Okay, after watching the movie last night, i am scared shitless of what can happen. Reading this, i do hope people (including myself) will be awakened to the sad plight of the earth. After all, not everybody has a climatologist for a dad who can avert disaster and easily save the world.
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No choice
Updated 00:39am (Mla time) Aug 27, 2004
Inquirer News Service
THE DEPARTMENT of Energy is urging motorists to go car-less once a
week, on top of that one imposed by the color-coding traffic scheme,
in order to save gasoline. The campaign deserves everyone's support.
But granted it does not, the sharply rising world prices of crude oil
will force the most recalcitrant motorists to save or else.
Perhaps that's the sweet part about the largely bitter affair of ever-
zooming world oil prices. The rapid industrialization in China and
India, the increased economic activity in the United States and
Europe, and the political uncertainty in Iraq and the rest of the
Middle East indicate that the regime of high oil prices is not about
to end any time soon. So the Philippines must either tame the oil
price tiger or roll with the punches. It has no choice but to go
along with the logic of the market.
The odd thing is that private car use should have been rationalized
long ago. The worsening traffic situation in Metro Manila should have
compelled car-pooling and such other measures for the judicious use
of vehicles. But lack of public encouragement and government's free-
wheeling policies on private car use--for example, the absence of
provisions to ensure that car buyers should have garages and not make
public roads and even sidewalks their private car park; as well as
the rather liberal regulations on car-tinting, special plates, use of
sirens and other vanities--has merely abetted car conceit and
socially insensitive behavior.
The prospect of world crude oil prices reaching $50 per barrel is a
good, albeit shocking, wake-up call. The days of untrammeled car use--
aided by the rather low world oil prices in the early 1990s (at $11
per barrel!)--are over. Definitely the new developments will have an
impact not only on car use, but also on car buying.
The menu of other energy-saving measures by the DOE should likewise
be heeded: ensuring fuel-efficient vehicles, promotion of walking and
biking, shorter mall hours, and putting up taxi stands in malls and
other commercial places are practical tips to reduce energy
consumption. The program seeks to reduce, by 12 percent, oil
importation and save the country much-needed foreign exchange. A by-
product of gasoline conservation is less pollution. For pollution-
choked Metro Manilans, that's a welcome bonus.
Bad example
A NATIONWIDE energy-saving campaign can only work if the government
leads the way. President Macapagal-Arroyo knows this. She says that
the government would exercise "leadership by example." She has in
fact imposed a moratorium on the purchase of new state vehicles.
Of course, we have yet to see whether her "leadership by example"
will work. She might have proclaimed a moratorium on car purchases,
but wily government functionaries could easily exploit the thousand
and one loopholes that obtain in a bureaucracy of alibis to be
excused from her policy.
The bureaucracy is ordinarily car-crazy. It is a given that in a
culture of entitlement, a bureaucracy is usually filled with men and
women who crave not only positions and titles, but also the perks
that go with them. Even persons from the private sector who enter
government usually reward themselves with perquisites that fly in the
face of the austerity and simplicity required of public servants.
Not too long ago, an education official from the private sector was
able to raise money, only to use it for re-fleeting the motor pool of
his department. The new cars might have been really needed, but the
telling thing was that the official bought and assigned to himself
the most expensive--and the heartiest gasoline guzzler - of the new
cars. His conduct shows that in the bureaucracy, as in the rest of
Philippine society perhaps, cars are a status symbol, a symbol of
power.
Would the logic of the market work as well on the government as it
surely would on private vehicle users reeling from high gasoline
prices? That's doubtful. For all the talk about public
accountability, the public sector does not feel compelled to be
responsible for its runaway expenses and twisted accounting. How else
can one explain the fiscal crisis?
Thus, the government is the worst exemplar of "leadership by
example." As the private sector tries to save gasoline, expect
government officials to drive around town in fancy gasoline swiggers
and with a convoy to boot.
Of course we would be happy to be proven wrong.
