Paradigm shift

INFOWARS
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/14/2008



Do you notice that the countries where the food riots are erupting are under the aegis the West, i.e. U.S.-Anglo-EU umbrella? Topping the list is Haiti where the U.S. sent 20,000 troops in 1994 to oust of Col. Raul Cedras’ military regime. Cedras wanted elections opposed by Clinton who restored former Catholic priest turned politician Jean Bertrand-Aristide, whom Clinton deposed again later for resisting an IMF-restructuring program which created food-crisis hit country today. The other food-riot stricken country is Mubarak’s Egypt which earns on tourism but lives on annual $ 1.3-B U.S. to help suppress aspirations for sovereignty. Others listed by the U.N. are the Philippines, Indonesia (which had U.S. backed Suharto for decades) and London-E.U. influenced African countries.

The rice exporting countries today outside the West are primarily Asian countries which are at odds with the West, i.e. Myanmar of Burma which the West has consistently lambasted as “the poorest country in Asean”, Vietnam which maintains strict protectionism for its economy despite its very late accession to the WTO in 2006, of course China, India and Thailand. While Thailand does not appear to many as protectionist as the others mentioned above, the conservative and pro-globalization internet magazine “The Globalist” headlines a signal article lambasting the numerous industrial and agricultural protectionist measures Thailand has in place. What separates these countries from those hit by the food crisis? – Their relative insulation from past IMF “structural reforms”, i.e. the removal of protective barriers to destroy local industrial and agricultural production.

One must blame the Philippines’ rice crisis today not just on any single failed leader but on a series of them starting with Gloria’s father, Diosdado “Dadong” Macapagal, who started selling out Philippine political and economic sovereignty for U.S. political support for his election against the protectionist Carlos P. Garcia. Upon winning Dadong doubled the national debt, devalued the Peso, reversed the incipient independent and national economics of the country. Marcos defeated Dadong to follow in the same IMF- path but later set the course to reverse the dependency with his “Green” and “11-Industrial projects” revolution. Cory Aquino dismantled it after the U.S.-Makati Business Club Edsa Uno-civil society coup of 1986. To this day they feign ignorance of their sins in destroying the domestic economy and scapegoats Gloria as the only culprit.

Gloria is the biggest culprit only as a partner to Edsa Dos which installed her to stop Joseph E. Estrada’s economic policy for food security (assigning professional agriculturist William Dar) and agricultural self-reliance as in the Carabao Breeding Program, Gloria appointed lawyer Arthur Yap (better at slipping around laws) with a management and economics degree from Gloria. Edsa Dos civil society supporters denounce Gloria’s corruption, but they cannot denounce her economics as it is theirs’ – free trade, anti-protectionism, comparative and “market” economics, as taught by Solita Monsod (U.P.), Vic Abola (of UAP), by Cielito Habito (Ateneo), and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (Ateneo). They have their allies in media in mushy, starry-eyed liberals like Billy Esposo, Tony Abaya, Jose Montelibano, Isagani Cruz, among many others.

I am aching for a public debate with these so-called economists and “civil society” intelligentsia because they are part of the obfuscation of the real issues that beset this nation. They doom to ignorance a great part of the population who read the mainstream media that limits the scope of their reportage and analysis. They blame all ills of society on a few personalities they demonize, and omit the overarching historical, geo-strategic and political-economic environment that conditions many of the events in this vulnerable Third World country – like the U.S. hand in Philippine elections and “people power”, the British role in the theft of Sabah, and recently in the passage of the EPIRA and privatization of power, in the BOTs in water and tollways.

They omit the geo-strategic and political-economic backdrop of the rice crisis today. Much of the rice crisis goes back to U.S. instigated IMF-conditionalities, assault on our economic sovereignty and “people power” that ended up reversing economic-industrial and agricultural programs launching self-reliance and self-sufficiency under Marcos II and in the short-lived Erap administration. Let us focus on a particular beloved subject of the liberal intelligentsia - “market” economics and the principle of “letting supply and demand” determine the economics of the nation. On the present food crisis in the world, last April 10 a senior Food and Agricultural Organization official (FAO), Jose Graziano said, “"The crisis is a speculative attack and it will last…” The “markets”, i.e. speculators holding leveraged money, are buying up food futures and jacking up prices.

The likes of Monsod and Habito (I should add Paderanga, whom I always hear invoke the “markets” when he speaks) have repeatedly told this country to rely on the “markets” instead of national and state planning. Let’s call them by their generic label – the market economists. Now, as Graziano confirms, we are victims of the “markets” while the planned economies of China, India, Vietnam and Burma continue without fail to assure the basic needs of their people. Let me add Malaysia too, which to this day practices state planning and protectionism that Mahathir and predecessors maintained. This directly contradicts market economists’ thesis state planning is inimical to growth, and private corporations are the key to national prosperity (what AIM teaches its students).

The late 20th century debate on which is a better economic model - the protectionist and state-led economy or the market-led economics - is settled by the many crises we face today. Eight years after the turn of the century we are seeing unprecedented global financial collapse, followed by food crises every where and the promise of more crises to come in global security, energy and environment. The Last century’s dominant market-led capitalism, aggressively pursued by the Western countries and imposed on the Third World, is now proven to be an utter failure. State-led, planned economic systems are on a comeback. Filipinos must this cue and embark on the new course, and it must leave behind the myths and paradigms of Edsa Uno and Dos to begin with.

The Philippines must focus on gathering the old and new intellectual and political leaders that have consistently opposed the failed methods of the past and proposed the path towards protectionist, nationalist, balanced social-market systems and variations of the theme. Political leaders must no longer be drawn from the corporate technocratic cadres; they engineered the failed economics that led to our present predicament. The new economic managers must be inspired by the like of Alejandro “Ding” Lichauco and Dr. Dodong Nemenzo, political leaders drawn from the ranks of the anti-globalization social-economic activists, business sector leaders selected from producers and manufacturers and not from speculative traders, real estate speculators and money men. Military leaders will come from “conscientized” officers and not mercenaries of the Pentagon or the local oligarchy.

The top leadership shall be reserved not for candidates of the “civil society”, the elite or the U.S. Ambassador, but for genuine leaders of the people and the masa. Not even moderate greed should be acceptable in leadership and state or government functions. The people’s material welfare and not the national GDP or GNP shall be the measure of the nation and the economic system’s success or failure. Nothing less that a complete paradigm alter this country’s present course towards the precipice – the “failed state” the West has planned for us as they did for Haiti, Afghanistan and others once thriving societies. The crisis Gloria has brought upon this land will force our people to realize and embrace this paradigm shift – we just have to get the message out to them through consistent and persistent information and political education.

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