It’s R.P., not P.I.

When I was still working as desk editor for the Today newspaper in Manila, it was the paper’s editorial policy to refer to Myanmar as Burma. This means that we had to comb through all international stories to convert all references to Myanmar into Burma in an obstinate refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the name. My managing editor explained it thus: “The name Myanmar was chosen by the current government of Burma, which is an illegitimate regime that usurped power from the democratically-elected leader, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. After she won an overwhelming 82 percent majority in national elections in 1990, the military regime refused to relinquish power and stepped up intensified repression of her party, the National League for Democracy. At that time, Suu Kyi has already been under house arrest for about a year.”

Burma’s name-change to Myanmar occurred in 1989. However, some nations, including the United States, do not recognize this change, since they do not recognize the military government that instituted it. That was the stance taken by the Today newspaper and that policy still stands until such time that Suu Kyi comes into her own as the rightfully elected leader of that country.

Which brings me to the point of this belabored introduction. You see, I have a large favor to ask. It’s not really a big deal but it would be greatly appreciated if everybody would please stop referring to the Philippines as P.I.

The first time I heard that term it threw me off and was about to take quick umbrage when I realized that the term stands for “Philippine Islands.” You have to understand; the term is also the acronym for a vulgar Tagalog expletive (you don’t want to know; it’s something to do with one’s mother). Still, nobody in the Philippines refers to the country as P.I. It is and has always been Pilipinas. Usually, if we want to be slangy about it, we shorten that to Pinas but that’s as far as we go. Using the term P.I. is like insisting on the use of Dutch East Indies when referring to Indonesia, Formosa for Taiwan, East Pakistan for Bangladesh, or Ceylon for Sri Lanka.

I admit the acronym by itself is harmless but its colonial overtones grate, more so when a fellow Filipino uses the term, unknowing of the history behind the term. The Philippines was referred to as Philippine Islands between 1898 and 1946 when it was a commonwealth of the United States. When the U.S. relinquished control of the country on July 4, 1946, the term was shortened to just the Philippines. That name has been recognized by the United Nations and the rest of the world. As an independent country, I think it is just a matter of courtesy to use the official name for which the Philippines has become known—the Philippines. If one is under any compulsion to shorten that name, the best option would be “RP,” which stands for the Republic of the Philippines.

I know that those who use the term P.I. do not use it in a political sense and I’m sure they have no intention to offend. To them, it’s just another word. After all, a lot of Filipinos here in the CNMI and Guam use the term themselves. But that’s exactly what makes the term even more egregious—when Filipinos use it—because they unknowingly discount the sacrifices made by our forbears to achieve complete independence. The Philippines is no longer a colony and, whether for good or ill, that freedom was purchased dearly, so I believe it is only proper and courteous and respectful to accord the country the small measure of respect it deserves by using the name it wants to be called.

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All this talk about bringing in a new company or seeking a Homeland Security grant to build a new fiber optic cable that will compete with Verizon’s—purportedly to lower the telecom rates in the CNMI—is inherently flawed in that it ignores economy of scale, defined as the savings in cost of production that is due to mass production. In the case of telecommunication, as the number of customers grow, the company can afford to lower its rates and not hurt its profit margin because more people are hooking up for services. This is the reason why a T1 line is more expensive here than on Guam. Simply put, there are more people on Guam than the CNMI, hence the lower rates. The setting of prices, particularly in utilities and telecommunications, is not just about who gets to undercut the competition. It also has something to do with how low a rate a company can set while still making a decent profit. That’s why businesses go into business in the first place—to earn money. No business can afford to exist solely for altruistic reasons. Anybody thinking of setting up another fiber optic cable in the CNMI has to ask himself or herself the question: Can the market afford it? Specifically, is the population enough to sustain another fiber optic cable system that, if shared equally between Verizon and the new system, would still be enough to earn a profit? In the case of the CNMI, I don’t think the population base is enough to sustain two fiber optic systems. The only reason why utility rates here are low is because CUC is subsidized by the government. Can the CNMI government afford to enter and compete in the telecommunications industry? As Saipan Chamber of Commerce president Alex Sablan said, that is something to be wary about.

(The views expressed are strictly that of the author. Vallejera is the editor of the Saipan Tribune.)