In the next few weeks we shall witness a torrent of sorrow and regret, as any such horrific loss of life should provoke. But, clearly, the story is unfinished, despite the seeming finality of Benazir Bhutto’s murder.

In two suicide attacks inside Pakistan since October, at least 160 have been slaughtered, including the country’s former prime minister: a demonstration yet again of the economies of scale governing the peripheries of empire, where life appears cheaper the farther one is from the center.

In the next few weeks, certain questions will be asked over and over. Who is responsible for the evil deed? Who pulled the trigger and the pin? Who hatched the plan and who allowed it to come to fruition?

Before the December 27 Rawalpindi bombing, a grotesque political marriage was still being engineered by wedding planners in Washington, which has been troubled by the tide of social discontent threatening strategic US interests in the region.

On one side of the aisle, the reluctant groom: Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a self-decorated political midget who came to power via a military coup in 1999 and who has since, having allied himself with America’s War on Terror, enjoyed everything that a US-propped dictator could ask for—from IMF loans, humanitarian aid and debt rescheduling involving hundreds of millions of dollars.

On the aisle’s other side, the reluctant bride: Benazir Bhutto, once upon a time the Cory Aquino of Pakistan, who eventually degenerated into a nanominded Gloria Arroyo-version, complete with her own Mike Arroyo in the person of Asif Ali Zardari, the ex-prime minister’s nationally reviled husband.

But arranged marriages don’t often work, as the London-based writer Tariq Ali noted in a prescient article written two weeks before Bhutto was slain. In fact, Ali wrote, they tend to be messy. Where “both parties are known to loathe each other, only a rash parent, desensitized by the thought of short-term gain, will continue with the process knowing full well that it will end in misery and possibly violence.”

With predictable dispatch and duplicity, Washington responded to Bhutto’s assassination by condemning the “murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan’s democracy.” The US establishment, which always prefers not one but two, if not three, numbers to call in its client states, grieved the loss of Bhutto, who, like Musharraf, had tied her fate to Washington’s largesse.

The attack on Bhutto’s rally, said the Bush administration, “demonstrates that there are still those in Pakistan who want to subvert…efforts to advance democracy.” Washington urged the people of Pakistan “to honor Benazir Bhutto’s memory by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life.”

How exactly are we to chew these words? With sympathy, perhaps, if we have already forgotten who it was that channeled a cackling river of weaponry to Afghan rebels fighting the USSR in the 1980s.

In its desire to give the Soviet Union a Russian version of the Vietnam quagmire, the US government induced the Soviets to intervene in Afghanistan, supplied $3 billion to the Afghan mujahideen and, in the process, produced one of the more significant spikes in the global narcotics trade. America put Pakistan’s Interservices Intelligence (ISI) “in charge of actually distributing this vast flow,” particularly to radical Islamic groups in Afghanistan, which formed the main engine of the anti-Soviet jihad, the ideological and political heirs of which, years later, would be known as the Taliban.

The ISI was then under the baton of the dictator Gen. Zia ul-Haq, who had allied himself with America’s War on Communism and who came to power via a military coup that ousted, and then executed, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the father of Benazir. This is the same Zia who once “ordered Pakistan’s embassies across the Muslim world to issue visas to anyone who wish to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan” and who was once welcomed by Ronald Reagan at the White House with a 21-gun salute.

By 1996, “strategy over pipelines had become the driving force behind Washington’s interest in the Taliban.” Afghanistan had become another kind of feasting ground. Among the vultures counted Unocal, which had on its payroll the likes of Henry Kissinger and former US Secretary of State Alexander Haig, along with Amoco, another oil giant, which had as its hired hand ex-US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.

It’s a complicated world.

“Pakistan did not create the Taliban,” said the Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, the leading authority on the politics of Central Asia. But “the Taliban could not have survived amongst Afghanistan’s warring factions without the support of Islamabad.” In fact, it was from Pakistan’s madrassas—bankrolled largely by Saudi money—that the Taliban had imported their extremist interpretation of Deobandi Islam, which Rashid considers “foreign to Afghanistan’s Islamic traditions.”

In Pakistan’s North West Frontier province, a madrassa that had schooled all the Taliban leadership that had once ruled Kabul continues to operate, and more such schools continue to proliferate. Yet in 2002 the US asked the world to believe that Saddam Hussein had backed the terrorist attacks of September 11, a claim burnished with “solid evidence”—Donald Rumsfeld called it “bulletproof” confirmation—of the links between al-Qaeda and Iraq. Not Pakistan, for Musharraf was by then Washington’s friend.

Notes to a tragedy

In the next few weeks we shall witness a torrent of sorrow and regret, as any such horrific loss of life should provoke. But, clearly, the story is unfinished, despite the seeming finality of Benazir Bhutto’s murder.

Authorities pressed doctors to stay mum on Bhutto’s death

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan—Pakistani authorities have pressured the medical personnel who tried to save Benazir Bhutto’s life to remain silent about what happened in her final hour and have removed records of her treatment from the facility, according to doctors.

Lending a hand

At the fringe of Makati’s bustling business center stands the head office of Makati Finance Corp. (MFC), a consumer-finance company that has established a stronghold in the industry for over 40 years.

Winning: A year of pushing hot buttons

About this time last year, we received an e-mail from a reader who asked if we believed America’s competitive success was linked to its relative lack of corruption.

INVESTOR BRIEFING

WATER is still flooding the basement of a shopping mall in the Philippines’ central business district after an explosion in October. At least nine died and more than a dozen businesses were kicked out from their glass-walled shops now wrapped with white-painted boards.

REDUCING POWER COSTS

The government of the Philippines plans to use state funds to address high power rates. Acknowledging it must do something about the rising cost of energy, the government announced that it intends to use more of the state’s gas royalties, National Power Corp. (Napocor) profits and Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) fees to reduce electricity charges.

RISING GDP

The Philippines’ robust economy continues to perform well, achieving a GDP growth of 6.6 percent in the third quarter of this year.

Brotherly love

Brother International Philippines believes competition makes business more exciting. And the company thinks there is still a space for one more player in the document-printing market in the country that can provide an alternative.

Winning: Breaking Through Bureaucracy

Q: How do you break through the bureaucracy that damages so many organizations? James Moss-Solomon, Bridgetown, Barbados                 

A: Damages? How about deadens?

PLAYING ALONG

TO many children, Elmo, the much-loved furry red monster from Sesame Street, is more than just a plaything. To children ages two to five years old, Elmo is a trusty playmate—a friend to lug around the playground; one who won’t complain when hugged, pinched or smothered with kisses. For parents, Elmo even makes a good teacher.

TOY TEST 2007

The holidays are just about here, and the toys are piling up in stores, waiting for you to make your list. Of course, even if your wish does come true, you have to hope for the best: That really great-sounding toy might be a piece of junk.

CONSUMER CONFIDENTIAL

This should be the time of year when Santa’s wholesale elves in the toy district in downtown Los Angeles are busy delivering cheap, Chinese-made playthings to consumers and retailers.

Lumads in the new world

It was a minifair compared with the grand bacchanalia that is the Kadayawan Festival that Davao City has come to be known for.

Mission: global customs service

Del Castillo: From what I have gathered, Commissioner Morales is a self-made man in this career; he supported himself through college while working at the Bureau of Customs as a utility man.

No run of the mill success

Management is a practical discipline measured by financial returns and competitive position. But it is easy to forget that success in business ultimately comes from a commitment to personal values. When you look at Metrobank today, the tendency is to focus on its results, its size and its position. It is easy to overlook the elements that shaped its character.

Winning: Private equity’s very public problems

Q: Why are so many private-equity deals blowing up? Alan Engle, Great Neck, New York                 

A: The short answer is that the world has changed (read: the US sub-prime-mortgage mess has erupted). A lot of companies that were once hell-bent on acquiring hot new properties suddenly want out of deals that are starting to look too cold for comfort.

A Queen Stumbles

HIS eyes stared upward as he started with that familiar tuneful articulation about Iloilo at the peak of its grandeur. A few minutes later, his voice turned wobbly as he recounted how the province slipped from prominence. “So we lost our label being the country’s Queen City of the South.”

Teacher’s pet

WHY am I passionate about Vietnam? Because Vietnam has proven to the world that it is possible to simultaneously achieve robust and sustained economic growth with equitable income distribution. 

Putting imagination to work

SOON after World War II, from 1941 to 1945, the Philippines experienced a decade of unprecedented growth in the 1950s, with Manila—despite being the most devastated city during the climactic battle era—slowly regaining its vigor to once again become a center of industrial progress.

Five steps to building your personal leadership brand

You have a personal leadership brand. But do you have the right one?

A leadership brand conveys your identity and distinctiveness as a leader. If you have the wrong leadership brand for the position you have or the position you want, then your work is not having the impact it could.

What Health Consumers Want

Consumers of health care constitute a market that is as diverse as a market can be, yet the idea that companies might profit by segmenting customers to address their varied needs seems almost foreign to the health industry, despite the billions of dollars at stake.

How Bayan got its voice back

Bayan Telecommunications’ Tunde Fafunwa is very enthusiastic nowadays because the Lopez-controlled company has risen from its low point. And the source of his excitement is largely due to the recent introduction of Span, Bayan’s wireless landline service.

Winning: Managing shooting stars

Q: How far should I go to keep a star performer who has an offer to work at a competitor? Hymie Betesh, New York                 

A: Not as far as you’re probably considering, we imagine, given the panic that strikes most managers when a star threatens to shoot out the door.

Lighting the way

Dutch electronics and lighting giant Philips Electronics has been continuously doing business in the Philippines for the past 50 years.

In the name of the people

THIS time around, former Navy officer and neophyte Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV left no room for ambiguity.

In his 2003 debut at the Oakwood mutiny, then-Lt. Senior Grade Trillanes hemmed and hawed about his intentions.

Water Is Life

FOR corporate do-gooders, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is just the start. The new trend among large and well-established corporate organizations is to integrate sustainable-development programs—not just mere philanthropic activities—to their core businesses.

Give your team a challenge they can’t resist

It’s not easy pulling a group of diverse individuals together to work as a team. Barriers abound in the form of fierce territoriality, incentive systems that reward individual rather than collective achievement, and mistrust spawned by an acquisition, merger or major internal restructuring.

Improve your return on returns

Competitive pressures have forced many retailers and manufacturers to liberalize their returns policies in recent years and gladly accept for a refund just about anything customers regret having bought.

A staged solution to the catch-22

Companies launching two-sided platforms—businesses that connect two groups of users, as credit-card companies do—have often subsidized one group to get it to use the platform. This is a risky approach, because it requires a big upfront investment.

Ship shape

For an employee, a company-sponsored overseas trip could mean mostly fun, with, of course, some work in between. For a chief executive of a company, however, it would be the opposite, and most of the time the fun part takes place in between working or not at all.

Winning: Stay the course…especially if it’s a new one

Q: Sometimes companies need to change even when there is not a crisis forcing the issue. In such cases, how do you keep your people excited about a change initiative after its newness has worn off? Trevor Smith, Singapore

A: You have to stay excited yourself. And not just excited, but obsessed.

If I had a hammer

HASHIM squinted before pulling the trigger. Although the 19-year-old is used to holding Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifles in the deep jungles of Mindanao three years back, this particularly weapon was new to him.

Big failure, little dreams

CASTELLANA, Negros Occidental—It is already past noon and yet Edelyn Pineda is still lazing around Sitio Odiong here along with her little friends.

The Morning Meeting: Best-practice communication for executive teams

Does your company’s executive team struggle with chronic communication problems and a lack of shared accountability? Many times when my colleagues and I are called in to help out an organization, we find that these two core issues underlie their problems.

Lessons from the leaders of retail loss prevention

Preventing theft, damage and errors such as food spoilage has long been an unyielding and poorly understood problem for retailers. But a few companies stand out in their ability to limit losses, and if every retailer were as successful as they are, the sector could save billions of dollars annually—as much as $27 billion in the United States alone.

The Jock Correlation in business

WITH many sports headlines today trumpeting organizational and solvency issues with various teams and sports associations across the world, there is often an almost missionary zeal to bring to sports a more “business approach.”

Winning: Developing a successful succession plan

Q: What companies would you hold up as examples of succession planning done right? Robert Handfield, Raleigh, North Carolina 

A: It’s sad to say, but your question would be a heck of a lot easier to answer if you had asked for examples of succession planning done wrong. That trend is gaining such ground these days it’s alarming.