BSP (Bunk-O Sentral ng Pilipinas)

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
09/20/2010



Nowhere can a Filipino find more bunk in this bunk rich land than at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), which again boasts of an expansion in the country’s gross international reserves when the value of the currency it keeps is in danger of imminent massive crash. That means Filipinos will be holding close to $50 billion of worthless bunk, or US T-bills, when the music stops. But do Tetangco, Guinigundo, Paderanga et al. give a hoot? Would they even bother with the thought of more Filipinos finding themselves in the poorhouse once the dollar crash descends upon the world, since they are paid tens of millions anyway to keep the farce alive? Quite simply, this kind of bunk, in tandem with the Department of Finance (DoF)’s peso bonds, will be our final ruin.

A whole spectrum of financial and currency analysts, as well as scholars — from renowned economists such as New York University Professor Noriel Roubini to similarly prestigious Mark Solomon — have already projected the dollar crash between now and the middle of 2011.

According to Roubini, “If markets were to believe, and I’m not saying it’s likely, that inflation is going to be the route that the US is going to take to resolve this problem, then you could have a crash of the value of the dollar… The value of the dollar over time has to fall on a trade-weighted basis, but not necessarily relative to euro and yen.”

Solomon adds, “…a 20-percent drop in the value of either a stock or financial holding over a period of time is considered a crash. The US dollar already crashed from 120 on the USDX down to its current level of 75. This 45-point drop, or roughly 33-percent drop, over several years, meets the definition of a crash.”

A growing number of Filipinos who are becoming aware of this but still cannot do anything, as the Aquino government is simply clueless as can be, must therefore keep on educating fellow Filipinos on this.

Last week the Japanese Central Bank intervened by buying up dollars to support it. Take this news two days ago: “Japan props up dollar for first time since 2004… for the first time in six years, selling the yen to buy dollars. It follows a surge in the value of the Japanese currency to a 15-year peak which was spooking business leaders worried about its effects on exports…”

The BSP, in turn, is building up precarious US dollars while the DoF issues more debts in the $1-billion peso bonds, which are inevitably dollar debts because all of its transactions will still be in dollars. Despite the DoF’s Foolish-ima spin, the Philippine peso is not of reserve quality anywhere.

At the same time, Malacañang’s P15-billion public-private partnership (PPP) projects which are really taxpayer-driven, will give sovereign guarantee funds again to the plutocrats and US crony capitalists, who are now boosting the local stock market.

Foreign portfolio investors always smell easy, quick, and gargantuan profits whenever PPP-type projects in power, water, infrastructure (such as tollways), etc. are given special financial packages guaranteed with taxpayers’ and consumers’ money.

These inelastic or unavoidably necessary public utilities, which used to be a right of any citizen and provided free or for the most minimal of costs since the public funded them, were, under the Yellows’ political-economic philosophy beginning with Cory Aquino, converted into profiteering opportunities for private enterprises, with complete disregard for public welfare and development. For this reason, state revenues will continue to dwindle and public institutions will have to rely more and more on other means to survive.

These economic and financial policies are directly connected to such issues as the current “Juetengate” bedeviling the new Aquino. Jueteng is now the only source of funds for the Philippine National Police (PNP) top brass to maintain a lifestyle befitting of members of the ruling class. After all, what’s all the hardship for if not to give them the wherewithal to put their children into exclusives schools, travel on European junkets, and have the latest cars and the money to run for elections? Aren’t most members of the ruling class living it up, say, on the sinecure of a congressman’s “pork barrel,” which come from debts such as the Foolish-ima peso bonds, which in turn increase the state’s penury and inability to sustain itself?

PeNoy Aquino knows the realities of life in government; he has seen it all since childhood. Surely, he’s not about to start a rebellion in the police brass by really cracking down on that illegal numbers game.

Archbishop Oscar Cruz’s campaign against the “immoral” jueteng is also a bunk-load in the contradiction that he personally faces for not condemning all forms of gambling such as church bingos, raffles, sharing in horse racing proceeds, and legalized gambling that impoverish and break up families. And if he condemns jueteng because it is illegal, then it is another contradiction for him not to endorse its legalization.

Contradictions make for a lot of bunk; so does hypocrisy; even fraud. Although some priests can almost beat the Bunk-O Sentral ng Pilipinas in its amount of bunk, in the end, the financial sector still beats ‘em all. With the help of controlled mainstream media, many Filipinos still unconsciously swallow them in leaps and bounds. This space, however, will continue to try its darn best to expose the bunk to save our fellow citizens from it.

(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics Today, Tuesday, 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m. on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)