The policy known as “Basic Income” or “Citizen’s Income” would give every person a fixed monthly income as of right. It would differ from welfare type programs in that there would be no special tests that the recipient was in need; you would not need to prove that you were poor in order to get it. During my college years the debate on this policy seemed to be limited to developing countries. The UK actually implemented a limited form of it for children during the 1970s. A fixed weekly benefit is given for each child in place of child tax allowances. Now there is substantial growth of support for the idea in developing countries particularly Brazil and South Africa where a 3,000 strong demonstration was supported by trade unions and the Catholic Bishops Conference. There is an international research body supporting the idea: the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN). A pilot scheme funded by German churches pays people in one part of Namibia 10 US dollars a month. Supporters of this scheme claim that the percentage of people in work has risen from 36% to 48% and school attendance now stands at 90%. It is also claimed that the poverty related crime rate has fallen by 60%.
In this video South African Arch-bishop Desmond Tutu makes the case for introducing a Basic Income Guarantee:
“We stand at a historic crossroad. One road leads up to a higher ground of social equity, inclusion, human dignity and full economic participation.”
The Un-mentioned Election Fraud Technique- Name Blocking
Since Filipinos will be moving away from hand-written ballot papers in 2010, this will introduce the possibility of a tried and tested form of electoral corruption much loved by New York politicians: name blocking. Up to now Filipinos have just written the name of their preferred candidate. With the new optical scanning method there will be printed names and the voter will have to shade in a circle next to the candidates name. This raises an interesting question: “how do you decide who can legally get their name printed on the ballot paper?”
Using the name-blocking technique, fatcat incumbent politicians can spare themselves the inconvenience of fighting against a tough challenger by preventing his/her name getting on the ballot. In my home borough of Brooklyn two out of the last four Democratic county leaders have gone to prison for corruption related offenses. The last one, Clarence Norman, sold judgeships by forcing candidates for the judicial posts to pay big sums into PR consultancies that he controlled. One of his requirements for the corruptly elected judges was that they should manipulate candidate selections to exclude candidates who posed a real threat to incumbents.
For Optical Scanning Ballots there is a very simple anti-corruption safeguard: after the printed names a blank space must be shown for the voters to write in their personal choice. New Jersey does this (see the example ballot below). If there is any name-blocking manipulation a popular candidate can simply appeal to voters to write their name in.
There is currently a lively discussion in our office about the best way to clean up Filipino elections through technology. My office mate, Dr.Pablo Manalastas, implies most of the debate you see in the papers is not relevant to the real causes of election fraud: “what we want is for the ballots to be counted by hand so that we can see the process is fair; it is precinct result reporting that should be automated. “ He explains why the technology should clean up the reporting of the precinct results. There should be real time reporting via the Internet and or SMS messaging. This is based on the belief that most of the cheating happens during the tallying process. This would parallel the experiences of Kenya and Zimbabwe where it was widely believed that the governing party “stole” the election by manipulating the tallying process. According to Manalastas real-time precinct reporting would deny cheaters the chance to manipulate the results in favor of particular candidates.
If “DocMan” had his way then all the precincts would report their results on the Internet in real time on election day. Any person (or News Organization or Poll Watching Group) could add up the results at any time to calculate who the winner is.
Preliminary Response from
Nat. Museum Senior Consultant
Apology to Nat. Museum
Senior Consultant John Silva
As the semester is winding down I’m not planning any more tours right now. If you want to join one in the future email me: Philip.David.Truscott@gmail.com
”You’re banning us from entering?” I asked.
“Sir, that’s the rule.” said the museum guard.
“Is it posted on your Web site?”
The guard was silent. “What is your Web site address?”
More silence.
Eventually he produced a cheaply copied leaflet, which said in microscopic print that no tours were allowed on Sundays. He said any group larger than 10 people constituted a tour group. “Your leaflet does not mention the number 10.”
“10 – that’s the rule the guides give us.” “Who decided to introduce the anti-tourism policy?” Silence. “How long has the anti-tourism policy been enforced?” Silence. “Now look I’ve been here on a weekday and you have school groups of well over 50 people at a time. How can it be legal to have over 50 people on a weekday and yet it’s illegal to have 25 on a Sunday. Look your own leaflet says you reward people who bring in groups of over 50 on a weekday with free entrance.” “This is the rule the guides give us. There are no guides here now. You can’t go in.” I started off this argument with about 25 students and two sets of parents. All of us were getting the same story. They could not let us in because there were no museum guides available. They were very apologetic about it but this was the rule the “guides” gave them.
It’s hard to understand what all this meant if it didn’t mean that the guards had been ordered to run a publicly owned museum as a private cartel for a favored set of tour guides. I then started whipping out my copy of the constitution. On my blog page, you can see a video of me reading the free speech section to the lobby guard. You may be asking yourself why I was so well prepared with my flag covered constitution? I should give you some background.
The Thrill Ride and the Ghost Train During the summer break in 2008, I worked as an extra on a dire science fiction movie. One of the other extras intrigued me by saying that he had seen a stupendous tour guide and he calculated he had earned about 25,000 pesos running a tour in a single afternoon. It’s embarrassing to talk about money but transitioning from a New York business salary to that of a Filipino teacher well … sucks. It’s really bad coping with the 90%+ pay cut when you have relatives asking: “when am I going to see you?” The last time I flew home, it cost about 4 times my monthly salary. I have not seen any member of my family since the end of 2007. It seemed at least credible that tour guiding might finance an annual trip home so I chugged over to Manila to watch this “miracle” tour guide. He more than lived up to the hype. To say that Carlos Celdran is a national asset is no overstatement; it’s the literal truth. Nobody who visits the Philippines gets such a positive, exciting, favorable impression of the country as the people who do his tours. I’ve shadowed four of his tours and I frequently chat to the international visitors: Australians, Germans, Brits, Aussies. When asked for their opinion of the tour the spontaneously volunteer that he’s the best tour guide they’ve ever heard. They laugh, they frown, they chuckle and sometimes they cry. From a teacher’s perspective, the most amazing thing is how much we’re learning without noticing it. The whole thing seems like a form of entertainment from start to finish. Carlos has an amazing range of funny accents, impersonations, quick-delivery speeches, theatrical props and visual aids. It’s not just a tour; it’s a one-man play that deserves a TONY award. The only bad feeling I got on his tours emerged from his increasingly strained relationship with the management of Casa Manila – a re-constructed colonial era house next to the San Agustin church in Intramuros. I watched that particular tour three times. The first time he seemed relaxed. The second time he had to do a huge amount of running up and down stairs to talk to some museum official on the phone. It seemed the security guards were imposing a lower limit on the number of tourists who were allowed in. The third time I saw the tour, Carlos did not take them into Casa Manila at all. I cannot tell what Carlos was being told on the phone. If there had been some kind of demand for a kickback it could have been implied. Maybe the officials had real evidence the building was about to collapse under the weight of his tourists. What seems unarguable is that a situation that discourages his tourists from entering is a disaster for everyone. Casa Manila loses all those entry fees; the tourists see less Philippine history; Filipinos project a less positive image to foreign visitors. When I visited Casa Manila I could not see any kind of safe occupancy sign such as: “This room can only hold 82 people.” It seemed to me that the officials could make up these numbers on the fly. To have a really corruption-free process the Department of Tourism should require all these attractions to publish a Web site with a group access policy: “Casa Manila can only accommodate groups of up to 60 people” (or whatever the number is). Having secret rules leaves the system open to the possibility that a successful tour guide could end up as an extortion victim: “pay me a kickback or I won’t let your clients in.” I don’t know if this happened at Casa Manila, but there was certainly some disagreement that stopped Carlos Celdran’s clients entering. By contrast with Carlos’s tours the National Museum and National Gallery are tragic in their lack of energy. The buildings are largely empty. There’s no café. No restaurant. No drinking fountain or vending machine. By contrast with Carlos’s thrill ride it seemed like a ghost train. All of this money was being invested in the buildings, but there were no people.
A Paid Tour in the National Museums Before I did my own tour of the National Museums I was encouraged to proceed by the official Saturday tour. I did the tour with an eclectic group: a Ateneo law professor, an English teacher and a long standing friend who works as an auditor for the City Government of New York. We were told the museums had free admission on Sundays and that he was anxious that more teachers should bring their students: “a lot of them come to Manila and just go to the malls.”
Re-enacting EDSA 1 When the National Museum banned us from entering, I asked to see a manager. The guards told us that a guide would be summoned to explain the policy. No guide showed up. Now it’s bad enough having a cartel policy, but to impose a ban to benefit guides who aren’t available is ridiculous. It would not be so bad if the cartel guides were good at attracting crowds, but just visit the museums on a Sunday and you will see echoing canyons of dead space. The official guides seem to have the visibility of Hollow Man and the marketing skills of Peter the Hermit.
The first reason I was told that we could not enter was that 100 Ateneans had visited the museum in the morning, therefore we could not come in the afternoon. I thought: What’s that got to do with anything! The Senior Consultant told me you have a free admission policy! And the Museum’s practically empty! I went to the sign up counter and asked to see the sign in log. After asking three times I was shown it and could see no evidence of the 100 Ateneans, nor could I see any reason for imposing a quota on a particular University.
My students started recording my conversations with the museum staff. I got out my copy of the constitution and started reading the free speech section. At this point, the lobby guard must have felt like a movie star as he had a whole phalanx of students video-recording our conversation. The security guards then started doing a lot of anxious chatter on their walkie talkies and we were told that we would be allowed in on a grudging just-this-once basis. Meanwhile I had lost some of my group. The two sets of parents had vanished, but I still had about 21 people.
We toured the National Museum (Finance Building) and then transferred to the National Art Gallery in the Old Congress Building. I was walking faster than my students and I cleared the gate into the forecourt of the building about 25 feet ahead of any of the students. When I looked back, the guard was again blocking them, which left me looking at a forlorn group behind iron bars. The picture at this point looked like a miniature re-enactment of EDSA 1, with all those people staring through the bars of Camp Crame. I again asked the students to start the recording process and I had one of them read out a Tagalog version of the Bill of Rights.
One of the students later said she enjoyed all the opposition from the guards and the experience of overcoming it (maybe I should try to have the guards pretend to ban tour groups in future so we can all have a little taste of People Power). The guard let us through the gate after about 5 minutes of pointless heatstroke. When they finally reached the statue of Sergio Osmena we took a victory photo. I now felt like Julie Andrews leading the Von Trap family into Switzerland.
Victory!
We were allowed into the lobby and had about another 20 minutes of bickering with the desk staff who were also unhappy that we were unguided. By this stage my voice was getting a little sharp. Again, I asked if the anti-tourism policy was posted on a wall. Silence. What’s your Web site address? “Sorry Sir we’re just new.” “No you’re not! These buildings were given to Museum under President Ramos!” Another staff member actually gave me a Web Site address: www.PhilippineMuseum.org. This Web site name has in fact been reserved by the National Museum in July 2008. However, if you try using it, you get a “Page not Found” error. Dear President Arroyo, my politics are usually a frenzy of moderation. I have not joined any demonstrations here or asked my students to, but please let me make one comment about the subject that I teach. To have a NATIONAL museum in the year 2009 with no Web site is ABSURD. If your museum managers are incapable of putting up a Web site, you need to replace them. Advertising exhibits is a major function of a museum Web site. It is an essential part of marketing any major business. Foreign visitors EXPECT to be able to look up entrance hours. Most important of all a Web site should be used to advertise an “Equal Access” policy. All tourist attractions should have to say the maximum size of a tour group. Within that limit all should be treated with total equality whether they are public school teachers, private teachers or independent tour guides. The National Museum has been used for wedding receptions in the past. That is a very good thing. The buildings need to have more visitors to support bookstores and cafes. Corporate and private functions should be encouraged but there should be a public tariff for renting a given room. There should be an online booking calendar to ensure groups can rent on a first-come-first served basis. Anything else encourages an atmosphere of favoritism. How many people in the world knew it was possible to have a wedding reception at the National Museum? Publicity helps guarantee fairness and would prevent the buildings from being run as a private fiefdom. Published rental rates and bookings would make it simple for an auditor to verify that all the fees go to a museum treasury. I have met numerous student actors and professors who have impressed me with their thespian skills. I pray that in future some of these people should go to places like the National Museum and lead large happy tour groups. If Filipinos are judged by their performing and artistic talents, they can compete with anyone in the world. I would like to see the National Museum’s dead spaces come alive with cafes, bookstores, artists in residence, musicians and other performers. I honestly believe that all this can happen if we allow people with talent to use their talents fully. We need to let the Carlos Celdrans of tomorrow rise as high as their dreams.
CommentThank you for the wonderful tour you gave us today. My brothers and I really enjoyed, even the parts when we had to argue with security! I guess it made it more interesting. Plus, my brother was really impressed by how much you know about not just world war 2, but the other battles and wars that took place here in the Philippines, as well.Sincerely,Hot Stuff
Dear Dr. Truscott,I have to admit that tour was unforgettable. Not only was I impressed that you know so much about the Philippines, I was actually more surprised you were prepared to stand up for our rights. What happened at our National Museum is sad, and I think … if I were hypothetically alone and banned from entering our museum, I would have just went back another day, or paid a fee. What truly struck me is that it took a foreigner like you to remind everyone of our rights as citizens[many of us were surprised you had a copy of the 1987 constitution at that time]. You have taught us a very valuable lesson which I hope we never forget.Cool Stuff
Hi Sir! Just wanted to let you know that me and my blockmates really enjoyed the tour today . It certainly gave me a wider perspective on Philippine history. You definitely should do this kind of thing more often with your students, Sir. I’m sure that they would appreciate it just as much as we did .RG
I found the variety of different accents and reading styles very difficult. I’m not sure I am going to continue listening to this beyond chapter 20. I will now search for another audio book version (though it will proably not be free).
Plus, my brother was really impressed by how much you know about not just world war 2, but the other battles and wars that took place here in the Philippines, as well.