The Social Revolution

INFOWARS
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/23/2008



A colleague quipped one morning, “You seem to end all your columns now with a call for social revolution.” And indeed I am, as anyone aware of the dismal future this country is facing would be. It’s not just the past seven years under Gloria, it’s the decades of decline in quality of life Filipinos, middle and masa classes. Ever since the Edsa I elite led coup against the Republic, this has worsened. In fact, it’s been declining since the 60’s after Diosdado Macapagal won over Carlos P. Garcia. This had been the case except for the brief spring of Marcos II when he asserted the demand for bases rental and started the energy and industrial development programs. We had been declining since Macapagal took the American Manufacturer’s Association and CIA funds to win against Filipino First president Garcia.

The decline accelerated rapidly in the wake of Edsa I. Cory Aquino’s sell out of the Philippines’ most vital interests precipitated it– her boast to pay all the onerous foreign debt and her not-so-known bloating of our domestic debt to the local finance mafia, her sell off of state assets and cancellation of major energy projects, and her request for U.S. “Phantom jets persuasion flights” to stave off a military rebellion that marked the end of any semblance of sovereign struggle of the country. By the time Ramos took over mendicancy to the U.S. had become the pre-qualification for ascendance to the presidency – blessing from the State Department, Pentagon or Wall Street, New York. When a homegrown president was elected in 1998, the Edsa I cabal went into motion to depose the most popularly elected president.

Some socio-political critics today still limit their analyses of the Philippine crisis to the “single-personality” cause. They blamed everything on Marcos, then Estrada. Despite the exit of the two from power the Philippine social crisis not only persisted but even worsened. Today, all blame is on Gloria, which is only partially correct. The other past is that she is only the continuation and alter ego of Fidel V. Ramos, including and particularly in the energy crisis issue. They are the Father and Auntie of the IPP, PPA and Epira, but then there are many ninong and ninangs too behind them – the oligarchs. They are the continuing cabal that stay in power whoever comes as the new political power. This is the permanent power that underlies the tale of the Philippine socio-economic-political crisis – the oligarchs.

The Meralco story is just the most obvious of the many operations of the oligarchs in the country. The Lopezes are too overt with their wealth and power. In the 1960’s the Lopez tied up with Marcos, Fernando Lopez ran as vice to Ferdinand. Patriarch Iñing Lopez had a wedding anniversary bash so unabashedly opulent and ostentatious, flying in guests worldwide and newspapers reported the champagne fountain that flowed. All perceived to be taken from the monthly payments of millions of electricity consumers. The LAPVIIR (Layman’s Post-Vatican II Reforms group) picketed that wedding anniversary, and I don’t think ever since then that the Lopezes had ever recovered from the public impression of their socially irresponsible business practices and extravagance.

Charity work of the Lopezes smacks of self-serving agendas, like the Bantay Bata program that has been shown to use it ABS-CBN clout to extort donations from the Department of Education, or that project in La Mesa Dam for alleged environmental protection that had become apparently a front for the Lopezes real estate project, and that eye care hospital in Rockwell I visited once with my wife to have a consultation which turned out to be charging so high that’s its really extortionist – and I had to move over to the old Manila Doctors’ Hospital to find better but more affordable eye care. But the most chagrining fact about the Lopez octopus is their cross-ownership of mega-media establishments which is used in their blatant business-political machinations.

The Lopezes are not alone; Cebu’s Garcias is among them, among its scions is the Meralco nemesis now whose top GSIS job allows the clan to maneuvers billions in funds for the objectives of the political boss today – Gloria. The Garcias are no match for the more illustrious Spanish surnames like Razon, Aboitiz and Alcantara who have cut up the energy sector for themselves. Razon (Gloria’s election fund manager and whose Manila port operations charge the highest in the world) got Transco, which earns $ 400-M a year, for $ 4-B in installment for what is valued at least $ 6-B. Congress is now rushing its franchise. The Aboitizes (Cory Aquino appointed one to NPC) and Alcantaras (who had at least one in every cabinet since Cory Aquino) have their share of IPPs but want a slice of Meralco’s distribution – which they will get care of Gloria, Enrile and Mikey’s “open access” amendments.

The Philippine oligarchs follow Amschel Rothchild’s dictum (founder of the world’s most powerful Jewish financial network the past two hundred fifty years): “Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws.” The U.S. is also dominated by its financial oligarchs, defense industries and its privately owned U.S. Federal Reserve. The power of money affects each world citizen more than they can know today, due to media’s lack of reporting on it. The world market oil overprice today by 60% is due to manipulation by oil traders in cahoots with global banks recovering their loses from dollar depreciation and the subprime crisis – taking advantage of China and India’s fears of Western lock-out of their oil needs. Philippine oligarchs are small fries, but the global financial powers empower them as Philippine agents to exploit the country.

Philippine history is shaped by these traditional oligarchs who connive with traditional politicians to turn the Philippine government and its laws into tools for exploitation of the nation’s patrimony, toil and sweat. The Lopezes were “franchised” by the American’s General Power Corporation charge the high rates to pay them off for Meralco. What the Lopezes did in power Razon has done in port operations, the Ayalas in water and telecoms, the Aboitizes and Alcantaras in power and oil, as nausea. In 2010, they’ll back another controlled, and most likely “winnable” but spineless or most corruptible candidate. If they lose they can plot the next “people power”. Only a social revolution can sweep aside these cabals of oligarchs and corrupt politicians, and install leadership for genuine reform of the economic-political power structure for social equity and national development.

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