Poverty of mind, body and soul

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
2/8/2006



Before anything else I am reminded to update the public about our propaganda campaign for the “civil disobedience” crusade of the Bagong Katipuners, a.k.a. Magdalo, triggered by Faeldon’s escape and camp visits. Our stickers and t-shirts production is continuing but we are now projecting the four other liberated Oakwood Army Capt. Nathaniel Rabonza, and 1Lts. Lawrence San Juan, Sonny Sarmiento and Patricio Bumidang. Capt. Candelaria Rivas will also be included in the materials but it has been more difficult to find a picture of the lady officer.

I should also update readers on various reactions to Cory Aquino’s visit to President Joseph E. Estrada at the San Juan Medical Center. The reactions range from very elated likes that of Atty. Alan Paguia and FREEDOM leader Atty. Boy Imperial to the enraged responses of Alejandro “Ding” Lichauco and our Tribune colleague Rod Kapunan who deeply suspect Cory’s motive and that doubt Estrada should have even accepted the visit. What I do know is Estrada is polite and civil to a fault, and would never imagine closing the door on the Aquino visit.

Another negative reaction came from a source close to the Edsa Dos underground linked to the de Villa faction; it raised the Hacienda Luisita interests of Cory Aquino. But a survey of the man on the street shows what one media person described to be a “gigantic” impact on the political scene with the rising prospect of a broadly unified opposition building up towards an imminent offensive to remove Gloria from her illegitimate position of power. The unspoken message during the Cory visit is “unity” versus Gloria, no amount of Malacañang nonchalance can disguise its alarm.

Now let us turn to the overriding subject of the week, the “Ka-wawa-We” tragedy and what has caused it. The ABS-CBN management and the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regime are feeling the spotlight heat, and correctly so; the former for specific failures in the organization of the event and the second for the general failure in improving the lives of the poor in our society that leads to such mania for games of luck to improve their sordidly poor lives. The discussion of the “Ka-wawa-We” tragedy has so far centered on economic poverty, which is very short of the total picture.

As our title today self-explanatory, the masa and the Filipino population in general is facing poverty on all fronts: poverty of the intellect, poverty of the body, and poverty of the soul. All the established institutions are at fault in this, not only arising from the present state of these institutions but the deterioration really accelerated after the 1986 Edsa I which was a regressive and not a progressive revolution – i.e. caused the erosion not only of our national economic foundation but also of the erosion quality of the national intellectual and spiritual milieu.

The corrosive factor that eroded our cultural, economic and spiritual social superstructures was and still is the capture of our State, i.e. government, by the agents of profit-seeking global and domestic oligarchic and corporatocratic elites which obliterated the nobler vision of Philippine society, replacing it with the god of riches and wealth Mammon. Social Good was supplanted by the drive for profits reflecting in the privatization and commercialization of schools and universities, corruption of and dumbing-down of media, and political and financial horse-trading of religion factions.

Some contrasts between our past society and today: In our youth an anti-usury law was in force, the Church condemned usury, today usury is the rule, embodied in the national debt while the Church is blind to it. University administrations then were solely dedicated to enlightenment; today major private universities are run by banking conglomerates and corporate values overrule social values. Our primary and secondary schools used to start the day with physical exercise and 4H Clubs taught nutrition and food production, now junk food is promoted.

In economic terms our heyday was when Garcia’s protectionist Filipino First policy disciplined our foreign exchange use by limiting it for agricultural and industrial essentials to promote production, the policy eschewed debt; today after Diosdado Macapagal’s “free trade” government borrows with wild abandon and promote dumping of foreign goods to the detriment of domestic industries. In that ideal past we had fixed exchange rates which could not be manipulated, today under the floating rate whether the Peso rises of falls the Filipino hurts unabated.

At this juncture it is vital to explain the rising Peso of the past weeks which has confused a great many Filipinos. Cory Aquino’s ultra-conservative finance secretary Jesus Estanislao early this week said clearly, “US need for funds real reason for strong peso.” The most telling blow to the PR spins of Malacañang about the rising Peso comes from its own Bangko Sentral chief Tetangco who says definitively that the Peso is rising due to “low domestic demand for US Dollars” which is an alarming sign in this import-dependent export oriented economy, aside from the weak dollar.

Finally, the “Ka-wawa-We” tragedy showed too that the poor now turned for hope to media’s bacchanalian entertainment rites of ecstasies rather than to spiritual institutions. The new CBCP should think about this seriously. Our poverty has aggravated immeasurably, only a radical change can get us back on course to recovery.

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