More Lite but not Funny Moments

YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
9/29-10/1/2011



Trying too hard to write both a “Regular” and a “Lite” column every week is getting into my head. I dread the day I have to write for an OpinYon “Zero” edition or issue too. Last night (Friday, September 23, as I write this Lite column on a Saturday, the 24th and the 39th anniversary of our realizing that the Philippines was in a state of martial law.), we celebrated the birthday of an old but now deceased friend.

It was providential that our deceased friend’s only brother, Mel, was arriving from the Visayas the day before his brother’s birthday. Their only sister, Ging and he and I just cooked up the instant last minute party the day before. That put me to work texting last minute invitations. However, not withstanding the fact that I kept on texting for the better part of two days, I completely forgot to include my friend among those comrades, friends and relatives who were born or died in the month of September. I listed them down at the end of my regular column for last Monday to Wednesday’s OpinYon issue.

We were an even dozen who did the celebrating. If the celebrant had come, he would have been the thirteenth participant and the Christ. It would not have been out of place at all for him to come. The venue was our 85-year old country home on Balete Drive in New Manila. It is the favourite venue of the major television networks and stations to seek out and interview the white lady of Balete Drive during Halloween week as well as the Chinese Ghost Month of August.

True Blue Eagle
Our old friend and now hopefully one of the friendly ghosts and unknown and unnamed saints in heaven is or was Emmanuel Eduria Cruz. Manny, as we all called him, died on January 19, 2008 at the age of 62. He was buried at the Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina Valley. He spent a fourth to a third of his life on the hill above his final resting place. That hill is Loyola Heights, the home of the Blue Eagles and the Ateneo de Manila University, from PrepSchool, Primary and Intermediate Grade School, High School, College and all the way to Graduate School. The only Ateneo that was never there was the College of Law and, maybe, the Graduate School of Business.

Manny was born on September 23, 1945. As I said above, he has a sister, Ging, and a brother, Mel. He went to Primary Grade School at the Ateneo de Cagayan. He transferred to the Ateneo de Manila for his Intermediate Grade School, High School and College. He took up Behavioral Sciences at the College of Arts and Sciences. He took some classes and courses at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. I doubt though that he completed a Master’sDegree. While studying, he was a Prefect at the Cervini Residence Hall.

Governor and Congressman
He was the son of Indalicia Eduria Cruz and Ignacio Salcedo Cruz. His father was the first appointed governor of Misamis Oriental. He also became the congressman of Misamis Oriental for the Third Congress.

By recent standards, Gov. and Cong. Cruz must have been clean, honest and straight. They lived in a simple apartment near Pureza St. in Santa Mesa, Manila and a house on Ermin Garcia St. in Cubao, QC. They commuted to school and even when they had graduated and had their independent means of livelihood, they used simple, old model vehicles.The insides of their homes, including those of their in-laws, were strictly middle class. What this all redounded to was that Manny, like those of us in his circle, was usually unelectable, outside the political mainstream and even more so, outside the corridors of power.

Manny was a very serious person who espoused serious causes. However, he looked like the Pinoy version of Sad Sack, the cartoon character who was a buck private US Army soldier. We first met during the summer vacation of 1966. I joined the Ateneo Air Force ROTC. Since I wanted to become a cadet officer, I joined the Summer Officers Training School. We must have been at least 50 juniors and 50 seniors. Even the cadet sergeants who served as squad leaders were graduates of the summer troop school. I became the Corps Commander for the second semester of my senior year [1965- 66] in high school.

The Four Freshmen
In freshman college we were only four: future Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Coronado Corona, future Supreme Court Justice Mariano “Jeff” or “Marian” del Castillo, maverick “par excellence” Manuel Datu “MD” Kellog Rebueno and I. We reported for the summer training at 8 am on a Monday in late March or early April of 1966. All except one of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Class Cadet Officers were present and in complete Air Force grey uniform.

The Corps (Wing) Commander was AFROTC Cadet Col. and future PAF Col. Vicente “Vic” Bunuan III. After checking our attendance and identities, we were given a short briefing and asked to go home to get our beddings and come back at 5 pm. We were supposed to be billeted at the Ateneo Big Blue Eagle Gym during the training.

When we reported back early and looked for our instructors in the office as well as the sleeping quarters, none of those we had met in the morning except for my fellow freshmen were there. We did see a fellow in blue pajamas who looked more like a janitor sleeping in one of the bunks. When he woke up he started to order us around but none of us would pay attention to him until the other senior cadet officers arrived and repeated his orders to us. He was the “Manny” Cruz.

He had been an AFPMT cadet officer three years ahead of me. At that time there had been a whiff of corruption on the part of the PAF instructors who were non-commissioned officers. Aside from selling passing marks, they were also guilty of short deliveries and overpricing in regards to uniforms. Somebody stole half of the payment for the uniforms of the cadets. Therefore, the supplier delivered half the number required. Manny solved the problem by giving half of the cadets, shirts and the other half, trousers. When it came to the Pershing caps for cadet officers, he gave half of them caps and the other half the plastic shower caps that were supposed to be worn over the caps in case of rain. What a sight that must have been! Only in the Philippines with Manny Cruz!

Happy Birthday, Ray
Sorry! We have run out of space. We will continue our story about Manny as well as other Lite stories about:

• Chino Roces’ birthday;
• Traveling with Miriam;
• The Italian buffet breakfast;
• The last time I was in Rome;
• Germany with Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and Anarchists;
• Ambassador to Norway;
• My tummy saved me;
• Three surrenders!
• The girl who confessed for her friend;
• Recycling a story several times over; And by the way Happy Birthday today, Thursday, Sept. 29, to our Publisher, Ray Junia!

Our energy ‘Sputnik’ moment

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
9/30/2011



As the nation is rising up against the control and abuse of the oligarchs and their captured energy regulators, we — the original and decades-long anti-power price gouging crusaders — gladly welcome the recent clamor from various business and labor groups calling government to immediately curtail electricity price hikes. Foremost among their demands is a return to the old 12-percent Return-on-Rate Base (RoRB) from the current 15.8-percent Performance Based Regulation (PBR) pricing formula concocted by the ERC (Energy Regulatory Commission) and Meralco (Manila Electric Co.).

Since this clamor must attain broad participation from the people, a national electricity summit should be called to set forth the demands addressed directly to Malacañang. At the same time, some dramatic demonstration of the resolve must be made, such as holding a vigil in front of Malacañang — not the ERC or Meralco — where there ought to be no let-up until a return to the RoRB is achieved. It is, after all, best to strike while the nation is hot under the collar versus the PBR.

But it’s also time to alert everyone on a related matter that is of strategic importance. Competition for traditional energy sources has, for all intents and purposes, reached it peak. From the sands of the Libyan desert stretching across the whole of northern Africa, down to our very own Mindanao and Sulu Sea, all the way up to the northernmost tip of the Earth where advanced countries are all staking claims to the Arctic’s submarine energy stores, the race is definitely on.

Sadly, unless there is a change of direction in our country’s mendicant politics, whatever resources lie within the Philippine territory are going to be ceded to foreign powers and interests. And this is one thing our people have to sort out eventually if they are to gain control of our nation’s wealth.

Fortunately, there is another level at which we Filipinos can break ground to establish strategic energy sourcing and stability.

When the vision of some political blocs inspired by business proposals from foreign nuclear energy companies like Kepco (Korea Electric Power Corp.) and their financiers to revive the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) collapsed in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the myopia that was really behind it became immediately evident. Proponents of the BNPP revival simply never understood energy and nuclear issues. They saw only the money angle and, in the best tradition of oligarchic politics, sought to take advantage of government money to fund a foreign-instigated proposition.

And when Fukushima happened, they folded and ran with the tail between their legs, offering no alternative to the long-term energy problem they say needs solving. But, thanks to UP physicist and technology guru Dr. Roger Posadas, what we have is an opportunity for a real-long term solution — still with nuclear energy.

While we were scheduling a cable TV discussion on energy, Dr. Posadas brought to our attention the Philippines’ own capability of mastering the thorium cycle. He says that we can build thorium reactors to produce energy at a vastly safer level and lower cost factor than uranium reactors. To top it all, he says (and this is confirmed by many studies) that the Philippines has its own abundant thorium resources in Palawan’s monazite deposits.

Excitement over thorium around the world is palpable. In this Forbes article by William Pentland (“Is Thorium the Biggest Energy Breakthrough Since Fire? Possibly”), it says: “Thorium is more abundant than uranium in the Earth’s crust. The world has an estimated 4.4 million tons of total known and estimated thorium resources, according to the International Atomic Energy Association’s 2007 Red Book.”

But, aside from availability, thorium does not allow weapons grade by-products.

From The Energy Collective of “the world’s best thinkers on energy and climate,” comes this Aug. 23 report (“Indian and Chinese Development, Nonproliferation and Thorium”): “By the middle of the 21st Century the combined economic power of India and China will be so great… (And since they) appear committed to developing a thorium nuclear fuel cycle… it would (seem) rational that they both do so.”

India and China are, in fact, planning thorium reactors not by the units but by the dozens each.

In a recent article by climate watcher Anthony Watts (“China announces thorium reactor energy program, Obama still dwelling on ‘Sputnik moments’”), the writer chastises US President Barack Obama, telling him, “This isn’t a ‘Sputnik moment,’ Mr. President, it’s a ‘shit or get off the pot’ moment for US energy policy… Perhaps (China’s) announcement will be the embarrassment like Sputnik for the US government that will compel them to finally do something about our energy future besides tilt at windmills.”

As I am exasperated with this country’s pathological myopia toward nuclear energy (and other real baseload energy sources), I have tried to limit the debate to the decade-old outrage that is the Epira (Electric Power Industry Reform Act) and its massive price gouging on consumers. However, over and above taking deliberate action, such as that proposed vigil or maybe even an indefinite hunger strike, I believe that foresight and concern for our children’s future should also lead us to discuss strategic alternatives. In doing so, we will expose (and hopefully obliterate) the selfish shortsightedness of the ruling elite that destroys our nation’s economic fiber. Thus, to kick things off, I’m proposing a “Thorium Energy Summit” that will call on our scientists and other concerned sectors to share knowledge and insights in the run-up to our own “Sputnik” moment.

(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8 on “ERC-Meralco Conspiracies?” with former Mayor Jun Simon and power industry expert and entrepreneur Jojo Borja; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)

One time, big time? We were bigger before

YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
9/26-28/2011



Last Monday, September 19, PISTON kicked off its transport strike. Initially, this had been billed as the so called, “One Time, Big Time!” National Transport Strike. That was when it appeared like everybody in the land transport sector would be joining the impending strike. That was before P-Noy called the leaders to a meeting at the Palace two weeks ago.

After that meeting, PISTON was left alone in its determination to push through with the strike on its original date, Monday, the 19th of September. As usual, the strike appeared to have fizzled out. That is, in so far as the National Capital Region, Metro Manila, was concerned.

In the provinces, in the places were PISTON was strong, the strike had its impact. Otherwise, the strike was not felt.

PISTON is identified with BAYAN, KMU, ANAKBAYAN and other so called Leftist Organizations. The perception of the general public is that the Left will always rally or strike no matter what. The idea of one big strike was partly designed to dispel the perception that this was just one of those leftist activities. Except on the occasion of Labor Day and the SONA, the Left cannot by itself and without a broader coalition, organize a rally that will be perceived as big enough.

Militant Transport Groups
In the almost three years between the start of the First Quarter Storm and the imposition of Martial Law on September 21-23/24, the situation of the transport sector was quite different. The militant and strike capable transport organizations were not dominated by the Left. There were three major organizations of Jeepney Drivers and Operators. They were MAPAGSAT (GlicerioGervero), PasangMasda and PCDO. There was a new organization of Taxi Drivers called MASTADA. The organizations of taxi operators were also active. The big operators like My and Yellow Taxi were active. The name of an owner that I can recall is the Zamora family.

I belonged to a Jesuit inspired, moderate youth and student organization called KASAPI. KASAPI stood for “Kapulungan ng mga Sandiganng Pilipinas”. Sandigan stood for “pillars” or “sectors”. That meant that we were organizing by sectors.

We were designed to compete with the Left, so we, together with our non-Leftist allies, called ourselves the Democratic Left. We were known as the Moderates while the Leftists were the Radicals. Later on, we would describe ourselves as either Democratic Socialists or Social Democrats.

We had internal committees or modules that were assigned to work in particular sectors of society and with particular individuals and organizations. This was line organizing work.

We also had staff modules that were supposed to perform particular functions. Among the Democratic Left or Moderates, KASAPI was the closest in structure and style to the Communists and National Democrats. We were also the least anti-com among our ranks of Moderates. The most anti-communist as early as then was the Hasik Kalayaan of Archie and Bert. Our most prominent personality who converted to the Left was Edgar Jopson.

Jesuit-inspired Moderates
Our transport module was headed by Rey Andal of Pinamalayan, Mindoro Oriental, Tess Villapando (later on the faithful secretary of Fr. Jose Blanco), Paps Baskinas of Legaspi, Albay, Bicol and Dante Perez of Batangas, among others. Aside from being the full time working members of the committee, they had organized and were the leaders of SKIT. SKIT means Samahanng Kabataan sa Ikauunlad ng Tsuper. In supporting the jeepney drivers, SKIT was assisted by the mother organization KASAPI and sister line or mass organizations like Kampi (Labor), Masa (College) and SPL (High School-RicManapat, Marissa Camacho and Karen Tanada. They were supported by staff organizations like KKPI (Mon Garcia, Jojo Deles). Future Senator and Governor Joey Lina was the KASAPI spokesman.

KASAPI and SKIT were moderate organizations. We had been inspired by Jesuit Missionary to Indonesia Fr. Jose Blanco, S. J. and Ateneo History Professor Rolando Quintos. We were aligned with former Senator Raul S. Manglapus who organized the Christian Social Movement in 1967 or 68. He had run as a senator in 1957 (Party for Philippine Progress or Progressive Party of the Philippinea), 1959 (Grand Alliance) and 1961 (United Opposition Party, which was a political coalition for the 1961 Presidential Elections composed of the Liberal Party [w 1957-1961 Vice President DiosdadoMacapagal as the common Presidential Candidate] and the PPP and GA [w former Senatorial Candidate Emmanuel Pelaez as the common Vice Presidential Candidate]).

In the year before Marcos declared Martial Law, KASAPI was part of a wider progressive political alliance that would be launched as the Kapisanan ng mga Anak pawis ng Pilipinas (KAP). KAP was composed of heavyweights like the CSM (Raul S. Manglapus, Joe Concepcion and Buti Jose), FFF Atty. JeremiasMontemayor, Charlie Avila, Gerry Bulatao, Gerry Esguerra), FFW (Johnny Tan), PAFLU (Cipriano Cid), Philcontu (later on the TUCP=Democrito Mendoza and Ed Nolasco).

Militant Genuine Driver
The then young weights were Buklod Kalayaan (Edgar Jopson), HasikKalayaan (Fr. Archie Intengan, S. J. and Bert Gonzales),KASAPI (Linggoy and Mentong, Joey Lina and Jun Simon), Lakasdiwa (Fr. Ed Garcia, DodieLimcaoco), YCSP (Art Valdez and Ben Maynigo), YCW and others pa rin.

Going back to our starting topic, the “One Time, Big Time!”, we were bigger then. We exercised a bigger and wider influence in the transport sector than the Left. They had a front organization of jeepney drivers and operators. It was not PISTON yet. The jeepney sector was geographical or territorial by route. There were often several competing route level organizations. The big federations competed in recruiting these to affiliate with them.

The newest, most democratic and militant was the MAPAGSAT under Glicerio Gervero. Gervi was a genuine driver unlike the leaders of the Pasang Masda (the brothers Lazaro, one of whom was a lawyer) and the PCDO (Mr.Boni de Luna). We were very closely allied with them and supported them in whatever way we could. However, we understood that we did not have a majority of the players in MAPAGSAT and so we cultivated alliances with them as well as the Left.

The main issue then was the rising price of fuel. This may have been an effect of the Six Day Arab-Israeli War of June 1967. We inspired and supported several bigger than the present strikes. How come we could be bigger then? Simple; in the jeepney sub sector, we got the majority of the federations, route organizations and players together. We got a critical mass of big taxi operators to support the strike with money as well as by keeping their fleets in their garages.

Coerced Bus Sector
The bus sub-sector we simply coerced. With the majority of not only jeepney drivers but also their respective operators on strike, the streets would immediately look different from a regular day. There would be hundreds of striking drivers supported by hundreds of activists at the main intersections and LGU boundaries. If the bus operators insisted on sending their fleets to ply their routes, we would simply burn a couple of them right at the start of the strike.

When the government put armed soldiers aboard the buses, we peppered them with stink bombs made from human shit.

Our smallest “Terrorist” was Dodie Garduce, a member of SPL, our high school student organization. She was deadly with a big screwdriver against the Lawanit Board bus bodies that were popular then. She was the daughter of future Samar Congressman Garduce. She would become the wife of Popoy Lagman. She would die in the field when she and Popoy were cornered by government soldiers in Nueva Ecija. Popoy would survive and later on lead the splitting of the Left into Affirmists and Rejectionists.

Remember in September
In closing, please remember the following who were born or who died in September:

Sept 20 – Edgar Jopson’s (1970 NUSP president and as Marcos said on January 30, 1970, “The son of a grocer, Jopson’s in Sampaloc, Manila.) 40th Death Anniversary;

Sept 21 – Fr. Francisco Zaragoza Araneta, S. J.’s Birthday. He was the President of the Ateneo de Manila University twice, adviser of the CSM and Manglapus and friend and supporter of KASAPI and the Jeepney strikers. We used his Rizal Room office at the Ateneo Padre Faura campus as our HQ;

Sept 29 – Ray Junia’s Birthday. If he did not publish OpinYon, a lot of the history that I know will not get written and published;

Sept 24 – my paternal cousin, Sebastian “Basty’ Alcuaz Munoa’s birthday. He worked for ESSO, the predecessor with Mobil of Petron, but he never took me to task for fighting the oil companies. My brother-in-law, Roberto Lim, worked for Shell;

Sept 27– Our Ateneo High School Honors Class 4 A will hold a reunion in honor of our home room teacher, Fr. Herbert Schnieder (as in Romy),S. J. who celebrated his 75th birthday last March 25. Next year he marks his 50th year either as a Jesuit or in the Philippines.

Priorities

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
9/26/2011



Upon Aquino III’s return from his visit to the US of A, numerous local mainstream newspapers emblazoned the growing critical outspokenness of even the most conservative sectors in Philippine society. The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industries (PCCI); the Philippine Steelmakers Association (PSA); the Philippine Exporters Confederation (PhilExport); UP National Engineering Center; the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), including the Associated Labor Union; and, ironically a group that advocated privatization of the power industry, the Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF), spoke out on one major issue: The Philippines’ highest power cost in Asia. In a joint statement, they bewailed the fact that “there appears to be no specific and strong action program or roadmap coming from the executive department” to address the current power rate crisis.

TUCP Party-list Rep. Democrito Mendoza, not always the most assertive labor leader, worked up the courage to state: “We ask the Aquino administration to bring power rates down” — this, as the chief operating officer of PhilExport, citing figures from the Department of Energy (DoE) on RP’s power rates at 24 US cents per kilowatthour compared to Thailand and Malaysia’s eight and seven US cents per kwh, respectively, added that it is “the biggest disincentive to the entry of new foreign direct investors to our shores.”

More pointedly, the ALU’s Gerard Seno demanded that Aquino III “make the necessary bold policy interventions… including the suspension and review of all pending power rate increase petitions in the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC),” with Mendoza calling for the scrapping of the 15.8-percent “Performance-Based Rate” (PBR) formula and the restoration of the 12-percent Return on Rate Base (RoRB) price setting mechanism by the ERC, adding that high power rates eat up as much as 11 percent of workers’ income.

Power company director Jojo Borja of Iligan Light, who has been helping us in our fight against the ERC and Meralco (Manila Electric Co.) with documented evidence of the latter’s overpricing, called me to highlight these headlines with enthusiasm, while expressing frustration over the wishy-washy stance of many so-called business leaders. Raul Concepcion, for instance, whom he has sought out for help against the ERC and power companies’ abuses and provided with all the hard evidence, given the former’s leadership of the Oil Price Watch, a supposed consumer protection watchdog that often publishes comments on electricity rates, has sadly only given lip service. This is precisely why Borja stresses that consumers themselves must keep up the pressure.

Still, we should all be happy that the aforementioned groups are now speaking out more boldly, even as they are still short of taking legal and demonstrative actions such as pickets and rallies — maybe even “planking” at Meralco to force the issue further.

As vital as the power price crisis issue is, the other headline that came out of Aquino III’s US trip was his “buko” (coco water) discovery, as if it were a new and fantastic development from his tête-à-tête with Obama.

Readers of this column know that for the past two years, we have promoted the coconut industry as a definitive economic lifesaver for the country. From the development of coco water, to coconut milk as replacement for imported dairy that will save us $1 billion in imports regularly, to coconut fiber textiles against soil erosion, to soil conditioners for many desert regions such as those in China, to high tech coco-chemicals for pharmaceutical and nutraceutical purposes, as well as for fuels and explosives, our coconuts can work wonders.

We have long reported that after commercial beverage brands Gatorade and Powerade were exposed as frauds, their manufacturers PepsiCo and Coca-Cola Co. shifted to coconut water as the base for these sports drinks.

It is enough, however, for the Aquino III government to finally realize the importance and potential of the coconut industry as a game changer for the economy. It is, after all, a sector that it had nary a care for when it appointed a small-time Quezon province lawyer who is ignorant of the coconut industry to head the Philippine Coconut Authority.

Among the coconut’s many applications, which we have enumerated in previous columns, there is also a product from it that will not only help the economy but those infirmed in old age with dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s. Scientific tests reveal that “monolaurin” from virgin coconut oil (VCO) reverses this scourge of the world’s aging population.

But one does not need to be at risk for Alzheimer’s to understand that unless government wakes up to its perilous neglect of the coconut sector, the once 500-million strong coconut tree population that has been reduced to 300 million today may soon no longer provide the miracles it is touted for. From being the top coconut products producer, the Philippines has now been overtaken by Indonesia, with India fast catching up.

The government of Aquino III has been going around in circles with its Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects (that have been delayed for another year) and its expensive Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program, with all sorts of rationalizations from foreign case studies (such as from Mexico, now reeling in macro-economic decay and drug-induced anarchy) citing upticks in child nutrition based on doleouts that do not increase a country’s economic viability.

In the power and coconut industry sectors, Aquino III can resort to ready-made high impact projects that can turn around the economy in both the near and medium term. With drastic power rate cuts, the people’s economic hardship will be reduced in as short as a few months’ time. With a crash diversification program for the coconut industry, a bountiful harvest will be reaped in two to three years. Aquino III should therefore set these two as his government’s priorities over and above the prevailing programs that have been proven to be serious duds.

(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8 on “ERC-Meralco Conspiracies”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)

Who’s to save the people?

CONSUMERS DEMAND!
Herman Tiu Laurel
9/26-28/2011



Tollway expenses are set to go up this first of October. Unless some miracle happens, the cold, cold hearts of those in Malacañang acting as collectors for the Paris Club will never ever be turned. Any hope of civil disobedience to turn the tide of extraction by international “banksters” (banker-gangsters) from people’s pockets is hopeless so long as the Yellow government, in the tradition of Ninoy and Cory Aquino, is all too willing to turn the screws on citizens’ livelihoods by threatening the removal of transport operators’ franchises or drivers’ licenses.

And because this was the Achilles heel of the strike called by Piston (Pinagkaisang Samahan ng Tsuper at Opereytor Nationwide) against oil deregulation last week, we can’t really blame the drivers who turned tail. It will be better in the long run to gather all the rage for one final strike in the only action that can change tyrannical regimes: An insurrectionary rampage to replace the existing system.

We hope middle class professionals (doctors, engineers, consultants, etc.) who are now being targeted by an IMF-controlled Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) are beginning to understand the burden over-taxed masses have been under for decades.

From news reports, the official word is that the BIR simply took “its cue from the (last) State of the Nation Address of President Benigno Aquino… (when it) vowed to go after doctors, lawyers, accountants and other professionals who are not paying the right income taxes.” But the tax agency already trained its guns on lesser brained professionals (such as entertainers and the like) much earlier.

This time, however, will the supposedly higher brained doctors and lawyers take this sitting down when they know that taxes in the Philippines never redound to services and infrastructure investments for the people but are instead used to pay off debts, which the country doesn’t need? Don’t they know that taxes are only meant for massive corruption, which, in turn, is necessary to maintain a government under vassalage to the US, its allies, and their “banksters,” who operate behind the cover of a local oligarchy?

In my earlier OpinYon column dialogue with colleagues, I responded on the topic of media consolidation (see Sheila Coronel’s three-part article) by making my point that money is often followed by media. That is why in liberal-capitalist systems, media will inevitably be controlled by the oligarchy and will be antithetical to the people’s welfare, as is the case in the Philippines and much of the world today.

Coronel aptly ends her piece on the Lopezes’ SkyCable network. But do we know who really owns SkyCable? In a despedida for a very close diplomatic friend, I was informed by this diplomat that his compatriot, the right hand man of CNN’s Ted Turner, apprised him of SkyCable’s provenance as one of Turner’s Philippine holdings upon the latter’s recent visit. Judging by that cable service’s channel line-up, one can already see a preponderance of Turner properties, which is another proof that control of Philippine media by foreign interests is largely behind the scenes. Only Destiny Cable has a news channel (Global News Network) that carries RT (Russia Today), which Hillary Clinton revealed in a March 2011 US Senate hearing that her country might lose an information war against.

In that same dialogue, I wanted to tie in the Electric Power Industry R(d)eform Act (EPIRA), climate change, health, and the Agham party list articles to one central issue. The EPIRA, our colleague Bernie Lopez explained, was really written by the IMF-World Bank and rammed down the Philippine government’s throat in exchange for a $300-million loan; but it could only be passed if the Estrada administration was out of the way as the “Ama ng Masa” didn’t approve of sovereign guarantees which all energy privatization programs entail.

The approval of the EPIRA was thus part of the mix of motives of foreign allies of the corrupt local oligarchy and political bureaucracy (including jueteng lords who opposed legalization of their game) in deposing the legitimately-elected president. Therefore, all those who were muddle-headed at Edsa Dos share part of the blame.

Meanwhile, on the issue of climate change (CC), which used to be known as anthropomorphic (i.e. manmade) global warming (AGW), the term only switched (from GW to CC) when the global warming theory suffered due to its computer modeling not squaring up with reality. This was brought about by the following: A decade of debates showing that man was never the greatest generator of carbon (the central theme of AGW) but nature itself; findings which point to the global climate as primarily driven by the sun’s activity since climate fluctuations occurred even before the Industrial Age (or the medieval warm period from 950 to 1100 AD and the Little Ice Age from 1300 to 1850 AD); the “Climate-gate” exposé in the University of East Anglia’s research unit, where leading global warming scientists faked weather data to fit the AGW theory, ad nausea; and, finally, the exposés of scams in the “carbon trading” and RE (renewable energy) programs.

Although we need to keep our environment clean, we need to be alert to the many hoaxes intended to keep the Third World exploited.

Finally, I was delighted to read Louie Montemar’s article on the Agham party-list as it showed uncommon concern for the real issues (as all his columns do) and not the superficial. I’d recommend that we all read the debate between Dr. Flor Lacanilao, retired marine biology professor, and UP Physicist and professor Dr. Roger Posadas, where the former argued that the Philippines was being left behind because it lacked investment in “basic research” while the latter lashed out, asking if Lacanilao knew anything about “the D part of R&D.”

The lack of development (or technological advancement) in the Philippines, argued Posadas, is “not because of our poor research productivity but because our political and business leaders have been brainwashed by mainstream economists into upholding the theory of comparative advantage which says that Filipinos should just import and use advanced equipment and technologies instead of trying to produce our own advanced equipment and technologies.” Thus, it means that we can and should begin on our own NOW.

From the problem of oligarchic media control to our concepts of “people power” and local approaches to global issues, the root of the problem is that we are controlled and conditioned by foreign powers or interests. He (or she) who will save this country must first be one who thinks for his- or herself and, more importantly, for this nation. And this, he or she should do without any hangover from polluted sources such as CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, Forbes, World Wildlife Fund, etc.

(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8 on “ERC-Meralco-llusions?”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)

Origin of the debt economy (Part 3)

BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
9/24-25/2011



The great educational plan swindle
The same tragedy happened with the country’s educational plans. When one ambitious wise guy in the Senate opted for the deregulation of tuition, he delivered the coup d’ grace to an already questionable usury business of paying in installments the educational plans with an assurance that by the time the children enter college, the company would take charge in paying for their tuition fees. The result unavoidably compelled private schools to increase their tuition.

The fixed cost to pay those educational plans as against the rapid increase in tuition then became the loophole to swindle the plan holders, apart from the fact that the peso was fast depreciating. Parents could not understand why the government allowed private colleges and universities to steeply increase their tuition considering that they are already enjoying tax exemption in their income and from payment in real property taxes.

For that, they were trapped in their vicious game caused by the declining number of enrollees. They have to lobby for subsidy, unmindful that public school children do not even have the luxury of seeing the roof of their school buildings repaired.

Many educational plan holders ended up holding on to nothing. It was double jeopardy, for aside from losing their money, they failed to send their children to college for want of savings to cope with the runaway hike in tuition. To this day, not one of those hustlers who deprived thousands of students of the opportunity to go to college has ever been sent to jail or least prosecuted by the government.

CDOs as debt instruments
The present monetary policy gave way to the boom in the trading of debt instruments; that like water could solidify, melt or vaporize to thin air at any given moment. The financial oligarchy then issued what the world now knows as “collateralized debt obligations”. As Matthew Bishop described the novel practice, “Issuers gain instant access to money for which they would otherwise have to wait…, and they can shed some of the risk that their expected revenue will not materialize. By selling securitized loans (CDOs), banks are able to finance their customers without tying up large amounts of capital.” “Investors can hold on to them as sort of assets, less risky than unsecured bonds, giving them risk-reducing benefits of diversification.”

However, without those unwary investors realizing it, the system of making a fast buck through the layering of debt instruments was fast metamorphosing to a much serious economic problem. The casino economy was turning into a straw economy, for practically the gullible investors were holding on to nothing, although their hustler financial advisers were figuratively telling them their CDOs kept on growing.

Alongside with the CDOs was the business of hedging commonly referred to as “hedge funds”. It is a new form of business that came out in the 1990s, which is to keep constant the value of money or to assure oneself of an anticipated income by paying a small sum to the hedger to make sure he gets the exact or higher amount he expects. The business was originally done by commodity traders because of the fluctuation in the prices of goods traded on a global scale. Despite gloomy symptomatic signs, the financial hustlers persisted because people could only see the surface of them as reeking with money.

Lately, the practice has spread out to those engaged in the trading of derivatives despite the fact that strictly speaking, they stand as phantom forms of insurance created by money traders. Derivatives trading has been blamed for the unusual bloating of assets, thus prompting financial mogul Warren Buffett to call it “the financial weapon of mass destruction.” In the world of financial instruments, contracts are the ones traded and people were made to believe they command a much higher market value. Because the trading of these debt instruments were often referred to as “securitization”, investors were made to believe that the value of those “contracts” were linked to a bundle of assets created by inscrutable banks and financial houses.

One instance of this derivative business that ballooned beyond one’s wildest imagination was the sub-prime business in the US. After its burst and to this day, the fallout of mortgage foreclosures and bankruptcy continue, beginning with the tumbling of behemoth banks and insurance and now pulling the US economy to the brink. As one observed, the US economy today is practically living on borrowed time.

Nonetheless, the US has to continue the cycle of fooling itself because its economy is now racked in debt instruments. To keep the economy from falling apart, it has to rely on huge foreign borrowings to artificially maintain the value of its currency. The golden days of high yield from debt instruments is gone because the economy has dried up and in fact been exposed as a hollow bundle of joy.

Inflation to raise revenue
As a policy, the monetarists have encouraged inflation, which resulted in an increase in the prices of goods due to over supply of money in circulation. Unfortunately, in the US as it is in the Philippines, inflation was welcomed by some deranged economists saying that an increase in the price of goods would automatically mean higher revenue for the government because of the percentage nature of taxation. That way, the government is able to increase its income without having to impose additional taxes.

Some suspect that inflation was premeditatedly carried out to offset the steep decline in revenue after the sale of government-owned and controlled corporations known as “privatization”. Its architects were so dumb to assert that privatization would result in an increase in government revenues without realizing that earnings will always remain higher than taxes, unless they confirm themselves to be insane to say that regressive taxation is good for the economy. This explains why people kept on complaining but somehow could not pin the blame on the government, for most likely, none of them realize that inflationary policy has now become the modus operandi to shortchange them.

Poor and underdeveloped countries identified as lackey states of the US have to increase the volume of money in circulation which is principally attributed to the unrealistic overvaluation of the US dollar. To hide that, the US has to pressure other countries suffering from a huge trade deficit to revalue their currency to offset the trade imbalance. The problem is the US refuses to admit that the rot is the result of their intricate addiction to the casino economy. The artificial high value of the dollar that produces nothing has wiped out many of their factories.

(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)

ERC-Meralco-llusions?

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
9/23/2011



While the country was in suspense over the turnout of the much-awaited public transport strike in the morning of Monday, Sept. 19, a dozen power consumer-crusaders trooped to the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to oppose the latest Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) petition for its Maximum Average Price (MAP) of P1.5828/kWh for the Regulatory Year 2012.

The opposition is based on several issues: 1) the findings of Mang Naro Lualhati, our 90-year-old champion who helped us win the P30.5-billion Meralco refund in 2003, that the MAP should only be P0.9039 per kWh due to P46 billion in excess capital expenditure claimed by Meralco; 2) power distributor-owner Mr. Uriel Borja’s charges of massive overpricing in Meralco’s Rate Asset Base (RAB), such as the 500-percent overprice in its transformers, the 3,000-percent overprice in its electric poles, etc.; and 3) the prior cases yet unresolved by the ERC that are prejudicial to that MAP hearing.

Dutifully, the “intervenors” (an ERC term for accredited interested parties), led by Mang Naro, Borja, and Nasecore (National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms), arrived at the ERC hearing room on the 15th floor of the Pacific Center Bldg., San Miguel Ave., Ortigas Center at 9 a.m. I was even there earlier at 7:30 a.m. to ensure a warm welcome for citizen-volunteers whom we appealed to join. This has become necessary since the last decision of the Supreme Court (SC), penned by PeNoy-appointed Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, blamed consumers for lacking the vigilance to protect their rights in denying the opposition to Meralco’s P0.29 per kWh rate increase.

Quite a handful responded to my constant appeal over radio. Cesar, a daily wage earner, came; followed by tricycle driver Oyet; and then, Richard, a college student who helps us upload materials to our blog. Ruth, a businesswoman, arrived after getting past the morning traffic; and then we saw our ever reliable civil servant, Ferdie. Much later, we were joined by Joy, a social worker, as well as Poem Gratela, the founder of Migrante.

Mang Naro, Borja and Pete Ilagan of Nasecore, along with their counsel, were already at the hearing room; and as soon as the clock struck nine, strangely, only half the hearing room was lit and the row of benches Meralco lawyers would normally fill were empty.

In a few minutes, we understood why. An ERC lady lawyer walked into the room explaining that the hearing would be held at 2 p.m. But we were sure the ERC had posted 9 a.m. on its Web site, a fact we verified again and again over three weeks. I checked the ERC’s official Web site again that very morning before I sent out my text reminders. It was clear that the hearing was scheduled at 9 a.m. Borja, who had to fly from Mindanao, also checked the ERC schedules without fail.

And while the ERC kept insisting it was always 2 p.m., pointing to its August order, it is undeniable that the change of schedule to 9 a.m. was also officially posted online since three weeks ago.

To make sure I had the evidence, I opened my laptop to take a picture or screen capture of the Web announcement; but lo and behold, it had been changed just that morning while we were waiting at the hearing room. Fortunately, one of the oppositors checked the ERC bulletin board just outside the hearing room; and there we found the evidence that incontrovertibly proves 9 a.m. as the official hearing schedule!

We showed that to the ERC lawyers and demanded a certified true copy of the document. We had to post a guard at the bulletin board for four hours before the agency issued a certified true copy and we allowed it to be taken down. After a brief huddle, the group’s lawyer drafted a motion stating our demand for Meralco to be declared in default and for the cancellation of the 2 p.m. hearing, which all of the oppositors signed and was duly received by the ERC.

The group then mulled its options: In making such a motion, would we be stopped from attending that afternoon hearing, which we were certain ERC would hold despite our protest? If we boycotted that hearing, could they declare us in default as what had happened in the previous controversial ERC and SC decision, where the public lost and Meralco won its unjustified P0.29 per kWh increase?

I called lawyers Bono Adaza and Alan Paguia for advice, and both suggested that we attend the 2 p.m. hearing to demand the dismissal of the Meralco petition for being in default and to declare the afternoon hearing as unacceptable.

But as we decided to push ahead, it also presented a few problems: Everyone had already scheduled other things. Besides, the enervation was really sapping our energies. Mang Naro felt he wanted to go home; so did the others. But it was also too much trouble getting back and forth the very bad traffic in that area.

So we decided to stay on and got some burgers and bottled water for a “camp in” at the hearing room. Borja volunteered to treat everyone and we stayed on. Most of us even took a noontime nap at the hearing room. That was until 2 p.m. when a dozen de-amerikana male and female lawyers of Meralco marched in (were they tipped off not to come at 9 a.m.?), along with an ERC hearing officer (my, those ERC commissioners are never around).

We managed to harangue the said officer to limit the hearing’s function to receiving the documents of Meralco and postponing deliberations on its merits until our demands were officially heard in a subsequent hearing. For sure, it was only a half victory for the day. We will bring the incident to court along with several other cases we are preparing. And so the struggle continues…

(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8 on “ERC-Meralco-llusions?”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)

Lite Moments Turned Sour

YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
9/22-24/2011



Some of my most embarrassing experiences have been with former, incumbent and/or future Press Secretaries.

In June of 1976, my wife, Baby, and I brought our now 40-year old eldest son, then called Peep Peep, now shortened to Pip, to the Ateneo de Manila Grade School for his first school day in Prep. Since the classroom was filled with students and their parents, and since I occupy more than the average space, I left Baby and Peep Peep inside.

Since I started out at the Ateneo, not in prep, but in grade one, I was interested in exploring the entire prep premises in order to kill time and rediscover the area of the grade school that I was the least familiar with.

Familiar Face
When I came back to the covered corridor outside my son’s classroom, I found just one solitary and young father outside the classroom.

Since he looked quite familiar to me, I approached him and greeted him with the words, “Excuse me sir, l’m Linggoy Alcuaz. Have we not met in the past?” or “Where have we met before?”

As soon as he opened his mouth to return the greeting, I knew that we had never met in person before this occasion.

I had just seen him on television before.

Specifically, I first watched him with my entire 100 % attention on Saturday, Sept 23 or 24, the first day of the implementation of Martial Law.

Martial Law
The Presidential Decree 1081 was supposedly signed on Sept 21, 1972.

Marcos was very partial to the number seven and its multiples.

However, Marcos found it advisable to wait until the Congress adjourned “sine die” on Friday night, Sept 22 or 23, before implementing the Presidential Decree.

The next day, a Saturday, the Philippines woke up to a completely different world.

The newspapers failed to arrive. There were no TV or Radio Broadcasts. There were less cars on the streets. There were less people moving about.

Our scheduled meetings, especially those in public or well-known private places were all canceled. Instead, we were setting up emergency meetings in safer places.

That whole day, the entire Philippines watched TV and listened to AM radio awaiting news regarding the imposition of martial law and the subsequent arrest of opposition figures.

Three Superstars
The whole day, there were only three superstars that could be seen on TV and heard on the radio: second termer President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, Martial Law Administrator and Secretary of National Defense Juan Ponce Enrile and Press Secretary Francisco “Kit” Tatad.

How could I not have instant recall of his face when we first met less than four years after that very impressionistic Black Saturday.

It took my two sets of senses and organs, sight and sound, eyes and ears, to recognize him.

Not even the doctors and nurses who delivered me from my mother’s womb on October 12, 1948 (My birthday!) had such a monopoly of my attention as that Unholy Trio had on that Saturday, the first whole day of what would become eight and a half or thirteen and a half years of martial law.

Marcos officially lifted Martial Law in the first quarter of 1981 in order to encourage the Pope, Paul the VIth to push through with a Papal visit to the Philippines.

However, the real effects of Martial Law would stay on until the EDSA People Power Revolution of Feb 22-25, 1986.

Changing the Rules
Some of the most important means to maintain the strangle hold on political power, were the Transitory Provisions of the 1972 Constitution.

Among other things, these gave Marcos residual powers to amend the Constitution. Therefore, he could keep on changing the rules of the game to favor him.

Fortunately, Press Secretary, later on, Senator Kit Tatad, was not imbued with an ego big enough for him to have me thrown in jail for not recognizing him instantly.

He probably thought that I was just kidding him.

The next one to figure in my list of embarrassing encounters is former Editor-in-Chief (Newsday and Chronicle), Press Undersecretary (Under President Estrada and Press Secretary Rod Reyes {My Editor-in-Chief when I wrote a column in the Manila Standard in 1986-87 as E. K. Walis.}), Press Secretary (Under GMA.) and Ambassador (First to Romania and later on to Myanmar {Burma}) Noel Cabrera.

However, since the incidents that turned sour happened during Erap’s time, I will include them in my future book of Erap anecdotes, jokes and vignettes.

The next one is Toting Bunyi, first as Mayor of Muntinglupa and second as GMA’s Press Secretary. I was the Commissioner of the NTC between March 1987 and November 1989.

This period was at the height of the coup attempts against the Cory Administration.

We Survived
When I was still a Deputy Commissioner from March 1986 to March 1987, we had survived the following attempts:

1. July 4, 1986 at the Manila Hotel - the attempted proclamation of Marcos’s Vice President, Arturo Tolentino as the President with Loyalist civilian and military support;

2. The November 1986 “God Save the Queen” coup plot that hardly took off;

3. The January 1987 take-over of the GMA TV and Radio Network at EDSA corner Timog Ave. including the studio and transmitter of its FM radio station;

4. The March 1987 premature bombing of the PMA Graduation, and

5. The 1987 Black Saturday take-over of the Philippine Army Headquarters.

As NTC Commissioner, I had to face the two bigger and more violent attempts of August 27, 1987 and December 1, 1989.

Self-reliant Me
Since I had experienced being separated from (July 4, 1986) and even being abandoned (August 27, 1987) by my Philippine Constabulary (PC)/Integrated National Police (INP) escorts, I prepared to be as self-reliant as I could be.

I accumulated an assortment of offensive and defensive gear.

My heaviest weapons were M 16’s, M14’s, Steyr SSG .308 cal. and Remington .30-06 cal. sniper rifles, M 79 and M 203 grenade launchers and Browning .30 cal. tripod mounted, air cooled machine guns.

If I had not been fired in November 1989 for publicly predicting the week-long Dec 1, 1989 coup, I would have acquired 90 mm shoulder fired and 105 mm jeep mounted recoilless rifles. The latter was actually a light cannon.

But all of these, were useless unless we knew how to fire and use them.

The only firing range in Metro Manila or the National Capital Region that was willing to accommodate my grenade launchers was the National Bilibid Prison in Muntinglupa.

Demonstrating our Weapons
One day, I was in the improvised heavy rifle range when then Mayor Toting Bunyi dropped by. Curious, he asked us to demonstrate our weapons.

All the others just had sniper rifles.

When it came to my turn, I raised my M 16 automatic rifle with a 40 mm, M 203 grenade launcher mounted below the .223 cal. barrel and fired a round.

The grenade fell and exploded beyond the crest of a neighboring hill in the midst of a herd of carabao. They immediately stampeded in all directions to the chagrin of the mayor.

I Lost, Gained Weight
The next time I met Bunyi, he was GMA’s Press Secretary at about this time of the year. It was on the occasion of the PCSO anniversary.

I was a member of the Board of Directors. Press Secretary Bunyi was in GMA’s party but had come early.

When he saw me, he greeted me and then commented that I had lost weight. He asked how I had done it.

I answered with tongue in cheek: “You see Sec, I’m very loyal to GMA. Whenever, she falls in the survey ratings, I lose weight proportionately!”

Unfortunately, when I was no longer loyal to GMA, the reverse happened. I gained weight!

A dialogue with colleagues

CONSUMERS DEMAND!
Herman Tiu Laurel
9/19-21/2011



Reading the preview of OpinYon issue # 207, I found an irresistible urge to engage my fellow columnists in a dialogue on issues that I have long been dedicated to.

As these involve consumer and people issues--topics that essentially require a great deal of counter-information against the misinformation of mainstream media -- I deemed it fit to zero in on the subject of the OpinYon piece, “Media ownership and control in the PH,” lifted from www.waccglobal.com, with the author identified simply as “Ms. Coronel,” who, it turns out, I correctly assumed to be Sheila Coronel.

Media Monopoly
All told, media ownership in the Western world and in its Asian copycat, the Philippines, has been narrowing over the past decades. From Ben H. Bagdikian’s The Media Monopoly (Beacon Press, 2000), we quote:

“In 1983, fifty corporations dominated most of every mass medium and the biggest media merger in history was a $340 million deal… In 1987, the fifty companies had shrunk to twenty-nine… In 1990, the twenty-nine had shrunk to twenty three… In 1997, the biggest firms numbered ten and involved the $19 billion Disney-ABC deal, at the time the biggest media merger ever… (In 2000) AOL Time Warner’s $350 billion merged corporation (was) more than 1,000 times larger (than the biggest deal of 1983).”

And by the end of 2006, Mother Jones reported that only 8 giant media corporations dominated US media: Disney (market value: $72.8 billion); AOL-Time Warner ($90.7 billion); Viacom ($53.9 billion); General Electric (NBC, $390.6 billion); News Corp. ($56.7 billion); Yahoo! ($40.1 billion); Microsoft ($306.8 billion); Google ($154.6 billion).

Media Oligarchs
In the Philippines, the Lopezes, Prietos, Belmontes, Yaps, Cabangon-Chuas, Duavit-Gozon-Jimenez, and Pangilinan multi-media groups (or the Philippine media oligarchy) just about dictate the kind of information, infotainment, and entertainment content going around in media.

Then, of course, there’s the inutile state-run multi-media network consisting of the PNA wires, PTV 4 (is it still called that?), and its several AM/FM radio stations.

But at best, it merely represents a worst form of partisan political news that poses no competition to the uni-dimensional private and oligarchic mainstream media.

They’re uni-dimensional because they all present only one perspective to news and information, which is counter-educational, counter-informative, and counter-development; pro-oligarchy and pro-American; hedonist-consumerist; one that drowns people with misinformation, disinformation, and endless entertainment fare of absolutely no redeeming value; and one that dumbs down the nation (relative to our Asian neighbors).

When I was teaching mass communication and journalism at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), I would advise my students to “hold their horses” when boasting of Philippine media as “the freest in Asia,” which I often qualified only as “the freest that money can buy.”

Instead, I admonished them to be humble lest they imbibe the arrogance of the profession that claims to be the “powerful Fourth Estate.”

Peasant Freer than Newsman
I tell them: “The peasant who harvests his own rice and keeps it stored for the year is freer than any journalist who has to wait for his paycheck every 15th and 20th, or the next payola from the politico, corporate media officer, or jueteng lord.”

The 40 or so gruesomely murdered media practitioners in the Ampatuan massacre case were mostly there also for some pecuniary need for their families’ sustenance or their kids’ tuition.

I have long argued--and presented a bill in Congress--for a Media and Press Foundation (a la National Commission for Culture and the Arts) that should regularly get P100 million or so from the state in support of journalists’ basic social and security needs. But, it has languished there for 15 years!

Why, from 1999-2000 alone, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), with which Sheila Coronel was then involved, was able to get huge USAid funding for a series of anti-Erap investigative reports.

Now isn’t that a prime example of how so-called “independent” media can be so easily manipulated by funds?

Maverick Media
Ultimately, economic control is media control.

That is, except for mavericks who insist on going their own way whatever the odds, like I.F. Stone and his self-published anti-Vietnam weekly carrying his name, which proved pivotal in raising anti-war consciousness or, I’d like to believe, my Sulo ng Pilipino radio program.

As the world economy evolved into global oligarchism which, as a consequence, affected the national scene in many countries such as the Philippines, media concentration also accelerated.

If the proposed Cha-cha (Charter change) program--which has, as one of its aims, the opening up local media to foreign ownership--proceeds, we will see even worse media consolidation around a few global corporations, a situation as bad as, or even worse than, what we have today.

The only answer to this corporate consolidation of media is a populist state to support populist media--a dream waiting to happen once a genuine revolution gives it birth.

Lastly, as I had thought of eight colleagues to have my dialogue with, on subjects such as the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA); finance; climate change; among other things, I would like to include one more: Health.

Urine Therapy
Let me say kudos to OpinYon columnist Dr. Marilen M. Cruz for writing about “Urine Therapy” without the snicker and frown typical of quite a number of diploma-ed doctors.

Although I am not diabetic, I tried it for no other reason and found that it didn’t taste appalling.

I could even say that it works.

Well, as my health regimen includes never taking pain killers and antibiotics, and relying on real food for my nutritional requirements and supplements, that’s saying a lot.

But then, I’ve never been healthier today at almost 60 years of age than even in my teens.

(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8 on “The Agnotology of WTC Building 7”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)

P-Noy's Passive Anarchy: The Reverse of Martial Law

YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
9/19-21/2011



A week ago, on Tuesday, the 13th of September, the Supreme Court en banc, issued a TRO against Republic Act 10153. This Law postponed the August 8 Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) elections and synchronized them with the May 2013 mid-elections for senators, congressmen, governors and mayors and their vice governors and vice mayors, and then down to their board members and councilors.

The law gave the President the power to appoint officers-in-charge (OICs) to the positions of Governor, Vice Governor and Member of the Regional Assembly.

These OICs would have served without benefit of an electoral mandate from October 1, 2011 until June 30, 2013.

While making a lot of noise about cleaning up the ARMM, P-Noy was very slowly, becoming a trapo himself.

From reform as the original objective, political accommodation and consolidation were creeping into and taking over the agenda.

Back to Square One
Twenty years ago, on September 16, 1991, the Senate voted not to have U S military bases on Philippine soil.

Case closed? Not yet.

For more than a decade, the US has been very interested in Mindanao, especially Muslim Mindanao.

Will they succeed in undoing that heroic act of 20 years ago by splitting the country in two. And the bases will come back literally through the back door of Mindanao.

The TRO may eventually become a permanent and final ruling that RA 10153 is unconstitutional. It will be to P-Noy’s Mindanao peace strategy what the striking down of the Truth Commission was to the P-Noy Administration’s anti-corruption strategy.

Even before the TRO, P-Noy’s Mindanao peace and development strategy were already about to get stuck. His Tokyo trip to meet with the MILF was back to square one.

This is it!
This major development and embarrassing setback for the fumbling, more than a year old, Aquino Administration was not played up in the mass media extensively.

It was knocked off the banner headline and the above the fold spaces of the front pages of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Philippine Star by the interest generated by the Miss Universe beauty pageant held in Sao Paolo, Brazil, Monday night there, Tuesday morning here.

“Baguio talaga si Shamcey Supsup. Nawalis niya ang pulitika.”

However, an important issue can resurface after a storm.

Observing the time, space and prominence, or lack of the above, given by both broadcast and print media to the topic, I tried to reflect, analyze and conclude on the: “Why?” and “How come?”.

“Manhid na ba ang tao sa kapalpakan ni P-Noy?”

That is it!

Let Him Be
During the first year of P-Noy in office, the people’s expectations of his performance and the trust in him based on his being the son of his parents, Ninoy and Cory, were so high that he had no way to go but down in the approval ratings in so far as performance and trust were concerned.

However, by the time period (August 20 – September 2) of the Pulse Asia (with a cousin of P-Noy, Rafa Sumulong Lopa involved as stockholder and/or officer) Survey, people had gotten so used to P-Noy’s Ka… ’s and kapalpakans that expectations were so low.

As far as the majority of people are concerned, that is it. Period.

He can’t do much. Let him be.

Let us just muddle through till 2016. We can’t help it and we can’t complain. We had no other choice.

Linggoy is ‘Sorry Yellow’
“Ooops! That’s not true.

The undersigned, Linggoy, knew that Noynoy was not up to it.

He believed in another choice. He believed not only that Noynoy should not run for President, he also believed that Noynoy should run only for Vice President as the common Opposition Candidate even if the Opposition could not agree on having just one Presidential Candidate.

He lobbied for that from August 1 to September 9 of 2009. After that, he joined the mob that supported P-Noy on a “Bahala Na” or “Barkadahan” basis.

And now, he is sorry, as in, sorry yellow.

Martial Law
This week, on Wednesday, we remember the official Declaration of Martial Law on September 21, 1972.

We use the word “official” as opposed to “actual.”

The actual implementation of PD 1081, as opposed to its alleged signing on the 21st, was on the night of either the 22nd or 23rd, but definitely a Friday night or the eve of a Saturday.

That night also, the Congress adjourned “sine die”.

That was the main reason why Martial Law was not implemented overtly on the 21st. They had to wait until Congress was no longer in session.

Martial Law or “Batas Militar” means centralized, rigid and total control. It means squelching democracy, dissent and opposition.

It means that the state uses the military to discharge civilian functions of government.

It means that the leader and/or leadership of the government have taken an extraordinary initiative to solve problems that can no longer be solved by ordinary means.

Whatever and however, then President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos made a very serious decision then, and implemented it.

P-Noy not in Control
Today, 39 years later, we find ourselves and our leader in a very different situation, P-Noy is not in control of either the situation or even of his own administration.

It is divided into two major factions with the leader encouraging them rather than putting his foot down and getting rid of them.

Instead of an administration party with a vision, the Samar initiatives have forced the Liberal Partyto become myopic.

The LP is aligned with and part of Balay.

Instead of efficiency in government, we have some sort of passive anarchy.

P-Noy is still the bad old Noynoy. He has not gotten over the hangover of what could have been his last private sector job – a stint as a Manager at the Hacienda Luisita.

The Hacienda, as well as the Azucarera, was not the best training ground for a future President of the Philippines.

They may have contributed to his hard-headedness and passivity. They certainly served as the model for the Noynoy brand of management.

Short-changed Bosses
In recent weeks and months, we have seen the worst examples of the Noynoy work style.

We have known for a long time that quantity wise, he has been shortchanging us, his bosses.

He wakes up in the very late morning except when he has a military or police affair or activity.

He can hardly ever put in a full honest day’s work. “La Cuacha” and “La Mierda” are the rule rather than the exception when it comes to Noynoy's kabarkada in government.

It is very difficult to have some work done in between the fun and the games.

Did you notice that Noynoy does not look at the face of the person he is shaking hands with.

Not to be Trusted
A leader who cannot look his subordinates in the eye and fire them when need be cannot and should not be trusted.

Several so called resignations stand out: DOTC Sec. Jose Ping de Jesus, DOT Sec Albert “Bertie” Lim, Bureau of Customs Commissioner Lito Alvarez.

The common denominator among them is the way they were messed up by their own President.

Instead of talking to them directly and asking for their resignations, he used the very indirect approach: innuendos, floats, mass media and rumors.

He keeps his people insecure, guessing and destabilized. He is too lazy to call and attend Cabinet meetings.

Therefore, there are none.

Therefore, his government and administration do not have a centerpoint.

They have not jelled. They cannot bond together.

In the face of a storm, they will disintegrate. “Kawawa Tayo!”

Purisima’s peso sabotage

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
9/19/2011



Just when the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has finally found its bearings, certain quarters are again dead set on pushing it off track. Misgivings aside, I have lately begun to appreciate certain BSP top officials’ burgeoning initiative to get the management of our currency and debt back along the lines of national welfare and interest. The BSP just recently recommended to Malacañang its preference for borrowing locally (instead of internationally) to accelerate the prepayment of debts and to “help temper the appreciation of the peso” vis-à-vis stimulating demand for the dollar.

The country’s Gross International Reserves (GIR) jumped 51 percent from $49.95 billion to $75.6 billion year-on-year, with our foreign debt standing at around $60 billion. The Philippines is thus awash with dollars as well as in loanable funds in the Special Deposit Account (SDA) maintained by the BSP, all waiting to be mobilized in lieu of more foreign borrowings in the rolling over of debts or in the funding of PeNoy’s public-private partnership (PPP) projects in infrastructure and others.

The BSP is picking up the wisdom of the way in which many in the private sector are handling their own dollar debts. While the PeNoy government’s prepayment of foreign loans slipped in the first half of the year, with prepayments of medium and long-term foreign loans summed up to $530.9 million or 3.19 percent lower than the $548.4 million recorded in the same period last year, newspapers report that “All prepayments were made by the private sector.”

We have been reading of different major private corporations prepaying foreign loans. And for anyone seeking to avoid the burden and volatility of interest payments amid the currency crisis, this is the only way to go.

Unfortunately, Cesar Purisima (PeNoy’s Finance secretary and also Gloria Arroyo’s), gave the already scheduled prepayment of debts his “thumbs down.” How are we then to perceive such stonewalling of the proposal that many concerned sectors of our economy, led by the BSP, push for?

OFWs, being the largest contributors to the survival and viability of the Philippine economy, have remitted up to $21 billion annually as of last count. Yet the dollars they send to their families, coursed through the BSP, are yielding fewer and fewer pesos; this, as the US currency is being propped up by Purisima’s policy of accumulating more dollars in our vaults.

The export sector, which has just lost another 10 percent in value in the latest reported data, has also been howling in pain over the massive weakening of exports due to the strengthening peso. The BPOs, including call centers and other service providers, have also lost half of their income due to the peso’s appreciation.

Purisima, in his defense, remarked, “Of course we are amenable to debt prepayments but it is a question of opportunity because bulk of our debts is publicly traded already and if their prices are very high it will not make sense for us to prepay… All of these are long-term and very low cost, so it does not make sense at this point to prepay also.”

In response, this was what our Wednesday radio co-host Liza Gaspar, a young UP finance graduate, had to say: “Purisima seems to be looking at the issue only in financial terms; he seems to forget the more positive and concrete impact of cutting the debt (is) in terms of savings on interest payments and principal that could be redirected toward productive enterprises.”

Gaspar clearly makes more sense than the one-time SGV and Hyatt 10 head. Still, we shouldn’t fault Purisima too much as he recognizes only the foreign financial interests as his bosses.

If PeNoy has any idea on the matter at all, which isn’t likely, the conflict from within his financial team seems to be erupting right under his nose. Well, it’s not like he has taken any interest in it at all, which is tragic, as the matter of finance has become the central component in the governance of nations.

Former President Joseph Estrada, who admits to being a novice on international finance, says he resolved such issues during his time by getting members of his financial team face each other off in serious debate while he listened. Then, if a consensus is not achieved, a vote is soon called. But for PeNoy, it seems that, like many other things under his governance, he has allowed Purisima to simply call the shots, even as the Finance secretary already seems to be sabotaging the Philippine peso in the course of propping up the US dollar.

Of course, there is another dimension to the financial and currency issue that is beyond the scope of this column — the restoration of “currency and capital controls” as well as the “nationalization” of the entire banking sector, which the country had in the time of President Carlos Garcia. It is the final solution to the perennial problem of peso volatility that perpetually rocks the economy. That will be the next stage of the debate.

(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8 on “WTC’s Building 7: The Key to Exposing the ‘Inside Job’”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)

Oil Price Stabilization Fund: What happened?

I was in the House of Representatives at the time when the very big surplus of the Oil Price Stabilization Fund (OPSF) caught the greedy eyes of our congressmen and senators, particularly Cong. Tony Diaz of Zambales and then-Senator Maceda.

There was, if I can recall correctly, about a ten billion peso (P10B) surplus in the OPSF at that time and the oil companies could not raise the prices of their products due to this big surplus in the OPSF. So, the oil companies approached our greedy congressmen and senators and "suggested" a big fund source for them to get as their pork barrel and this was, you guessed it right, the OPSF.

And so, our greedy congressmen and senators passed a law which transferred the surplus of the OPSF to the general fund (as the OPSF was a trust fund which could not be intermingled with the general fund) and designated it as a fund for the "rehabilitation of Mt. Pinatubo-ravaged areas."

As it turned out, it was our legislators who "ravaged" the fund, together with Saint Cory (who is said to be "not corrupt") and Cong. Andaya, Sr. who was then the corrupt Chairman of the Committee on Plunder este Appropiations!

Tony Diaz presented as part of his liquidation of his fund allocation (from what used to be the OPSF surplus) official receipts from Furusato Japanese Restaurant whose manager was his crony and the amount was staggering, to say the least!Apparently, Diaz had a lot of ghost purchases from Furusato Japanese Restaurant in order to pocket the funds allocated to him (in cahoots, of course, with the manager of the said restaurant).

I do not know where Maceda "invested" his loot; I believe Andaya Sr. bought a mansion in Ayala-Alabang from his share of the loot (the OPSF surplus).

The OPSF comes directly from the consumers and not as a subsidy from the government as Evil Almendras would have us believe. When the price of oil in the world market is low, the price here in the Philippines is not lowered, in order to build a fund (the OPSF) so that when the price in the world market is high, the oil companies can draw from the OPSF (under the strict watchful eyes of the Commission of Audit in Marcos' time). However, during Cory's time (when there was allegedly no corruption), the CoA was instructed by Saint Cory herself to go soft on its audit of the draw-downs of the oil companies from the OPSF. The objective was to deplete the OPSF and "show" that it "does not work" so that it would be abolished. But the OPSF kept on having surpluses so the "bright boys" of Cory came up with the idea of using the OPSF surplus for the "rehabilitation of the Mt. Pinatubo-ravaged areas."

It was ravishing to ravage the OPSF surplus. After the OPSF was wiped out by a "Republic Act," Cory announced that the OPSF was a "failed mechanism" and should be abolished. She then pushed for the deregulation of the oil industry which finally happened under Cory's forced "President" on the people - Fidel Valdez "Deregulation, Globalization and Privatization King" Ramos.

(Anon)

Origin of the debt economy (Part 2)

BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
9/17-18/2011



Deregulating portfolio investment
If Karl Marx condemned capitalism for alienating man from his labor, maybe he had his consolation, for then, capital was used to mass produce goods to create additional wealth. Today, the capital he condemned has become an instrument to create a much bigger surplus value in an economic system fueled by usury and monetary trading.

Like the workers whose labor was reduced to commodity by the value of their wage, today the capitalists are seeing their capital reduced to commodity by a new class called “money traders” to produce a much greater profit without producing a single product! Thus, if the workers lost control of labor as their property to the capitalists, the capitalists today are losing control of their capital to the usurious money traders!!!

This explains why the usual economic plans for development and industrialization with the government spearheading in constructing strategic industries to serve as base in generating capital, in giving incentives and protection to the manufacturing industry, or in embarking on import substitution were all stultified because the deregulation of interest and the convertibility of the local currency to any foreign currency resulted in the melting of whatever local capital the country could use to create wealth.

To ensure that the new system of money market trading would work unimpeded, the international oligarchy, through the same financial institutions of the World Bank and the IMF, insisted that countries, as a condition for financial assistance, have to pass another law that would strictly prohibit the government from regulating portfolio investment.

Although most of these foreign-imposed laws again take their cover of enticing investment, the bottom line remains that to allow these international hustlers disguised as foreign investors to enter freely, the country paradoxically has to assure them that they are free to take out or remit not just the whole amount they invested, but including the “juice” generated out of that unorthodox method of investment wholly confined to stock and money market trading. That guarantee was made to assure that money traders could bring in and out unhindered their unique commodity.

That then implanted the rules on how to convert our economy to one big casino. But unlike the casinos in Las Vegas, Monaco and Macao where it would take gamblers a zillion dollars to bring to its knees the “dealer,” here our government practically assured them of winning.

One good example is our grant of that humiliating tax exemption to portfolio investors, while treating harshly our own who are engaged in the actual business of trading and production. This has put the government on the defensive, and unable to explain why, despite the huge capital inflow that is recorded and traded daily in the market, the economy continues to slide down to the precipice of bankruptcy.

The casino economy
Capital holders then began to rely more on gambling their capital than in using them to invest in production. It is gambling, much that the trading of money with other currencies bears profit out of intangible transactions, yet it rapidly grew alongside with the decline in production. Having its own realm of demand and supply, countries became helpless in fending off the depreciation of their currency much that their money became more and more dependent on how its value would command at the stock and money market, and not that there has been an increase in production, or positively that people have more money to buy.

Realizing that indeed gambling is lucrative, the government decided to put up its own casinos. In every major city, gambling casinos sprouted like overnight mushrooms. Casinos proved to be profitable because the rate of return is astronomical that the revenue from gambling is almost gaining parity with the revenue generated by the remaining government-owned and controlled corporations. Time will come that instead of taxes and duties, the government will be depending more on proceeds from gambling for its annual budget. That then would put truism to the saying of “only in the Philippines!”

Poor man’s credit card
Before those credit cards were peddled by those neatly-dressed salesmen similar to what vendors do to sell their cheap wares on sidewalks, only a few enjoyed that emblematic seal of financial exclusiveness. They were honored by international banks, and their card denotes they have solid cash deposits, or to put it differently, liquid at all times. Thus, American Express, Visa Platinum and Master Card became their identification as indeed belonging to that “super-select” entitled to be billeted in five star hotels, to enjoy a vacation in first class resorts, to spend time on luxurious cruise ships, or to dine in exclusive clubs and restaurants.

With the legalization of usury, credit cards were soon “doled out” that almost everybody has it now. Banks have to repackage the system to suit to the demands of the wage earners without telling them they were walking straight into the gauntlet of a debt trap. By creating a poor man’s version of a credit card, the banks were in effect tapping a reservoir of funds that could reduce to puny the amount they traditionally collected from the so-called “super-select.” The instrument of credit card made easy for the middle class wage earners to buy expensive items and appliances they could not otherwise afford to pay in cash. The easy installment plan was their gambit.

However, what these eager-beavers failed to foresee is that there was no way they could pay the credit they obtained by the purchase of those goods inside those big malls. Many of them were awakened to find out they were already nose-deep in debt. The logic is simple: the cost of goods they purchase kept on increasing every minute because of interest plus the cost of inflation, while real wages kept on decreasing. It would not take a genius to compute the formula why many of them ended up bankrupt. Aside from the interest and charges, the charges themselves bear interest and computed on a compounded basis.

It is not even a question that their wage remained static, but of the fact that the real value of wage was moving much faster towards the opposite direction. It therefore came as no surprise to see why almost 70 percent of those who were gypped into getting those credit cards failed to pay their obligation. Many ended up poorer than before with the less fortunate losing their dwelling, their car, their appliances, encountering marriage problems, and at times ending up in court answering estafa cases filed by the usurer's collecting agency represented by shoddy law firms.

(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)

Lite Moments with the Heavyweights

YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
9/14-16/2011



Exchange among Publisher Ray L. Junia and Editor-in-Chief Luchie Aclan Arguelles and Newsboy Linggoy: at the OpinYon Editorial Offices at the Lower Ground Floor of Cityland 9 Building, # 7648 along de la Rosa Street in Makati City:

Newsboy Linggoy - Boss, Let’s launch our third weekly issue ASAP. Since we already have OpinYon Regular and OpinYon Lite, let us call it OpinYon Zero.

Publisher Ray L. Junia & Editor Luchie A. Arguelles - We thought you were complaining about OpinYon Lite. Can you write five columns (including two days, Monday and Friday in Diaryo Pinoy) per week? Can you still carry a hundred to a hundred and fifty copies at a time?

Newsboy Linggoy - Zero stands for zero criticism. So I’m disqualified from writing for the Zero issue just as Ka Mentong is disqualified from writing for the Lite issue. His topics are always heavy and serious. So, I will keep on writing four times a week but deliver five issues per week. That’s my problem.

With GMA
Let’s go on with other heavyweights as I recall my light moments with them:

In 1997 former President GMA was still Senator but angling to run for President in May 1998. She had just organized the Kampi as her own political party. She convinced former Cong. Jose “Peping” Sumulong Cojuangco to be her campaign manager and Cong. Emigdio “Ding” Tanjuatco to be the Kampi Chairman, President or Secretary General.

The whole of 1997, a full year before the election, she was going all over the country.

Her goal was to match her late father, former President Diosdado Macapagal, Jr., and visit all the 1,560 municipalities before the Presidential elections.

4 by 4s
When she sortied in Davao del Sur, I (As the Kampi Regional Desk Officer for Region II composed of four Davaos, Gen. Santos City and South Cotabato.) was one of those who escorted her. She was using a Ford F 150 4 x 4 which was a bit high for her shortness.

However, she always managed to climb up to the front passenger seat.

Until one time, the driver failed to see that he had stopped right beside a big pothole.

The depth of the pothole was just enough to make it impossible for GMA to climb up.

It so happened that I was the person nearest to her. My choices were to either carry her bodily or go done on all my fours and let her step on my back and use me as a bench to get up and on to the front seat of the F 150 4 x 4.

On my 4s
Guess! What did I do?

If I carried her, I might hold a wrong part of her body.

What would happen when she became President and remembered the “chancing”?

So, I went down on my fours. Let the indignity be mine and not hers.

But if this is a true story, she should have appointed me to something better than a member of the PCSO Board of Directors.

The story is apocryphal.

Sorry! I just like to imagine what could have been…

With Erap
Former President Joseph “Erap” Ejercito Estrada and Story Teller Linggoy have too many things to share that it would take a book thicker than his biography.

We will have to wait for a future time to share these stories with you.

But hold on please. “Baka may daplis sa baba.”

With FVR
In 1991, former President Fidel V. Ramos wanted to run for President but he did not have a political party to run under.

FVR joined the Lakas ng Demokratikong Pilipino. He ran against Speaker Ramon V. Mitra in a series of informal Regional Conventions.

He lost in the vast majority of them.

With Cory
Although Cory had fired me as Commissioner of the National Telecommunications Commission in November of 1989, Mitra and the LDP had not fired me as the LDP Intelligence Officer.

Cory fired me for publicly predicting the December 1, 1989 Coup.

In December 1992, our intelligence indicated that FVR was going to bolt the party and still run for President.

FVR Cornered
FVR and I met at a baptism of the daughter of DZRH’s Eloy Aquino.

The reception was at a Chinese restaurant. We were seated at a typical round table.

Aside from FVR, Eloy, her husband, and I, former General and then EIIB Director Jose Almonte, Jr., Rey Langit and several other media practitioners were with us around the table or within earshot.

I had picked up a few bits of information from my classmate, friend and sometime lawyer, now Justice Antonio T. Carpio.

He had been helping FVR. He told me that FVR had been scheduled to bolt the LDP a few nights before but at the last minute postponed it.

I filled in the blanks and bluffed FVR:

I said: “Sir, the other night, the LDP held a meeting at the sixth floor executive lounge of the Jose Cojuangco & Sons Building on de la Rosa and Palanca Streets in Legaspi Village, Makati City.

“After the meeting, you and Peping went up to his office on the seventh floor. After a brief talk, you went back to the lounge, picked up one of the phones beside a couch and called your backroom boys in your war room at Perea Street. ‘Hindi tuloy. Pwede na kayo umuwi’. , you whispered.”

So I asked, “Sir, anong hindi tuloy?”

Riding the Tide
The table burst in intriguing laughter. Rey Langit kidded FVR that I was the master spy and expert in electronic surveillance and that I was bugging him.

FVR’s face turned red.

Later on, I found out from his boys that he inquired whether all the phones in their political headquarters and offices were being swept.

When told that they were doing it every day, he ordered a morning, noon and night routine.

For the Books
The light and heavy moments between former President Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco Aquino and NTC Commissioner and Coup prophet and seer Linggoy Alcuaz will require another book.

However, just to give a preview, let me say that Cory appointed me in spite of being Ninoy’s friend and fellow conspirator for several reasons.

When I visited them in Boston from 1980 – 82, I did not smoke. I often offered to help Cory with the dishes. I never took Ninoy out.

We met and talked in their home, either in his study or in the dining room.

To do justice to former Speaker Ramon V. Mitra and the LDP and as their former Intelligence Officer, another book will be up coming.

Oh my God, there is so much justice to be done! Let me give you a preview of parts of my future books.

Snippets
Miriam in wrong meeting: Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago once went to the wrong room, intruded into an ongoing committee hearing and called the hearing to order again. Nobody dared to tell her that she was wrong.

‘Sticky’ Nani: I designed and printed stickers with a moustache (representing DOJ Sec. Nani Perez) for Cong. Mark Jimenez. However, since he was handcuffed, Cong. Prospero Pichay and Willie Villarama had to be the ones to distribute and stick the stickers.

Slice of the Cake: I requested former Senator and Executive Secretary Bert Romulo in October 2001 to replace me as a PCSO Director with my wife, Baby, so that as Big Mike put it, I could have my cake and eat it too.

Blank Check: I owe my promotion to NTC Commissioner to Senator and former Executive Sec. Joker Arroyo and his one-minute rule. On July 4, 1986, during the Manila Hotel incident, he gave me a blank check.

Funny Moments in Next Issue:In future columns, I will share with you my funny moments with: Press Sec Bunye in Muntinglupa and at the PCSO; Press Sec Noel Cabrera and the lababo; DOTC Sec Nani Perez; DOTC Sec Rainerio Reyes; DOTC Usec Maning Domingo; PC Chief/INP Dir. Gen Ramon Montano, and many others.

Jailing our children and teens

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
9/16/2011



“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” — Nelson Mandela

When I first heard of the “solution” which some senators are proposing to the “hamog boys” who perpetrate those “bukas taxi” (taxi ambush) thefts along the Edsa-Guadalupe stretch, I nearly fell off my car seat.

Sen. Chiz Escudero — enthusiastically supported by Senators Vicente Sotto and Pia Cayetano, the head of the Senate committee on youth, women and family relations) — wants to reduce the age limit of criminal liability from 15 years down to nine. The next day’s headlines couldn’t have said it clearer: “Senators want prison for youths involved in crimes.”

With the knowledge that out of every 1,000 children who enter Grade 1, 40 percent would have dropped out by Grade 6 and only 40 percent of that will graduate high school — of whom 49 percent would be unemployed due to the collapse of the economic, educational, and justice system that political leaders are supposed to uphold, I’m beginning to believe it is these senators who should be jailed first!

Sen. Ping Lacson also showed his support, arguing, “The age of offenders (is) going lower and lower (so that won’t help) if we exempt the younger ones from criminal liability…” Apparently, the young offenders he was referring to are those used as drug mules who are later let off easily because of their exclusion from criminal liability.

Sotto, for his part, buttressed the “drug dealers have been using couriers who are below 18 years old” argument by saying, “pag nahuli namin, ni hindi namin makuhanan ng impormasyon... kasi darating agad ‘yung mga abogado ng mga drug dealer at ipapa-turnover sa DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development), so hilung-hilo ang PDEA (Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency) at PNP (Philippine National Police) in the issue of drugs…”

I don’t believe youngsters used in such cases can provide any more information than the multibillion-peso intelligence networks of the PNP and PDEA can. It is, in fact, the whole law enforcement and judicial system that’s at the root, as we’ve seen in the Alabang Boys case, where rogues from the Justice department and the courts sprung the culprits.

I can’t imagine law breakers as young as those “hamog boys” acting on their own. There has to be a freaking Fagin behind them, like in the case of the gang of child thieves in Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens’ tale of 18th Century industrial England where poverty and child labor festered.

How many of our out-of-school, homeless, hunger-driven youths, including many orphans among the nine to 15 year olds, are preyed upon and used by sinister Fagins behind the drug, beggar and pickpocket syndicate rings?

Instead, our senators want to throw those, who have had little guidance in the first place, into jail posthaste while they let the largest thieves of the land in power, water, tollways, port service and telecoms rackets fly free to plunder and impoverish the nation even more, and to spawn more orphaned, hungry, and aimless families — children and youth included?

I find it hard to imagine these senators taking such harsh attitudes on these juveniles who have never really been given a chance to take control of their lives. It is our system that has failed them.

Those who control the system from their perches at the top are most at fault. They are not only those in the high echelons of government but equally so those in the economic ruling class, who actually control the political leaders and have done everything to thwart the establishment of a just, kinder and socially equitable system in society.

We have a ruling class today that lives in much greater grandeur than Marie Antoinette while the culture it promotes is one that is made to be at awe of having 40 Philippine billionaires among Forbes’ most wealthy, forgetting that this great concentration of wealth has come at the expense of 40 million Filipinos (70 percent of that children and youth) living below the poverty line.

The senators, with their multi-hundred million pork barrel, and the oligarchs, with their trillions, will surely deny it; but they are plunderers — not only of our wealth but of our nations’ future.

French economist and statesman Frederic Bastiat once said: “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”

And my, have they made such a system indeed — with the Epira (Electric Power Industry Reform Act), eVAT (expanded value added tax), and all! Only, this “jail the children” law has shown the true extent of their dehumanization. What have these senators become that they can no longer put the problem of child and youth law offenders in a balanced, fair and human perspective?

From Oliver Twist: “Men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the sombre colors are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts. The real hues are delicate, and need a clearer vision.”

There are certainly gentler, kinder and more holistic ways to treat erring children and youth. Unicef and the Payo (Philippine Action for Youth Offenders), in their studies on out-of-school-youth, thus declare: “The moral development of out-of-school children in Metro Manila is appalling… even if they get older, (their) mental-moral capability… may remain retarded or develop at a very slow pace… The results… make a strong case for a serious re-examination of the law which imposes criminal liability on children at the age of nine… Judges should therefore be cautioned to treat youth offenders with utmost care, on a case-to-case basis, taking into account their individual levels of discernment… (requiring) the children (to) undergo thorough testing before adjudicating their culpability for a crime.”

As a grandfather, this quote from Harold Hulbert has especially much meaning: “Children need love, especially when they do not deserve it…” I sincerely hope this has spoken to you as well.

(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8 on “The Agnotology of WTC Building 7”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)