Hypocrisies

CRITIC'S CRITIC
Mentong Laurel
5/3/2011



As I start this column on a new, advanced deadline again, I heard DWIZ’s “Mambobola” interview of DOTC Secretary Jose “Ping” de Jesuson the issues of the toll ways, airports and the “overcapacity” of the MRT/LRT that is causing so much woe to the riding public.

This interview was one reason why I decided to title our column or this week “Hypocrisies” to point out the almost endless pretenses and insincerity of much of our media criticisms of the goings-on in our Philippine polity.

The “mambobolas” were very critical of the sky-high rate increases in the toll ways just before “Ping” de Jesus came on the air, which suited me very well as one of the public victims of these highway robberies of privatized toll ways; but when Ping de Jesus came on air the “mambobolas” became deferential. Is this because Ping de Jesus hosts a weekly expensive breakfast for media at a Morato restaurant every Thursday morning?

The Truth about Ping
The truth about Ping de Jesus is that this so-called public executive is not a public executive at all but a gofer for the oligarchs, an financial avatar of the Lopezes most of his life doing the dirty economic war for them against the welfare of the Filipino people.

De Jesus was the hatchet man of the Lopezes too when the family controlled the Manila North Tollway Corp. (MNTC) when it ran the NLEX. I wrote exposing the toll fare abuse of the MNTC and fought alongside many NGOs against the exorbitant exploitation by the Lopezes whom I tagged as “velociraptors”. My other newspaper employer was slapped with a P100-M case in court filed by MNTC which lawyers said cost MNTC P 1-M in filing fee.

When the court called for mediation it was De Jesus who represented MNTC.

At one meeting, I stared down at De Jesus and castigated him for being a tool of exploitation, and I said I wouldn’t yield even if they put me in jail. I did eventually compromise for the sake of the newspaper but my disdain for the gofer hasn’t changed since.

The Public Subsidizes
De Jesus dwelt on the improvements at the toll ways without being made to respond to the issue of unjust sky high toll rates. On the NAIA’s stinking toilets, he went on to say they’ve been improved in preparation for the “open sky”. His answer to the MRT/LRT “over-capacity”, when he really meant “overloading”, is privatization of the MRT/LRT – but isn’t this where the MRT came from that ended with the public subsidizing the capital and profits of the “investors” while government and commuters have been exploited?

The privatized MRT was then reverted to government with funds from DBP and Land- Bank. Now, they will privatize it again, along with the LRT and the Mega Tren?

Albert Einstein said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." That’s what De Jesus is going to do, privatize MRT/LRT/Mega Tren again and expecting a result other than bilking of government and commuters. De Jesus, “bolahin mo ang lelong mo.”

Critiques of critics' columns, day-by-day:
April 19, Manila Times; Ernesto Herrera, “Firms can afford to pay higher minimum wage”. Former senator Herrera doesn’t know what he’s talking about. According to OpinYon labor writer Dave Diwa, 98% of the 900,000 business enterprises in the Philippines are small and medium enterprises (SMEs) employing a dozen or so workers and mostly marginalized. Big firms like SMC and Meralco are beyond the minimum wage. SMEs will be forced to stop hiring or retrench. Jobs will be even harder for the jobless.

Herrera is a mere labor aristocrat, never knew what generating employment is about. Instead of playing up to the throng he should have helped improve the economic environment, like help cut power rates.

In the same newspaper, Dr. Dante Ang’s “Moral revolution from the top”, Ang should firstget his hands off of PCSO’s advertising funds as PR agent and get as much as 40% commissions. Manoling Morato says the PCSO never had a PR as it has an in-house media bureau.

Self-rated Poverty
Again, in the same newspaper and same date, Arroyo factotum Gary Olivar, in his column, “Progress” stated that “Mrs. Arroyo brought down self-rated poverty to an average of 55 percent during her term, down from the time of Presidents Cory Aquino (63.4 percent), Fidel Ramos (62.2 percent), and Joseph Estrada (59.6 percent).”

From the one doing the survey himself, Mahar Mangahas, in 2009 Inquirer column of his: “The highly alarming economic trend shown by the SWS surveys is that hunger quadrupled in the last six years — from 5 percent in 2003 to 20 percent in June 2009.”

In 2010 report in his own newspaper, Manila Times came out with this report: “SWS said the hunger problem has affected more than 20% of Filipino families for the past three quarters. It hit a record-high 24% in December 2009, dipped slightly to 21.2% in March, and is now at 21.1% in June.” That was just the end of Arroyo and Gary Olivar’s stint in Malacañang.

A Controlled Economy
On April 19, this item circulated : “Top economists warn vs ‘populist measures’ citing The Foundation for Economic Freedom’s (FEF) criticisms “… special exemption … from VAT, … oil price stabilization fund, …price controls,…” and trumpeting the “ … tenets of the Oil Deregulation Law … truly competitive market, stimulating private investments, freeing up the government and taxpayers of costly oil subsidies…”

Can they tell that to Chinese economic managers who propelled their economy to # 2 in the world through heavy economic protectionism and social welfarism?

I just finished the book “The Party… the secret world of China’s communist rulers” by Richard McGregor who writes that China is clearly State-led and a controlled economy.

The FEF, namely Sicat, De Ocampo, Medalla, Canlas, Leung, Fabella, Bernardo, Lotilla Balisacan, and advisers Virata and Mon del Rosario as Big Business apologists and gofers are all beneficiaries of the liberal economy while the people have become ever poorer.

Without Critical Thinking
April 26, Framework -- By Elfren Sicangco Cruz, “100 tyrants” in a review of the book “TYRANTS: History’s 100 Most Evil Despots & Dictators (2004) by Nigel Cawthorne and includes, as No. 86, Ferdinand E. Marcos of the Philippines.

Cruz reviews the book without any critical thinking, reproducing everything written by this Western political hack without spotting the basic flaw, Cawthorne never brings up the US tyrants who have invaded small Third World countries since its inception as a colonial and imperial power, including the grab of the Philippines islands, invasion of South American countries, the Vietnam War, Iraq, Afghanistan, ad infinitum and maintaining 800 US military bases all over the world today.

Elfren Cruz is a professor of Strategic Management at the De La Salle University. When he faces my son who is a student there, he’ll get a drubbing from the questions on this professor’s naiveté or hypocrisy.

Again, I have run out of space – so tune in to Radyo OpinYon and join us there daily.

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