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