Time for FREEDOM

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
11/21/2005



It’s now almost five years since Edsa Dos dumped the landslide mandate of President Joseph E. Estrada in 2001 on the promise that it would bring paradise to these 7,000 islands. Now the country seems to breaking apart in 7,000 seams. Poverty is spreading like wildfire, and the people pushed to penury while the corporatocracy is taking all of the pie and eating it too. I note that other more traditional socio-political critics are noting the unparalleled good fortune of Big Business now, i.e. our colleague former senator Ernesto Maceda decrying the excessive profits of oil companies.

Local oil companies’ profits doubled this year; yes, 100%. That’s nothing to the telecoms such as Smart which single-handedly upped PLDT profits by 600%. Our inside sources tell us that 95% of PLDT’s windfall comes from Smart, and we have clearly no reason to question that. Untaxed and practically unregulated the telecoms such as Smart and Globe are ripping the shirts of the people. The telecoms lobbied and got exempted from the EVAT, but which if implemented would have had less adverse impact that the EVAT on oil and power; but Pangilinan and Ayala were prime Edsa Dos movers.

Maceda is still correct about the oil company windfalls, they are unconscionable; but the telecoms have been worse. Their combine windfall profits if taken as taxes for government to reduce the deficit would have been substantial, maybe amounting to twenty-billion pesos. That’s almost as much as we would save if we closed the House of Representatives and Joe de Venecia, and just about the same amount saved if we took Gloria out of Malacañang who’s asking for P 25-B pork barrel for herself (not counting the other billions more along the other budget lines).

As many have been predicting, the EVAT will make Philippine power cost the highest in Asia. It’s been the second highest since the EPIRA and the PPA raised it since 2002, combined with fuel costs rising on EVAT it is clear the country’s business competitiveness will fall. As well all should know by now, the only cheering squad Gloria has for the EVAT is the World Bank – because all of the new revenues squeezed from the stone will go to debt. Not even Joey Salceda has been able to fully endorse the EVAT today.

We’d like to point out an alternative scenario involving the issue of debt, Argentina was heavily laden with debt until it defaulted in 2002. It suffered for a year and a half, but just this past quarter its economy grew by 10.1% - averaging through the past around 8% and looking forward to end year of over 9% growth on growing demand for its agricultural exports. The best Gloria can hope for is 4.5% and with all the window dressing she can do, and hope that the OFW funds will grow (despite the social costs). Impoverishment is what Gloria and the World Bank model offer.

With increasing economic oppression comes naturally increasing fascist repressiveness; as Frank Sinatra might say, that will go together like horse and carriage. The marriage of corporate exploitation and police-state repression is an old romance story, they produced Mussolini and Hitler and George W. Bush who’s trying to lead a global revival. This is not the same as that of China where the State is repressive in the interest of the popular welfare, although the dangers are there (as the Communist Party absorbs big Chinese capitalists) today of contagion from corporate America and Europe.

Under the present state of affairs, the corporations will get richer and the people poorer. If this is not changed then society will wither as the corporations inevitably take out wealth to more robust countries and abandons the increasingly impoverished domestic market. That is why it is imperative for the people, the masa and the middle classes to act now to reverse the trend towards corporate-political fascism and restore the power of the people – under the present circumstances only a reinvigorated FREEDOM movement can guarantee this.

FREEDOM is an acronym that responds to the crying need of the hour: freedom from hunger, freedom from oppression, freedom from political persecution, and freedom from economic bondage. Our crises lie there in the initials of HOPE we seek: H-unger, O-ppression, Political persecution and Economic bondage. To achieve this we must, however, attain one final FREEDOM: Free and Restore Erap Estrada for Democracy and Order Movement. We will never be able to restore the democratic general welfare if we can not even admit the error of violating it in 2001 in the first place, and the despoilers of our Constitution will continue to run roughshod over it until chastised by the public.

The alternatives proposed to FREEDOM is summed up in the existence of the Black and White movement which tactically feigns dislike for Noli de Castro but actually is supporting that status quo option. Remember, Black and White is supporting the EVAT and it members are the “working group” of the World Bank in the Philippines, its NGOs and consultants. Only Erap has a workable Blueprint to reconstruct Philippine society for the General Welfare, and he has the power to accomplish this. That is why he is kept incommunicado from the people today, because they know Erap can free the country.

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