what is happening in the world. Despite government regulations that block websites deemed offensive, they find ways of expressing themselves on many  issues facing their society.

Recognizing the importance of the political discourse that is going on in personal blogs and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, theSingaporegovernment recently allowed cyberspace campaigning for the elections. “For the first time,” reports the New York Times, “campaign recordings can be posted as long as they are not ‘dramatized’ or published ‘out of context.’ Video taken at an election rally can be uploaded onto the Web without being submitted to the Board of Film Censors.”

By coincidence, I found myself inSingaporeon election day. Campaign posters and tarpaulins were not visible in the center of the city. But the engagement of ordinary Singaporeans in this year’s general election could be felt from the first hour that the results started to come in. All the taxicabs I took had their radios tuned into the announcements, with the drivers pounding on the steering wheel in unabashed elation or dismay over the results. This continued well into the following day, Sunday, when the total votes obtained by the government and the opposition became clear.

The PAP-led government posted its lowest share of the votes since the 1965 general elections, afterSingaporebroke away from the Federation of Malaysia. At 60.1 percent of the total votes, this was still a decisive victory for the PAP. Winning 81 of the 87 parliamentary seats, and conceding only six to the opposition, they retain control of parliament. So, what is new?

What is new is what the figures above do not, by themselves, tell. The six seats that the ruling party lost were won by only one opposition party—the Workers’ Party (WP)—the party founded by David Marshall, Singapore’s first chief minister. Five of those six opposition seats are for the Aljunied group representation constituency (GRC), where the government fielded one of its brightest and most senior Cabinet members, Foreign Minister George Yeo. An opposition slate led by the WP secretary general himself, Low Thia Khiang, trounced Yeo’s re-electionist team.

I met George Yeo casually at an international conference in Singapore in April last year. He was the luncheon speaker at one of the sessions. I must say I have never been impressed listening to a government official of any country speak. He was different. Unassuming and laid-back in demeanor, he spoke without notes for about 15 minutes, covering a broad range of issues from history to culture, from economics to biotechnology. He spoke about globalization and the future of Asia with sensitivity and optimism.

Yeo represents the most outstanding achievers of the generation after Lee Kwan Yew, who were not specifically trained to become politicians. A Catholic in a predominantly Buddhist society, he earned a first honors degree in engineering from Cambridge University on a scholarship. He rose to become brigadier general in the Singapore Air Force, and then took an MBA at Harvard Business School.

A close friend of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Yeo will lose his Cabinet position. It is no small irony that this man who pledged to be the voice of reform in the People’s Action party should be the main casualty of the party’s perceived shortcomings.

Yeo is the kind of leader that Singapore needs most in a time of transition. He has his ears closely pressed to the global ground in which his country has to manage the contingencies of its transformation into a fully modern society. If Singapore were the Philippines, Yeo would be the opposition’s best bet in the next election. But he’s not a politician, and he seems, in any case, far too ahead of his country’s politics.

Email: public.lives@gmail.com

No Free Lunch
Divergent paths

By Cielito Habito
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:24:00 05/09/2011

Filed Under: Economy and Business and Finance, Investments, Foreign affairs & international relations

Some years back, I wrote about how the economies of Thailand and the Philippines had been virtual identical twins in 1970, but have since dramatically parted ways. The numbers tell the story quite clearly. In 1970, both countries had the same populations of 36 million each, growing at the same rate of 3.1 percent per year. Average income, derived by dividing gross domestic product (GDP) by population, was $250 in both. Interestingly, just 10 years before (in 1960), our average income was actually double that of Thailand; it took them only 10 years to close the gap.

The structures of our respective economies were also very similar in 1970. Services made up 45.2 percent of the Thai economy, and 46.7 percent of ours. Agriculture accounted for 32 percent of Thai output while it made up 26 percent of ours, and industry made up 23 percent in Thailand against the Philippines’ 27 percent. We were even slightly more industrialized and less agricultural than Thailand 40 years ago. Total domestic investment made up one-fifth (20 percent) of GDP in both countries in 1965. But we were somewhat bigger savers than the Thais: total domestic savings made up 20.3 percent of our aggregate income, whereas Thailand’s saving ratio was 18.5 percent.

How times have changed. Fast-forward to the present, and the contrast is now so dramatic, it’s downright depressing. In 2009, the Philippine population was 92.2 million, against Thailand’s 66.9 million. Our population now exceeds that of Thailand by more than the entire population of Mindanao. Filipinos are growing in number by about 2 percent per year, while the Thais are growing at less than half that pace, at 0.6 percent per year. Industrialization surged in Thailand, with industry’s output share nearly doubling to 43.3 percent; in the Philippines, it only inched up to 30.2 percent. Where we failed in industrialization, we made up for in services, whose share of the economy grew to a dominant 55 percent. The Thais nearly doubled their saving rate to 32 percent, while ours fell to 16 percent. And average income (GDP per capita) in Thailand is now more than twice ours ($4,062 against our $1,796). Estranged twins indeed.

Three things contributed to this dramatic switch from our relative positions 50 years ago. First, the Thai economy grew much faster than ours did through those five decades. Second, the Thais managed to slow down their population growth to less than 1 percent since the 1970s, while ours remained in excess of 2 percent per year. Third, our currency fell in value at a rate more than 10 times the Thai baht did since 1970. The baht had depreciated 52.5 percent (from 20 to 30.5 baht to the dollar) within the period, while the peso had declined by 560 percent (from 6.44 to 42.5 pesos to the dollar).

Recently, I was asked to draw a similar comparison between the Philippines and Indonesia, a closer neighbor to us in more ways than one. With Thailand already well beyond our own league, one hopes that a comparison with a closer kin may prove more comforting for us—or at least less discomforting?

Alas, that is not so. It turns out that our switch with Indonesia has happened in a much shorter time span, or just within the last 10 years. In 2000, Indonesia was still the poorest (that is, it had the lowest average income) among the original five member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean 5), with a GDP per capita of $802 against our $1,049, or only 0.76 of ours (Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand were of course already well ahead). By 2009, it was the reverse: our GDP per capita (at $1,746) was 0.75 of Indonesia’s ($2,335), and we had become the poorest country among the Asean 5. It is worth noting that we had actually pulled away from Indonesia in the 1990s. In 1990, Indonesia’s average income was already 0.88 of ours, which means that we had widened our lead over them through that decade. But that widened gap was squandered in the last decade, leading us to switch places instead.

In 1990, Indonesians outnumbered us three to one, with a population of 179 million to our 61 million. But because we have been multiplying faster than our southern neighbors, the gap has since narrowed to 2.5 to 1, with their 231 million against our 93 million. Meanwhile, Indonesia had industrialized its economy, with industry’s share of output growing from 39 percent to 48 percent in the 20-year period since 1990. In contrast, industry share in total Philippine GDP had dropped from 35 to 30 percent in that same period. Again, it was services that took up the gap that industry could not fill.

There’s more: in 1990, Indonesians invested 31 percent of their total income, whereas Filipinos invested only 24 percent. By 2009, Indonesians were still investing 31 percent of income, but Filipinos’ investments had even dropped to 15 percent. Similarly, Indonesians saved 32 percent of their income in 1990 and in 2009; in the Philippines, the saving ratio had dropped from 19 to 16 percent.

I could go on with more such statistics, all showing how pitiful our performance had been relative to our closest neighbors, especially in the last 10 years. There is so much wrong to undo, so much catching up to accomplish. Against such a background, the pressure is great for the new government to show spectacular results, which so far seem elusive. But like in Manny Pacquiao’s lackluster bout over the weekend, what is important is that we are ahead of the game, and making good progress in picking our economy up nonetheless. Happily, the recent numbers show that to be the case.

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE MY LAI MASSACRE?

Source:

Reveille
My Lai remembered

By Ramon J. Farolan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:13:00 03/28/2011

Filed Under: War, history, Massacre, Military, Heroism

In one of the best books on American involvement in Vietnam, “A Bright Shining Lie” by Neil Sheehan, which won for the author a Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, the incident is graphically portrayed:

“On the morning of March 16, 1968, a massacre occurred in the village of Son My on the South China Sea about seven miles north of Quang Ngai town. The largest killing took place at a hamlet called My Lai and was directed by a second lieutenant named William Calley Jr., a platoon leader of the division. The criminal investigation division (CID) of the Military Police subsequently concluded that 347 people perished at My Lai. The CID reports indicated that about another 90 unarmed Vietnamese were killed at a second hamlet of the village by soldiers from a separate company the same morning. The monument that was erected to the victims after the war was to list the names of 504 inhabitants of Son My.

“Some of the troops refused to participate in the massacre. Their refusal did not restrain their fellows. The American soldiers and junior officers shot old men, women, boys, girls and babies. One soldier missed a baby lying on the ground twice with a .45 calibre pistol as his comrades laughed at his marksmanship. He stood over the child and fired a third time. The soldiers beat women with rifle butts and raped some and sodomized others before shooting them. They shot the water buffaloes, the pigs and the chickens. They threw the dead animals into the wells to poison the water. They tossed satchel charges into the bomb shelters under the houses. A lot of the inhabitants had fled into the shelters. Those who leaped out to escape the explosives were gunned down. All of the houses were put to the torch.”

Two years later, an army court martial convicted Lieutenant Calley of pre-meditated murder of some 22 Vietnamese civilians and sentenced him to life imprisonment at hard labor. President Richard Nixon intervened and Calley’s sentence was reduced to three years under house arrest in Fort Benning. Nixon later ordered his release.

A few months after Calley’s conviction, his commanding officer Capt. Ernest Medina was also tried on murder and manslaughter charges for permitting the death of some 100 Vietnamese but was acquitted.

The trial of Calley was the focus of intense media coverage in the United States, and the pictures of murdered civilians lying in a ditch at My Lai provided the anti-war movement with added fuel for the growing nationwide protests.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

* * *

In 1998, 30 years after the event, the US Army honored, as heroes, two former soldiers who placed themselves between the rampaging American troops and the civilians, even aiming their weapons at fellow Americans to rescue Vietnamese inhabitants of the hamlet. Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot, along with his door gunner Lawrence Colburn were awarded the prestigious Soldier’s Medal for “heroism above and beyond the call of duty while saving the lives of at least 10 Vietnamese civilians during the unlawful massacre of non-combatants by American forces in My Lai.” A third crewman, Glenn Andreotta, was also later honored.

Colburn and Andreotta provided cover for Thompson as he tried to stop the killings, ordering them to open fire on Americans if the atrocities continued.

In ceremonies held at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Thompson accepted the award “for all the men who served their country with honor on the battlefields of Southeast Asia.” Colburn added, “The soldier, be he friend or foe, is charged with the protection of the weak and the unarmed.”

Watching the coverage of the event, I was struck by the courage of these men who were willing to go against their own people in order to save non-combatants caught in a hostile situation. While others may have refused to participate in the carnage, Thompson and his crew went a step further by threatening to shoot anyone who persisted in the killings. As Edmund Burke put it, “The only thing necessary for the forces of evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” If there had been more good men who acted as Thompson did, My Lai may never have taken place.

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FORTY-THREE years ago this month, one of the worst atrocities of the Vietnam War took place in the hamlet of My Lai in Central Vietnam. Troops of the 23rd Infantry Division (Americal) massacred over 500 Vietnamese civilians in a search-and-destroy operation similar to that executed by US forces in Samar during the Philippine-American War of 1899. Samar was turned into a “howling wilderness” in retaliation for the massacre of American garrison troops stationed in the town of Balangiga in 1901. (Incidentally, the Americal division distinguished itself in Guadalcanal and Philippine campaigns during World War II.)

In one of the best books on American involvement in Vietnam, “A Bright Shining Lie” by Neil Sheehan, which won for the author a Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, the incident is graphically portrayed:

“On the morning of March 16, 1968, a massacre occurred in the village of Son My on the South China Sea about seven miles north of Quang Ngai town. The largest killing took place at a hamlet called My Lai and was directed by a second lieutenant named William Calley Jr., a platoon leader of the division. The criminal investigation division (CID) of the Military Police subsequently concluded that 347 people perished at My Lai. The CID reports indicated that about another 90 unarmed Vietnamese were killed at a second hamlet of the village by soldiers from a separate company the same morning. The monument that was erected to the victims after the war was to list the names of 504 inhabitants of Son My.

“Some of the troops refused to participate in the massacre. Their refusal did not restrain their fellows. The American soldiers and junior officers shot old men, women, boys, girls and babies. One soldier missed a baby lying on the ground twice with a .45 calibre pistol as his comrades laughed at his marksmanship. He stood over the child and fired a third time. The soldiers beat women with rifle butts and raped some and sodomized others before shooting them. They shot the water buffaloes, the pigs and the chickens. They threw the dead animals into the wells to poison the water. They tossed satchel charges into the bomb shelters under the houses. A lot of the inhabitants had fled into the shelters. Those who leaped out to escape the explosives were gunned down. All of the houses were put to the torch.”

Two years later, an army court martial convicted Lieutenant Calley of pre-meditated murder of some 22 Vietnamese civilians and sentenced him to life imprisonment at hard labor. President Richard Nixon intervened and Calley’s sentence was reduced to three years under house arrest in Fort Benning. Nixon later ordered his release.

A few months after Calley’s conviction, his commanding officer Capt. Ernest Medina was also tried on murder and manslaughter charges for permitting the death of some 100 Vietnamese but was acquitted.

The trial of Calley was the focus of intense media coverage in the United States, and the pictures of murdered civilians lying in a ditch at My Lai provided the anti-war movement with added fuel for the growing nationwide protests.

In his autobiography “My American Journey,” Gen. Colin Powell wrote of My Lai as an “appalling example of much that had gone wrong in Vietnam. Because the war had dragged on for so long, not everyone commissioned was really officer material. Career non-coms formed the backbone of any army, and producing them requires years of professional soldiering. In order to fight the war without calling up the reserves, the army was creating instant non-coms. Shake-and-bake sergeants, we called them. Take a private, give him a little training, shake him once or twice, and pronounce him an NCO … the involvement of so many unprepared officers and non-coms led to breakdowns in morale, discipline and professional judgment.”

* * *

In 1998, 30 years after the event, the US Army honored, as heroes, two former soldiers who placed themselves between the rampaging American troops and the civilians, even aiming their weapons at fellow Americans to rescue Vietnamese inhabitants of the hamlet. Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot, along with his door gunner Lawrence Colburn were awarded the prestigious Soldier’s Medal for “heroism above and beyond the call of duty while saving the lives of at least 10 Vietnamese civilians during the unlawful massacre of non-combatants by American forces in My Lai.” A third crewman, Glenn Andreotta, was also later honored.

Colburn and Andreotta provided cover for Thompson as he tried to stop the killings, ordering them to open fire on Americans if the atrocities continued.

In ceremonies held at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Thompson accepted the award “for all the men who served their country with honor on the battlefields of Southeast Asia.” Colburn added, “The soldier, be he friend or foe, is charged with the protection of the weak and the unarmed.”

Watching the coverage of the event, I was struck by the courage of these men who were willing to go against their own people in order to save non-combatants caught in a hostile situation. While others may have refused to participate in the carnage, Thompson and his crew went a step further by threatening to shoot anyone who persisted in the killings. As Edmund Burke put it, “The only thing necessary for the forces of evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” If there had been more good men who acted as Thompson did, My Lai may never have taken place.

It speaks well of the American people, of their sense of rectitude, to honor these men who refused to play blind or to go along with the evil that was taking place in an isolated community away from the prying eyes of TV cameras or news reporters. It was Thompson’s report to senior officers that triggered the investigation into the massacre.

Every war brings out the worst in man—Samar, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The saving grace is that in the end, people are punished for their abuses and a few are honored for their courage and humanity in the face of evil.