Will Metro-Manila burn?

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
11/16/2005



We have seen Paris burning, a conflagration sparked by poverty and discrimination afflicting the socially alienated angry immigrants there. It threatens to spill over to other countries: Italy, Germany, Belgium. It has been spreading for what seems like a month now, and has be difficult to control. Through the media it, so to speak, catches fire; so much so that French media authorities are considering the stopping of airing of reports of car burnings and riots. It is clear the root cause is poverty and social alienation, my question now is: Will Metro-Manila follow?

In Metro-Manila poverty as well as social alienation, i.e. the total severance, separation or disconnection of the poor from the mainstream of society, is obviously much worse than any country in Europe. The evidence is clearest when one goes out to the streets in the wee hours of the morning to see the little clumps of humanity, urban nomadic families of the poor, scattered along side streets and walks sleeping and doing their morning rituals right there. I see such a sight every day that I job at five in the morning along Pioneer St. in Mandaluyong.

For some of the largest colonies of such urban urchins one can go to the river side behind the Echague bridge, at the back of the market where not only “taong grasa” (Pilipino equivalent for the homeless or vagabonds) but “mga pamilyang grasa” live. These are permanent colonies, but there are literally thousands of nomadic urban poor who roam around setting up their temporary kariton camps and carton tents with children, mater and pater de familia, a few pots and pans, to sleep overnight in one or another out of the way street or corner of Metro-Manila.

What if these alienated Filipino urban nomads were to get the idea, or somebody put the idea to into their heads, to be as angry as the enraged immigrant poor of Paris. What if somebody inspires them to rise out of their stupor and discover the latent rage that could turn them into the urban nomadic versions of Genghis Khan to rampage suddenly through the streets of Metro-Manila one cold and dark early morning, to smash windows of stores or 7-11’s, stores and malls that they may finally access the cornucopia of society’s consumption goods denied them today completely.

I can indeed see Metro-Manila burning some day as the deterioration of the economic conditions accelerates. No amount of Gloria’s fancy lies, like that arrogant “I told you so” about the rise of the Peso in recent days allegedly to her implementation of the EVAT. I wrote in my last column that $ 2-B in speculative funds, hot money, entered the country the past month registering an eightfold increase of such funds into the stock market compared to the same period last year. Then the day after that piece came out the business pages report that “profit-taking” was seen to start lowering the market.

“Profit taking”, that term summarizes the essence of “hot money”, a.k.a. portfolio funds, that enters a market in such huge quantities as to create a spike; and after the locals jump into the bandwagon suddenly pull out, taking out profit and leaving the market in the doldrums again. When Gloria gofer Joey Salcedo tried yesterday to show financial savvy by saying that Gloria should not celebrate the rise of the Peso because it is due to OFW money he is also wrong; OFW money cannot rise by eightfold in a month’s time.

There was “hot money” that flowed in and clearly a lot of it went into the stock market that showed a simultaneous rise with the Peso, but now that “profit taking” has commenced the business pages are already reporting the decline again of the market. The fall of the Peso has not been abrupt yet, this is due to the seasonal Christmas inflow of OFW money; but by February next year the effects of the Christmas “send home” would have already complete been spent and the drastic fall will begin. A cousin who’s a top honcho at an international bank confirmed this.

The consequence of that currency rate projection of a continuation of the fall of the Peso early next year is that the currency players will start betting against the Peso. We were discussing this at the final night of my mother’s wake. I didn’t have to go far to confirm the projection, for as soon as my cousin explained his bank’s assessment a number of my moneyed brothers had already decided to buy some dollar futures betting that the Peso will fall again. No everybody can join the game, however, because it requires a minimum of a hundred thousand dollars to join.

Who can have that much money to join in the currency game and benefit from the fluctuations and Peso fall? In that sense too, the vast majority of Filipinos including the middle class, are alienated and victimized by the system that condemns their savings in Peso to be devalued while they helplessly watch at the sideline. Will the middle class someday join, or maybe they may even lead, the burning of Metro-Manila as their alienation also grows too? I can see Metro-Manila burning someday, too, just like the moon rises in Paris.

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