Who stole our X'mas?

CONSUMERS DEMAND!
Herman Tiu Laurel
11/28-12/4/2011



Over the past decades, our merriment for Christmas has been fading like yuletide balls tarnished by years of reuse as the family budget has grown too thin for newer, more polished celebratory trinkets.

Proof of this is a recent think tank study stating that things have gotten significantly worse in the years after EDSA Dos, which was supposed to have ushered in better times, as “civil society” and Makati Business Club stalwarts hailed the ascent of the “economist” Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The report, entitled, “Study traces poverty incidence to vested interests,” by the think tank named Stratbase cited World Bank data showing the increase in the number of poverty-stricken Filipinos by 3.4 million between 2008 and 2009.

Worse, in its comparison of growth rates in Asia, it found that “East Asian economies posted average annual GDP growth rates (of) 3.6 to 6.0 percent between 1960 and 2008, (whereas) the Philippines only managed an annual average increase of 1.4 percent during the same period.”

Africanization of PH
The report even cited this shocking Asian Development Bank finding “that for every one percent growth in gross domestic product, poverty incidence has gone down by an average of 1.5 percent across the world and two percent within Asia… (while) poverty incidence in the Philippines had actually risen since 2003, a time when the economy (was) thought to have grown very well.”

So, even with the modicum of growth the Philippines has supposedly been gaining, not only is its poverty incidence not been reduced (as compared to the rest of the world and Asia) but it is even growing.

And since the report shows us in such a bad light, it can only indicate that the Philippines is even doing worse than Africa.

I have always said that the Philippines is in the course toward “Africanization,” i.e. becoming as poor as the poorest in Africa.

But, it seems, we are overtaking that grim forecast even faster.

Money Powers
The “vested interests” Stratbase refers to it also calls “rent seekers” or those who “attempt to derive ‘economic rent’ by manipulating the social or political environment in which economic activities occur, rather than by adding value.”

Chief among them are the oligarchs who use their money powers to obtain concessions from government and/or take over state contracts and assets.

Also included are the politicians who use their positions to enrich themselves (such as through their pork barrel)--and, I would add, media prostitutes churning out information and opinion for a fee, lawyers to the highest bidder, ad nausea.

Only a handful of noteworthy exceptions can be seen.

A fine example of a sterling professional who isn’t part of this rent seeking class is lawyer and constitutionalist, Atty. Alan Paguia, who declined the offer to join the legal team of Gloria Arroyo despite the fact that he was among the first to criticize the Department of Justice’s hold departure order -- leaving the other lawyers to stumble all over each other in hopping on Gloria’s defense bandwagon.

Intellectual Hires
Still, there is a very deep irony in the Stratbase report.

While it indicts the “vested interests” or “rent seekers” (a.k.a. oligarchs), its officers and academic resources themselves trace their roots from the oligarchs or their intellectual hires.

Its chairman Jose C. Ibazeta, for example, was Anscor president, as well as a Razon-owned ICTSI director and treasurer, and chairman of PSALM, which privatizes our country’s power assets to the oligarchs.

Meanwhile, Antonio “Tony Boy” Cojuangco is a member of the board, along with Amboy Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario.

Among its academic advisers are Calixto Chikiamco of the pro-privatization Foundation for Economic Freedom (or FiEFdom, I say), Ayala adviser Randy David, and pro-USAid RH bill Atty. Raul Pangalangan.

Lobbying Or Rent Seeking?
In its prospectus, Stratbase says, “Our knowledge of the government and the ability to establish strategic communications network with policy and decision makers ensures that our client’s voices are heard.”

Now, isn’t that lobbying or rent seeking, too?

The oligarchs and their minions running the shows all over the place in our political-economic and cultural establishment can be likened to the “Grinch,” Dr. Seuss’ bitter, cave dwelling character who resents the merriment of the warmhearted “Whos” (similar to our Juan de la Cruzes).

As they steal the people’s Christmas, they ensure that every year is a poorer one for all Filipinos, except the few super-rich and their coterie of gofers, who are getting richer every year by increasing their monopolization and maximization of the fruits of the nation’s economy, and by exploiting the costs of power, water, infrastructure (such as toll ways), telecoms, port services, taxes, and debt.

Hard at Work
All our columns for the past year, numbering over 60, at least, have hammered on these economic evils that we consumers, citizens, taxpayers, and heads of families are suffering in the hands of those who control our country through their various methods of hoodwinking, swindling, and plundering.

Let me cite some developments showing that, indeed, the “Grinches” are hard at work to spoil our Christmas even more: “’Marinated meat and fish products no longer VAT-exempt’… (This is despite) Section 4.109-1(B)(1)(a) of Revenue Regulations No. (RR) 16-2005 (stating) that meats, fruits, vegetables and other agricultural and marine products shall be considered in their original state even if they have undergone the simple processes of preparation or preservation for the market such as freezing, drying, salting, broiling, roasting, smoking, or stripping, including those using advanced technological means of packaging, such as shrink wrapping in plastics, vacuum packing, tetra-pack, and other similar methods.”

Another, “’Poverty numbers worsen’… A third-quarter survey found 52% of the respondents--equivalent to an estimated 10.4 million households--considering themselves ‘mahirap’ or poor, up from 49% (9.8 million) in June. On the issue of being poor in terms of food, 41% (8.2 million families) claimed to be so, up from 36% (7.2 million) three months earlier…”

Hoping to Win
For next year, the aggravation will accelerate.

The MWSS has announced higher water rates come the New Year while the Department of Agriculture has admitted it will import over 1.6 million tons (after it had boasted that the era of rice imports is over).

Meanwhile, a report from PhilExport announced “84 days of power interruptions expected by 2014” (according to a UP study), and this is all because the Grinches have privatized almost all cheap power generation assets of state-owned Napocor while never adding any new plants.

For sure, they will use this as a reason for higher power rates when new ones are set up.

Despite all these, we shall still have a Merry Christmas season because we are fighting – not only because we have hope but also since we know that we will win against these Grinches in the end.

(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; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)