Oil tax, budget & other lies

INFOWARS
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/26/2008



Last week the Department of Finance announced that its April budget surplus was a record P 25.8-B, double of last year. What it did not report is the P 24.8-B loss of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) which appeared in very small newspaper items on the inside pages. The BSP will get P 40-B fresh capital infusion from the national government through a special purpose trust to raise funds through 10-year bonds. This is on top of a $ 500-M overseas float, and as the report says: “The government would likely renege on a vow to limit foreign borrowings this year…” Finally, from several newspapers we culled this item, actually the second time it’s been floated by Gary Teves, “Government seeks more revenue to balance budget”.

The Arroyo government and its financial authorities are attempting to put on a grand tale about an “unprecedented budget surplus” while actually losing a lot of money in the BSP and other areas. At the same time more borrowings are on stream to cover up the growing losses, and while putting up this show the Department of Finance is actually pressing on Congress for the past two months now to enact new taxes. Just to remind one and all, seventy percent of all taxes go to debt servicing, and this new tax request clearly triggered by IMF-WB demands simply unmasks all the lies about the “budget surplus”. But these are not the biggest lies they are foisting again on the people, the biggest today is the oil excise tax cut that’s supposed to help the people tide over the high petro prices.

Last Friday morning I listened with glee to Joe Taruc of DzRH interviewing Finance secretary Margarito Teves. He was pressing on why the DOF does not accede to a reduction of the RVAT on fuel. Teves kept bringing the discussion back to the “removal of the excise tax” and saying that its “revenue neutral”, as if being revenue neutral is any help to the Filipino fuel consumer. Taruc asked why not reduce the RVAT down to six percent down from the present twelve percent. Teves continued to evade the issue. The reason for his evasiveness is that the 3% excise tax removal is only a sleight of hand, that doesn’t disappear because as oil prices rises the RVAT rise event bigger than the excise tax as it is on the much higher retail price and four times bigger.

When you add the rise in world oil prices expected to hit $ 150/barrel driven by speculative manipulation, the RVAT will actually rise up to eight times more eventually! Gloria Arroyo and the IMF-WB don’t need the excise tax. They’d been waiting for oil prices to rise to cover the excise tax and more. They think they can fool the people with this, but if the Ibon Foundation survey is accurate that Arroyo’s approval rating is negative 75% then we know people are learning that there’s nothing to believe from the Arroyo regime. However, it is still of utmost importance to go beyond Arroyo and expose the IMF-WB-Makati elite (Ayala, Yuchengco, et al) conspiracy to perpetuate this debt trap upon us, and show how easy it is to break the chain of this debt.

Filipinos don’t want to be called “balasubas”, especially when honoring a debt. It is therefore takes a difficult task convincing Filipinos to campaign for “debt default”. It will be easier for them to understand once we explain that the biggest debt defaulter in history is the United States of America. From a great article by Eric Janszen you can find in the February 2008 Harper’s Magazine it is explained:

“The Next Bubble: Priming the markets for tomorrow’s big crash… ... by the second quarter of 1971, the U.S. balance of merchandise trade had run up a deficit of $3.8 billion (adjusted for inflation)… Members of the Bretton Woods system, most famously French President General Charles de Gaulle, worried that the United States intended to repay the money borrowed to cover its trade gap with depreciated dollars. Opposed to the exercise of such “exorbitant privilege,” de Gaulle demanded payment in gold. With the balance of payments so greatly out of balance, newly elected President Richard Nixon faced a run on the U.S. gold supply, and his solution was novel: unilaterally end the U.S. legal obligation to redeem dollars with gold; in other words, default.”

The U.S. as a creditworthy entity is a big lie. It is the richest country in the world because small countries like the Philippines are led by politicians who refuse to expose this lie, instead they connive in the plunder of our country through unjust debt payment. These politicians fear removal by the powers in the U.S. State Department, the Pentagon or Wall Street if they opposed the debt trap. The only thing needed to end the debt problem is either have the gall to default on a legitimate debt as the U.S. did in 1971, or have the courage to repudiate an unjust, murderous debt. The only roadblack to our national economic and social recovery is this debt – remove it and we’ll take off like a rocket, like Argentina has done. There is nothing to fear in debt repudiation but fear itself, and life will be sweet after debt.

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts", Abraham Lincoln said. There are daily lies in our media and politics, the same is so globally:

It is not true Myanmar prevents all countries from helping their typhoon victims. They are allowing Asean to help, but not former colonial invaders. The BBC had to apologize for using 2004’s Tsunami videos to exaggerate reports on Myanmar – a devious lie if it were not caught. It is not true Mugabe is a demon; it is the British that want to re-invade Zimbabwe using Tsangarai. Every day, the Infowar must be waged. Our crusade is advancing into Destiny Cable, Global News Network’s (GNN) “Talk News TV”, Monday to Friday, Channel 3, 7:30pm to 9:30pm. Analysis from this columnist and guests every Tuesday from 8:45pm to 9:30pm; this Tuesday: “The National Crisis: What is to be Done?” with Linggoy Alcuaz and Maris de la Cruz. GNN challenges ABS-CBN-ANC’s dominance, and cheaper rates from Destiny Cable too.

(Tune in to 1098AM, 8:30 to 9am, “Kape’t Kamulatan, Kabansa”, Monday to Friday)