Kapok: The virtues of optimism

For reasons most probably linked to my carefree upbringing, I am resolutely optimistic about human nature, and the capacity for good rather than self-destruction. Given the present context, this has become a challenging position to hold: ineptocracy and populism prevail, and rational discourse has been submerged by emotive boasting. One of my secrets for this enduring optimism has been to keep my expectations low: being reasonably hopeful prevents roller-coaster effects, bearing in mind that what goes up will ultimately come down – and vice-versa.

When I read in some headlines this week that Mak Soi Kun, the legislator with the second-highest vote in 2013, was questioning the statistics provided by the Policy Research Office of the government in relation to population growth by 2020, it initially prompted a significant amount of exhilaration in my cortex: could it be that Mr Mak had read my column four weeks ago – the vanity of me! Could it be that the Study Report on the Population Policies of Macao is so obviously baloney that even a below-average – duty wise – legislator realises such and starts to question publicly the basis of such an important piece of decision-making material?

I had in mind that Mr Mak had fulfilled close to zero of the eight promises he made during his campaign, so, I went beyond the catchy titles, and confirmed that apples never fall far from the tree: instead of disputing the forecasted population figure of 710,000 by 2020 as too conservative, he was actually wondering why it was so high. Clearly, Mr Mak does not read Macau Daily Times, and obviously doesn’t get projections and reports from the Statistics and Census Office either, otherwise he would know that the DSEC has made a forecast of 752,000 by 2021 and that given the by-census latest results, the average growth rate of the past five years can reasonably lead us to believe that the population could reach 741,000 by 2020.

But then we will enter an electoral year, so Mr Mak was posturing as the true defender of the “real” Macao residents’ interests. The response of the head of the Policy Research Office was of similar nature: “this is actually just an indicative number,” he said, and of course only a limited happy few will be allowed to enter the gold-paved territory of our beloved SAR! No mention of the thousand hotel rooms opening in the next five years. No mention of the quadrupling of our territory because of the further integration with Hengqin.

Considering what Mr Mak stands for, this is worrying: he has Liaison Office endorsement; he works for the Nam Kwong, a company that openly states that it is “directly under the central government based in Macao”; and he, together with his second in command, Zheng Anting (a former junket operator), represent the Jiangmen communal associations – a very influential grassroots and pro-establishment network of associations of people originating from a neighbouring district (claiming up to 100,000 potential supporters), that benefits from lavish Macao Foundation funding. These are also the people who were directly involved in the Sin Fong Garden imbroglio. I don’t mind that Mr Zheng was not born in Macao, as he actually reflects the electorate: less than 39% of the 2017 electorate were born in Macao, whereas 54% were born in China. The question remains though: what interests are these people actually defending? And the same goes for Mr Chan Meng Kam (also not born in Macao), the so-called “king of the votes” who supposedly gives the communal interests of Fujian a voice in politics.

Contrary to some hasty news reports, there will be fewer people below 30 voting this year, compared to 2013: so indeed, the virtues of optimism will require due cultivation.

Published in Macau Daily Times on January 27th, 2017

Kapok: The missing links

The results of the public consultation pertaining to the “Macao Tourism Industry Development Master Plan”, conducted from May to July 2016, have just been released. Although their full integration into the final draft of the overall plan should not be known until mid-2017 (phase 3!), they make for an interesting read (a long one too: 843 pages!): everybody who says the contrary is a liar! From what I have read in the press, my feeling is that these 1,185 opinions collected over two months have been grossly underreported by the press. Laziness? Cynicism? Contempt? A bit of all three?

As has been noted before in this column, public consultations have become the alpha and omega of non-democratic governance, which is trying somehow to pay lip service to the concepts of engagement on the one hand, and accountability on the other. The bottom line is to provide an occasion for the people — the residents more than the citizens — to have a say, voice their concerns and make suggestions. It is of course extremely positive, as it implies a form of participatory outlook aiming at bonding the community together and avoiding the usual symptoms of disenfranchisement. People can blame themselves if they don’t seize that opportunity, and the government is somehow forced to act with added transparency and make room for more varied interests. Convenient, for sure.

Of course, the level of inclusion of opinions expressed by residents is discretionary and entirely up to the powers that be. In terms of decision-making, consultation corresponds to the very first and short steps of a long and tedious staircase. In some instances, the hope is that nobody will react and thus the consultation process amounts to little more than pretence and formality. In Macao, the number of consultations has inflated tremendously in the past few years, especially since their due processes were revised in 2011 — 86 are marked as completed and accessible on the government’s website. The executive intent has become even clearer since the website gathering these PR campaigns started to include at its bottom the “advisory bodies” (47 such committees) placed under the authority of the Chief Executive (CE) and his five secretaries: everybody is entitled to an opinion, but how and why it makes its way into a public policy is entirely up to people who make the actual decisions — people who are unfortunately not elected. Yet sometimes these consultations end up blocking a project too blatantly associated with the usual enduring vested interests of family businesses in Macao. Miracles do happen.

Reviewing the almost 1,200 opinions collected by the Macao Tourism Office would go beyond the scope of this column, although it is worth noting that the report encloses extremely stimulating remarks by numerous residents, among them (a few) academics and business stakeholders — including, notably, one of the licensed casinos. Doubts are cast over ways to achieve the four goals, but suggestions are always made — and the original document released for consultation was generous in pointing out the numerous challenges ahead. For me, the main issue resides in the lack of clearly delineated convergence between the master plan and the five-year plan announced by the CE last September. It is not too late!

There are, however, two flagrant absences in this report — quite unacceptable ones indeed. The first one concerns academic institutions, which are only present through (fortunately very stimulating) individual contributions. Policy recommendations have to be assessed by academia; otherwise, institutions are defaulting in their duty to socially engage with the community, and are thus malfunctioning. The other one has to do with the outright absence of the Portuguese community and especially the Portuguese newspapers: out of almost 600 pages of raw opinions republished in Section Five, not ONE (!) is written in Portuguese, except for two pages of an interview with Samuel Tong reprinted from Hoje Macau! Being snubbed for lack of relevance means that you have to proactively assert yourself and participate in public debate: otherwise, what is the use of having three Portuguese dailies read by fewer than 500 people? Folklore?

Published in Macau Daily Times, January 13th, 2017.