Blame games

Here in the city of Toronto, the mayor appears unbreakable. In other cities, notably Montreal, allegations of misbehaviour in office, whether corruption-related or simply fundamental flaws of character are enough to induce a sitting public official to resign. But Toronto Mayor Rob Ford seems impervious to criticism and public clamour for him to step down because of acts unbecoming of a mayor of the largest Canadian city. There is always the media which he holds responsible for portraying him as Canada’s poster boy for politicians misbehaving in public.

In Manila, 8,206 miles away from Toronto, the media also happens to be the bane of existence for the sitting president. President Noynoy Aquino continues to suffer from an almost innate aversion to bad news, especially from newspaper columnists who disapprove of the way he handles one crisis after another, whether it is political or caused by natural disasters.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and Philippine President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III.

When President Noynoy Aquino ordered the Sultan of Sulu to surrender his troops to the Malaysian military during a failed bloody incursion in Sabah last February 2013, he was criticized for his failure to weigh in the loss of Filipino lives. Instead of acting like a true statesman who would first consider the option of peacefully negotiating with a foreign country, President Aquino reacted in a way as if he was serving a foreign government instead of his own.

Then an earthquake shattered most of Bohol in October, and two weeks later, Super Typhoon Category 5 Haiyan almost erased Leyte and Samar from the country’s map. Every time the country faces a crisis, President Aquino has always displayed a ghostlike sense of hopelessness and lack of preparation and decisiveness as a leader. When Typhoon Haiyan struck, Aquino didn’t have the faintest idea of what to do and simply criticized the foreign press who parachuted to the country for continuously harping on the absence of government on the ground to help, rescue and provide aid to the typhoon victims. He blamed the local governments who were to his little mind the first line of defence, regardless that they too have been swept away by the typhoon. Even the estimates of the number of deaths were doubted as unnaturally too high. President Aquino expected the death toll not to go higher than 2,500, which he confidently told the world during a CNN interview. To date, the death toll stands over 7,000.

Amidst coping with natural disasters, President Aquino has also been losing his political battles. The Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), the much-maligned pork barrel which the President uses as a carrot and stick to keep members of Congress follow his line, had been struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. Next will be his own Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) fund which the Supreme Court is also expected to declare as without legal basis and a violation of the constitutional separation of powers.

When there’s no one to blame, attribute it to the media. Most people today are skeptical of the media, especially the major newspapers whose columnists are perceived to be the ones manufacturing the news, not the actual events or issues that give rise to stories. Newspapers are full of opinions that their readers are not sure where they stand on the issues, or at best, whether to believe the opinions expressed by the pundits as the news on the ground.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford relies on his loyal following called the Ford Nation, voters who are mostly from the suburbs, working class, and recent immigrants. In the case of President Aquino, he has the yellow media, journalists loyal to his mother, former President Cory Aquino, and is perceived to be supported by business oligarchs. Both bailiwicks, whether the Ford Nation or Aquino’s yellow media, suffer from a malady of deniability. To them, everything in the press that disparages their hero has no semblance of the truth, even if the argument is overwhelmingly against them.

On the strength of his Ford Nation, Mayor Rob Ford, although reduced to a mere titular head by his own council, intends to run for re-election so he could get back his old powers as city mayor. President Aquino, on the other hand, while damaged by his own inept leadership during the country’s several crises, continues to ride on the weight of the legacy of his more popular parents that he still is the best qualified to rid the country of all forms of corruption despite allegations of dishonesty within his own government.

It is easy to blame the media if there is a bit of perception left in the public mind that your leaders are still popular and could be trusted with their leadership. With a rambunctious Ford Nation and a well-oiled and positioned yellow media, it is not surprising that both Ford and Aquino are still in power despite gasping for political oxygen.

Understanding the roots of this conundrum, whether in Toronto or Manila must start with a correct analysis, instead of simply focusing on the personalities of the characters involved. Mayor Ford misbehaving publicly is easily explainable. Admittedly, Ford has committed horrific and shameful acts unbecoming of a mayor, but the city council is powerless to depose him, or even ask him to resign as the most honourable thing to do under the circumstances. Unless he commits a crime and is sentenced to spend time in jail, or be absent for a continuous period of time in council, there’s nothing council can do to impeach him. In retrospect, the Ontario provincial parliament that enacted the city’s charter, perhaps, failed to consider that someone in the mould of Rob Ford could be elected as city mayor.

President Noynoy Aquino’s situation is much more complicated. A president who lacked the wherewithal of a capable and effective leader to run a nation was elected merely on the coattails of the legacy of his parents. This is not forgivable by any means. It is not only his lack of presidential chutzpah that is bothersome but his audacity to pretend he has the moral ascendancy to lead, even to ignore the Constitution that he is supposed to uphold and protect if he wants to have his way. But of course, more than half of the blame falls on the shoulders of his key people in the cabinet, those who obviously are running the government for him.

The Philippines occupies the typhoon belt of the Pacific. It is visited with typhoons every year from the onset of the rainy season until the end of the year. In addition, it is also prone to earthquakes which occur with almost the same regularity as typhoons visit the country. Any sitting President, who is able to understand the natural cycle of typhoons and earthquakes and the calamities they bring upon the country, especially to the poor who are more vulnerable to be victims of natural disasters, will see to it that the government is always prepared and ready to deal with these natural phenomena. By now, after numerous typhoons and earthquakes and with the experience learned from government responses, one would have thought that an effective national emergency and preparedness program is already in place. But Typhoon Haiyan has exposed that the country’s leadership is not up to this task.

A well-coordinated emergency response by the national government would at least prepare the population for the wrath of storms and typhoons and enable the responders and the victims to cope with the humanitarian disaster in the aftermath. But the answer or the challenge to natural disasters does not stop there. The government must start embracing the position that climate change has the most to do with the increasing frequency and intensity of typhoons that visit the Philippines every year.

In its latest report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calls the evidence of climate change “unequivocal.” The effects of climate change are manifest in the irreversible rise in sea levels, mass species extinction, ocean acidification, more extreme weather events—the list goes on.

An Angry Red Hot Planet. Photo courtesy of the Green Party.

The Philippine government arguably is not solely responsible for causing this climate madness. Like other island-states, the Philippines has contributed the least to climate change compared to the more advanced and industrialized countries which are the world’s major greenhouse gas polluters. Yet, the Philippines and the poorer countries of the Third World are the main victims of climate change.

While the United Nations has established a Green Climate Fund, a targeted pool of $100 billion that will help developing countries adjust to climate change crises, contributions from the developed countries have been small and slow in coming. The UN still has to iron out when and how to deliver the fund.

But the Green Climate Fund is not the real solution to climate change. Unless the industrialized countries agree to radical emission cuts immediately, the climate madness that we are now experiencing is in danger of becoming a way of life to many of its victim-countries like the Philippines.

Naderev Saño, the Philippines chief climate negotiator, summed up this situation in his talk before the 19th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP19) where he linked Typhoon Haiyan to climate change:

“What my country (the Philippines) is going through as a result of this extreme climate event is madness. The climate crisis is madness. We can stop this madness...We can take drastic action now to ensure that we prevent a future where super typhoons become a way of life. Because we refuse, as a nation, to accept a future where super typhoons like Haiyan become a fact of life. We refuse to accept that running away from storms, evacuating our families, suffering the devastation and misery, having to count our dead, become a way of life. We simply refuse to.... Typhoons such as Haiyan and its impacts represent a sobering reminder to the international community that we cannot afford to delay climate action.”

The only problem is no one’s listening to Saño’s warning, starting with President Noynoy Aquino. The current President is more interested in hearing only the good news, which would boost his polling numbers and the public’s acceptance of his leadership. He would even prefer to wallow in denial, like dismissing reports of deaths from Typhoon Haiyan beyond what he has established as an acceptable number. Or he would blame local government officials for not doing their jobs as first responders to natural disasters. Or he would blame those in the opposition, including the Supreme Court, for diluting his preconceived powers that he could accelerate government spending to stimulate the economy without prior Congressional authorization even if it was for the purpose of buying off the opposition.

President Aquino’s natural tendency to blame others for his woes creates, on top of the climate fiasco, a climate of arrogance and smugness—that his government is invincible, that it cannot fail or make mistakes. When you have a leader with this frame of mind, anything he doesn’t like is negative, and that is a very dangerous shortcoming. More often than not, a leader with this character flaw lives in a world of fantasy: one more step, and it’s closer to madness.

Summer of the gun: Part II

To many peace-loving residents of Toronto, the latest mass shooting (July 16) on Danzig St. in Scarborough raises yet the spectre of another “summer of the gun” that shook the city in 2005. That summer seven years ago, 24 people were shot dead in Toronto from June 12 to September 16, and by year’s end, a total of 52 people were killed, all by guns.

A passerby stops to look at a memorial for Joshua Yasay, 23 and Shyanne Charles,
14, both of  whom died in the Danzig Street shooting on July 16, 2012. Photo by
Peter  Power/The Globe and Mail.  Click link to view "Looking at the Victims of
the Danzig Street Shooting," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOw9bHyU53g

This summer, there have been just six murders in Toronto, but all the victims have been shot. Of the 28 murders so far in 2012, 19 were by guns. There have been 140 shootings so far, up by 30 per cent from the 106 in 2011.

The statistics are not that grim to indicate another turbulent summer, but the level of violence is already driving Torontonians to push the panic button. After last Friday midnight’s (July 20) shooting rampage in a theatre complex in Aurora, Colorado, that killed 12 and wounded more than 50 people, fresh calls for tighter gun controls are being heard again in the U.S., and these have reverberated very loudly in Toronto.

But Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has a different idea – he stressed that the best remedy for shootings is jobs. Shallow as Ford has always been when it comes to effective public policy, according to him, “the best social program around, is a job.” He’s behaving like Marie Antoinette, whom, according to the myth, upon hearing that the French peasants were starving and had no bread, ordered to “let them eat cake.”

Ford’s doesn’t want any more spending on social programs, as others are wont to do. “I don’t believe in these programs. I call them hug-a-thug programs,” he added.

Last week, Ford voted by his lonesome against all city community development grants, even against accepting federal funds for a gang-prevention program that will cost the city nothing.

It’s easy to blame the lack of jobs as the engine that revs up criminality, without seeing unemployment in the context of poverty and other elements of social disorganization that can be found where poverty exists, such as poor housing, single-parent families, lack of discipline, economic inequalities, family breakdown, and absence of social and community controls. There is a societal explanation for crime in poor neighbourhoods and families, and people with simple minds like Mayor Ford do not understand the extent to which crime results from poverty. Thus, Mayor Ford would only see the absence of jobs and fail to understand the connection between the social environment in which people and institutions interact.

Mayor Ford does not only betray his lack of knowledge of the link between crime and socio-economic circumstances, but also is quick to blame the ethnicity of those who commit crimes against society. Or perhaps, he is confusing those circumstances with ethnicity, and to many other people, the link between ethnicity and crime is too often simply obvious. We hear many in the community who believe that immigrants commit crimes because it comes with their cultural background.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who according to Chris Selley of the National Post, is
out of his depth when he starts talking about crime. Photo by Darren Calabrese
of  the National Post. Click link to view "Ford - Put Down Your Guns,"
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/07/19/ford-put-down-your-guns

During a radio interview in the aftermath of the largest mass shooting in Toronto’s history, Mayor Ford told listeners, "Once they’re charged [those guilty of crimes] and they go to jail, the most important thing is when they get out of jail, I don’t want them living in this city. They can go anywhere else, but I don’t want them in the city.”

When asked how he planned to force gangsters out of Toronto, Mr. Ford said: “I don’t know and that’s what I’m going to sit down with the prime minister and find out: how our immigration laws work. Obviously I have an idea. But whatever I can do to get them out of the city I’m going to, regardless of whether they have family or friends, I don’t want these people, if they’re convicted of a gun crime, to have anything to do with the City of Toronto.”

Unfortunately, Mayor Ford misses the whole point about the link between immigration and criminality. According to Scot Wortley, a University of Toronto criminologist and gang expert, Toronto’s gang problem is a “homegrown problem, not a problem that’s been exported from other countries.” Wortley pointed to studies across North America that found immigrant communities actually having lower levels of criminality and lower levels of gang membership than those born here.

The Toronto mayor seems to be saying that immigrants are responsible for most of the gang crimes, which they’re not. Again, Mayor Ford does not take into account that a person’s background and environment can affect their behaviour. If he would only look at the various communities in Toronto and try to reconcile crime, social support and cultural diversity, then the link between ethnicity and crime instantly disappears. People from ethnic communities are no more or less susceptible than anyone else to the pressures of poverty, unemployment or poor education. A person does not commit crime because of their ethnicity.

But then Mayor Rob Ford and people like him never truly understand the more relevant causes of criminality. For them, the only task to do is to round up criminals and throw them in jail. Or worse, expel them out of their communities. Street crimes, such as the shootings in Scarborough and the Eaton Centre often are given wider press coverage and public condemnation than those crimes committed in suites or by white collar executives or children of rich families. Greater sentences are imposed against street crimes, and often the poor are given stiff sentences while the wealthy are given leniency for even serious crimes.

Arguably poverty is an influence on the criminal, but there is some inconsistency in linking socio-economic variables with all crimes. The difficulty perhaps lies in not fully accounting for the multiple causes of crimes, such as divorce, unemployment, broken homes, neighborhood decay, or other related factors. It’s rather easy for those in power, like the Toronto mayor, the police and members of city council to suggest that people in poor families and communities are more likely to steal, rob, sell drugs, and possess and trade illicit guns.

There are many views as to the motivations of crime and the influences on criminal behavior. Economic deprivation or poverty can motivate individuals to commit crime or create the circumstances that serve as a breeding ground for crime. Nevertheless, there are many who are poor but still choose to live a life of high moral standards and to adhere to societal norms. As such, poverty cannot be the only and single cause of crime.

Solutions for reducing criminality, particularly street crimes that involve gangs and guns, call for interventions beyond traditional policing. More social programs, subsidies, government housing, funded education, or community service programs, while they may assist in halting an increase in crime rates, can create more dependency on outside help. Politically, such programs are also not widely held acceptable because someone has to pay for those programs, and when governments are in austerity mode, these programs are usually the first ones to be eliminated.

If economic conditions, such as lack of jobs as Toronto Mayor Rob Ford would like to suggest, are to be considered the primary causal factor for crime, then the future is very dim. Economic conditions will invariably get worse, as the higher proportion of the population is in the lower economic class. Indications are that poverty will increase and the proportion of people who make a significant income will decline, and this may be exacerbated by the marginalization of new immigrants, taxation policies, jobs going overseas, an increase in cost of living, and a reduction in consumer spending.

We need a more comprehensive solution to crime. One that addresses and reduces risks to the community, increases the quality of life in the community, strengthens social institutions so as to reinforce social control, decreases family stress and family decay, and improves education and educational opportunities. The family and the community must work together to build social bonds with young adults and children, giving them the positive influence they need to accept social norms.

In the larger context of social issues, crime should not be seen alone as the central problem, but rather poverty, unemployment, racism, family breakdown, and a host of other related factors that we often ignore or avoid because they inconveniently bring up the roles of class division and social inequality.

Cutting the waist

It all started with stopping the gravy train, the centrepiece of his election campaign to become mayor of Toronto. He wanted the city government shrunk to as little involvement in the lives of the people as possible. If this were an American city, Toronto could have been every Republican Party or Tea Party stalwart’s favourite target – big government and too much government spending.

Upon his election as Toronto mayor, Rob Ford began his crusade against wasteful spending. With his brother Doug Ford on his side as a city councillor representing his old bailiwick, they trained their magnifying glass on every bit of public spending that could be reduced, cut, or eliminated. From privatizing garbage disposal to cutting public library hours, the Ford brothers never relented on their zeal to cut waste.

Toronto's twin mayor Rob Ford and his brother councillor Doug Ford launch their
battle of the bulge. Photo courtesy of Andrew Francis Wallace of theToronto Star.
Click link to view "Toronto mayor steps on the scale."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/video/video-toronto-mayor-steps-on-the-scale/article2304107/?from=2304718

Not everything went smoothly according to the Ford brothers’ script. Naturally, there was widespread disenchantment. What could you expect from Toronto, we also had our own version of Occupy Wall Street last October 2011.

Eventually, Toronto mayor Rob Ford came out with his first city budget this year. Not only did he cut waste, he also produced a big surplus. Everyone was not surprised or delighted by the budget surplus. Instead, the budget was criticized as being irresponsible. For how can the city cut library hours or reduce streetcar schedules if there was to be surplus money in the end? Was his worship simply interested in cutting waste as he sees fit just to look good in the end with a big surplus?

But it wasn’t the mayor’s efforts to cut waste that really raised the hackles of the city folks. The mayor is a big man, weighs over 300 pounds. His twin evil brother, councillor Doug Ford who is not that far behind in bulk and size, weighs about 229 pounds.

So when the brothers Ford jointly announced they will cut the waist, meaning their waistlines, they were warmly applauded not just by weight-watchers and dieters, but by almost everyone who thought there should be more concrete measures from government to tackle the obesity issue among children and adults. This time, everybody was unanimous in saying this is a waist-reduction program that deserves to be supported. In fact, reducing their waistlines could have a greater impact on the city more than their appetite to look for fat and gravy in the government that they could cut and eliminate. If successful, the Ford brothers might be mostly remembered in the history of Toronto’s city politics for cutting the waist rather than their vicious agenda of cutting waste.

Obesity today is largely considered an epidemic of rising proportions in America. From over-indulging in junk and comfort foods to lack of physical exercise, the number of people being overweight and becoming obese has ballooned to raise serious concern from family doctors, educators, and policy makers. Virtual reality TV has taken advantage of obesity as a social problem as programs like “The Biggest Loser” poke fun at men and women competing against each other in trying to reduce their weight. Talk shows featuring exercise gurus, diet doctors and heart specialists have joined the commercialization of the overweight issue and its impact on a person’s health and well-being. Over time, products and treatments offering the easiest and fastest way to shed pounds have experienced a sales boom.

Obesity has also been recognized as a leading cause of death, mostly prevalent among adults and children. Public health authorities view obesity as one of the most serious public health problems of the 21st century.

The obesity epidemic. Photo courtesy of flickr. Click link to view "Obesity in
America," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDbocZ438f0

While it has stigmatized others, obesity was widely perceived as symbolic of wealth and fertility at other times in history. U.S. President William Howard Taft was often ridiculed for being overweight. The popular wise-cracking governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, could have been a shoo-in for the Republican Party presidential primary but for his incredible hulk.

In the realm of art, women were portrayed in the past with heavy and plump bodies but nobody raised objections to whatever negative connotations these implied. Perhaps, in the subjective sense, big and beautiful women were considered pretty during those times. Venus of Urbino, for instance, had been depicted with lightly wider hips and an enlarged midriff suggesting pregnancy, hence fertility and sexual allure. Rubens' notoriously corpulent nudes were women of ample figures that very well symbolized wealth and beauty, as well as fertility. Only today’s fat fetishists would regard such images as beautiful and more desirable.

Not to be accused of having an obsession for fat women, the neo-figurative Colombian artist Fernando Botero has been successful in capitalizing on inflated and flabby images of his subjects. His paintings depict exaggerated proportions and corpulence of human and animal figures. Critics have often thought that Botero was satirizing fat people, which was far from Botero’s intention. According to him, “an artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without knowing why. You adopt a position intuitively; only later do you attempt to rationalize or even justify it."

Be that as it may, today’s standards have changed and society now seems to attach not only the ideal of beauty to a slim figure but more of a health desideratum. However, there is growing criticism that some might have gone to the extreme and even regard fat people as the enemy. Two Canadian studies have shown that we shouldn’t consider just how big someone is but also how well someone takes care of himself or herself. There are morbidly obese people who stay in pretty good shape even if they don’t look like it.

As Dr. Arya Sharma of the University of Alberta observed: “They eat healthily. They’re physically fit. They feel good about themselves. They don’t have high blood pressure. They don’t have high cholesterol levels. They don’t have diabetes. They have none of those health problems and so the question is: Why would you treat these people? Why don’t you ask them to just stay as healthy as they are?”

But this type observation may be criticized as often rooted on a strong culture of individualism, that private behaviour such as overeating or improper food consumption should be off-limits to governmental interference. How many times have we heard that the government should stay out of personal choices we make?

Although governments have long relied upon the liberty of individuals to regulate their private behaviour such as overeating or improper food consumption, experience drawn from consumption of alcohol, illegal drugs, tobacco and even sex indicates the willingness of governments to intervene in citizens’ private habits that might have disastrous consequences. While obesity arises largely from private behaviour, its harmful consequences can easily tip off the balance unless the government takes a proactive role in fighting obesity as a public policy.

Social disapproval is a positive step to winning the war on obesity, just like when the temperance movements of the early nineteenth century stirred up public condemnations of the disruptive effects of alcoholism. Private activities like illegal drugs and smoking have already been controlled due to public disapprobation. With medical evidence proving obesity may be harmful to health and to life in particular, social disapproval could be turned into political regulation.

Of course, there are still doubters. For example, if sanctions were to be placed against the food industry for catering unhealthy food choices as a start, we would expect howls of protests from libertarians and the food industry itself. The last thing we hate to see is far more government regulation of fatty foods.

Perhaps, Toronto mayor Rob Ford’s Body Mass Index (BMI) may not be the most accurate way of determining someone’s fitness. The mayor is a fit man and can throw a nasty spiral, even if his middle belies excessive body fat. This is not to say we shouldn’t endorse healthy eating and regular physical exercise. What seems befuddling is why there are still so many among us, including the Toronto mayor, who are bodily flawed yet can still function as normal and healthy human beings. Maybe, this suggests that health and girth are two very different things.

While the Ford brothers of Toronto might have struck a sensitive chord among health conscious citizens, other groups are not buying into their charity-weight loss campaign. Toronto’s citizenry is much more interested in policies and programs that would take the best interests and needs of the people at heart rather than a public campaign to boost the mayor and his brother’s egos – or their desire to look more masculine and fit.

The Toronto mayor said he plans to walk more, jog, hit the gym, and cut out the late-night ice cream he loves. Eventually, he said, he wants to lose 105 pounds. That’s a tall order for a big man who also loves to talk big every time. Whether he achieves his target the next time he steps on the the scale, he should console himself that this might be the only goal he could achieve during his tenure as mayor without assistance from his growingly recalcitrant council. And if the mayor really wants to be the poster boy against obesity, he should re-channel his charity campaign into a more effective public policy that ties in weight reduction to alternative healthier lifestyles.