How relevant was all these in the face of the ZTE contract having been cancelled and the reality that no National Broadband Deal will be coming out of this administration before it does what we all eagerly want to happen – it atomizes itself into nothingness in 2010?

A barbershop query is this: Can you be jailed if you had evil thoughts and even real intentions of kidnapping your lovely neighbor, taking her to a private place and violently raping her all night? I guess so, if you actually did anything about it. But what if all that happened was ligaw-tingin and when the wifey called you to ask what you were doing at the window, all those carnal desires flew out that same window as you meekly bowed to missus power? It may be a sin against the Ten Commandments to "covet your neighbor’s wife" but is that actionable under our criminal laws?

Evil intentions are not necessarily actionable as long as they remain mere intentions; they are actionable only when they have manifested themselves in some criminal action.

As far as I can see, what the brave, funny, amiable and courageous Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr. told the Blue Ribbon committee is not anything that he can prove in any court. The tales are wonderful, pithy and totally relevant but shouldn’t our Senate be doing things that more clearly look like they are "in aid of legislation" or maybe even things that can be used against our corrupt persons in government in a court of law to finally put away many of the bad eggs in our present administration?

This is my problem with the present Senate. It seems to be frittering away its powers in pursuit of the trivialities and frivolities of official life rather than closing in on graft, the wrong projects and even the wrong direction that this administration has taken this country vis-à-vis our rightful future.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy a good show just like anyone else but as a columnist told one of our presidents when the man in Malacañang called him at four in the morning to correct a minor item that appeared in his column that day: "I am utterly pleased. Mr. President that you read my column so thoroughly every time that I write; but honestly, sir, doesn’t a president have better things to do than to call up columnists at four in the morning?"

One might ask our senators the same thing. Don’t they have anything else that they can talk about but an aborted deal? True, if it had gone through, It would have been a waste of public funds as it was approved; but if it had gone through as the main witnesses against it – Joey de Venecia, Romulo Neri and now, Jun Lozada – had wanted it to go, as the build-operate-transfer project of a private contractor (Joey de Venecia), would such an NBN deal have been any better? No, absolutely not. It would still have been a waste of public funds, anyway.

Thus, where’s the fire or the beef, whatever it is that you may be looking for?

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I just came from a visit to Palawan where the mayor of Puerto Princesa City, Edward Hagedorn, informed me that all of the hotel rooms in the city have been booked solid until July this year.

There were a lot of foreigners – as much as 40 percent at the airport and about 30 percent on the Air Philippines flight that I took both ways. Of course, for tourism to really grow in Puerto Princesa, one needs to put together a lot more things than the city now has – better and cheaper power, a better water system, more roads and more hotels. Having a longer runway at its lone airport will also probably be an absolute necessity.

Still, one has to hand it to Edward; before Hagedorn, who had even heard of Puerto Princesa? This year, not only will the Palarong Pambansa be held in the city; there is also a big motocross race at the end of this month and a lot of other conventions and events.

I am planning to return in March for a project that some of my associates will be starting. I already asked around and I could not get a firm hotel booking anywhere.

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One of my reasons for frequent trips to Palawan is my being chairman of the Palawan Development Bank, which is the bank with the most branches in the island-province besides also having several other branches in Cebu.

Recently, what always makes me feel good about the bank is the success that it has been having with its microfinance operations. Micro-finance is not an easy thing to do. To succeed in it, one has to work with one’s clients on a daily basis. Collections are done weekly on very small loans – P5,000, payable over a period of several months. To make sure that there are no past dues, our technicians go into the businesses themselves and sometimes even help the borrower sell her wares just to make the payments.

When they do get together however, one sees from the genuine camaraderie (or sisterhood) between the bank personnel and the bank’s clients who will probably be the bank’s clients forever. I can imagine the amount of work that our bank personnel put in for the bank’s micro-financing program to succeed – and, so far, it is succeeding.

I hope we can show, after another year, proven and total success. Perhaps, this can be among the attractions that people will attract visitors to Palawan – to see the success of micro-finance up close.

Of course, micro-finance is not exclusive to our bank. There are a lot of NGOs and small banks that are doing the same thing. For me, it is one way of serving the country – by making a way for Pinays (all our clients are women) to work themselves out of poverty through sheer, hard work and a little helping hand from its friend – the Palawan Bank.

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By the way, Palawan Bank has a large inventory of foreclosed real estate properties, which can be developed into subdivisions, beach resorts and other projects. I have asked for these to be listed on our webpage http://palawanbank.wordpress.com. If you want to know about what and where these are, send me an e-mail. When these are up on the webpage, I will let everyone know.

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