Ang Dabawenyo

In last Monday’s issue of Edge Davao, my fellow columnist, Mr. Aurelio Peña of Trading Post, wrote about the planned bridge that will span the gulf from mainland Davao to the island of Samal. We haven’t even finished rebuilding Bankerohan Bridge yet… but I digress.

Mr. Peña’s article was entitled “Arab money to build Davao-Samal bridge“. I am not entirely familiar with his style or tone, but he seemed to be extolling the virtues of this investment broker, M. Faisal Kasim, who is reportedly bent on getting the bridge project jump-started. He was described as being an impatient man.

Mr. Peña proceeded to enthusiastically relate what he probably perceives will take place once the P65-billion bridge is completed, made possible by funding coming from Arab countries with ridiculous excesses of dinero, brought on by the “spiraling cost of oil.” Huh? Come again? Allow me to quote that passage:

Faisal told this writer that Arab money in trillions of US dollars are flooding the Middle East due to the spiralling [sic] cost of oil — and Arabs don’t know what to do with all that money.

Wait. The tone is definitely confusing. Was the writer empathizing with the oil-producing Arab countries? Shouldn’t he have said, ‘…due to the ghastly price of oil they charge their nation-clients’?

If the bridge ever does get built with that funding, the money would be what’s called Shariah Money, according to the article. In other words, a loan without interest, because it is normally against Islamic belief to charge interest on borrowed money (aka usury). So, we pay for the oil at artificially high rates, but we get our money back by way of a goodwill loan…

Back to Mr. Peña’s enthusiasm. He says in his article that the creditors, to be assembled together by Faisal, would recoup their investment by way of toll fees and other such schemes. Faisal, according to Mr. Peña, might also be inclined to invest in hotels, resorts, malls with his “oodles and oodles of Arab money.”

But what of Samal? Can its ecosystem survive this onslaught of economic development? Here’s another quote:

Their (the creditors’) feasibility studies show that the Arab money lenders will get their money back (without any interest) and will feel good about it because it was put to good use and helped a beautiful, booming island called Samal…

Hmmm… we’re getting cash from money lenders? Ok, I’m nitpicking now. (But really, journalists — especially opinion writers — should watch their verbiage lest their meaning be misunderstood.)

Mr. Peña’s column begs the question, “Where’s the ‘kick’ part of the prose?”

Not that I’m always looking for the negative side of things, mind you, but the article was written somehow like it was sugar-coated — that’s why I’m blogging about it. What of the ill effects of rapid infrastructure development without proper environmental protection measures in place? What of the displacement of people? What of the political issues?

What do you think?