Former president's wealth

Former president's wealth

First of all, many thanks to The Jakarta Post for printing my
last letter -- even without editing, and for sending it by Fax to
me as well. If next time the time difference is taken into
account, I can perhaps finish my good nights' sleep.

Many former colleagues also contacted me again and were happy
that an orang putih (white man) that has left the country still
cares for it.

I can assure everyone that, at least my wife and I, but
probably many others, too, who have lived in Indonesia for a
while, will never forget the experience and will continue caring
and fearing for the country. So I will continue to contribute to
the letter section once in a while from my nowadays distant view
of things mainly based on news from the various media and,
unfortunately, not through first-hand experience.

One such media item I came across recently dealt with the fact
that the government is now seemingly doing the sensible thing, if
they do it right and fast, namely to look into the accumulated
wealth of the former president and, hopefully, his family
members, too.

I think one does not have to be a genius to at least smell
something fishy when one sees how immensely rich this family has
gotten over the years. The trouble is, they also had the power to
corrupt the law in such a way that arguably all their gains were
obtained legally, so that they would have to be judged and
measured differently or the whole exercise will be futile and
excessively time consuming. This again will not be tolerated by
the people, and quite rightly so, as they are the ones
increasingly sliding down the social scale.

It is, though, in all fairness a giant step forward to have
such an investigation at all, which nobody would ever have
dreamed of not so long ago.

I hope that I can read one day in the near future that this
huge amount of money can be recovered again and put to the use of
the nation, but I'm afraid I'll have to wait at least as long as
the people of the Philippines.

ROLAND WOEHRLE

Cambridge, England