Analytic Research by the Center for Strategy, enterpriSe & intelligenCe

Vol. 1. No. 5 • Oct. 9 - 15, 2011

...The streets seemed alive with people. People eating ... washing ... sleeping ... thrusting their hands through the taxi window, begging ... clinging to buses ... herding animals. People, people, people, people.

~Stanford population biologist Paul Ehrlich, writing about his impressions from a 1966 visit to New Delhi

We are going to need to construct a city of a million people every five days for the next 40 years.

~Joel Cohen, Columbia University professor of populations, at an Earth Institute conference in October on the world’s population in 2011

NEWS ON THE NETNATION

Philippines trains sights on new tourism segments

Pope names new Manila archbishop

BUSINESS

02 Can Poll Synchronization and an Interim Government Revitalize an Ailing ARMM? The government struggles to fix what ails the region in time for elections in 2013 • The straight path to a revitalized Muslim Mindanao • No consensus on poll synchronization among Muslim groups

08 Minding One’s Ps and ₱s Assessing the government’s proposed proliferation of ‘P’s 13 A Special Relationship? America and the Philippines according to Wikileaks

• Will Wikileaks’ fight against secrecy result in more transparency?

WORLD24 The Way of Steve Jobs He was crazy enough to think he could change the world, and he did • Steve Jobs Speaks • The Curious Case of the Font • Apple Marketing

28 The World After 9/11: Was the U.S.’ Global War on Terror Necessary? Assessing the costs and the wisdom of a war on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda

• Through a glass, darkly • Al Qaeda: Here, there, and anywhere • Did 9/11 beget Arab Spring?

35 Work Everywhere Charting the future of the office?

NATION

WORLD

Wealthy population in Asia-Pacific exceeds Europe: report

Russia’s Putin slams US, makes deals in China

BUSINESS

Executive pay seen to rise in Asia

Disease could spell demise of bananas, growers warn

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NATION WORLD BUSINESS

41 To Peer or Not to Peer Understanding the NTC’s Domestic IP Peering Policy Proposal

2

CONTENTS WORLD BUSINESS NATION

nation

The government struggles to fix what ails the region in time for elections in 2013By Tanya L. Mariano

Can Poll Synchronization and an Interim GovernmentRevitalize an Ailing ARMM?

President Benigno S. Aquino III appears bent on reforming the troubled Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), beginning with the synchronization of elections in the area with the 2013 national and local elections.

His plans hit a snag in September when the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order against Republic Act 10153,the law postponing the ARMM polls and granting the President powers to appoint interim officials to the posts of

governor, vice governor, and assemblymen. On October 18, however, the President’s plans to end the “cycle of impunity” in Mindanao got back on track after the Supreme Court, voting 8-7, upheld both the President’s authority to appoint interim officials and RA 10153’s constitutionality.

In February, speaking through Palace Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda, the president called the ARMM a “failed experiment” that needs urgent reforms, and prior to the issuance of the temporary

3

restraining order, the government had released a short list of candidates for interim officials culled from among more than 300 applicants.

During the signing of RA 10153, President Aquino said, “I believe that the postponement and synchronization of the ARMM elections is the key toward the implementation of the necessary reforms in the region. Only when the citizens of ARMM can exercise their right to vote by their own convictions and not by the convictions of those who mean only to use them… can we know Mindanao once again as the Land of Promise.” Failed experiment in autonomy? Created in 1989 by virtue of RA 6734 and currently composed of Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, and Basilan, the ARMM was supposed to address the

Statiscal Annex 1: Human Development Index 2006

HDI-1 Rank 2006

7374757677

Province

Lanao del SurBasilan

MaguindanaoTawi-Tawi

Sulu

Life expectancy at birth (years) 2006

58.762.157,653.455.5

% HS grad(18 & above) 2006

44.938.940.637.423.1

Per capita income(NCR 1997 pesos)

2006

14,28112,20615,6816,6647,594

Per capita income(PPP US$) 2006

1,5031,3971,384942

1,314

Life expectancy

Index

1,5031,3971,384942

1,314

Source: Philippine Human Development Report 2008/09, Philippine Human Development Network and the United Nations DevelopmentProgramme (UNDP)

Muslim community’s clamor for self-determination and to end the decades-long armed conflict, while also protecting the state’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Today, the region’s 4,000,000 inhabitants still endure dismal living conditions. The ARMM, along with Caraga, has the highest poverty incidence in the country, according to the latest Official Poverty Statistics from the National Statistics Coordination Board (NSCB). Its provinces have also consistently stayed at the bottom in terms of life expectancy, education, and standard of living, as seen in several Philippine Human Development Network Reports (2002, 2005, and 2008/09).

Poverty, armed conflict, and other problems. According to the 2003 World Bank report Human Development for Peace and Prosperity, hindering human development efforts in the region are extreme poverty and armed conflict, along with the region’s long history of exclusion and alienation. The resulting rift between the Muslim community and the rest of the country has led to the lack of institutional, social, and human capital.

Poverty also helps perpetuate the culture of violence. In fact, the Armed Violence in

View a video of President Aquino’s speech.

Can poll synchronization and an interim government revitalize an ailing ARMM?

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Mindanao: Militia and Private Armies report by the Institute of Bangsamoro Studies and the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue found that poverty is the most common reason given for joining militias or other armed groups.

Corruption is also rife in this corner of the archipelago. Recently, the Commission on Audit uncovered nearly P3 billion worth of “ghost” projects and other irregularities in the management of public funds: P1.003 billion in the Office of the Regional Governor, P865.887 million in the Provincial Government of Maguindanao, and P1.123 billion in the region’s Department of Public Works and Highways.

On top of peace and order concerns, elections in the ARMM throughout the years have been fraught with allegations of fraud, with former election officer Lintang Bedol and former ARMM Governor Zaldy Ampatuan both claiming that massive cheating took place during the 2004 and 2007 elections.

Election-related violence is also rampant, the most recent proof of which is the November 2009 Maguindanao massacre. The brutal killing of at least 57 civilians has come to symbolize one of the biggest maladies crippling the ARMM: a culture of warlordism that encourages the proliferation of private armies, where political power is seen as personal entitlement and rivals are road blocks meant to be set aside by brute force.

In a roundtable discussion hosted by the Institute for Autonomy and Governance (IAG), ARMM Executive Secretary Atty. Naguib Sinarimbo said that what currently ails the ARMM are: weak national-regional relations, a fragile electoral system, insufficient fiscal autonomy, poor access to and control of strategic resources, land tenurial issues, low agricultural and industrial productivity, unsatisfactory delivery of and access to basic services and facilities, and unstable peace and order.

The straight path to a revitalized Muslim Mindanao

In his speech during the signing of the bill, President Benigno Aquino III said that he wishes to implement the following reforms:

• Put an end to the rule of political families • Abolish private armies • Implement a roadmap for socioeconomic reforms, to be spearheaded by the DILG • Clean up the voter’s list and modernize the elections • Strengthen alliances with civil society groups, who will conduct voter’s education initiatives and serve as poll watchdogs

The DILG, for its part, will push for the following reforms, as outlined by Secretary Jesse Robredo dur-ing a dialogue with ARMM stakeholders: “Create enabling mechanisms to promote publicpartnerships in economic development, institutionalize vital governance reforms in the ARMM Regional and Local Gov-ernment bureaucracies, and increase the reach, access and quality of essential public services.”

Can poll synchronization and an interim government revitalize an ailing ARMM?

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Territorial autonomy -- accepted means of self-determination. The granting of territorial autonomy has become a globally accepted means to addressing minority groups’ self-determination concerns. According to The World’s Modern Autonomy Systems: Concepts and Experiences of Regional Territorial Autonomy by Thomas Benedikter, autonomy allows minorities to exercise their collective rights while providing the majority with certain guarantees for the sovereignty, unity,

and territorial integrity of the state, “if applied in a democratic environment governed by the rule of law.”

However, others warn that territorial autonomy, in combination with other factors, can increase the risk of conflict. A study of nine minorities in the South Caucasus found that there

is a high correlation between autonomy and violent conflict: “the only minorities that ended up in secessionist armed conflicts with their central governments were the autonomous ones.” The study did not determine causation, however.

Asian Public Intellectual Fellow Cahyo Pamungkas from Indonesia, in a June 2009 paper, analyzed the ARMM’s performance in addressing the issue of Bangsamoro separatism. He found the ARMM’s autonomy “unworkable and impractical,” since it was only an administrative autonomy, which has not “suffciently addressed the root causes of the Moro rebellion, such as ancestral domain, poverty, discrimination, human rights, and marginalization.” The report declares ARMM a failure as an agent of peace and economic development.

In The Politics of Ethnicity and Moro Secessionism in the Philippines, a November

2007 working paper published by the Asia Research Center and Australia’s Murdoch University, Rizal G. Buendia argues that the national government is guilty of exploiting rifts between different Muslim organizations by “co-opting one or several of its leaders or factions through offers of power or material gain or both within the institutions of government.”

According to the author, this proves that Moro identity is malleable and can shift according to the circumstances and opportunities of the time. He suggests that a semi-sovereign structure that resembles a federal system might be more effective at delivering meaningful self-governance to the Muslim community than the current unitary-presidential system.

Mindanao autonomy doomed ‘from the beginning’? An article by Atty. Benedicto Bacani, executive director of the Institute for Autonomy and Governance (IAG) at the time of its publication in 2005, outlines several flaws in structure and implementation that “doomed Mindanao autonomy from the beginning.” These pitfalls include the asymmetric relationship between Manila and the MNLF, which has led to an autonomy that merely mimics the central government’s characteristics, both good and bad:

• Manila’s “imperialistic” stance towards the region, which has deterred the maturation of ARMM’s political institutions; • The MNLF making a “milking cow” out of the regional government in order to advance personal ambitions, and; • A vague delineation of the powers of the national and regional governments.

Mindanao autonomy doomed

‘from the beginning’?

Can poll synchronization and an interim government revitalize an ailing ARMM?

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Bacani adds, however, that the failure of autonomy has more to do with implementation issues rather than structural ones, which means one cannot yet discount autonomy as an option for resolving issues in Mindanao. According to Bacani, for Moro self-rule to succeed, the following conditions must be met: a Manila-Moro relationship that is based on equality and mutual respect, support from the majority of the Filipinos, genuine control of the region’s natural resources, fiscal autonomy, effective control over security and peace and order efforts,

No consensus on poll synchronization among Muslim groups Even within the Muslim community, different groups hold different opinions on the poll synchronization bill.

For instance, the People’s Reform Onward-ARMM (PRO-ARMM) and representatives of various sec-tors have all pledged support for the president’s plans for reform. Another group, the Reform ARMM Now (RAN), has called on the Supreme Court to quickly resolve the issue regarding the bill’s legality, saying that the TRO could delay much needed reforms.

On the other hand, speaking with MindaNews in June, former Tawi Tawi Governor Almarin Tillah warned that suspending the polls “may radicalize the people who feel that they have been robbed of their right to suffrage.” In an article published in March, MindaNews reported that many others from the Muslim com-munity are of this view.

Others who have opposed the bill are former Comelec Commissioner Atty. Mehol Sadain, who questions the basis for appointing the OICs in ARMM, saying it pre-supposes the effectiveness of appointees and the ineffectiveness of elected officials; lawyer Romulo Macalintal, who says it sets a bad precedent that could make poll postponement and appointment of OICs a normal recourse whenever there is trouble in the country; and Senator Aquilino Q. Pimentel Jr., the principal author of the Organic Law that created the ARMM itself, who says the bill is a betrayal of democracy.

In support of the bill, however, an opinion piece published by the International Center for Innovation, Transformation and Excellence in Governance (INCITEGov)said that the chances of successfully imple-menting reforms are“greater if the heavy burden of past governance mismanagement is lifted with the appointment of interim officials who will ensure the implementation of reform measures, given limited time and resources, during the 22-month interlude.”

What does the ordinary Filipino have to say about all this? An SWS survey found high opposition to the bill among adult Filipinos, with 51% against and 24% in favor of the postponement of the elections.

fortification of democratic institutions and rule of law, which includes having free and fair elections, and the strengthening of Moro cultural and personal systems.

The aforementioned The World’s Modern Autonomy Systems report by Benedikter also gives several conditions for the success of an autonomy arrangement, based on the report’s study of various territorial autonomy arrangements, but maintains that there is not a universal formula since the approach “must always be tailored to the historical, geographical, cultural, political and social circumstances.”

Can poll synchronization and an interim government revitalize an ailing ARMM?

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Pay more attention to the process than to the outcome. A handbook for peace process negotiators entitled Democracy and Deep-Rooted Conflict: Options for Negotiators stresses that “more attention needs to be paid to the process by which one reaches a peace settlement rather than simply concentrating on a scenario’s outcomes.” Citing the cases of Northern Ireland and Bougainville as examples, the authors state that negotiations in these areas were successful because they were “structured in such a way as to promote dialogue, trust and commitment – the keys to building a lasting peace.”

Something similar seems to be happening in the ARMM amidst all the election-related controversy, as RA 10153 seems to have already made a positive impact.

Increased cooperation in general. Referring to the increased cooperation between the government and civil society and the inclusion of the ARMM public in the OIC nominees screening process, Institute for Autonomy and Governance executive director Father Eliseo “Jun”

Mercado writes in his blog hosted by GMA News: “No doubt, the ‘reform ARMM train’ has engendered a process that promotes not only public scrutiny of the nominees’ respective platform vis-à-vis reforms in the ARMM but also for the first time a popular demand for ‘accountability’ and transparency both of leadership and the funds.”

He adds that something very dynamic is taking shape in the region, “an expression of the traditional community debates and consultation – truly elements of a Bangsamoro ‘spring’.”

To be sure, any move towards reforming a rotten system is a good thing. However, this is not the first time polls in the ARMM have been suspended. In fact, in its two decades of existence, polls have been postponed eight times, and only the 2008 elections pushed through as scheduled. Unless the other conditions for the success of autonomy are cultivated in the region, meddling with the elections will always be just a quick-fix solution to deep-seated problems, and the prospects for peace and genuine reform will remain dim.

Can poll synchronization and an interim government revitalize an ailing ARMM?

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Assessing the government’s proposed proliferation of ‘P’sBy Verbo Bonilla

Minding One’s Ps and ₱s

The Aquino administration recently announced a plan to allocate ₱8 billion for public-private partnerships (PPP) in social services, i.e., health and education. Meanwhile, an additional P18 billion is being proposed in Congress for the budget of the administration’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), the local version of the conditional cash transfer (CCT) scheme. If passed, this would bring total CCT funding to P39.5 billion.

If the national budget is government’s way of putting its money where its mouth is, the

difference in proposed allocations might indicate which program it regards as more important. Put another way, an additional “P” seems to be worth tens of billions of ₱s more in government funding.

Granted, the PPP in social services would generate counterpart funding from the private sector, if successfully marketed. It would also free up government from some recurring costs associated with social services, e.g., running hospitals and maintaining schools. Therein lies PPP’s potential benefit.

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On the other hand, the sheer size (P39.5 billion) and nature (cash transfer) being proposed for the 4Ps program raises some questions about the social-welfare and poverty-alleviation strategy of the Aquino administration.

How many ‘P’s will it take? Will it take two sets of “P”s to solve the problem of giving the poor better access to social services? One program turns to the private sector for funding and other resources to increase the supply of social services, while the other gives funds to families to avail of those services. Beyond the number of “P”s, there are valid concerns about the benefits and the disadvantages of each approach.

To be sure, there is a need for government to do more to improve the lot of the poor. According to official statistics, 26.5% of our population– 23.14 million Filipinos or 3.86 million families– are living on a little more than P46 a day, the newly established poverty threshold. In fact, the number of individuals and families living in poverty would actually be more if government did not just recently lower the daily threshold from a little over P52.

These people need a lot of help in terms of affordable education, subsidized health care, and other services. In another measure of the gravity of the situation, Education Secretary Armin Luistro disclosed that for this school year, the country lacks 66,800 classrooms and 101,612 public school teachers.

According to the policy paper, “Blueprint for Universal Health Care 2010-2015 and Beyond,” fully “60% of Filipinos who die do so without the benefit of health professional attention.” The government goes so far as to admit, in its Millennium Development Goals National Report 2010 that it needs “to catch up in poverty, education and maternal health,” an understatement as far as The Other MDG Report 2010, funded by the United Nations Development Programme, is concerned.

Launching PPP plans. The public-private partnership for social services takes off from the administration’s flagship PPP for infrastructure. Late in August, the government announced a plan “to start bidding out in the next few weeks” contracts for the construction of about 10,000 school buildings under PPP. Philhealth, the national health insurance provider, also launched early this September a PPP scheme to support Kalusugan Pangkalahatan in line with the Aquino Administration’s Health Agenda.

4,573

5,562

7,017

5,129

6,274

7,953

2003 2006 2009

8,000

6,000

4,000

2,000

Monthly Poverty Threshold for sa Family of Five, Philippines 2003, 2006 and 2009

Old Re�ned

Minding one’s Ps and ₱s

View a slide-show presentation on the administration’s health agenda

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In announcing PPP for social services, Budget Secretary Abad remarked, “we have been limiting ourselves from funding school buildings and regional hospitals through the annual budget. Why don’t we tap the capital and expertise of the private sector to escalate social services?”

Poverty reduction by cash transfer. For its part, the 4Ps program is a poverty-reduction strategy that gives cash to targeted households in exchange for predetermined behavior. It started with a ₱5-billion budget under the Arroyo administration, targeting initially 321,000 poorest households in 2009. Since then, the budget has increased from ₱10 billion in 2010 covering 1 million families, to ₱21.2 billion this year for a targeted 2.3 million families. The proposed 2012 appropriation hopes to benefit 3 million households next year, according to President Aquino’s 2012 Budget Message.

As of July this year, 2.2 million families have already registered for the cash-transfer program, according to the 4Ps Second Quarter 2011 Status Report. By the end of the Aquino administration in 2016, the 4Ps program will aim to have served 4.6 million households.

Each program shows strong promise. With the government keen on pursuing the two programs, we can hope these schemes will make a huge impact on the lives of the poor. Indeed, each shows strong promise. With respect to PPP, a U.N.-commissioned paper, “Partnering for Development: Government-Private Sector Cooperation in Service Provision,” finds that “experience suggests that many goods and services for which people can pay… can be delivered more efficiently by involving the private sector.” A paper entitled The Emerging Role of the Private Sector in Delivering Social Services in the ESCAP Region relates the increasing involvement of the private sector in social-service delivery in Asia and the Pacific.

Potential advantages presented by PPP for social services are certainly attractive. According to the UN paper Partnering for Development cited above, some of the advantages presented by PPP in services are increased efficiency, expanded coverage, and reduced delivery costs. Also, PPP allows government to free up its resources for other public goods and services. A paper on PPP for TB Control, for instance, cites the contribution of PPP in attaining the Philippine target of “a 70 percent case detection rate and 85 percent treatment success rate” for tuberculosis.

A wealth of positive accounts of CCT cases. With regard to conditional cash transfers, a wealth of positive accounts can be found online. Reviews of the experiences of Latin American and African countries are done, respectively, in “Lessons Offered by Latin American Cash Transfer Programmes” and “Lessons from Cash Transfers in Africa and Elsewhere,” relating mostly favorable outcomes.

Minding one’s Ps and ₱s

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Conditional cash transfers are appealing because they directly target the poor while promoting productive behavior. The World Bank policy research report, Conditional Cash Transfers: Reducing Present and Future Poverty finds that direct redistribution of resources may work where typical public expenditure fails to reach the poor and where markets work imperfectly. Because of how it is designed, CCT programs can show immediate impact on social indicators, providing quick successes for governments. The CCT recourse, therefore, is especially attractive for governments such as ours, who are hoping to catch up on their MDG commitments.

And now the caveats. But as with most programs, caveats go hand in hand with potential benefits. Where accounts of experiences end and rigorous empirical studies begin, there appears to be a dearth of unequivocal support for PPP. A report by the New Zealand Treasury (2006) finds that there is “little reliable empirical evidence about the costs and benefits of PPPs.”

This finding is echoed in papers on PPP for education —such as The Role and Impact of Public-Private Partnerships in Education (2009), and Public-Private Partnerships in Basic Education: An International Review (2008)-- as well as in health care-- as in the paper Public-Private Partnership as a New

Way to Deliver Healthcare Services that cites Australian research showing public hospitals are more efficient than those privately operated. So much for touted efficiency gains from PPP.

It appears the success of many PPP programs can be attributed more to program design and implementation rather than to the mode of financing. The UN paper Partnering for Development opines that, “PPPs are complex arrangements and can create potential problems… if they are not properly designed and administered. They often displace public workers… If PPPs are not well designed and supervised their services can become more expensive than those provided by government.”

As if to bear out the study, a protest action by local hospital workers and patients was recently held against what a progressive news site calls the “foreseen death of public health services under PPP.” In the report, Health Secretary Ona was reported as saying that prices of health services will most probably go up under PPP.

Short-term gains but little long-term impact? As for CCT, there is a wealth of empirical evidence that points to short-term gains – in income, school and day-care attendance, and hunger alleviation – but little or none on long-term impact. The UNDP study Regional Human Development Report for Latin America and the Caribbean (2010) show, for instance, that CCT did not represent a significant increase in the quality of education or of learning, nor in significant increases in salaries once the recipients entered the labor force.

An ADB policy brief, Conditional Cash Transfer Programs: An Effective Tool for

Minding one’s Ps and ₱s

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Poverty Alleviation?, finds that the CCT approach presumes “that the supply of social services for education and health is in place.” The approach may fail where there are limited social service infrastructure-- not enough classrooms, clinics, health care workers or teachers-- to begin with for those who need or want them.

According to the previously mentioned World Bank Conditional Cash Transfers research report, two major arguments against CCT should not be lightly dismissed:

1. Poverty is best reduced by economic growth, and;

2. Cash transfers provide the wrong incentives to recipients.

On the first argument, cash transfers offer a “lower future payoff than investment in public capital” such as roads, ports, schools and clinics. On the second argument, CCTs may discourage self-reliance and instill dependency among beneficiaries.

Careful study still needed. What can we conclude from all these? One is that the Aquino government should not blindly rush into undertaking either program without carefully studying their design, intended

impact and implementation details. Another is that it should not haphazardly raise 4Ps funding without carefully weighing tradeoffs in expenditures, such as investments in infrastructure, for instance.

There also seems to be something wrong with the government presiding over a massive direct-transfer program on the one hand, while it pursues resource augmentation with private-sector participation on the other. Imagine a scenario where the costs of education and health services go up, driven by the profit-seeking motives of the private companies who have taken over from the government, at the same time that more poor families become dependent on direct cash transfers. With the cost of social services becoming less affordable, the beneficiaries of CCT might be reluctant to leave the program, and the situation could spiral out of control.

If the government is not careful, the possibility of the above scenario actually happening might not be so farfetched. As with many programs, especially in this country, failure oftentimes stems from lack of careful preparation, design and implementation. If the hypothetical scenario were to occur, then the costs of all the administration’s “Ps” might just be too much.

Minding one’s Ps and ₱s

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In December 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13526 classifying national security information. Top Secret, the EO decreed, applied to information that could inflict exceptionally grave damage to national security if disclosed. Secret information, on the other hand, could cause serious damage, while Confidential data could bring just damage.

Now what exactly was grave, serious and not so serious damage? Almost a year later, American embassies worldwide found out first hand. On November 28, 2010, more than a quarter of a million United States

embassy cables— 251,287 to be exact — were made available online by Wikileaks, the leading website disclosing secret material.

Fully 15,652 of those cables were classified as Secret; another 101,748 were Confidential, and 133,887 were unclassified (see charts from London’s The Guardian newspaper). The diplomatic cache was the third such mass disclosure of confidential U.S. state material, after the 77,000 war logs from American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, jointly covered by Arab, British, French, German, Swedish, and U.S. media.

America and the Philippines according to WikileaksBy Joanne Angela B. Marzan

A Special Relationship?

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What ‘special relationship’?Journalists, analysts, diplomats and historians will be poring over that treasure trove of hidden communications for years, especially the ‘noforn’ cables (meaning ‘no foreign distribution’). As discussed by editors and diplomatic experts in this video from London’s The Guardian, the impact on U.S. foreign relations would be huge and incalculable.

The Guardian investigative editor David Leigh warns of a “worldwide diplomatic crisis” for the United States as the countries it deals with discover what really goes on in the U.S. diplomatic mind. Political writer and historian Timothy Garton-Ash says Britain should “take a long, hard look at these documents” and rethink the so-called close ties with the U.S. His admonition could well apply to the Philippines as well: “We have these illusions about the special relationship [with the U.S.], which clearly

American diplomats themselves don’t believe, so why are we clinging to those illusions?”

The innards of American diplomacyOf the quarter-million Wikileaked U.S. diplomatic cables, 1,794 or 0.7% came from the American Embassy in Manila from 1994 to 2010. That’s 44th among 274 embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions (see bar chart from http://www.wikileaks. org/cablegate.html). Of the cables from Manila,

A special relationship?

Source: The Guardian newspaper, London

Source: The Guardian, London

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65 were secret, 747 were confidential, and 982 were unclassified.

A selection of the Manila leaks paint a picture of an embassy whose monitoring work seems focused on warning against problems and miscues in the Philippine government as well as other political players. There seems to be little by way of praise or substantive assistance, as one would expect from a staunch ally with special ties to the Philippines. Rather, the country was just one more international variable to manage for American interests.

And when those interests are directly at stake, such as the detention and trial of Marine Daniel Smith on a rape charge in 2005, then the embassy shows its muscle, pressuring Palace officials from the President down, and even setting aside constitutional niceties like the independence of the judiciary, to demand fast action on its concerns.So here are some juicy bits from the U.S. Embassy in Manila, classified by the subject personalities. And there is no reason to believe that the thinking and messaging about the current administration would be any different.

1. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo‘I am sorry’When President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said “I am sorry” on nationwide TV for having called an election officer during the 2004 elections, Joseph Mussomeli said in a June 28, 2005 confidential cable that “her ‘will she or won’t she’ approach to the public confession…heighten the perception of a weak and vacillating politico, failing to demonstrate desirable leadership

Secratary of State

Embassy Ankara

Embassy Baghdad

Embassy Tokyo

Embassy Amman

Embassy Paris

Embassy Kuwait

Embassy Madrid

American Institute Taiwan

Embassy Moscow

Embassy Colombo

Embassy Beijing

Embassy Tel Aviv

USUN New York

Embassy Khartoum

Embassy Jakarta

Embassy New Delhi

Embassy Abuja

Embassy The Hague

Embassy Harare

Embassy Kabul

Embassy Bangkok

Embassy Rome

Embassy Cairo

Embassy Kinshasa

Embassy Abu Dhabi

Embassy Ashgabat

Embassy Bogota

Embassy Beirut

Embassy Caracas

Embassy Hanoi

Embassy Mexico

Embassy Kathmandu

Embassy Buenos Aires

Embassy Islamabad

Consulate Jerusalem

Embassy Dhaka

Embassy Seoul

Embassy Tegucigalpa

Embassy Ottawa

Embassy Brasilia

Embassy Rangoon

Embassy Nairobi

Embassy Manila

Embassy Yerevan

0K 2K 4K 6K 8KValue

A special relationship?

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skills. She will definitely face a difficult time to advance her substantive agenda, much less to regain significant levels of public and political confidence.”

CorruptionA June 9, 2005, confidential cable quoted tycoon Washington Sycip, a ‘long-time Embassy contact’ saying: “Corruption is at its worst ever and is making it impossible for democracy to work in the Philippines.”The cable said Sycip cited First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo as involved in illegal gambling and connected with major smuggling syndicates. Francis Chua, then president of the Federation of Filipino Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, echoed Sycip’s concern over corruption and also cited FG Arroyo as a “major problem when it comes to corruption.”

People PowerAmid calls for President Arroyo to step down over the NBN-ZTE deal, Ambassador Kenney, in a February 29, 2008 confidential cable, said: “People power is not the answer. … It would further entrench the perception in the region and around the world that the Philippines is an ungovernable country, where political change is regularly brought about through extra-constitutional means, and could imperil the foreign investment that has been so vital to the Philippines’ recent economic growth.”

Two weeks before, in a February 14, 2008 unclassified cable, Kenney said the silent majority was suffering not only from scandal fatigue, but also from “people power” fatigue.

2. Freeing Romeo JalosjosIn 2005, more than 50 congressmen

petitioned President Arroyo to parole former Zamboanga del Norte Representative Romeo Jalosjos after several years in jail for raping an 11-year old girl. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone in then said in a January 13, 2005, confidential cable: “That Arroyo would even contemplate pardoning a convicted child rapist highlights her continued insecurity over her political position. … Since winning last year’s election in a close vote and amid much controversy over voting irregularities, Arroyo has appeared to lack confidence. …The good news is that she appears unlikely to grant the pardon request. …If she does, however, Arroyo’s reputation for caving in to pressure will only grow, but this time with a blow to her popularity polls.”

In a September 26, 2005 confidential cable, when news that President Arroyo was again mulling granting pardon to Jalosjos, an embassy official named ‘Johnson’ commented:“The notion that the Palace might be contemplating a pardon tends to highlight President Arroyo’s continued insecurity over her political position. Many observers have commented that Malacanang, weakened by recent scandals, may be entering into a ‘transactional’ mode of governance wherein it is forced to cut deals with members of the House and Senate, and others in order to keep its head above water. Pardoning a convicted child rapist for transparent political reasons would be just about the worst form that such transactions could take. If a pardon is granted, it would also be a very bad message on the trafficking in persons (TIP) front where the Philippines has a very serious problem.”

There was no pardon granted, however, until March 19, 2009, when Jalosjos was

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freed after President Arroyo commuted his sentence from two life terms to 16 years, three months and three days, as recommended by the Board of Pardon and Parole.

3. Appointment of Hermogenes Ebdane as Defense SecretaryWhen President Arroyo appointed Public Works Secretary and former Philippine National Police chief Hermogenes Ebdane as Defense Secretary, Ambassador Kenney, in a March 13, 2007 confidential cable, expressed her disapproval: “Ebdane was far from the best choice President Arroyo could have made to succeed former Secretary [Avelino] Cruz. Nonetheless, he is a committed Arroyo loyalist whom many believe President Arroyo hand-picked to ‘manage’ the 2007 Congressional elections.” The Ambassador also saw Ebdane as “tongue-tied”, “reticent”, and “clearly no intellect.” He was also described in the cable as possibly having helped then-Elections Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano hide during the Garci controversy. 4. Appointment of General Ibrahim Ibrado as AFP Chief of StaffThe 2009 appointment of Lt. General Ibrahim Ibrado over General Delfin Bangit as the new AFP Chief of Staff was received positively by the U.S. Embassy. General Ibrado was described in an April 20, 2009 confidential cable as “personable, engaging individual who clearly understands the importance of bilateral military relationship.” Ambassador Kenney believed that with General Ibrado at the helm of the AFP, U.S.-Philippine military relationship would continue to prosper. On the other hand, General Bangit, was described as “controversial.” He allegedly distributed money to his subordinates as head of the Intelligence Service of the AFP (ISAFP).

5. President Joseph EstradaNational reconciliation talksSecretary Michael Defensor’s statement in 2005 that he is in talks with the people of deposed President Joseph Estrada for “national reconciliation” got the U.S. embassy officials in Manilaworried. In a confidential cable dated October 21, 2005, Johnson commented, “Estrada is widely and accurately seen as corrupt (even his supporters admit he played things close to the edge of the law), and civil society and good government types would rip into her [Arroyo] unmercifully if she tried to help him out of his legal problems. ”

Conditional pardonIn October 25, 2007, President Arroyo granted conditional pardon to Estrada. According to an October 26 cable, a “Filipino businessman with close ties to Malacanang Palace” told the U.S. Ambassador that Estrada’s continued popularity was a factor in the decision to pardon. “A highly-respected businessman,” on the other hand, said that another factor is Estrada’s 102-year-old mother and “her death without the presence of her son would reflect poorly on Arroyo among the public.”In the same cable, Acting Justice Secretary and Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera said that the Arroyo Cabinet was divided in granting pardon to Estrada.

Re-election bidWhen Estrada announced his bid for re-election for the presidency on October 21, 2009, Ambassador Kenney described him as “popular with a meaningfully large segment of the electorate despite well-known personal vices, a prior conviction for plunder, and widespread suspicion of culpability in a double murder now under investigation.” In the same confidential cable dated

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October 22, 2009, Kenney added that a win by Estrada, though highly unlikely, would be unfavorable to the U.S. government, given his connections with “an American convicted of espionage”. In 2007, former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) analyst Leandro Aragoncillo was convicted of stealing more than 700 classified documents from the U.S. government and e-mailing information to government officials in the Philippines, including Estrada.

5. 2010 presidential candidatesBenigno “Noynoy” AquinoOn then Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, Ambassador Kenney said: “…most political observers, including his late mother, agree that he is not a natural politician, lacking the charisma and aggressive political agenda that usually propels political candidates. Since taking office, Aquino’s record as a legislator has been lackluster. He has not played a leading role in the House or Senate, and his views on many controversial issues remain unknown.” Based on Senator Aquino’s resume on the Senate website, in his nine years as Tarlac congressman, Aquino preferred making laws that created opportunities, thus his active participation in budget deliberations. “He felt there were already too many laws, and good ones at that, but they seemingly lacked proper implementation,” the leaked cable added.

In the Ambassador’s conversation with Corazon Aquino a year before her death, the former president confided that the entire Aquino-Cojuangco clan had to undertake a “massive effort” for Noynoy to become a Senator. On the other hand, Ambassador Kenney considered Senator Aquino’s sudden popularity in the presidential

polls showed “deep revulsion at all levels of Philippine society with the widespread corruption and influence peddling that has characterized Philippine politics in recent years.”

Manny VillarIn a late 2009 cable, Ambassador Kenney recounted a private breakfast with Sen. Manny Villar on October 28, 2009. He spoke of his fear that the U.S. would favor Sen. Aquino over other presidentiables, given the latter’s family background. For this reason, Villar traveled to the United States in September 2009 with close ally Sen. Aquilino Pimentel to verify with U.S. politicians if his concern was valid. They and Ambassador Kenney assured him that the U.S. would remain neutral in the May 2010 elections.

Villar’s possible running mate was also discussed. He considered Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero, but his people did not gel with Escudero. Vice President Noli de Castro was another possible running mate, being a close friend and ally, but the VP was perceived to be a close Arroyo ally.Ambassador Kenney recounted:“That left Senator Loren Legarda, whom he [Villar] did not hold in terribly high regard and whose signature issue — the environment — did not really resonate with voters, but whom many Filipinos consider ‘pretty,’ so Villar thought he could ‘learn to live with her’ as a running mate.”

Gilbert TeodoroPresident Arroyo’s political party, Lakas-Kampi-CMD, fielded as presidential candidate Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro.In a September 17, 2009 confidential dispatch, Kenney described Teodoro as an “eloquent candidate with

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a strong record of defense reform and outspoken support for the Philippine-U.S. security alliance.”

6. Manny PacquiaoIn a December 12, 2009 confidential cable, Manny Pacquiao’s intention of gaining a seat in the House of Representatives was mentioned. His chances in the upcoming elections despite his rumored closeness with movie star Krista Ranillo were also mentioned. “It is unclear whether widespread speculation about his friendship with actress Krista Ranillo, which has rankled Pacquiao’s wife, will hinder the boxer’s prospects for election.”

7. Five most powerful women in the countryAside from President Aquino, President Arroyo and SM Group vice chairperson Tessie Sy, the five most influential women listed in a January 29, 2007 cable were Sen. Loren Legarda, journalist Malou Mangahas, Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, Isabela Governor Grace Padaca, and entertainment celebrity Kris Aquino.

8. Ces Drilon ransomAccording to a June 18, 2008 confidential cable, embassy sources in the police and military said ₱15 million was paid for the release of ABS-CBN broadcast journalist Ces Drilon and ₱5 million for the network’s cameraman Angelo Valderama. Embassy sources also believed the kidnappers probably did not belong to the Abu Sayyaf group, but to a “less-sophisticated kidnap-for-ransom criminal gang.” Mayor Alvarez Isnaji of Indanan, Sulu, was also suspected as the possible mastermind of this kidnapping.

9. The FBI hunts the Abu SayyafIn a secret cable dated October 17, 2006, it was revealed that two FBI agents were deployed for 90 days with the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P) at Camp Navarro, Zamboanga del Sur, for counter-terrorism efforts.

On September 4, 2006, they “examined and exploited”a material seized during a raid by Philippine security forces on an Abu Sayyaf safehouse in Jolo City. The FBI agents also worked to improve the AFP’s and PNP’s sensitive site exploitation. They helped develop new procedures for securing sites and evidence handling. In addition, they also worked with State Prosecutor Ricardo Caberon in Zamboanga City in developing an analytical database on Abu Sayyaf operations.

According to the brief, “FBI deployment with JSOTF-P is an innovative concept that puts U.S. law enforcement officers where they need to be to collect vital evidence on terrorists who target U.S. interests. We urge that this program be continued.”

10. Daniel SmithFrom the onset of the alleged involvement of four U.S. Marine officers in the rape of a Filipina in Olongapo City on November 1, 2005, confidential cables showed that embassy officials were concerned with who would take custody of the marines during the trial.

In a November 3, 2005 confidential cable, the embassy sought guidance on how to handle a formal request from the Philippine government for custody. As indicated in a subsequent confidential cable later that day, Charge d’ Affaires Paul Jones pressed

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Visiting Forces Agreement Commission (VFA) Executive Director Zosimo Jesus Paredes not to ask for custody. Paredes said the government might have to do so for “political reasons,” even if it would likely be rejected. Charge Jones also warned that if the U.S. asked the Philippines for jurisdiction over the case, it would be “rejected, inflame public opinion and make government-to-government cooperation more difficult.”

During the course of the trial, the marines indicted for rape, namely, Chad Carpentier, Dominic Duplantis, Keith Silkwood, and Daniel Smith, remained in U.S. custody. On December 4, 2006, Smith was convicted of rape and was ordered by Makati City Regional Trial Court Judge Benjamin Pozon to be temporarily detained at the Makati City Jail. Carpentier, Duplantis and Silkwood, on the other hand, were all acquitted for lack of evidence.

In a confidential cable dated December 5, 2006, Ambassador Kenney recounted that on the previous evening, she spoke on the phone with President Arroyo, Executive Secretary [Eduardo] Ermita, Foreign Secretary [Alberto] Romulo, Justice Secretary [Raul] Gonzalez, and Armed Forces Chief of Staff General [Hermogenes] Esperon. Kenney asserted the “clear right of the U.S. to retain custody under the VFA, urged the GRP [government] quickly to take steps to ensure its own compliance with these terms, and insisted that in the meantime GRP authorities must ensure Smith’s complete and utter safety and well-being at the Makati City Jail. All expressed their agreement.“ (Gen. Esperon, in fact, was able to make sure that Smith was safe by letting him rest in the warden’s office instead of a cell.) On December 5, 2006,

Executive Sec. Ermita “assured Ambassador that the GRP would ‘fix’ this problem immediately.”

However, on the evening of Dec. 5, Smith was still detained in the Makati jail. “Despite promises from the senior-most Philippine Government officials that they could work with the judge in the alleged rape case to rescind his custody order and return Lance Corporal Smith to U.S. custody, Smith will spend at least one more night at the Makati City Jail. We are increasingly frustrated by the apparent inability of the Philippine Government to ensure a prompt resolution of this issue, which calls into question its compliance with the Visiting Forces Agreement,” cabled Ambassador Kenney.

In a December 6, 2006 confidential cable, Kenney hit Judge Pozon when she said, “The heretofore-obscure Judge Pozon may be enjoying his moment in the sun, and burnishing his nationalist credentials by ordering the seizure by Philippine authorities of the new convict, with an eye on a future political career or promotion within the judicial hierarchy.”

In another confidential cable, also on December 6, Ambassador Kenney recommended that the scheduled presentation of credentials of Philippine Ambassador to the U.S. Willy Gaa on December 8, 2006, be postponed until “there is a clear and satisfactory resolution of this custody issue. Gaa’s credentials would not hurt larger and longer-term U.S. interests, but would demonstrate to the Philippine Government our deep concern. It will also ensure that President Bush is not photographed with the Philippine Ambassador in the Oval Office at a time

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when the Philippine Government is holding a U.S. Marine in custody contrary to the terms of our Visiting Forces Agreement.”

As of December 13, 2006, the U.S. was still unable to regain custody of Smith. On the same day, an inter-agency special working group chaired by the Ambassador discussed options that would influence the government to do more to secure U.S. custody for Smith. The group agreed that the fastest way to get the attention of the authorities is the revision of the U.S. travel warning on the Philippines to “highlight a growing lack of U.S. confidence in the Philippine government’s and judiciary’s willingness and ability to uphold obligations under international agreements and law.” The cable mentioned that this would be most effective, considering that the Philippines is dependent on tourism and is generally sensitive to travel advisories.

Ambassador Kenney informed Executive Sec. Ermita during a private meeting on December 20, 2006, of the possible cancellation of Balikatan 07 since the Philippines was unable to comply with the terms of the VFA. On December 21, 2006, Ambassador Kenney spoke with President Arroyo and reiterated how important it was for the Philippines to comply with its obligations under the VFA. President Arroyo told the Ambassador that the government is “doing everything we can.”

On December 28, 2006, at around 11:30 p.m. the U.S. regained custody of Smith. A confidential cable on the same day said: “This bold and welcome step by the Philippine Government reflected its deep commitment to the Visiting Forces Agreement and to its respect for its international obligations, despite

frustrations over judicial decisions (or lack thereof).”

11. State visit of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary ClintonIn a confidential cable dated November 5, 2009 intended for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarding her state visit to the Philippines, Ambassador Kenney said: “The Philippines is a vibrant and youthful nation, replete with young, outward-looking people concerned about global issues, and eager to apply the values that American democracy enshrines to change their own society for the better.” (Compare that line with the cables in the preceding ten sections.)

12. Farewell call of Ambassador Kristie KenneyDuring Ambassador Kenney’s farewell call on January 21, 2010, she praised President Arroyo on:

1. Growth of the economy due mainly to the expansion of call centers and business process outsourcing companies

2. Excellent peacekeeping record of the Armed Forces of the Philippines

3. Showing leadership in ASEAN specifically on Burma

4. Roll-on/Roll-off (Ro-Ro) Project

In a July 30, 2008 unclassified cable, the embassy credited the U.S. government for its “policy advocacy and foreign assistance” leading to the expansion of Ro-Ro resulting in lower cost of inter-island transportation in the country.“Although roll-on, roll-off transportation has existed

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in the Philippines for decades, the current program of promoting the expansion of Ro-Ro as a feasible inter-island transport option to compete with the cartel of domestic shipping lines began with U.S.AID assistance in 1998.”

However, the embassy said the U.S. cannot publicly claim their participation in the Ro-Ro project. “The U.S.G role in supporting the refinement, advocacy, and execution of the Ro-Ro network is not common knowledge in the Philippines. For the future success of this and other policy reform initiatives the U.S.G supports, it is important that we NOT promote or even acknowledge our leadership role and give the Philippine Government

Will Wikileaks’ fight against secrecy result in more transparency?For WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, secrets should not be left untold.

In a Time interview, Assange said, “Secrecy is important for many things but shouldn’t be used to cover up abuses. … it is our responsibility to bring matters to the public.”

WikiLeaks is a non-profit media organization that publishes important information of “ethical, political and historical significance” coming from whistleblowers. Assange’s crusade against secrecy got him nominated Time’s Person of the Year for 2010. While he was the Readers’ Choice, Time wound up choosing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

One of Assange’s greatest accomplishments, according to a Time article, is that he was able to create “a digital safe haven that is anonymous, massively collaborative and highly resistant to attack or penetration by intelligence services.”

In a BBC interview Assange said, “To keep our sources safe, we have had to spread assets, encrypt every-thing, and move telecommunications and people around the world to activate protective laws in different national jurisdic-tions.

We’ve become good at it, and never lost a case, or a source.”

For Article 19, a London-based human rights organization championing freedom of information and freedom of expres-sion worldwide, WikiLeaks has provided a new venue for the public to access information held by the government. But not everyone is in favor of what Assange is doing.

primary credit for the Ro-Ro program.”That final cable captures the embassy perspective well, highlighting what it sees as America’s positive but hidden role in Philippine governance and development, but perhaps not missing even bigger advances in national affairs, such as the fiscal reforms that triggered the economy’s surge toward a higher growth trajectory, where the U.S. did not figure so prominently.

Now apply that kind of perspective to the government’s actions and the nation’s events since June 30, 2010. One may not need another flood of Wikileaks to divine what may be streaming toward Washington from the embassy on Roxas Boulevard.

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When WikiLeaks published 251,287 United States Embassy cables, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton openly attacked the release of classified information to the public.

“The United States strongly condemns the illegal disclosure of classified information. It puts peoples lives in danger, threatens our national security, and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve and share problems,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Associated Press.

Others have their own issues with Wikileaks.

In an interview with Democracy Now, Steven Aftergood, the director of the Federation of American Sci-entists Project on Government Secrecy, expressed support for WikiLeaks for the “exposure of corruption, including classified corruption.”

At the same time, he raised several issues against WikiLeaks. “It has invaded personal privacy. It has pub-lished libelous material. It has violated intellectual property rights. And above all, it has launched a sweep-ing attack not simply on corruption, but on secrecy itself,” Aftergood said.

Meanwhile, Paivikki Karhula of the Netherlands-based International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, in analyzing the possible effects of Wikileaks on freedom of information, raises the point: “The consequences of losing a right to protect sources may lead to extreme transparency, but does it lead to the kind of transparency which would support democracy and civil society?”

To answer the question, or at least guide any discussion of the issue, she cites American journalist Claire Berlinski, who says: “The hypocrisy and double-standard of journalists, in particular, who fail to understand why the government must sometimes protect its sources of information is mind-blowing … Many sources would lose their jobs, their reputations, their liberty or their lives for talking to journalists on the record. If the people who spoke to us didn’t think we could keep their names out of the story, they would never open their mouths again. Would that make the world more transparent?”

That question is thought-provoking in its own right, and so is the discussion on “Keeping WikiLeaks in Per-spective,” on the Cato@Liberty blogsite of the Washington, D.C.-based libertarian think tank Cato Institute, from where Berlinski’s quote was sourced.

Roger Pilon’s blog discusses a connection between national security and privacy, which he says are seemingly unconnected yet intimately connected, citing Wall Street Journal columnist Austin Crovitz who say that WikiLeaks will result in less intelligence, which Crovitz says is Assange’s express intention.

Apart from the concern about less intelligence, Pilon cites Theodore Dalrymple, who says that “the actual effect of WikiLeaks is likely to be profound and precisely the opposite of what it supposedly sets out to achieve. Far from making for a more open world, it could make for a much more closed one.”

Dalrymple’s assessment: “WikiLeaks will sow distrust and fear, indeed paranoia; people will be increas-ingly unwilling to express themselves openly in case what they say is taken down by their interlocutor and used in evidence against them, not necessarily by the interlocutor himself.”

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Search the Internet, leaf through a magazine, go on social networking sites, watch TV, and you might wonder, “What hasn’t been said about Steve Jobs?”

The man was a visionary in every sense of the word. He saw different things from the rest of us.

As a college dropout practically living in his parents’ garage as he worked with Apple co-founder Steve “Woz” Wozniak on the first personal computer, as the CEO presiding over the development and production of revolutionary gadgets that changed the way we consume and relate to information.

Neither smooth nor straightforward. Having said that, it should also be noted

that the road to his success – from the Apple I all the way to the iPhone4S – was neither smooth or straightforward. He founded Apple Computer with the Apple 1, which was not a runaway success, launched a couple more computers – the Apple II and III, the first mouse-controlled computer Lisa, and the Macintosh – that may have preached to the choir but failed to make a dent in the personal computer world that Microsoft was virtually monopolizing.

He was ousted from his own company, he founded NeXT Computer (which would be bought by Apple later for its operating system), then took a side road in buying Pixar from George Lucas, before he returned to Apple in what is regarded as one of the best CEO tenures in recent memory.

By Marishka Noelle M. Cabrera

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Changing the notion of what is possible. Time and again he challenged, then changed the popular notion of what is possible. From a business perspective, Steve Jobs capitalized on “insanely great”

products, executed innovative marketing plans, revolutionized industries from personal computers to phones, music, and movies, and carved out new markets that are challenging existing models. With the creation of the iPad, for instance, the tablet is now challenging the personal computer itself. A Morgan Stanley paper says, ”Our analysis of personal computing usage suggests that computing will increasingly migrate towards mobile devices, including tablets and smartphones, over time.”

Apple created one hit product after another, pushing its competitors in the consumer electronics market to step up their game. “Today’s consumer electronics industry is built largely around copying Apple’s successful products,” one Harvard Business Review blogger writes. The company even ranked number two in the Cool Brands list by U.K.’s The Centre for Brand Analysis, following luxury car brand Aston Martin.

Obsessed with melding aesthetics with simplicity. An article in The Economist cites how Jobs was “obsessed” with the aesthetics of the products and how to make advanced technology simple to use. “He repeatedly took an existing but half-formed idea—the mouse-driven computer, the digital music player, the smartphone, the tablet computer—and showed the rest of the industry how to do it properly,” the article notes.

That’s the magic of Apple devices: they looked as good as they functioned.

Steve Jobs SpeaksHere are some highlights of the now-popular commencement speech that Steve Jobs gave before Stanford University gradu-ates in June 2005, in which he talked about his life and times and the lessons he learned along the way.

“Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

“You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most impor-tant tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all exter-nal expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.” “Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”

“And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

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In an interview with Wired, Jobs explains why design is not just about how it looks, but how it works. “To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something…The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have,” Jobs relates.

A knack for humanizing technology. He was able to humanize technology because he had a profound understanding of the human spirit. He had a knack for knowing what it was that excited us, unleashed our creativity, made life better for us, and what we cherished most. Jobs made technology mainstream, and for the “everyman”—the student, the stay-at-home mom, the writer, the freelance creative, the office worker, the child with autism, the musician, the doctor, the small business owner and the list goes on.

Suddenly, ordinary people who were anything but tech-savvy started using a variety of electronic devices in their day-to-day life, some to the point of not being able to live without them. With such a wide range of users, it comes as no surprise that Jobs came to be as influential and well-known as any of his products.

Bringing the digital world to the rest of humanity. By innovating the personal computer, Jobs brought the digital world to the rest of humanity. In a 1994 interview with Rolling Stone, 10 years after the Macintosh was introduced, Steve Jobs said, “Individuals can now do things that only large groups of people with lots of money could do before. What that means is, we have much more opportunity for people to get to the marketplace — not just the marketplace of commerce but the marketplace of ideas…We’ve given individuals and small groups equally powerful tools to what the largest, most heavily funded organizations in the world have.”

In a presentation on Transformational Leadership, John Sculley, former CEO of Pepsi and Apple, describes Jobs as a visionary who “change[d] the world one person at a time by empowering individuals with their own computer.”

With his passing, the world lost an innovator, control freak of a boss, genius. Technology editor Shane Richmond of The Telegraph says in a video that “the whole company is built in his image.” Jobs, nevertheless, “structured [Apple] to carry on without him” through people he handpicked and trained.

The Curious Case of the FontWhen Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed College in Port-land, Oregon because he “couldn’t see the value in it,” he started dropping in on classes he actually enjoyed. Callig-raphy was one of them. Little did he know that this sidestep would play a significant role as soon as he started design-ing the first Macintosh computer.

The idea of the “font” served as the distinguishing element in Macs. A CNN article tells the story of how the wide range of fonts came into being and how “a seismic shift in our everyday relationship with letters and with type” took place. It adds, “Now there was a choice of alphabets that did their best to recreate something we were used to from the real world.”

In his speech, Jobs described the Mac as “the first com-puter with beautiful typography,” and added, “If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts,” he says.

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Inspiring action through one simple idea. What Jobs, like most movers and shakers, did in his lifetime was nothing short of legendary. In a talk, author Simon Sinek expounded on how great leaders inspire action through one simple idea. He says that while other companies know what products or services they offer and the ins and outs of their business, they fail to communicate the reason why they do it.

On the other hand, Martin Luther King, the Wright brothers, and, yes, Apple “think, act, and communicate the exact same way” which is the opposite of how others do it. All of them are able to convince others

to believe what they believe. In the end, getting people to rally behind your cause is what drives behavior. “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it,” Sinek says.

Perhaps what best encapsulates the spirit of Steve Jobs is Apple’s Think Different commercial. “They change things. They push the human race forward” is how the company describes individuals who challenge the status quo. It ends by saying, “the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” And so he did.

Apple Marketing In the last decade, Apple has dominated the consumer technology market and rose to become one of the world’s most recognizable brands. Some features of Apple’s successful marketing strategy.

• StyleIn a series of ads, the Mac and the PC were personified: the PC guy was a bumbler in a suit, while the Mac guy was casual, cool and hip. In every comparison one could make – from the bulk of the equipment to making one’s own movies – the PC guy tried hard but the Mac always ended up the clear winner (they were Apple ads, after all). With the campaign, people just got what Macs were all about.

• Letting Consumers Sell the Products for YouFormer Apple marketing executive Steve Chazin in his ebook “Marketing Apple: 5 Secrets of the World’s Best Marketing Machine” says, “Marketing isn’t about what you say, it’s what others say for you.” As in an iPod ad, Apple focused more on how people felt about the product instead of what it actually does.

• Audacity In 1984, the Macintosh was launched. Was it introduced with much fanfare? Definitely. Along with the famous 1984 Apple commercial with Orwellian imagery, Apple bought every single advertising page in Newsweek’s special-election edition to serve as “a guidebook for potential users.” The commercial was aired only once on regular TV, at the 1984 Super Bowl, but the buzz it generated from that one admittedly high-profile airing lasted long after that.

• Being a Rule-BreakerIn the article “How Apple Breaks the Rules of Marketing” from IBM’s ‘the CMO site’ blog, Mitch Wagner observes that Apple is the opposite of transparent, and “flouts the common wisdom about marketing and PR in the Internet and social media era.” It makes great products, but other than that it does not say much, does not use social media, and only makes a few announcements every year. Yet it enjoys a cult following, and its marketing strategy “grounded in the 20th Century, based on advertising, TV commercials, word-of-mouth, and its Apple Store” seem to work brilliantly.

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Three years after the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden said he would drive the U.S. to bankruptcy just as he and his mujahedeen did to the Soviets in Afghanistan. Nearly seven years later, he would be dead, but is his strategy still working?

Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz, writing in Project Syndicate, makes a plausible case for that proposition, saying that the 9/11 attacks harmed the U.S. in ways bin Laden probably never imagined, referring to the financial and economic consequences of the U.S.’ response.

His case: the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will cost anywhere from $3-5 trillion and possibly more (and those costs are ongoing), and compounding that high cost was the fact that the administration of George W.

Bush financed those wars by borrowing. “Increased defense spending, together with the Bush tax cuts, is a key reason why America went from a fiscal surplus of 2% of GDP when Bush was elected to its parlous deficit and debt position today,” Stiglitz states unequivocally.

Tim Fernholz and Jim Tankersley, writing in the Washington, D.C.-based NationalJournal.com in May, following bin Laden’s death, acknowledge that the U.S.’ $3-trillion campaign against bin Laden has averted another catastrophic attack on the U.S., and while al Qaeda has not been destroyed, it has been checked. From there, however, they add that the U.S.’ willingness to spend on its national security might have given bin Laden exactly what he wanted.

Assessing the costs and the wisdom of a war on Osama bin Laden and al QaedaBy Bill Huang

The World After 9/11: Was the U.S.’ Global War on Terror Necessary?

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The campaign against bin Laden and al Qaeda, they continue, has not resulted in social or economic advancements on a scale comparable to advancements following battles against the U.S.’ costliest past enemies, including Adolf Hitler (estimated total financial cost of $4.4 trillion), Ho Chi Minh ($738 billion), Timothy McVeigh ($1.08 billion), and the Confederacy from the Civil War (up to $280 billion).

Was the global war on terror necessary? The corollary question, admittedly asked in hindsight but no less justified precisely because of the economic consequences for the U.S. since then: Was a global war on terrorism necessary? At least a couple of groups aren’t so sure.

A 2008 study by the think tank Rand Corporation, “How Terrorist Groups End – Lessons for Countering al Qaida,” in analyzing data involving 648 terrorist groups from 1968 to 2006, found that out of the 268 groups that ended with most of their members abandoning terrorism, military force was the least effective way to neutralize terrorist groups, occurring only 7% of the time. They found that the most effective way (43%) came from groups joining the political process, followed by the arrest or killing of key members by local police and intelligence agencies (40%), and then by groups achieving their goals (10%).

Through a glass, darklyThe attacks of 9/11 may have been unprecedented in their ambition and execution, and in their immediate and subsequent impact on the rest of the world, but terrorism as a strategy to advance political agendas of otherwise disenfranchised groups has been with modern civilization a while.

Including campaigns for independence, statehood, or autonomy – where one man’s freedom fighter is truly another man’s terrorist – ter-rorists have always seen the utility in striking without warning to get public attention, if not sympathy.

For those who are tempted to think that terrorism began with 9/11, the Council for Foreign Relations’ International Institutions and Global Governance Program provides a Global Governance Monitor for ter-rorism, which includes a timeline that it divides into five epochs.

It provides a trip back through modern history that’s not meant to be sentimental, unless you’re inclined to regard the first airline hijacking – in 1961, by a Puerto Rican-born American who wanted to be flown to Cuba – as benign in comparison to the 9/11 attacks.

The trip reminds us of various independence, autonomy, and anti-oc-cupation groups and their struggles – many of which are still continu-ing – that predate Al-Qaeda: in Algeria, Northern Ireland, Puerto Rico, Corsica, the Basque region, Sri Lanka, and the Palestinian territories. It also recalls hostage-taking, political assassinations (Egypt’s An-war Sadat in 1981, India’s Indira Gandhi in 1984), along with various truck bombings and ship- and airplane-hijackings.

The monitor also hosts an issue brief – a broad outline of the different issues facing the global counter-terrorism effort – as well as a matrix of documents, resolutions, institutions, and initiatives that have risen in response over the years to terrorism, and a map of special hot-spots and global or regional initiatives around the world.

The Council for Foreign Relations’ Global Governance Monitor timeline for terrorism provides a look at the evolution of terrorism in modern civilization.

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Their prescription: end the war on terrorism and rely mainly on counter-terrorism involving police and intelligence agencies (with a reminder that major U.S. allies England, France, and Australia have all eschewed talk of a “war or terror”), with military force as a necessary component if al Qaeda is directly involved in an insurgency.

In another study exploring alternatives to the war paradigm, from the Costs of War project of Brown University and its Thomas J. Watson School of International Studies, Matthew Evangelista acknowledges that both the U.S. government and al Qaeda preferred the war paradigm to the criminal-justice or law-enforcement paradigm, going into detailed analysis specifically of the Bush administration’s actions that indicated its distinct preference.

Al Qaeda: here, there, and anywhereWith the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALs in May, much of the world let out a sigh of relief at the idea that at the very least, some measure of closure had been attained for the 9/11 attacks ten years ago. From there, however, the question has moved to al Qaeda’s viability as a global terrorist threat. Is it capable of sow-ing new terror on the scale of the 9/11 attacks, or will bin Laden’s death cripple al Qaeda to the point of irrelevance?

The Washington, D.C.-based think tank Brookings Institution offers a couple of carefully weighed opinions. Daniel Byman, director of re-search of the institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy, dis-cusses the prospects for al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri, Bin Laden’s successor, in a September 2011 commentary.

Byman refers to al Qaeda as “an organization beset on many fronts … excoriated in Islamist circles for its excesses … (it) risks relevance as Arab Spring unfolds,” before saying that it remains “the most popular ter-rorist group in the world” and “its affiliates remain strong.”

Opportunities for al Qaeda amid Arab Spring. Even as he contends that the group risks relevance amid Arab Spring, he notes that the Liby-an uprising and the Egyptian revolution resulted in the release of many jihadists, and that the collapse of the ruling regime in Yemen has allowed al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to expand its operations there. At the same time, he notes that the U.S. remains unpopular in the region, and its continuing “cozy” relationship with the region’s dictators will continue, providing al Qaeda with “fodder for a public relations offensive.”

The Costs of War project’s estimates of the economic costs of the U.S. global war on terror range from $3.2 trillion to nearly $4.5 trillion. To put those figures in some perspective, the U.S. national debt is $14.942 trillion as of this writing.

Congressional War Appropriations to PentagonAdditions to the Pentagon Base BudgetInterest on Pentagon War AppropriationsVeterans’ Medical and DisabilityWar Related International Assistance (State Department/USAID)Additions to Homeland Security Spending for teh War on TerrorSUBTOTAL FEDERAL OUTLAYS FY2001 Through FY2011, Constant $2011

Projected Obligated Funds for Veterans’ Medical and Disability to 2015Social Costs to Veterans and Military FamiliesTOTAL OUTLAYS TO 2011 AND ADDITIONAL COSTS OF VETERAN’S CARE

Pentagon War Spending Requested for FY2012State Dept./USAID War Related Spending Requested for FY2012, Afghanistan, Iraq, PakistanProjected Pentagon War Spending FY2013-2015, w/ reduction to 45,000 troopsProjected Pentagon War Spending FY2016-2020SUBTOTAL FUTURE PROJECTED DIRECT WAR SPENDING

Additional Interest Payments to 2020

CONSERVATIVEESTIMATE

1,311.5326.2185.4

32.674.2

401.22,331.1

589.0295.0

3,215.1

118.4

12.1

167.6155.0453.1

1,000

MODERATEESTIMATE

1,311.5652.4185.4

32.674.2

401.22,657.3

934.0400.0

3,991.3

118.4

12.1

167.6155.0453.1

1,000

REPORT/SOURCEWheelerWheelerEdwardsBilmesDancsDancs

BilmesBilmes

CRS

CRS

CBOCBO453.1

Edwards

THESE TOTALS DO NOT INCLUDE:Medical costs for injured veterans after age 65; Expenses for veterans paid for by state and local government budgets; Promised $5.3 billion reconstruction aid for Afghanistan; Additional Macroeco-nomic Consequnces of War Spending including infrastructure and jobs, see: Edwards, Heintz, Garrett-Peltier

ESTIMATED DOLLAR COSTS OF WARS, in $BILLIONS

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Global war helped al Qaeda? There are also those who argue that the U.S.’ global war on terror actually raised al Qaeda’s profile more than the group could ever done on its own. Writing for the libertarian think tank Cato Institute’s Cato@Liberty blogsite, Jim Harper discusses U.S. counter-terrorism strategy and al Qaeda, citing a couple of authors who bring up the importance to terrorists of communicating through violence and perceptions, apart from picking targets.

“The success or failure of a given attack matters some to terrorists, but perceptions—the salience of their menace, and interpretations of events among key audiences—matter just as much,” Harper says, as he observes that policymakers and opinion leaders still don’t understand that yet.

He cites Joshua Geltzer’s U.S. Counter-Terrorism Strategy and al-Qaeda: Signaling and the Terrorist World View, which based its analysis and prescriptions, at least in part, on interviews with Bush administration counter-terrorism policy officials.

Geltzer’s prescription: “In addition to calling far less attention to its own actions, America should call far less attention to al-Qaeda — and, moreover, should almost always avoid naming the terrorists themselves. . . . While the political profit to any American politician of constantly naming al-Qaeda

Another view, this one from Omar Ashour of the Saban Center’s Brookings Doha Center, holds that while Al-Qaeda has held on to its ideology of militant jihadism since 2001, its organization has devolved from a centralized, hierarchical organization to a highly decentralized structure, a “franchise model” with dominant regional branches, e.g., Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in 2002, Al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2004, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in 2007.

But he also reports that challenges to Al-Qaeda’s ideology after 9/11 have led to militant organizations in Egypt, Libya, and Algeria to aban-don political violence and even form conventional political parties to stand in elections.

His overall assessment: what he calls “Al-Qaeda Central” has been thwarted by a combination of intelligence operations, drone attacks, transformation within jihadi ranks, and the Arab Spring, and while the franchises will survive, Al Qaeda has been severely undermined as a global threat.

The road to 9/11 from the Philippines. Then again, there’s a remind-er not to underestimate the power of one man and one idea, and how the road to 9/11 and subsequent plots went through the Philippines, courtesy of former CNN correspondent and ABS-CBN News chief Ma-ria Ressa, writing in The Long War Journal, a project of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

In her piece, she reminds us of “Bojinka,” the foiled 1994 plot by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the architect of 9/11, to blow up 11 US airplanes flying from Asia. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed led a terrorist cell in the Philippines that included Ramzi Yousef, who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, Abdul Hakim Murad, perhaps the first commercial pilot recruited by al Qaeda, Wali Khan Amin Shah, who fought with bin Laden in Afghanistan, and Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, bin Laden’s brother-in-law.

She also reminds us of the various plots that the Philippine cell hatched, including shoe-bombing, which was successfully carried out on a Philippine Airlines flight in 1994, discussions on the use of cya-nide, attacks on nuclear reactors, the development and use of liquid bombs, and the first-ever mention – by Murad, the commercial pilot – of the use of aircraft in a suicide mission, in which he names the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as targets, in 1995.

Even if al Qaeda’s central core has been weakened and its networks degraded, she posits that with the “viral nature” of al Qaeda’s ideology, isolated cells or individuals can always spontaneously regenerate to carry out larger plots. All it takes is the right leaders.

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persists, resisting that temptation would frustrate al-Qaeda’s strategy of elevating its own status and framing its campaign against America as a viable enterprise in which all Muslims worldwide should enlist, aid and abet.”

There is another way of looking at this, however. In 2004, Paul Pillar, former Central Intelligence Agency counter-terrorism official, in writing about counter-terrorism after al Qaeda in the Center for Strategic & International Studies’ The Washington Quarterly, noted that al Qaeda was on the wane but that a larger, decentralized terrorist threat from radical Islamists was not, and that said threat “would not necessarily leave an intelligence trail.” His concern: the capture or death of bin Laden and the decline of al Qaeda might provide a harmful diversion and make it harder to sustain a national commitment to fighting terrorism.

Assessing homeland security. Meanwhile, a political science professor (John Mueller, from Ohio State University) and an engineering professor (Mark Stewart, from Australia’s Newcastle University) take on the challenge of assessing the costs and benefits of expenditures on U.S. homeland security, in a book, Terror, Security, and Money.

In a series of excerpts appearing in The Washington Post’s online magazine Slate on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the

Did 9/11 beget Arab Spring?There are some who maintain that the attacks of 9/11 led to the events of Arab Spring – with their upheavals within authoritarian Arab regimes – almost 10 years later.

Reflecting on the 9/11 attacks 10 years later for the Council on Foreign Relations, Elliott Abrams, who worked on national security issues under U.S. Presidents Reagan and G. W. Bush, recalled that the attacks caused President Bush to develop his administration’s Freedom Agenda, which was conceived with the intention to bring freedom, democracy, and good governance to the region, drawing a direct path to Arab Spring.

Also from the Council on Foreign Relations, Isobel Coleman provides a slightly different perspective. According to her, the 9/11 attacks had a big effect not only on the American psyche, but also on the Arab psyche. The 9/11 attacks influenced debate in Arab society, on the causes behind 9/11, and why the Arab world was in the state it was in, which led to the Arab Human Development Report 2002, written by Arab intellectuals.

The report identified three main drivers: lack of knowledge, lack of freedom, lack of women’s rights, she says, and the demands of the youth movement that is driving the events of Arab Spring, appear to have come from what she calls “the playbook of this report.”

Geert Somsen, a senior history lecturer at the Netherlands’ Maas-tricht University, provides a different view from the Netherlands in particular and Europe in general. If the legacy of 9/11 was supposed to be in exposing the incompatibility between Islam and Western democratic values, the events of Arab Spring are refuting that legacy. In fact, that legacy is being “doubly refuted,” as he puts it, by Mus-lims fighting for Western values against authoritarian regimes that, for their part, have been supported by the West, by which he means both the U.S. and Europe.

If the road from 9/11 to Arab Spring is not as straightforward as some would have it, the road from Arab Spring to the future might be even more uncertain. As the Conservative Middle East Council put it in their report on Arab Spring for Britain’s ruling Conservative party, Islamist groups have been struggling with objectives and the capabili-ties to achieve said objectives.

In fact, there might be no better evidence of the lack of a clear path than the CNBC report that Ayman Zawahiri, the new leader of al Qaeda, was taking credit for Arab Spring, saying that the attacks of

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9/11 forced America to press its allies to change their policies, which caused what he called the “Arab volcano” to build up and explode.

Before all that, however, in August 2005, Yasser Musharbash wrote in Spiegel Online, the online version of Germany’s Der Spiegel weekly, about a recent book by Jordanian journalist Fouad Hussein, al Zar-qawi – al Qaida’s Second Generation, in which Hussein described al Qaeda’s seven-phase plan to establish an Islamic caliphate by 2020. Based on his interviews with various al Qaeda sources, the plan is in its fourth phase, which calls for the collapse of hated Arabic govern-ments between 2010 and 2013, attacks on oil suppliers, and cyber-terrorist attacks aimed at the U.S. economy.

Musharbash was skeptical, calling the idea of al Qaeda setting up an Islamic caliphate “absurd,” and saying that the 20-year plan is based mainly on religious ideas, “simply unworkable,” and not connected to reality – “especially phases four to seven.” Nevertheless, he said that some steps were still plausible, e.g., focusing on Syria for recruiting, and on Israel and Turkey as targets for escalating the confrontation, with Jerusalem as the real target.

9/11 attacks, they maintain that over $1 trillion has been spent on homeland security since 9/11, and yet these expenditures have never been subjected to a proper cost-benefit analysis. As they put it, the common and urgent query has been “Are we safer?” when the correct question is, “Are the gains in security worth the funds expended?”

The authors also delve into why the U.S. government has “massively” overestimated the risk of terrorist attacks since 9/11: by focusing on worst-case scenarios and ignoring the probability of their occurrence – i.e., playing on people’s fears -- just about any expenditure can be justified. By their calculations, the U.S. would have had to foil 1,667 attacks a year like the attempted May 2010 bombing of Times Square in order to justify what it spent on homeland security after 9/11.

Their point: “Risk reduction measures that produce little or no net benefit to society or produce it at a very high cost … are not only irresponsible, but, essentially, immoral. When we spend resources to save lives at a high cost, we forgo the opportunity to spend those same resources on regulations and processes that can save more lives at the same cost, or even at a lower one.”

Military spending vs. domestic spending. In an October 2009 study, another

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group, the Political Economy Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, considers the employment effects on military spending vs. domestic spending, and concludes that $1 billion spent on domestic priorities – clean energy, health care, education, and even tax cuts to spur personal consumption -- will create more jobs than a similar amount applied to military spending.

By its estimates, $1 billion in military spending can generate 11,600 jobs, which is the lowest number of jobs compared to spending that amount on tax cuts for household consumption (14,800 jobs),

clean energy (17,100), health care (19,600), or educational services (29,100).

Lest people be tempted to paint this debate as one pitting ivory tower academics against military establishment boots, in an April 2005 study from the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, Stephen Biddle argues that the U.S.’ global war on terrorism to date was a combination of ambitious public statements with ambiguity on critical particulars – lacking a clear definition of the enemy and the aim of this global war (rollback vs containment) – but the ongoing insurgency in Iraq, with its rising costs in terms of money and lives, was making this grand strategic ambiguity “intolerable.”

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business

Meet Bill. He is a manager. It is Monday morning in the year 2020 and he eagerly prepares for a meeting. He takes his coffee, sits on his living room couch and turns on his tablet. On the screen are the faces of his 15 employees. Some of them are still at home; others in a nearby coffee shop while others are in a cab or a bus on their way to the office. He greets each one of them warmly and says, “Let’s start the meeting.”

In the study Office of the Future:2020 conducted by Office Team, one of the leading staffing service providers in the world, the office of the future will be “increasingly mobile and flexible.” Managers will manage employees from

different locations: from home offices, temporary business spaces, to coffee shops. “Emerging technologies will allow a company’s staff to work off–site with greater ease. Geographic location will matter less,” the research said.

In addition, companies will work less and less in the office. “The concept of going to work will be redefined as employees use portable, wireless tools to communicate from any location,” it added.

Meet Ric. He is a marketing executive. As he walks into his office, the temperature, humidity, lighting and airflow automatically adjusts to suit his preference. He goes to

Charting the future of the officeBy Joanne Angela B. Marzan

Work Everywhere

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a flat screen electronic message board by the door and checks his schedule for the day. He activates a red button that tells everyone in the office he does not want to be disturbed. He sits at his desk and starts working on his computer with two monitor screens. After half an hour, he activates the green button on his touchscreen monitor to signal the start of a meeting.

BlueSpace, a joint research between Steelcase, one of the leaders in office furniture, and IBM, the U.S.-based global computing giant, studied the potential of “intelligent workspace.”

“By combining IBM’s technological expertise and Steelcase’s knowledge of the workplace, we’re able to embed computing into the physical office and create work environments that fit the needs of individuals,” says Rod Adkins, general manager of IBM’s Pervasive Computing Division.

Meet Gary. He is an IT expert. As soon as he enters his office, a built-in recorder and camera recognizes him, and a floor-to-ceiling screen comes to life. It flashes his schedule for the day; to-do lists on virtual post-it notes; messages and other items requiring his attention. He manipulates the full screen wall by using different hand gestures, sans keyboard or mouse. Upon realizing that he needs to get in touch with Lisa, one of his employees, he activates a Digital Assistant Guide, or DAG. DAG speaks to Gary and calls Lisa. As soon as Lisa answers the call, a hologram of Lisa is seen on the full screen wall, audible and almost real.

In an interview with Forbes, Craig Mundie of Microsoft describes the technology in the future office. “Your office computer won’t be a thing on your desk. Your office will be the computer. You’ll be in the computer. It

will be around you,” Mundie added. Like Tony Stark’s mansion rooms in the Iron Man movies.

Below is a video of Microsoft’s version of the office of the future.

A machine assistant. For years, researchers have been fascinated by what the future office might look like.

In 1965, the British Broadcasting Corporation started airing programs about the future of science. On April 16, 1969, the BBC showed what the future office would be. In this report, a machine acts as an office assistant. The machine moves toward the boss’ desk with a flick of a button. It is a television, a recorder, it can even prepare coffee.

A paperless office. In a BusinessWeek article in 1975, the late physicist George E. Pake, who headed Palo Alto Research Center in California, then owned by Xerox Corporation, envisioned the office in 20 years.

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“There is absolutely no question that there will be a revolution in the office over the next 20 years. I’ll be able to call up documents from my files on the screen, or by pressing a button. I can get my mail or any messages. I don’t know how much hard copy I’ll want in this world,” Pake said. This statement from Pake triggered the idea that the office of the future would be paperless.

In 1998, 23 years after Pake made his prediction, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said that the paperless office is in the offing. “We’re the people who’ve been saying this for a decade, but now we’re finally saying it’s near,” Gates said in an interview with The Sunday Times.

In 2001, 26 years after Pake’s statement and three years after Gates’, the paperless office was still far from reality.

In 2003, Abigail J. Sellen and Richard R. Harper discussed in their book The Myth of the Paperless Office (outline) why the paperless office did not come to fruition.

“Putting new technologies in place doesn’t necessarily reduce the amount of paper used, rather, it may simply shift the point at which documents are printed out,” Harper said. “Until such time as digital technologies can provide equal or better support for many of the tasks that are central to using information, the future for paper continues to look bright,” Sellen added.

But according to Dr. Roel Vertagaal, associate professor in human-computer interaction at Queen’s University in Canada, the paperless office is here.

Dr. Vertagaal is the creator of the world’s first interactive paper computer. The first prototype, as seen in the video below, was introduced in May 2011.

“This computer looks, feels, and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper. You interact with it by bending it into a cell phone, flipping the corner to turn pages, or writing on it with a pen,” Dr. Vertagaal said in a press release. The press release also stated, “the invention heralds a new generation of computers that are super lightweight, thin-film and flexible.”

Incidentally, The CenSEI Report is a purely electronic publication with no paper edition.

The office is everywhere. For some though, the future is here.

In 2007, ABC News argued that the future of work is in our midst. And the office of the future may be the home; the coffee shop, or anywhere else one does work.

“We don’t care where and how you get your work done,” said Dan Pelino, general manager of IBM’s global health care and life sciences business. “We care that you get your work done.”

IBM estimates $100 million a year in savings from reducing office real estate.

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Work anywhere. Based on the study Worldwide Mobile Worker Population 2009-2013 Forecast by International Data Corporation (IDC), a global provider of information and services for the information technology sector, mobile workers are set to surge from 919.4 million in 2008 to 1.19 billion in 2013, boosted by, among other factors, the growing acceptance among businesses of mobility in the workplace.

When the Workplace Is Many Places defines a mobile worker as one who works in multiple locations including customer sites, company offices, homes, vendor offices, planes, and hotels. This 2002 study, commissioned by the American Business Collaboration for Quality Dependent Care, acknowledged that a major and growing section of the workforce work off-site and that information on how to manage the diverse workforce better is crucial.

Results have shown that individuals who work off-site, especially those who work from home, have a “better work-life balance and a positive impact on family life.”

Work flexibility and productivity. In the study The Cisco Connected Technology World Report, which was commissioned by Cisco in 2010, three out of five workers said that an office is not a requirement for

them to be productive. In addition, two out of three employees worldwide preferred “a job with less pay but more flexibility in device usage, access to social media, and mobility than a higher paying job without such flexibility.”

“The Cisco Connected Technology World Report gives further insight into the future of the workplace and it is clear from the research findings that the desire among employees to be more mobile and flexible in their work lifestyles is extremely strong throughout the world – as strong as salary,” Cisco Vice President for Borderless Networks said. Cisco is a computer-networking company based in California.

Take, for example, the electronics retail company Best Buy. In 2003, Best Buy implemented the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) program. In a nutshell, this translates to: All employees are free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done.

In a Time interview, Jody Thompson, one of the proponents of ROWE, explains the program: “A Results-Only Work Environment is about you having complete control over your time. Managers and employees need to get crystal clear about outcomes. You write stories and have deadlines — that’s your outcome. How you do that is your concern. We like to say work is not a place you go; it’s something you do. As long as you meet deadlines, that’s what counts.”

The 24/7 workweek. According to the 2011 worldwide survey of iPass, a leading provider of enterprise mobility services, titled The 24 Hour Workshift Is Upon Us, “The mobile workforce is now working 24x7.

Work everywhere

Click on this link to watch the ABC News report, “The Future of Work”

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But they aren’t just working from their cubicles and living rooms—they are holed up in coffee shops and many other public venues, or out working in a park, getting some badly needed fresh air.”

Workshifting, the use of flexible work schedules, has allowed mobile workers to work “when and where they want to.” Below is a table of when mobile workers do work, outside of the regular office hours. (see table 1)

Notably, the survey showed that 75% of mobile workers even worked more hours, with 55% putting in at least 10 or more hours every week. (see table 2)

This survey also supported previous studies by Cisco. Mobile workers consider flexibility as an important aspect of work. In fact, results showed that if mobile workers do not get enough flexibility at work, 33% would look for another job, 57% would be “less satisfied” and 45% would be less productive.

Staying connected. Another result worth mentioning is how employees of today choose to connect to technology for work even during vacations. While on leave, 96% of mobile workers stayed connected to technology for work.

This study also revealed that more and more mobile workers stay connected using their tablets. Results below show that the iPad 2 is the runaway winner in this category. (see table 3)

Other places to work. Now that more and more workers prefer to work out of the office, other ‘office’ alternatives have come up. Aside from the usual home and coffee shop office, new places to work are available.

20 hours more a week15 hours more a week10 hours more a week5 hours more a weekSame number of hours a week5 hours less a week10 hours less a week15 hours less a week20 hours less a week

Before my commute to the o�ce

During my commute to work

During my lunch hour

During my commute home

After my commute home

After dinner, before bed

After my child/children go to sleepIn the middle of the might/

when I can’ t sleep

When I am waiting for something (doctor’s o�ce, errand, waiting for a child, etc.)

38.3%24.7%36.6%21.6%32.6%26.0%

18.3%

8.3%

18.3%

8.8%7.0%16.7%6.5%16.8%15.6%

11.1%

2.2%

6.8%

14.5%10.2%12.9%11.7%15.6%16.7%

10.6%

5.8%

9.6%

23.9%25.0%22.4%26.%25.0%30.0%

22.7%

32.9%

48.1%

10.4%26.8%7.5%27.2%4.8%7.6%

22.8%

43.1%

12.4%

Daily 3-4 times per week

1-2 times per week Occassionally Never

Do you work during any of these times of day? If so how often?

20 hours more a week15 hours more a week10 hours more a week5 hours more a weekSame number of hours a week5 hours less a week10 hours less a week15 hours less a week20 hours less a week

30.0%

25.%

20.0%

15.0%

10.0%

5.0%

0.0%

11.7%

15.6%

27.9%

20.2%18.2%

1.6% 0.8%

If you have a �exible work schedule, do you �nd yourself working more or less because of your schedule?

60.0%

50.0%

40.0%

30.0%

20.0%

10.0%

0.0%Tablet owners Q2 11 Tablet owners Q3 11 Tablet owners within

6 months

Do you currently have or intend to receive or purchase any of the following tablets in the next six months?

ipad ipad2 Samsung GalaxyOther BlackBerry Playbook Motorola XoomHP Slate Dell Streak

SO B MH

Work everywhere

Table 1

Table 2

Table 3

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If you are a freelance writer, an artist, a consultant, or an entrepreneur with limited capital, then a shared office space may be for you.

A shared office space, also known as serviced office space, business center, or executive suite, provides a fully equipped and furnished office space shared by companies or professionals. This arrangement allows small companies to save on startup and overhead costs. Collaboration with other “shared office” workers or co-working is also an added value for this setup.

If you have a small business and wish to expand in different locations, you might look into virtual offices.

In a CNBC interview, Wall Street Journal Small Business Editor Wendy Bounds discussed this trend.

“Virtual services [is] where small businesses for a smaller fee… can get an address and a telephone number in a market maybe where they are expanding but have no fixed physical space at all or rent a space temporarily,” Bounds said. Virtual offices allow small business to establish presence without additional capital expense, she added.If you are someone who needs open spaces to work, a hybrid workspace may be an option. A hybrid workspace is described in a CNN

Money article as combining open and closed environments. In this way, employees can opt to work alone in their own work area or in collaborative team rooms with their colleagues.

“Flexible work environment can balance the needs for individual work with the need for interaction,” the article added.

Office no more. If we believe current predictions from experts, the future office may be a “work from anywhere” office, an “intelligent workspace” office or a “computer office.”

But if we believed forecasts made back in 1969 and 1975, then we would have been hugely disappointed today not to have a machine assistant or a paperless office.

So whatever the future office may be like, one thing’s certain. The future office will adapt to what the future worker will be like.

Based on present studies, the future worker will be highly mobile and will want to work at his own pace, at his desired location. More and more employers of today do not care where their employees work. They just require their workers to get work done on time. Improvements in technology are welcome, for they will help workers work better and faster.

It is possible then that the closed space that we call an office now, may cease to exist in the future. The future office may be the home, the coffee shop, the park, the car, the World Wide Web, or even the moon and beyond.

Now if the world economy can just create enough jobs for everyone everywhere.

Work everywhere

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For the past few months, the hot topic in the local telecom sector has been the acquisition of a majority stake in Digital Telecommunications Phils. Inc. (Digitel) by industry giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT).

This was part of a deal that PLDT struck with JG Summit Holdings last March – a share-swap agreement consisting of a 51.55% stake in Digitel for a 12.8% stake in PLDT. The merger would create a company that would control almost 70% of the telecom sector.

The deal may be dead for now – if you believe PLDT chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan, who set a deadline of Aug. 26 for the deal to clear regulatory scrutiny – or not,

Understanding the NTC’s Domestic IP Peering Policy ProposalBy Maria Carmina Olivar

To Peer or Not to Peer

as PLDT issued a Aug. 26 statement that PLDT and Digitel were in joint consultation as to whether to extend the deadline further.

Threat to competition broken down into technical issues. While Globe Telecom opposes the deal because of the general threat to fair competition posed by a giant that would be more than twice its size, it has also broken down that threat into technical issues that it wants the NTC to address.

Globe has urged the NTC to take another look at the radio frequency spectrum assignments currently in place, noting that the merged PLDT-Digitel company would have a 3.5:1 edge over it in terms of frequencies.

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One other technical/policy recommendation Globe has made, which has been overlooked in all the publicity over the other issues, has been for the NTC to draft a domestic Internet Protocol (IP) peering policy requiring all local Internet service providers to interconnect via a local Internet exchange system. This declaration was backed firmly other industry players Wi-Tribe, Bayantel and ETPI. PLDT has refused requests for local Internet service interconnection, and would have even less incentive to support such interconnection after its proposed merger.

What’s domestic IP peering about? To put it succinctly, with a domestic IP peering policy, the NTC would order all local Internet service providers (ISPs) to receive and deliver domestic traffic without crossing national borders.

A popularly used analogy is the local telecom sector’s interconnection agreements for mobile calls and texts, because this also involves facilitating connections between applications and subscribers of different ISPs. To apply the analogy, with a domestic IP peering policy, a local end-user calling up a local website doesn’t have to have the call routed overseas first – a setup that is still the norm for some local ISPs.

Predictably, PLDT (along with its subsidiary, Smart Communications) is opposing the NTC’s domestic IP peering policy proposal, to the extent of calling the proposed NTC guidelines “unconstitutional.”

There have been so many accusations and legal citations and grandstanding from both sides – Globe and PLDT – and the

NTC has been caught in the middle of it all. With larger issues such as the PLDT-Digitel merger taking the spotlight, as a concerned consumer, it is difficult to concentrate on the specifics of the domestic IP peering policy proposal. What are the pros? What are the cons? Who will benefit? How will it affect end users?

The main benefits of the domestic IP peering policy proposal are lower Internet access costs and improved Internet services in general throughout the country. An offshoot of the policy is its aim to encourage Internet content and application developers to establish a local presence – faster, cheaper Internet makes it more palatable for foreign entities to start up, move or expand in the Philippines. To facilitate the policy guidelines, the NTC ordered all local ISPs with direct connections to foreign ISPs to connect to the IP exchange (or Internet exchange point – IXP) of the Advances Science and Technology Institute (ASTI) of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST); thereby providing links to these foreign connections to the DOST-ASTI IP exchange at the local ISPs’ own expense. Furthermore, the local ISPs are to be fully responsible and accountable for the maintenance and operation of their respective links to the IXP.

The main concern brought up by companies opposing the policy proposal – namely PLDT and IP-Converge Data Center, who incidentally have between them a domestic IP peering agreement – is, first and foremost, the compromise in business strategy that it entails. In particular, IP-Converge pointed out that limiting IXP options limits an ISP’s capability to present the best possible service quality to its customers; asserting,

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therefore, that choosing an IXP to connect to – or even establishing their own, is a business decision integral to an ISP’s financial strategy. PLDT added that a forced linkage to one particular IXP unnecessary, as there are five existing IXPs in the Philippines and even without the DOST-ASTI IXP handling all of the linkages the NTC would still be able to implement a policy that would have the same effect as this one.

In response to this, late in August of this year the NTC revised their draft of the domestic IP peering policy accordingly by removing the government-operated IKP component; requiring instead that all local ISPs with direct interconnections to foreign ISPs negotiate and interconnect their local IXPs. The interconnection agreements – which should encompass all local ISPs – are due to be submitted to the Commission not later than 30 days from the signing of the papers making them official. Additionally, if an agreement cannot be made after 90 days from the start of a negotiation, any of the involved ISPs may request the intervention of the NTC to facilitate the process.

How will all of this affect end users? If the policy is approved, the immediate effect will be positive. There are technical and economic benefits to domestic peering. Technology guru and Internet strategist Bevil M. Wooding assures that the practice provides a more efficient route for local Internet traffic. It also lays in the groundwork for local ISPs to maintain higher levels of profitability. Therefore, as envisioned, Internet access costs will go down. ISP services will get better – less lag, less loading times.

However, there is a great chance that there will be little to no long term improvement

due to the lack of significant upgrades from the ISPs themselves. Internet Peering expert William B. Norton, who was officially a Co-Founder and Chief Technical Liaison of Equinix, Inc. – global operator of International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers – from 1998 to 2008, asserts that the root cause of this is traffic and investment asymmetry. Simply put, it is exactly the point the PLDT group is making. Sometimes, one party bears more of the cost, and profits less, as a result of peering. And as peers, neither the party bearing most of the cost nor any of the smaller parties are guaranteed to repair, or upgrade, or even solve problems relating to the services they provide to the end users. Though all of the involved parties will benefit from reparation and any other improvements, a peering relationship does not have the contractual teeth that a customer relationship does; in short, there is less of a pressure to perform as there are fewer repercussions for failure.

By allowing other ISPs to connect to industry leaders such as PLDT, these smaller ISPs will receive maximum profit in the form of being able suddenly to use the capacity of other well-established ISPs to carry traffic coming from their network. On the flip side, the well-established ISP will suffer from the excess traffic without any particular compensation to make up for the undue stress on their systems. Inevitably, all ISPs – large or small – will try to avoid being the one to invest in upgrades and improvements and expansions to their infrastructure. It will become a waiting game, because no ISP will want to spend money to benefit itself and all of its competitors at the same time.

A strikingly similar set of circumstances once beset our Asian neighbor, Malaysia, as starkly illustrated in

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a 2003 article on the state of the country’s IP peering by e-business consultant and controversial Malaysian blogger Jeff Ooi. The nation responded to the challenge by drafting an open policy of interconnection among members of what is now known as the Malaysia Internet Exchange (MyIX) – an IXP network established with the cooperation of Malaysian ISPs. The answer, of course, was domestic peering – but unlike the comparatively simplistic policy drafted by the NTC, MyIX backed up its policy with three phases of concrete action points initially envisioned to be completed over a timeline of four years. According to Mark Tinka, Chief Network Architect of Global Transit and TIME (Malaysia), Malaysia’s policy is one of mandatory public peering, which is what the NTC is now pushing for here in the Philippines. The only difference is that the NTC is requiring policy compliance from all local ISPs – in Malaysia, the strategy is that membership is needed to connect to MyIX. Because the action points and the detailed plan to move forward (upgrading by building infrastructure) are being accomplished by MyIX as a whole, instead of by individual ISPs, there is accountability and there is motivation to improve. Additionally, instead of forced membership, there are membership requirements; this ensures that each member will be a contributing part of the whole, and also encourages smaller ISPs to get their act together in order to benefit from connecting with MyIX.

As of last September, Phase 2 of MyIX’s game plan has been completed. They are two thirds of the way there; the goal has always been the enhancement of online connectivity to the point of radically improving business opportunities, and thus significantly bolstering Malaysia’s local Internet economy. What Malaysia is doing right now is looking forward and planting seeds for the future. This is more than just making things better for current end users.

What the Philippines really needs is a policy similar to Malaysia’s: thorough, with long term implementation implications, and with the cooperation of all major ISPs at the very least. In the end, the fight between PLDT and Globe put the NTC in a difficult position but also brought to light a possible way for the local telecom sector to be able to serve their end users better – and, similar to Malaysia, possibly create a better future for the industry in the local setting. It is now up to the government agency to make the best of the situation and come out still doing its job.

If the NTC wants the domestic IP peering policy to achieve its desired effect, it should take the concerns of the opposing companies to heart, and re-draft a fairer policy that looks more to tomorrow, rather than today. The policy as it stands right now is lopsided. However, there is nothing barring the NTC from researching, adapting and reworking new information into a better game plan.

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