Kapok: Groundhog Day

In the 1993 comedy “Groundhog Day”, Bill Murray plays a weatherman who falls victim of some form of never ending time loop while reluctantly covering a seemingly dull and repetitive story about a rodent able to forecast the weather: each and every morning, the very same day starts all over again, and the weatherman is stuck on February 2nd. What appears as an opportunity at first, providing endless occasions to influence the same situations for both worst and best, soon turns into a nightmare, as the now much wiser character discovers the limits of his newly-found omnipotence. Ultimately, only the discovery of his true benevolent self will allow him to break free from this doom—this is after all a Hollywood movie.
Beyond the growing annoyance, this feeling of everlasting repetition made pointless by the powerlessness of the protagonists is obviously what resonates most in the hearts and minds of many people in Macao when it comes to “traffic issues”. The problem is: Macao is no Hollywood!
While on the trail to win an election for which he was running unopposed last August, Mr Chui went the extra step of gathering people’s “opinions and suggestions”—let’s say grievances. Quite unexpectedly it seems—we had been told time and time again that “housing” was the No. 1 problem—it was reported in November that the most pressing concern for Macao residents was actually the one concerning traffic. At the time, a very inspired Lao Pun Lap, the head of the government think-tank, revealed that even though he did not have the “exact figure” for the breakdown of these 87,425 “opinions” (out of a total of 111,246) exclusively troubled by “traffic issues”, a majority of citizens expected the government to give high-priority to public transportation, and that the number of vehicles on the road should be limited, the number of parking spots increased, the LRT construction work sped up and the overall management of traffic flow improved.
This is pretty much in line with observations and suggestions—clearly I cannot use the word “commitments”—that were developed back in 2009 in the “General Policy on Traffic and Land Transportation in Macao (2010-2020)” issued by the Transport Bureau (DSAT): the future in terms of “mobility” was bleak if projections from 2010 were to be trusted (too many private cars, too slow a traffic, lengthened commuting time and too much pollution) and thus a duly identified impending disaster required swift actions and long term planning. According to that document, by 2012, the priority was to be the reorganization of “public transports” and “the safeguarding of commuting”, and by 2015, the “metro” would have started operating and “tangible results in every area supporting the ‘primacy of public transports’” would have been achieved. Let’s face it: every aspect of the four step action plan of that 2009 blueprint—improving public transport, reasonably managing private vehicles, creating a sense of flawless mobility and pursuing the construction of infrastructures and a better education regarding road safety—are utter failures.
The new Secretary for transport and public works, Raimundo do Rosário, is absolutely right when he hints at the fact that the issue of traffic congestion and the ways to solve it are a matter of collective responsibility. When newspapers are filled with full-page ads of cars whose speed and size are simply insane for a 30 sq. kilometer territory, they bear a responsibility. When people pressure the government to keep the price of petrol and the tax on vehicles low, they share part of the blame—and the same goes for legislators who speak on behalf of the said people. When the government fails to organize sensible tenders for big infrastructure projects, or when it proves unable to supervise the realization of these projects, or when it makes a mistake in the type of contract it issues for the concessionary exploitation of the city’s bus lanes, it does indeed bear another significant part of the responsibility.
The failure to address the challenges of fast deteriorating mobility in Macao has already had a great impact on our mind—peace of mind—, lungs and purse, and clearly breaking free from that apparently inevitable trap will require far more than good intentions and benevolence.

Published in Macau Daily Times, May 1st 2015

Kapok: Expected Expectations

Nobody can deny it: the announcement of the new government line-up last Monday did not come as a surprise, quite the opposite. Secretaries’ and other senior officials’ names had been the talk of the town since early November. First on social media platforms, and then splashed on the web-based liberal Aamacau.com (All About Macau, 論盡媒體) on November 8th and ultimately confirmed, in a Pravda-like announcement, on November 11th as the masthead of the front page of the Macau Daily News. Interesting to note that the city’s main pro-government and pro-China daily has lost part of its edge—it was late compared to new electronic media—and yet journalists and commentators only went berserk after the list had been anointed by the establishment’s mouthpiece, here trusted almost like the “official gazette”—can anybody imagine the Ta Kung Pao or the Oriental Daily News announcing the new government beforehand in Hong Kong and everybody else taking it for granted?
Before the summer, rumours were rife as to who would be the chosen ones, but the idea of a complete fresh start was remote, to say the least. The retirement perks bill, despite its fiasco, had confirmed that some kind of musical chairs game was at play, and the names of Lionel Leong Vai Tak as well as that of Alexis Tam Chon Weng were in the mind if not on the lips of everybody slightly interested in Macao politics. But then, the rationale was that continuity would be preserved, and that “good soldiers”, even though they had proven themselves dully unimaginative, would stay on. Even Lau Si Io, the secretary for Transport and Public Works, most probably the most unanimously derided high official, was believed to keep his portfolio. Truly, who would accept the job that is at the heart of most livelihood issues in Macao— transport and housing, and in that order, if the government’s think tank is to be trusted—and still ignominiously tainted by the Ao Man-long scandal of 2006? No wonder that Raimundo Arrais do Rosário had to be called back from his decade long spell in Europe representing Macao…
Why then the need for such an apparent “clean slate” approach? First and quite ironically, because Chui Sai On himself was returned unopposed in his Chief Executive position, thus demeaning the very nature of an election by making it totally uncompetitive. Rigidity on the one hand was calling for more flexibility on the other. Second, because a real popular demand does exist and moreover was taken into account by Chui the candidate. On the side of popular demand, the unfairness of the retirement perks bill pushed 20,000 people onto the streets in May, ultimately forcing the government to bury the bill for good. And despite the many hurdles and intimidations faced by the organisers of the Macau civic referendum of late August, close to 9,000 citizens took part in this independent probing of citizens’ preferences. Eventually, the whole of Chui’s “campaign” was about him having heard the demands of the people, as expressed by the more than 100,000 suggestions and opinions sent to his office while “on the campaign trail”. And third, the Hong Kong SAR situation, whatever the perception, positive or negative, has had a corroding effect on the self-confidence of the powers that be, and in order to prevent a possible stalemate, preemptively providing a resolute stance for (orderly) change appears to be a smart move—beyond the real necessity to do so.
And then came Li Fei, the chairman of the Macau Basic Law Committee and the Deputy Secretary-General of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, the very same man who came to Hong Kong in late August to explain the ruling of the standing committee over universal suffrage in our sister SAR, and now most notorious for having said that “Only one person [candidate] does not make an election, but too many is not proper either”. While attending a forum in Macao this week, he remarked that contrary to what some people think, deep-seated problems in Macao do not lie in the nature of political governance or stem from the fact that Macao is not democratic enough, but rather derive from Macao’s “own limitations”, the system inherited from the Portuguese colonial administration and other factors related to social and economic development. He then made it clear that “the overwhelming dominance of gambling in Macao is not in line with the overall interest of Macao” and furthermore that it is not in the “socioeconomic safety, stability and developmental interest of the mainland and the whole nation”. What is thus asked from Macao is to reinvent itself with much less gambling and much more patriotism. That for sure requires a whole new team!

Published in Macau Daily Times on December 5th 2014.