TWO lyrics of old tunes are now clogging the air lanes and being hotly discussed in media: Federalism and Parliamentarism.

Either one of them is bad for Bicol.

        Federalism rose from deep slumber through a Senate Joint Resolution No. 10 sponsored by Senator Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. and signed by our own Sen. Chiz Escudero, among others, calling for the convening of a constituent assembly to create 11 federal states in the Philippines, Bicol being one of them. Parliamentarism through a constituent assembly is being pushed in the Lower House, to prop up the hastily- initialed MOA between the MILF and the GRP, as “first” and “second” nations, respectively, declaring the expanded ARMM as the by “ancestral lands” of the Bangsamoro Juridicial Entity (JRE) and the air and sea above them their property, for them to develop, enter into international treaties as a belligerent state, etc.

        As of now most of Bicol provinces are second only to ARMM at the rear of economic development and progress. Even if only BJE were to be created, Bicol will be relegated to the bottom of economic development. With petrodollars from wealthy OPEC nations, investments to a separate Muslim state here will easily flow. Almost typhoon free Mindanao may also have oil.

        Bicol is an agricultural economy. We are in the path of typhoons coming from the Pacific Ocean every year, and whenever a supertyphoon hits us, our coconuts take five years to recover, our rice harvests are reduced, our bananas and abaca will take one to two years to be productive, while our bounties from sea end up in the Navotas fish port, as their operators, mostly from Pampanga and Batangas, have business connections there, and would sell only the rejects in the local market. Bigger profit is the name of the game, and most Bicolanos have thin wallets. There are no big manufacturers processing our fish harvests, and if you look the stats, the Bicol region is many times below General Santos City alone in income from just tuna exports, with millions of dollars in Japanese investments. Aside from the typhoons, there are NO “creative capitalists” from Bicol, as described by the world’s richest man, Bill Gates, who put up the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with billions of their own money to fight AIDS, TB and malaria. All home-grown Bicolano billionaires, from the Madrigals, to the Johnny Chengs and the Tan Yus, never invested their vast wealth in Bicol, nor are there philanthropic foundations to help the vast majority of their “kababayans” (on election time) who live below the poverty line. Whatever happened to the P200 million piggery business investment of Beatriz Intl’s Nicolas in Naga City?

        We copied the tax law in the U.S., wherein billionaires create foundations to have management control of their excess allowable maximum income; otherwise they will all go to the state as taxes. Thus you have the Rockefeller Foundation, The Ford Foundation, etc. In his essay, “The Gospel of Wealth” steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, the richest man in his time (1899), wrote that millionaires should act as trustees for the poor, and after accumulating great wealth, he should further feed capitalism by giving it all away by establishing institutions that help people improve the quality of their lives. Before he died, he endowed 2,509 libraries and gave away 90% of his wealth in America. That’s creative capitalism.

        How about our politicians? Let’s look at the record. Their first united effort by way of legislation was the creation of the Bicol Sugar Development Company (BISUDECO). At that time, RP has a most-favored nation treaty with the US with a sugar quota which was taking the Negros province quite hard to fill. Even the watered-down version of the bill (the Visayan lobby was too powerful for our politicians) wherein Bicol could produce only brown sugar, not the refined white sugar for export, took off. You all know what happened: a board of directors composed of politicians from all the six provinces of Bicol made the BISUDECO their milking cow, hiring so many employees from their respective provinces, mostly relatives and political allies, even before the sugar cane could be harvested and the first mill set up. BISUDECO, last time we heard, ended up in the hands of Chinese-Filipino businessmen.

        The other effort by Bicol politicians that almost succeeded was the Bicol River Basin Development Project. Patterned after China, which created a huge man-made basin to collect all the water during the monsoon rain months, control the floods and later use the water to irrigate the rice fields and other lands for agriculture, the project was well on its way to completion when a US-AID helicopter crashed and killed some American over seers.

        The Americans have since shifted their attention and resources from NPA-ridden Bicol to terrorist Al Qaeda haven Mindanao. The US lady ambassador has been to Mindanao several times more than GMA herself. She was even invited to the aborted signing of the MOA between the GRP and the MILF in Kuala Lumpur. According to news reports she had a copy of the MOA ahead of Senate President Villar and most of our senators, who are supposed to ratify the treaty after its signing.

        Could a US base in Mindanao under the BJE become a reality? The undervalued dollar still works wonders in Mindanao as witness the frequent kidnappings of even foreign priests in the area.

        What could have been Bicol’s only success story is the Tiwi Geothermal Project. But so far only Albay and Sorsogon get part of the revenues, at the expense of the entire region whose consumers have to pay higher electric rates because of high overland transmission cost as Bicol is not linked to the Luzon grid, the undersea cable being only up to Quezon province. Why our politicians cannot push for a Bicol grid is a mystery.

        So shall the footloose and fancy-free Bicolanos dance to the tune of the cha-cha? Our politicians are dreaming of an international airport, and even GMA so promised it in her SONA two years ago. Albay Gov. Joey Salceda, then chair of the House Appropriations Committee later budget secretary (like Nonoy Andaya) announced the release by installment of the one billion pesos supposed to buy 100 hectares in Daraga, Albay. To this day not a single centavo has been released. Iloilo got its international airport mainly under the leadership of then Senate President Franklin Drilon with no fanfare. He was then still close to GMA and got her to sign up on the P5 billion loans from JICA. It took Iloilo five years to build that airport. GMA has only two years remaining in her term, so why are our Bicol politicians egging us to dance the cha-cha?

        Two reasons: One is term extension or allowing GMA to run for a seat in Parliament, and becoming Prime Minister; which, considering her unpopularity, might lead this country - God forbid – to Edsa III. Another is a clever PR spin to divert the attention of the people from the scandals of the past, from the Garci tapes, the ZTE NBN deal, the fertilizer scam (Joc Joc Bolante is facing extradition to RP), the swine scam and other 2004 – campaign related illegal release of public funds. The wonder of it all, the ploy is working. We are all talking of the new administration mantra, like the fools that you and I were so many elections past.