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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stitch who wrote (4952)	7/1/1998 9:02:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Respond to of 9980

Stitch, Pretty quiet here today. Gates were barricaded yesterday, some confrontations between supporters of the two camps. Insults traded, no bullets. One elderly Gordon volunteer died of a heart attack. Lot's of legalese flying now, along with various threats. We'll see. The enmity between Estrada and Gordon goes way back before the election. When Estrada was a Senator he was one of the leaders of the anti-bases movement. Gordon, then mayor of Olongapo, was strongly pro-bases (he was reported to have a major stake in numerous businesses serving the needs & desires of the base community). Estrada tried to film part of an anti-bases movie in Olongapo; his people were stoned and harassed by local residents, allegedly at Gordon's instigation. They've hated each other since then: Gordon has never made any secret of his contempt for Estrada, and Estrada has promised all along that if he ever won the presidency, his first move would be to ax Gordon. Gordon obviously did a lot of positive things after the base pullout, and there's no denying that in many ways the Subic Freeport operates very well. Also many disturbing undercurrents. Gordon is very good at handling a crisis, but day to day management is another story. He is alleged to be very temperamental, domineering, etc.; he's surrounded by a clique of fawning yes-men, and takes very badly to criticism. Low-level corruption is not a problem, but many reports of large scale smuggling deals, which I can't personally confirm or deny. Overall, I think a new person might not be a bad idea. I don't like the idea of anyone turning this place into a personal fiefdom, even if the rule is relatively competent. A sideline worth noting is that Gordon campaigned strongly against Estrada: "a vote for Estrada is a vote against me". Despite the Gordon family's supposedly complete control of Olongapo (wife is mayor, brother is congressman), Estrada won the town by a considerable margin. I'd guess a lot of people here dislike and resent Gordon, but are afraid to speak up. On Estrada the book is still open. He's certainly never impressed anyone with his intellect, and many predicted catastrophe if he was elected. He's won back a lot of credibility with his first round of appointments, which were generally sober, capable, fairly conservative people. Hard to say if the bufoonery is a real reflection of what he is or a studied image aimed at the working-class Filipino. He hasn't impressed intellectuals much, but then again he hasn't tried. My main worry is that the combination of power and popularity is going to go to his head, and make him impatient with burdensome constitutional processes, Also that the shady old circle of friends is going to start surfacing in later rounds of appointments. Might be best if he drinks himself into a stupor and lets the cabinet run the show. Everyone's curious to see what he does about the crime situation, where big promises were made. To accomplish anything there he's going to have to clean up the Manila police, which makes tidying the Augean Stables look like a minor piece of work. My own guess is that he'll round up and dispose of a bunch of triggermen and alleged triggermen, and declare the problem solved. Unfortunately, triggermen are a natural resource that this country posesses in almost unlimited supply. Hope things stay reasonably stable over there. Does any mechanism for succession exist, or isn't anyone thinking along those lines yet. The idea of calm, peaceful political transition in an Asian country still seems a bit odd to me. Hope they can pull it off. Regards, Steve