Readings in the past week were far above the 25-35 micrograms per cubic metre average daily threshold flagged by international as well as Chinese regulators: on February 13, the daily average was in the 70 µgrams/m3 and on the 17, there were peaks in the 120 µgrams/m3! We are still quite far from the 347 µgrams/m3 recorded in Beijing yesterday by the American embassy, characterizing the air in the Chinese capital as “hazardous”, but concern is salient, measurable, and cars appear to hold a significant part of the responsibility if the 20-30% drop observed after midnight and up to 8 a.m. is to be relied upon.
It is high time we move from a rather silly Air-Quality-cum-Index smiley to a more owe-inspiring Air Quality Health Index, thus indicating the short-term health risks, just like Hong Kong, inspired by Canada, did last December. This would be all the fairer to Macao as our SAR actually started recording levels of fine particulates before its Pearl River neighbor!
But fine particulates are not the only thing polluting our atmosphere, unfortunately, and these other factors are more political than scientific in nature—and yet translate into mounting and highly visible concerns as well.
First, we have a president of the Legislative Assembly, Mr Ho Iat Seng, deploring on the sidelines of a Spring festival lunch the limitations of his fellow legislators because of their lack of legal training and thus questioning their capacity to grasp the “goals” of policy-making deriving from their lack of “knowledge” and possibly some “confusion” regarding their intended role—a passing comment rather amusing regarding possible conflict of interests when one thinks that Mr Ho is concurrently the only member from Macao of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in Beijing. Going one step further during the same agapes, Mr Chan Chak Mo, president of the second standing committee of the Assembly, even suggested that the legislators should refrain from drafting “projects” of law and let the government exclusively make law “proposals”, that would then of course be duly discussed by legislators.
If individual legislators can always be reminded of their shortcomings during plenary sessions—especially now that debates are publicly broadcasted—it is neither up to Mr Ho or Mr Chan to discuss the “legitimacy” of assemblymen and their “sacred” right of legislative initiative: none of these two august legislators is elected through universal suffrage and the Basic Law, and only it, can prescribe what is the duty of a legislator (art. 75 in that particular case). In Europe, since the Treaty of Lisbon (2009), there is such a thing called the European Citizens’ Initiative, and thus initiative of a legal act rests also directly with the citizens: do citizens need all to be trained in law? Legislative duty, unfortunately, also implies design: if Mr Chan does not feel up to the task, maybe he should either resign or hire more legal advisers. Always hiding behind the necessity for these laws to be the product of “public consultations” is a farce: governing is deciding and leading, not following. Sometimes one has actually to explain to the community why decisions need to be made even at the risk of disquieting the public mood. But in Macao, the air is too polluted by the Lao Si Lo syndrome: everybody claims that he or she “can absolutely face the public”, and then no one actually does…
Published in Macau Daily Times, February 21 2014
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