RP cleans up its facade before APEC Summit
RP cleans up its facade before APEC Summit
By Juergen Dauth
SINGAPORE (DPA): The Philippine government is cleaning up its facade for the Nov. 25 Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Manila. The poor are being expelled from the capital and human rights activists and critics are not being let into the country.
One is reminded of the era of Ferdinand Marcos, Philippine president and dictator from 1965 to 1986. Whenever Marcos had a visitor, the parlor was spring-cleaned. In Manila, where foreign visitors were bound to put in an appearance, that was a major operation. The central reservation on the main road to the airport was replanted, flags were flown and municipal workers were given new yellow tee shirts.
Above all, the slums that lined the main road to the airport were cleared, with bulldozers being sent into to flatten the shanty towns, while the poor were loaded onto trucks and driven out into the country.
The Philippines has since reverted to a democratic system of government and President Fidel Ramos is fond of calling himself the president of the poor. Yet the same is now happening as used to happen in the Marcos era.
On Nov. 25 the heads of state and government of APEC countries are due to arrive for the summit, and that means visitors from the United States and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Papua- New Guinea, Chile, China, Taiwan, Mexico, Hong Kong, Britain, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.
Ramos is keen to show them all that the "sick man" of the South China Sea has staged a full recovery. Nothing is to mar the impression that the Philippines is prosperous and doing well, and that particularly means the poor, who have been cleared from the streets between Manila and Subic Bay.
At a cost of millions the former U.S. naval base has been fitted out as a conference center -- a sham and a facade aimed at attracting foreign investors. Not a single discordant note is to disturb the Asia-Pacific growth region as it complacently concentrates on itself.
That is why potential troublemakers have been blacklisted and are not allowed into the country. Not even Ferdinand Marcos, who otherwise lacked none of the failings of an authoritarian potentate, barred overseas critics from visiting the country. The worst he tried to do was to corrupt them by being over-generous.
President Ramos, in contrast, is afraid of anyone who might tear down the facade of his public relations campaign and point out that not all APEC summit guests are honorable men. South African Nobel peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu has been blacklisted, as have this year's laureates Bishop Carlos Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta of East Timor.
Bishop Aloisius Nobuo-Soma of Japan is persona non grata for the duration of the APEC summit. So is Danielle Mitterrand, human rights campaigner and widow of the late French president.
Ramos hopes that by barring them he can take the edge off an international human rights conference which is to be held parallel to the APEC summit and plans to take a closer look at sham democracies in the Asia-Pacific region.