‘Kamoteng Kahoy’

The other day I went to see the movie “Kamoteng Kahoy” directed by Maryo de los Reyes and written by Ricky Lee, both veterans and multi-awarded. I went because the movie was based on a real-life tragedy that happened in Mabini, Bohol in 2005.

It is a good film to watch these days when deathly horror flicks seem to be all there is. The theaters are drowning in blood, gore and green vomit.

I had written about the tragedy that claimed the lives of 27 school children and downed more than 100 after they ate fried cassava snacks sold by a vendor. Questions were immediately raised. Was it the cassava root that did it? Was it the way the food was prepared? Cassava contains linamarin. If cassava is improperly prepared, this toxic component could remain. When ingested, linamarin converts to cyanide in the human digestive system. The Department of Health ruled that it was pesticide, present in the cassava snack, that did it.

And now the movie.



It begins by introducing the individuals whose characters would play out more intensely after the tragedy, that is after scores of school children of San Isidro die. Aling Idang (Gloria Romero), maker and vendor of the lethal cassava snack at the school premises is at the center of the plot but it is the children Ariel (Nash Aguas) and Atong (Robert Villar Jr.) who would move the story to it denouement.

Ariel is a sensitive child with separated parents who are trying to forgive each other even as they live separate lives but it is Ariel himself who has to come to terms with the situation at his own pace. He survives the mass poisoning but his feelings of loss (close friends Rosemary and Dennis are among the dead) add to his confusion. He experiences survivor’s guilt as shown in his drawings.

Atong, the street-smart orphan kid, is a perfect foil to Ariel’s state of confusion. Unkempt, dirty and full of sores, he doesn’t have many friends. Severely battered by his motormouth aunt (Irma Adlawan as the surrogate mom from hell), he is tough as nails and has developed his own coping mechanisms. He is serving his punishment in the classroom when his classmates start falling sick during recess.

The movie does not dwell long on the day of the tragedy itself and its immediate aftermath—the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the media frenzy, the mass burial. But with the mood set, the movie proceeds to show how the bucolic town of San Isidro turns itself upside down. Grieving families turn against Aling Idang and almost lynch her to death. The old lady is herself full of grief and guilt and in a sudden show of fierceness vents her ire on her grown-up wishy-washy son.

The grief-stricken Ariel tries to move on but is weighed down by his dear friends’ passing, survivor’s guilt and family affairs. He visits the old haunts and there is only Atong who helps him confront his pain. Atong advises, philosophizes, challenges, even taunts. He is the quintessential kutong lupa with an attitude.

And so battered boy befriends grieving boy. And while the town tries to come to terms with its loss, Atong and Ariel set off to do things together, minus the old friends who died, with the former leading the way. The piglet-stealing episode and the two boys’ repartee the night of the “crime” was, I thought, so charming.

The movie does not say it succinctly, but forgiveness is all over it. Forgiving one another, and more importantly, oneself, is easier said than done. Ariel’s drawing of his surroundings shows that he is beginning to come to terms with the changes in his life.

Atong sets off for parts unknown, that is, the mean streets of Manila. The parting is bitter-sweet. Both survivors, the boys will look back to the friendship that grew out of their pain. Great little actors too!

Alas, the kamoteng kahoy (the movie’s title) or cassava was nowhere pictured. Nowhere was it shown how this root is grown and becomes food. Aling Idang was shown mixing, that was all. There were shots of some leaves in the beginning but there was no reference to them. They simply looked like wild growth or some garden plant.

Okay, I’m not a film critic, so that is all I should say was obviously missing.
Cassava is the world’s third most important crop. Cassava (manihot esculenta) originated in Brazil where it is called manioc. The Portuguese colonizers later brought it to Africa. Cassava is the principal source of nutrition for about 500 million people. The root is a rich source of carbohydrates, protein, minerals and vitamins A, B and C. Why aren’t we growing more of it for food and as alternative energy source?

The North Americans have it as tapioca (sago to us) for their custard-like tapioca pudding. The Chinese use it for tikoy. From cassava also comes gawgaw (all-purpose starch powder). Filipinos make a variety of cassava delights, among them, cassava bibingka.

The day of the 2005 tragedy, I was eating cassava pitsi-pitsi. Bulanghoy, balinghoy or kamoteng kahoy has come a long way from its barrio nilupak beginnings. Making nilupak (by pounding together boiled cassava, young coconut and sugar) is still an excuse for farm folk to soak in the glow of the full moon.

If you laid out before me a variety of desserts that consisted of pastries with vanilla essence and fancy toppings on one side and native goodies (kakanin) on the other side, I’d make a beeline for the latter. The blend of coconut meat and milk with sticky rice or grated starchy roots, caramelized sugar and pandan, sometimes with a sprinkling of sesame seeds and nuts, was concocted in heaven where the majority must be Southeast Asians.

Go catch the movie.

In death Saro-Wiwa triumphs, Shell pays

Ken Saro-Wiwa, Nigerian writer, poet, martyr and activist who was hanged, along with eight others in 1995, has triumphed even in death. When you gas up at Shell, think of Saro-Wiwa.

A news report the other day said: “The oil giant Shell has agreed to pay $15.5 million in settlement of a legal action in which it was accused of having collaborated in the execution of the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other leaders of the Ogoni tribe of southern Nigeria.

“The settlement is one of the largest payouts agreed by a multinational corporation charged with human rights violations. Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary SPDC have not conceded to or admitted any of the allegations, pleading innocent to all the civil charges.”



So why is Shell paying? “[T]he scale of the payment is being seen by experts in human rights law as a step towards international businesses being made accountable for their environmental and social actions.”

Royal Dutch Shell was to stand trial in federal court in New York for complicity in human rights abuses in Nigeria, but on the eve of the trial it decided to settle. That Shell shunned a trial meant that it was afraid of evidence that could be presented. A report said that “among the documents that were lodged with the New York court was a 1994 letter from Shell in which it agreed to pay a unit of the Nigerian army for services rendered. The unit had retrieved one of the company’s fire trucks from the village of Korokoro, an action that according to reports at the time left one Ogoni man dead and two wounded.”

Shell wrote that it was making the payment “as a show of gratitude and motivation for a sustained favorable disposition in future assignments.”

I had goose bumps as I watched the report on this development on CNN. I had written about Saro-Wiwa some years back not only because of the cause he had espoused but because Filipinos working in and around Nigeria become hostage victims of errant groups, bandits among them, who were exploiting the anarchic situation there.

Wiwa had led the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People so that the government would heed their demands. When he and the eight others, all members of the Ogoni tribe, were hanged, Greenpeace issued a statement saying that they were hanged for speaking out against the environmental damage to the Niger Delta caused by Shell through its 37 years (since 1958) of drilling in the region. Saro-Wiwa was campaigning for the basic right to clean air, land and water and his only crime was his success in bringing his cause to international attention.

Greenpeace slammed Shell’s call for “quiet diplomacy” at the 11th hour that was not of any use. Shell had ample opportunity to demonstrate concern when Saro-Wiwa was in detention and on trial, but it chose to remain cozy with the Nigerian military dictatorship at that time.

Saro-Wiwa’s execution created ripples all over the world and today, many environmental and literary groups hail him as a hero.

Here was what Saro-Wiwa said to the tribunal: “I repeat that we all stand before history. I and my colleagues are not the only ones on trial. Shell is here on trial… Its day will surely come and the lessons learnt here may prove useful to it for there is no doubt in my mind that the ecological war that the company has waged in the Delta will be called to question sooner than later and the crimes of that war will be duly punished. The crime of the company’s dirty war against the Ogoni people will also be punished.”

Several times in 1993, Saro-Wiwa was arrested but he was adopted by Amnesty International as a Prisoner of Conscience. The supposed reason for his arrest was that he had incited the youth to murder.

Saro-Wiwa had written 27 books and had been honored for excellence in creative writing. He was a member of the Ogoni tribe composed of some 500,000 people. The Ogoni live in the densely populated Ogoniland in southeastern Nigeria.

At that time Ogoniland had produced more than $30 billion worth of oil for Nigeria through the government’s joint partnership with Shell. But the oil endeavor had resulted in severe pollution of Ogoniland.

The $15.5 million settlement came after three weeks of intensive negotiation between the plaintiffs, mostly relatives of the executed nine, and Shell. Anthony DiCaprio, the lead lawyer for the Ogoni side working with the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, said they were pleased with the result.

The deal highlights the end of a 14-year personal journey for Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr., son of the executed leader. Among the 10 plaintiffs was Karalolo Kogbara who lost an arm after she was shot by Nigerian troops while protesting the bulldozing of her village in 1993 to make way for a Shell oil pipeline.

Part of the settlement amount will be used to set up a trust called Kiisi (which means “progress” in the Ogoni Gokana language) to support community projects in the Niger Delta.

In a statement the plaintiffs said: “It is said that justice delayed is justice denied but today our private agonies and our long struggle for justice have finally been vindicated and we are gratified that Shell has agreed to atone for its actions. In accepting this settlement we were very much aware that we are not the only Ogonis who have suffered in our struggle with Shell, which is why we have insisted on a donation that will enable other members of our community to benefit from our victory.”

Read more or watch video clips about this landmark case. Visit http://wiwavshell.org. Amazing struggle.

Land, a hunger

As I write this, it is one day to go before the deadline for the passing of CARPER (comprehensive agrarian reform extension with reforms) in the House of Representatives. The good news is that two days ago, the Senate passed on third reading the CARP bill extending for another five years the land acquisition and distribution program of the government. The budget is at P147 billion.

If CARPER was passed before the House adjourned yesterday, then all the last-minute efforts on the part of the farmers and their fellow advocates in the church, academe, media and civil society would have been worth it. But we can’t sit back and say everything will henceforth be smooth.

Last week, the documentary “Lupang Hinarang” by multi-awarded filmmaker Ditsi Carolino had a red-carpet screening at the Ateneo de Manila University to help push the CARPER nearer its fulfillment. There were T-shirts, photo-ops, flyers, the film—just about everything for CARPER. It was heartwarming to see young people manning the campaign, like the future of their country depended on it.



I bought myself a T-shirt with the message “I stand for farmers, I stand for CARPER, I stand for justice.”

As Carolinos’ documentary showed, many farmers had to put their lives at risk in order for them to own a piece of land. Land is a hunger. “Lupang Hinarang” is a film in two parts about a fierce and deadly battle raging between farmers and landowners in the continuing saga on agrarian reform in the Philippines. The documentary opens with the farmers from Sumilao, Bukidnon, among them, Ka Rene, Linda and Bajekjek, who, inspired by Gandhi’s protest march, journey on foot for two months from their mountain village to the presidential palace in Manila.

It is a killer 1,700-km. journey through scorching heat and pouring rain. They battle fatigue, illness and great uncertainty. After weeks of walking, the farmers reach Manila, stage a rally at the corporate offices of San Miguel, confront the agrarian reform secretary and face anti-riot police before finally meeting the President.

The second part tells the story of the sugarcane workers from Negros. After armed guards kill one of the farmers in 2007, Chay Lindy, Chay Gamay, and Chay Biray join other farmers on a harrowing 29-day hunger strike on the steps of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in Quezon City. The hunger strike results in victory for the farmers. They return to Negros to a land they could call their own. For some, the return meant a shocking bloody end.

“Lupang Hinarang” is a timely documentary set against ongoing debates in Congress to extend and reform CARP or to kill it.

How did CARPER fare in the House’s last day yesterday? How did the voting go? The numbers should be in the papers today. Akbayan Representative Risa Hontiveros, a proponent of the bill, called this last effort “meeting a deadline with history” and urged her colleagues to put aside charter change and concentrate on CARP. The Senate version may not be perfect, Hontiveros said, but the House could adopt it.

You can log on to http://peace.net.ph/carpercampaign to find out all about CARPER. You can read all about it in the website’s list of articles. If you are a student, you can even do a term paper, a thesis or a doctoral dissertation on this. You can click on the name of your district’s representative and find out where he/she stands on the CARPER and write to urge him/her to vote in favor of CARPER. Or, if it’s a done deal by now, say something to support, congratulate or express your disappointment. Flaunt the power of your vote.

In 2006 and 2007 Centro Saka Inc. (CSI) surveyed close to 1,500 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARB) to validate the Department of Agrarian Reform’s (DAR) accomplishments in the distribution of private agricultural land (PAL) in 12 provinces. The criteria used to validate CARP accomplishment were: actual award of land or title, physical occupation/installation of the ARB in the awarded land, and provision of support services for the awarded land.
Here are some findings:

The majority (82%) of the respondents received titles as proof of their being recognized as CARP beneficiaries. But 18% said they have not received any title. CSI says that since all the respondents were drawn from DAR’s master list of beneficiaries who were reported as having been awarded titles, how do you explain that 18%?

Of the 919 respondents who were awarded titles under CARP, 65% confirmed that they were still holding their titles. But 35% said they didn’t hold their awarded titles. And why? Reasons given: They have not yet received their titles but were aware they had a pending title. The titles were being held by the cooperatives because they were mother CLOAs. Others said they pawned or used their titles as collateral. Some sold the titles or lost them. Still others declined to say why.

The most frequently stated reason was: no titles have been issued them.
And remember, there is a difference between awarded lands and awarded titles.

Agrarian reform is unfinished business.

And by the way, the five-day 8th Agraryo Trade Fair started yesterday at the SM Megamall Megatrade hall. It is spearheaded by the Department of Agrarian Reform’s Bureau of Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Development. I went to last year’s fair and went home with lots of organically grown stuff.

This fair is a showcase and one wishes many more farmers would be among these ARBs. Are the ARBs really as blessed as they appear to be? What difficulties did they undergo? I will be at the fair and I will interview some of them.

IP barefoot doctors

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Free book on sustainable rice agriculture

Whenever sustainable agriculture and organic farming are taken up in this space, quite a number of readers send in feedback and queries, or even offer information about what they are doing in their own farms and backyards. Which means that sustainable agriculture, natural farming, organic farming, or in the new Filipino jargon of enlightened farmers, “likas-kaya at organikong pagsasaka” (LKP) is gaining adherents and advocates.

(I do backyard organic gardening and have lately been eating so much patola—the short, gourd-like type which looks like an oversized sayote. I think I got the seeds from the Bureau of Plants. I have a lot of small, wild ampalaya for juicing.)

At last, the words sustainable agriculture and organic farming have been given a Filipino translation. And that is the title of the newly published book by University of the Philippines-Los Banos (UP-LB) professor Oscar B. Zamora and his team. “Likas-Kaya at Organikong Pagsasaka ng Palay” (Sustainable and Organic Rice Agriculture) was launched last week at the Go-Organic! Philippines forum and bazaar at the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM) headquarters in Quezon City. I thought the book would be for sale but I was surprised when I was told it was free. It is in Filipino so whatever I quote here is my own translation into English.



Written and published for farmers, the book has no copyright and the publishers even encourage translations, adaptations, copying and mass dissemination. Just cite the author and publishers (PRRM, UP-LB College of Agriculture and Mind Builders Publishing House). If you are a farmer and want a free copy, contact Go-Organic! through PRRM, 59 Mother Ignacia St. corner Scout Lazcano, QC. Tel. 3724992, 3724994. Email: info@prrm.org or obzamora@uplb.edu.ph,
info@goorganizphilippines.org. You may also visit www.goorganicphilippines.org.

The book (8x11, 198 pp.) has 12 chapters and is amply illustrated. While it offers a lot of background and scientific information, the book is really a how-to book. Chapter 1 is on sustainable agriculture and organic farming. What do they mean, what are the principles, how are they practiced?

The book tackles land preparation, seed selection, seed preparation (wetbed, drybed, dapog and SRI methods), seeding (wet, dry). It discusses the harmful effects of chemical fertilizers on the soil. Water is an important subject too. A whole chapter is devoted to pest control and management. Chapter 10, Pagiiba at pag-uugnay ng mga gawaing pangsakahan, (changing and integrating farm activities) deals with transfer of energy, water and substances cycles, plants, animals, biodiversified farming system, synergy, etc.

Farm management is something farmers also need to learn well in order for their endeavors to be both profitable and sustainable.

A whole chapter is devoted to organic fertilizer production, composting methods, the Korean natural farming, Bokashi fermented fertilizer, carbonized rice hull.

The last chapter offers 10 principles and methods (vertical and horizontal conversion) on how to convert into likas-kayang pagsasaka (LKP) or sustainable agriculture. What to consider before converting, and more.

The book will surely boost the Organic FIELDS Support Program (OFSP), Phase 1 of which was launched in Nov. 2008. For Phase 1, the Department of Agriculture (DA) is targeting 10 percent organic conversion of rice fields. Partners in this effort are the DA, PRRM, Bureau of Soils and Management, La Liga Policy Institute and the city government of Alaminos. Go Organic! Philippines, a consortium of civil society groups, is right at the center of this.

I was in Bohol two weeks ago and I was pleased to find out that the province has its own Go Organic program. Bohol Initiators for Sustainable Agriculture and Development (BISAD) is also a consortium of non-government organizations, people’s organizations, government agencies and business enterprises working to promote, strengthen and mainstream the principles, technologies and strategies of sustainable agriculture and development. (Email: bisadbohol@yahoo.com). It is in partnership with Australian Aid.

I saw big BISAD tarpaulin posters with information on organic agriculture. Flyers and brochures are also available. Listed are places where one could buy organically grown products in Bohol. Dr. Zamora’s book will surely be a great boost for BISAD’s campaign.
Once more, what is organic agriculture? “It is an ecological production management system that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity. It is based on minimal use of off-farm inputs and utilizes management practices that restore, maintain and enhance ecological harmony.”

“`Organic’ is a labeling term that denotes products produced under the authority of the DA’s Organic Rule (AO#13 series of 2002 and EO 481). The principal guidelines for organic production are to use materials and practices that enhance the ecological balance of natural systems and that integrate the parts of farming system into an ecological whole.”

Here are 8 reasons to go organic (from the Organic Trade Organization). Organic tastes great. It reduces health risks. Organic farms respect our water resources. Organic farmers build healthy soil. They work in harmony with nature. Organic producers are leaders in innovative research. They strive to preserve diversity. Organic farming helps keep rural communities healthy.

Correction: The film “Lagablab sa Maribojoc” which featured Maribojoc, Bohol starred Cesar Ramirez, not Fernando Poe Jr. as mentioned last week. FPJ starred in “Esteban” which was also shot in Bohol.

Maribojoc

It is not very often that one gets out of the city to find and experience the pristine and the primeval. Last week, I was in Maribojoc in the island province of Bohol to enjoy not just the fiesta and behold its ancient landmarks but to also experience its “secret places,” the blue and green quiet spaces that glide in and out of one’s dreams.

While Bohol now figures big on the tourism map because of the beaches of Panglao, the Chocolate Hills and the cultural sites, it has other little-known spots that could draw a different breed of visitors, explorers who are drawn to paths less traveled. Like myself. Maribojoc has such special places.

The town is only a 30-minute drive from Tagbilaran City, but it still holds one of the country’s last frontiers. I am referring to its vast mangrove areas that are still thick with nipa palm and different species of trees. (More on these later.)



I must mention that I arrived a few hours before the Pacquiao-Hatton boxing match which was over after only two rounds. The town’s gym was packed with people for the free live show. (My photo of the jubilating crowd came out in the Philippine Daily Inquirer the next day, and it thrilled the Maribojocanons.) But you know what? The bout came live via Indonesia (with anchors speaking in Bahasa). This was because, this time, only theaters and malls in Bohol could have cable TV pay-per-view. Obviously, so people would pay to watch.

Maribojoc couldn’t get it live for its poor constituents even if it would pay the cable company like what it did for the past bouts. So where would the hoi-polloi go? Mayor Leoncio “Jun” Evasco Jr. found a way, a “guerrilla” way.

This is the Jun Evasco I had met many years ago (but I do not remember where or how). He was a Catholic priest. He later became a ranking member of the communist New People’s Army. He was arrested and so heavily tortured by the military he wished they would finish him off. Four comrades who were arrested with him were summarily executed, leaving him the only survivor. He was in prison for several years and was released during the Aquino presidency. He worked in government for many years, his last job being as chief of staff of the unconventional mayor of Davao City, Rodrigo Duterte.

The details of Evasco’s life story deserves a separate telling some other time.

Now back in the town of his birth, Evasco, 65, married, with children and grandchildren, is bringing his life experiences as former priest, communist rebel, NGO worker and public servant to his elective post. Coming from a prominent family of Maribojoc, the homecoming Evasco won as mayor by a landslide in 2007.

Maribojoc has a population of only 18,000. Many are into farming and fishing. It has its share of legends and history, among them the bell at the bottom of the river, the centuries-old Punta Cruz watchtower by the sea, and beside it, the wooden cross planted by Italian navigator Pigafetta. This weekend, national historical markers will be installed on the watchtower and the church of Maribojoc. The film “Lagablab sa Maribojoc” starring the late Fernando Poe Jr. was filmed here.

The spiritual life of Maribojocanons deeply connects to the limestone church with ornately painted ceilings, which is dedicated to St. Vincent Ferrer who is nicknamed “Enting.” During feasts, people dance the Enting-Enting to seek the intercession of the Spanish Dominican saint who was a great missionary in his time. Of course, I joined in the revelry inside the church, and earlier, the fluvial procession of fishing boats out in the open sea and got my pants all wet.

But to go deeper into the heart of this place, one must meet the hardy folk who are working hard to move the town into the future while preserving its natural heritage. Many an application for quarrying, mining and fishpond permit has the mayor rejected if they looked like threats to the environment.

And as to the blue and green spaces I mentioned earlier, Maribojoc still has some of the biggest mangrove areas in this country. Fantastic is an understatement. Lining the banks of the Abatan River (which runs through four towns) are thick rows of nipa palms and mangrove trees that sustain a variety of wildlife. Multi-awarded poet Marjorie Evasco (a cousin of the mayor’s) wrote of this habitat as “a temple of dark green silence.”

We rafted on the Abatan River in the afternoon with only the sound of birds and insects to accompany us. At some point, we transferred from the raft to a tiny banca (boat) and paddled quietly into the smaller inlets under a bower of leaves. I thought of the river scenes in Francis Ford Coppola’s film and Joseph Conrad’s novel. For me, this was the next best thing to sailing on the Amazon, minus the anaconda.

Cooper Resabal Jr., a journalist who was based abroad for several years, is back in his hometown to help jumpstart the ecotourism program. This kind of tourism is not for everyone, he said. No dining cruises here like in Loboc. Just the green silence for rafters, kayakers, wildlife watchers, fishers, mystics.

I visited another mangrove area thick with 21 species of trees and with a half-kilometer board walk that leads to an islet planted to coconuts and with a good view of the sea. This serves as camping site. The sanctuary is managed by the San Vicente Mangrove Association. I also visited a farmers’ group that practices organic farming.

I stayed in a bed-and-breakfast place with a breathtaking view of the mountain in the distance, the vast and misty mangrove down below and the silvery sheen of a bend in the river.
For inquiries related to Maribojoc, write to tribukauswagan@yahoo.com.

Highwaymen

According to Wikipedia, the word highwayman came to be in the 1600s. The term is mainly applied to robbers who travelled on horses, as opposed to those who robbed on foot. Mounted robbers were widely considered to be socially superior to those who walked. Slang names for them included “knights of the road” and “gentlemen of the road”. Such robbers operated in Great Britain and Ireland from the Elizabethan period until the early 19th century. In the mid- to late 19th-century American West, highwaymen were known as road agents. In the same time period in Australia, they were known as bushrangers.

Literature has its share of highwaymen, one of them immortalized in Alfred Noyes’ narrative poem “The Highwayman” which we studied in school. I remember Bess, the landlord’s daughter, whom the highwayman wooed. And then “…they shot him down in the highway,/Down like a dog in the highway,/And he lay in his blood in the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.”

The highwayman is on my mind as I read the latest investigative report of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) on the roads and highways projects of the Arroyo administration. The report was written by Malou Mangahas, Karol Ilagan and Tita C. Valderrama.



PCIJ reports that according to the Department of Public Works and Highways’ (DPWH) online registry at least four congressmen and a governor have personal and family interests in companies that secured multi-million-peso civil-works contracts over the last seven years.

When PCIJ asked these officials about possible conflict of interest, they all replied that, indeed, they have interests in the companies, but that contracts were awarded before they took their oaths of office. One said he had divested, two said they had relinquished their roles in the companies but did not say how.

The Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials (RA 6713) prescribes that “a public official or employee shall avoid conflicts of interest at all times.” PCIJ says there are no divestment records or deeds of assignments filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Department of Trade and Industry.

PCIJ did a two-month scrutiny of the online database of the DPWH, and found out that the total value of civil-works contracts the department awarded from 2000 to 2008 reached a staggering P138.5 billion. And yet, PCIJ points out, “a big proportion of these projects did not result in new roads. Instead, over half of the 27,535 contracts awarded during the period involved the regraveling, repair, maintenance, or improvement of barangay and local roads.”

And while DPWH secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. says that “infrastructure investment has been recognized as a critical pillar in economic development and poverty alleviation under the administration of Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo”, PCIJ counters that these projects did little to reduce poverty incidence in the eight of 10 provinces that got the biggest value of contracts.

Here’s more: “In truth, the rush to roll out multiple projects might have been driven by a combination of political considerations and personal concerns for profit-making. One congressman, for instance, points out that regraveling is often done on farm-to-market roads and repeated almost on a yearly basis because ‘this is the easiest thing to do to make money. The contractor puts gravel on a road, and when heavy rains pour, the gravel is washed away, and you are back to having dirt road again that needs regraveling.’”

The PCIJ reviewed the DPWH contracts database as a follow-up to the Jan. 2009 report of the World Bank’s anti-corruption unit, the Department of Institutional Integrity, which established the collusion and corruption in WB-funded road projects implemented by the DPWH. PCIJ also did corroborating checks with other agencies.

A total of 27,535 contracts were posted on the DPWH website, but it excluded pork barrel projects and other lump-sum project funds lodged with the DPWH for implementation. But Ebdane told PCIJ there’s more that are on listed on line, and that from 2004 to 2008 alone, “a total of P185.341 billion has been allocated covering 92,737 projects” under DPWH.

But the DPWH website data yield enough information, says PCIJ, such as the names of the top 10 companies that bagged the biggest value of contracts. PCIJ presumed that contractors that received from P2 billion to P5 billion worth of DPWH projects over the last seven years would be registered as corporations. PCIJ found out that four contractors in the top 10 list operate only as sole-proprietorship entities.

Even more surprising is that a single clan from Batangas owns and controls two companies in the DPWH’s top 10 list. “Perseverance,” the clan stated, is the key. PCIJ made visits to the companies’ offices and saw that it was in a gas station. Other top 10 companies had offices in residential areas.

PCIJ found Philippine Contractors Accreditation Board (PCAB) data to be confusing. In the DPWH database, companies that ranked 3 to 10 supposedly had General Engineering AAA category, having obtained the track record and minimum “1,150 minimum overall credit points” required, but, it turned out, some of them are only in the B and A category.

There’s more. Check out the PCIJ website.

Picture the highwayman. “And still on a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,/When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,/When the road is a gypsy's ribbon looping the purple moor,/The highwayman comes riding--/Riding--riding--/The highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.”