by John Muir
Part of the Great Recovery Plan of the present government was to gain the confidence of the people, show they had real plans for the future, and would yield benefits for all. Details would be released early in the New Year. Approaches would be made to the USA and the World Bank for long term finances to undertake various development projects. The government had been using an excellent public relations system to make its actions known. Unfortunately, Warvic felt, the Filipino people again seemed to be believe that this time everything was going to succeed, and everyone was going to benefit.
Warvic knew from past experience that most of the money would be siphoned off into the pockets of the same corrupt bureaucrats and planners, despite anything honest members of the government might try to do. Previously, when foreign money had been borrowed for building roads, new roadmaps were altered to show the new financed and completed tarsealed highways of forty kilometres and more in some remote parts. The facts were different. As a token gesture to the intention of the loans, perhaps two kilometres of roadway would be constructed to the plan. Then the roads reverted to their previous normal dust and rock surfaces. The road builders could show that they had run out of finance. Yet records and maps showed the project was completed and, even more importantly for payment purposes, completed on time. Similar fates resulted for the factories and power projects.
The people stealing from the system did not care. Their senior or government positions were all protected by the pay-off system all down the line. Warvic knew that less than 20% of the foreign aid cash received ever got to those who needed it. Racketeers made even bigger profits out of emergency aid given by foreign governments after the many natural disasters that regularly occurred in the Philippines. The earthquake disasters were exacerbated by use of substandard material, and short measures of concrete and reinforcing. Yet the full price had been paid as if the proper materials and measures had been used. Huge profits were made out of the emergency food supplied to the hungry in devastated areas by substituting cheap local products for the donated overseas product; then privately selling off overseas food aid at their luxury market prices, the profits going to the racketeers.
Warvic had details of many of the emergency clothing scams. Donor countries had given bedding, blankets and clothing by the ton as relief supplies for distribution to families who had lost everything. Sometimes nothing got to the victims. As soon as all the material was received, it was supposedly sorted on arrival. The real reason behind the sorting was to find which items could be cleaned well enough for re-sale.
Many clothes donated came from wealthy overseas families had little, if any wear. These items were separated and sold to some of the high fashion boutiques at a price set for all parties to make a profit. Resold by the boutiques they were tagged as special imported goods. The end buyers never knew the true routing and believed the original source from the label of the manufacturer. Better blankets and sheets were laundered and packed in official looking plastic baggage and sold as new to other willing buyers. All parties made sure they got a sizeable profit.
None of these profits were passed on to any famine relief organisation. The people involved seemed to have no social conscience about their actions. Whole shipments of relief clothing simply vanished. Nobody accepted responsibility, or had explanations for missing shipments.
Each time Warvic thought of these scams, she knew they had to be stopped. If the perpetrators were publicly executed, whatever their position, it would be the best deterrent to other possible thoughts of corruption. Worse, if this new crop of Development Loans were granted, by the time the current generation of thieves had taken their cut, it would leave a greater debt to be repaid from the pockets of the next generation of Filipinos. They would then be too tied up in debt repayment to enable the country to ever recover. To Warvic this was intolerable. She had to destroy the government's chances of obtaining overseas aid. That had to be the basis of her plan.
Her action plan had to be prepared like an investment strategy or stock market float to a prospective client; then, presented as a formal business plan with every action covered. But there would have to be a secret agenda ensuring Filipinos benefited more than the individual buyers of the plan.
She headed her page "Keys to Success" then began the list.
1/ Destroy the Government credibility in the eyes of the USA, the World Bank in particular and the world in general.
2/ Expose corrupt elected and public officials, army personnel, standover tactics and protection rackets. Name and shame the private profiteers and racketeers. Show the world the wide extent of the corruption.
3/ Show the USA, the World Bank and the world in general that the Government did not have effective control of the people, country or the countryside by mounting military operations.
4/ Show the extent of the people's support of the New NPA
5/ Show the New NPA as a genuine people's movement, and not communist inspired.
She flipped the page and headed it "Prospective Supportive Governments."
1/ Libya - money, training, weapons, manpower aid
2/ Iran - ditto
3/ China - ditto
4/ Indonesia - ditto
Subheading on same page "Pay-offs"
1/ Libya - allow oil field development in West Mindanao, maybe hint at independence for Muslims. Libya was the foreign government with the closest ties to the area.
2/ Iran – give greater freedom for the Muslim Fundamentalists in Western Mindanao, with possible independence for West Mindanao.
3/ China – allow secession of one or more of the islands north of Luzon at a cash price, to enable them to put more pressure on Taiwan.
4/ Indonesia - support for their eastern expansionist ideas and plans for Sarawak, Brunei and Sabah.
Again she flipped a page and headed it "Prospective Supportive Groups."
1/ Muslims
- in Malaysia
- in Indonesia
- in Afghanistan
- in Western Mindanao
- in Iran
2/ Al Queda - if interested
3/ Red Army Faction from Germany - if still functioning
4/ PLO - or possibly Hamas support
5/ Red Army Group from Japan
6/ The Hezbolah groups in South Lebanon
7/ North Korea - if they could be trusted
8/ Syria - play on their anti-American feeling
9/ Libya - perhaps the best choice
This was only the beginning. There would be many changes as the plan developed and evolved. Everything needed full documentation. Security only needed good hiding places for some memory sticks.
She was never far away from her laptop computer. Awareness of security meant she never saved information on the hard disc, only on USB sticks. Loss of the laptop would only be an inconvenience; it would never reveal what had been entered. With the exception of her aide Raul de los Reyes, her staff did not know where the memory sticks were kept.
Her plan had to attract attention outside of the Philippines to work. One way to show that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) were not in control would be to take foreign hostages. Most easily that would be where foreigners congregated, at tourist resorts.
Time and resources were critical. Much preliminary research could be done by others. She immediately despatched her aide Raul de los Reyes and two others to Manila to visit as many travel agents as possible and collect brochures on island and coastal tourist resorts frequented by foreigners. Flying, though quicker, would be dangerous. Airports were being watched more carefully than normal. She could not risk Raul or the others being recognised and arrested. A ferry would be safer. Large numbers of passengers disembarking made it difficult for officials to watch them all, unless they herded them through a cattle race. Their absence on this assignment would give her further time to fine hone her plans.
