Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/248536
26 Letters maltatoday, SUNDAY, 26 JANUARY 2014 Send your letters to: The Editor, MaltaToday, MediaToday Ltd. Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 | Fax: (356) 21 385075 E-mail: newsroom@mediatoday.com.mt. Letters to the Editor should be concise. No pen names are accepted. OBITUARY Remembering Philip Serracino Inglott Philip Serracino Inglott was a doctoral candidate at the Technical University of Delft (TU Delft) in the Netherlands and had been in Malta for his holidays when he suddenly passed away last December, two days before Christmas, at the age of 37. I met Philip when we were undergraduate students at the University of Malta. His intellect, his witty humour and his generosity of spirit were qualities that made him stand out and endear him to his circle of friends. He had many interests which he was so passionate about as to be oblivious to all conventional divisions. Philosophy and open source, technology and good food, social interest and education… he could make connections between things which the rest would have dismissed as irreconcilably different. In 2008 Philip left Malta for Enschede, in the Netherlands, to read for a Masters in the Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society at the University of Twente. Dutch academic life fit Philip like a glove. His work ethic was impressive and yet, despite being older than most of his fellow students, he still managed to fully integrate into the social life of the campus, becoming the life and soul of the party. The choice of topic for his thesis on Wikipedia, open source software and democracy was Philip through and through, and the award of the degree cum laude was well and truly deserved. Unconventional but never totally the rebel, in 2010 Philip married his beloved, long-term girlfriend and companion Vicky Grech in a civil and religious ceremony on a Dutch beach. You can generally expect Zandvoort to be windswept and wet but it's easy to look at the photos from the wedding and be fooled into thinking that the golden stretch of sand, gentle waves and glorious sky at sunset are from somewhere in the Caribbean. He was a geek through and through. On a visit to Belgium once, he joined a tour to Mechelen where tapestries from the collection at St John's Co-cathedral were being restored. Like the rest of us, Philip was impressed with these national treasures and the skill of the restorers. But he was equally impressed with the "washroom" with its purposedesigned machine for cleaning the delicate fabrics from centuries of grime. He respectfully referred to the machine as a "hack", the creation of something unexpected and extraordinary from something banal, in this case, parts you'd find in an ordinary ironmongery. Once after attending a lecture by the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek we lined up to have our books signed – usually a quiet and a somewhat reverent ritual. Not so for Philip. When our turn came, he took time to complain to Žižek about his writings not being in the public domain. Unfazed, Žižek protested and proceeded to tell him from which site his works could be read for free. Two years ago, having completed his Masters, Philip embarked on yet another adventure. He enrolled as a Ph.D. student at the TU Delft with the Centre for Ethics and Technol- ogy, which brings together the expertise of the three Dutch technical universities (Delft, Twente and Eindhoven) in the field. In November Philip published his first paper, 'Is it OK to be an Anonymous?', on the ethical issues arising from the activities of the well-known hacktivist collective. A competition organised by the university library which he had won, allowed him to publish the paper in a journal granting open access, a very appropriate prize considering his strong opinions on the matter. In the last email I received from him he mischievously asked me for my "leisurely two cents in between changing diapers and pushing pencils". I regret he was right on the leisurely bit; I had not replied when he died barely two weeks later. Facing the jury that condemned him to death, Socrates said he was not afraid. If death is complete annihilation, we are freed from all our wants and cares; if there is an afterlife, we can look forward to enjoying the company of great men who went before us and whom we'll meet there. If there is consolation in that observation, none of it is for the living. We are left with one more want and the company has decidedly become poorer, deprived, as we now are, of a man who could see the extraordinary in the ordinary and the magical in the mundane. Franklin Mamo Placing Maltese investors' funds in ungraded risk projects The Malta & Gozo Investors' Association would like to show its concern that buona fede Maltese shareholders and investors funds are being placed in ungraded risk projects. A case in point is the recently announced investment in a hotel complex in Benghazi. Eastern Libya recently saw the killing of the world's greatest superpower ambassador, the arrest of American citizens during a road block and more recently, the killing of Libya's very own junior minister. Even in Tripoli, violence on government figures is not rare. Libya, especially the area around Benghazi, is still regarded as carrying grave risks for investments. International Hotel Investments managed to protect its investments in Tripoli and its surrounding areas during the Libyan revolution only because it paid large amounts, disbursements which still raise questions in the mind of some investors. To diversify investments does not require that funds are committed to a project in an area which has not been really stabilised since the overthrow of Gaddafi. R. Naudi Director Malta & Gozo Investors Association Wanted: the second Republic EDITORIAL • 25 January 2004 Malta's constitutional development reached its apex with Independence in 1964. The Republican amendments to the Constitution were a further positive development. Our accession into the European Union will be the next milestone in the constitutional development of our country. May 1 could be the appropriate time to take stock of the constitutional developments and to update, upgrade, fine-tune and modernise the political tools governing the country. In essence, the country needs to modernise. This can be achieved by giving birth to the second Republic, whereby the constitutional working tools are put in place. The underlining trend of this second Republic must be the entrenchment of the values of meritocracy, accountability, fairness and above all the creation of a society where people are placed before the Institutions and where the institutions are at the service of the people and are not self-serving. Much needs to be done and much can be done with the necessary political will of both parties to modernise our country now that we are on the threshold of European accession. Europe is much more than simply a free market. Europe has a soul. It is the embodiment of the French Revolution and the values of tolerance liberty and solidarity embodying the conquests of the 1789 revolution. To modernise we believe in an action plan including the revision of the electoral system, a law regulating the financing of the political parties, changing the threshold of election of the President, introducing technocrats into the running of government, lessening the system of patronage in the nomination of chairpersons and directors on government boards and authorities and introducing a law on conflict of interests. A tall order indeed, yet a programme, which with the necessary political will from all shades of political opinion, could go a long way to modernising our country. Government should bring together a group of experienced persons from the political social and economic world who can make the necessary suggestions which can then be put up for public discussion. The electoral system needs to be updated so as to allow a third political force a fighting chance to be represented in parliament. The present party duopoly is stifling and disenfranchising a relevant percentage of the electorate. The financing of the political parties should be opened up to scrutiny. It should be more transparent with all amounts above an agreed limit being declared and known to the electorate. The threshold for election of the President should be increased to a two-thirds quota. This will ensure the person elected by parliament carries the respect of a substantial majority. It will further ensure that the decision will no longer be based on pure party partisan considerations. The President should also be given wider powers to choose the chairpersons and directors of government boards and authorities. These constitutional updates will not only serve to modernise the country but most especially will inculcate and establish the birth of a culture where all persons will start feeling that the institutions are really national and that the country belongs to all irrespective of political creed or belief. The time to modernise is long overdue. The question is whether Malta will find the right man or woman to bring about these changes.