PR govt in rushed propaganda offensive

MANILA: The administration has gone on a propaganda offensive that has raised high expectations on, first, the launching of the Mindanao economic rehabilitation plan, and second, the release of all the hostages abducted by the Abu Sayyaf. In the haste to show immediate results, the government has encountered setbacks that have punctured expectations.

Last week, the public was set up to expect the release of the hostages following the arrival of a Libyan delegation that was supposed to have coordinated efforts and resources of European governments, including US$25 million for "development aid" (a euphemism for ransom, given the official policy of governments not to pay ransom to secure the release of the kidnap victims).

The chief government negotiator, Roberto Aventajado, built up the suspense through a high-profile, day-to-day account of developments on the negotiations with the Abu Sayyaf, with himself being presented as the pivotal figure.

Apparently, the negotiations conducted in the full glare of publicity has done wonders for Aventajado. His approval rating in the public opinion polls jumped spectacularly, enhancing his political stock but not the chances of early release of the hostages.

The public conduct of negotiations telegraphed the government's intentions, including the plan to launch a military and police offensive on the Abu Sayyaf lairs as soon as the hostages are released.

This apocalyptic scenario of reducing Jolo into a howling wilderness has no doubt contributed to the delay in the resolution of the hostage crisis. This fish-bowl style of carrying out negotiations has proved to be a drawback, rather than an aid, to the release of the hostages.

To make a long story short, disappointment has set in quickly following the failure to free the hostages against the background of publicity.

On the Mindanao rehabilitation, the government is determined to show immediate results after the seizure of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front camps. President Joseph Estrada, addressing a conference of business groups in Sarangani, pledged that Mindanao would be the enduring legacy of his presidency and vowed that Mindanao would not just be a "land of promise" but a land of "fulfillment."

That was heady rhetoric, except that the means to jump-start the rehabilitation plan were slow in taking shape. To be sure, the immediate legacy left by the all-out military offensive is a wide swathe of ruin and destruction.

According to a resolution introduced in the conference, the fighting, which continues in the form of guerrilla war, has affected 30 percent of corn production areas, 10 percent of rice areas, and another 10 percent of coconut areas. It was further pointed out that more than 500,000 people have been dislocated by the war and require relief.

In the heady aftermath of the fall of the MILF camps, administration officials crammed and came out with a rehabilitation plan that will be financed by an initial allocation of P340 million. But when the Cabinet members did their figures again, in the effort to locate the source of the funds, Agriculture Secretary Edgardo Angara had to bow to reality and slash the proposal to P130 million after he was told by Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno that all the budget could afford for 2001 is P107 billion for Mindanao, and this includes counterpart funds for 20 projects funded by international donors. Angara scrapped the projects in the package that had no budgetary allocations.

The government claims that the P107-billion budget for Mindanao is bigger than that for either Luzon or the Visayas. But Batangas Rep. Ralph Recto, chair of the House committee on economic affairs, said the allocation is not new money. Congress, he said, has been allocating roughly the same amount to Mindanao over the past few years.

After the ad hoc planning in Tagaytay, following the fall of Camp Abubakar, nothing much has taken place to translate the hurriedly patched-up Mindanao plan into an operational program.

We still have to see the formation of a mechanism that will monitor the work in progress. It takes more than makeshift plans and extravagant promises to leave a legacy of transforming a land bathed in blood and marred by ruins into a "land of fulfillment."

-- The Philippine Daily Inquirer/

Asia News Network