BACK TO THE U.N.: With the fall of Iraq into American hands a foregone conclusion, attention is shifting back to the United Nations, which the US had bypassed in its haste to invade Iraq under the guise of removing its weapons of mass destruction.

It seems, however, that the US may have no choice but to go back to the UN if it intends to make good its promise to repair the horrendous damage it has wrought on Iraq.

American taxpayers cannot be made to shoulder the reconstruction expenses that run into billions. Neither can President George W. Bush raise substantial contributions from his “coalition of the willing” supporters.

Bush will have to get the money from elsewhere. And the UN looms as a logical source since it manages the proceeds of the sale of Iraqi oil during the embargo imposed on Iraq, the world’s No. 2 biggest oil producer.

But after having ignored the world body, will Bush find the UN receptive to requests for fund assistance for the rehabilitation of Iraq or for the US to use that country’s oil resources? Will the UN agree to mop up the mess left by the unilateral US invasion?

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U.S. HAS NO OIL RIGHT: Mark Malloch Brown, head of the UN Development Program, has warned that reconstruction costs would far exceed oil revenues. He also pointed out that the US has no international right to take over Iraq’s oil industry.

Brown said: “Under the Geneva Conventions, (the occupying power is) only able to deal with day to day administration. You are not able to change the constitution, or make legal commitments going ahead many years.”

“Sorting this out in a legally acceptable way drives you back to that little stuffy table (at the Security Council),” he added. “All roads lead you back to that.”

His remarks, seen by observers as an indirect dig at the US, gain added significance in light of the millennial development agenda of halving world poverty by 2015.

With the ongoing war, with fuel prices going up, with tourism and investment falling in the background, and with multilateral cooperation taking the back seat, that anti-poverty program has been severely impaired.

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OIL A KEY ISSUE: Iraqi oil is being sold under the UN oil-for-food program, with the proceeds going into a UN-managed escrow account. The money is used primarily to buy food, medicine and humanitarian supplies.

The Security Council, however, can make an exception to the general law, change the rules on how Iraqi oil is sold and how the proceeds are used.

Brown said that any US-led administration in Iraq would not be entitled under international law to award American companies major contracts to modernize and run Iraq’s oil industry — unless the Security Council approves a new scheme.

Some well-connected US firms are already positioning themselves to win juicy rehabilitation contracts. It is understood that the massive funding will come from the sale of Iraqi oil.

Oil appears to be a major consideration in US planning for post-war Iraq. The White House has chosen a former oil executive, retired American general Jay Garner, to head the interim government that the US intends to impose on a vanquished Iraq.

Like his father, Bush himself is/was into oil. He began his career in the oil and gas business in Midland in 1975 and worked in the energy industry until 1986. He has said that the US will have a big say in the running of the Iraqi oil industry after the war.

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MISSING FUND LINK: Back here, with the expected enactment of a farmlands-as-collateral law, Agrarian Reform Secretary Roberto Pagdanganan is optimistic that the “missing link” to the success of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program has been found.

Part of the Arroyo administration’s fight against poverty, the measure seeks to instill self-reliance in agriculture and agrarian reform in dealing with the old problem of inadequate access to credit.

Titled “Enhanced Collateral Value of Farmlands Act of 2002,” the bill has high priority on the legislative agenda. It aims to open credit windows to the agrarian and rural sectors by allowing the use of agricultural lands as valuable loan collateral.

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LOW COLLATERAL VALUE: Under the House and Senate versions, loans may be used only for agricultural activity — agricultural production, land development, post-harvest facilities, shallow tube well and pump irrigation, distribution and marketing, livelihood and related activities.

The bills in both chambers provide that the loan amount shall be based on the actual requirement of the project, but not to exceed the valuation to be set by the Department of Agrarian Reform.

The measure is expected to solve the problem of agricultural lands always being assigned low collateral value by banks. The land’s assessed value is usually not enough to raise money for making land reform farm productive.

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BUS TERMINALS: Large tracts on prime property along EDSA and other Metro Manila areas, meanwhile, have been earmarked for four terminals for provincial buses, easing out several government agencies and private entities in a three-month timetable.

Issuing Executive Order 179, President Arroyo set aside a strip of land 24 meters deep on the northbound side of EDSA from East Ave. to North Ave. in Quezon City to become the North bus terminal.

The EO gave the Metro Manila Development Authority under chairman Bayani Fernando three other passenger terminal sites:

1. South— The easement area at the ground level of the Magallanes interchange and the easement areas of the westbound areas of the South Luzon Expressway from EDSA to Gil Puyat Ave. (Buendia), including vacant areas between the SLEx and the railroad track.
2. East— A portion of the Marikina Riverbank for public utility vehicles servicing provinces east of Metro Manila.
3. Southwest— A section of the PEA property along the Coastal Road for passengers vehicles plying routes to Cavite and other points farther south.

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NO CONSULTATIONS?: Lucito M. Bertol, president of the Manila Seedling Bank whose site will be affected by the building of a bus terminal along EDSA, is complaining that EO 179 was issued without much public consultation.

He said the putting up of the terminals will not solve the traffic mess on EDSA, which was the rationale mentioned for the President’s order.

He said that the plan discriminated against affected agencies and legitimate tenants ordered to give way, while not touching nearby wide areas occupied by squatters. He raised the possibility that commercial considerations may have influenced the plan to build the terminals.