DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
3/7/2011
Ten years ago, a professional civil servant from the Commission on Audit (CoA) named Agustin Chan was in the thick of investigating a P224-million anomaly in a special fund earmarked for the tobacco industry. The trail that led to the northern provinces became his basis for issuing “tracers” or demands for government officials who were directly responsible to answer his queries.
In particular, he wrote the Ilocos Sur provincial accountant on Sept. 4, 2001 for a listing of expenditures charged against the fund for that year, as provided for by Republic Act 7171. But even before that, he already raised the matter in April 2001 to the governor of the province who usually got the biggest allocation, Chavit Singson, to liquidate P124 million in accumulated cash advances or be made liable for “malversation of public funds.”
Six months later, CoA auditor Chan and his driver Alex Recacho were ambushed and killed along the national highway, in Sitio Baoay, Barangay Paing, Bantay, Ilocos Sur. Neither the Yellows, in “civil society” or academe, nor the institutional Catholic Church ever let off a squeak to denounce these twin murders.
Fast forward 10 years: March 3, 2011, Ateneo de Manila. A religious mass cum candle-lighting ceremony was held at the Church of the Gesù with white robed participants and melodramatic chorale evoking a sanctified (or sanctimonious) air to honor “whistle-blower” Heidi Mendoza who testified on the massive corruption in the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines).
Since her testimony a few weeks ago, a teleserye-like atmosphere has unfolded, with heart-wrenching cries and spiels (a la ZTE-NBN crybaby Jun Lozada), along with nuns and priests “securing” her, a dramatic backstory of her resigning from a “corrupt government,” peppered with “public clamor” for her to return because “her children asked her to,” and then, an offer of the CoA chairmanship from the President, to which Mendoza was quoted to have said, “I won’t give him a hard time (convincing me).” Wow naman, how cute!
Yet what is the reason for this blatant double standard in civil society’s treatment of one CoA auditor over another? Here, I am not only comparing the Jesuit institution’s treatment of Agustin Chan to their darling today but to many others also killed in the line of duty, such as State Auditor IV Anita Gallito, head of the CoA Unit at the Education Department’s Division Office in Tandag, Surigao del Sur, who was gunned down in front of her home in Tago town.
These killings of Chan and Gallito shocked the audit community; but there never was a quip from “civil society.” Neither has the Ateneo nor its affiliates, such as its School of Government, given due credit to those who first raised and exposed the AFP corruption issue and started it all — the Bagong Katipuneros (a.k.a. Magdalos). Why is it that all the accolades seem reserved only for the Ateneo and civil society’s “darling?”
Weeks before the “Mendoza-as-CoA chairman” drama aired, our “investigator” Oliver already alerted us to the “plot” to appoint Mendoza. At the time, no one had the dimmest idea of that yet, as media were not even aware of the then CoA Chairman Reynaldo Villar’s avowed legal battle to stay on in his post.
Oliver attributed the push for Heidi Mendoza’s elevation to the “usual forces that wish to privatize government functions,” i.e. the same people who pushed for Swiss firm SGS to take over Customs functions and for Vitaliano Nañagas to be appointed as chairman of the Social Security System (SSS) in 2001 to privatize the fund, only to be deposed by SSS employees. He then cited the grapevine’s report of a foreign private company expected to be subcontracted for CoA’s financial audit functions in the event of a Mendoza appointment.
I remained skeptical until I heard American gofer Harvey Keh of the Ateneo School of Government at the Ciudad Fernandina Kapihan, floating Mendoza’s name for the chairmanship of the CoA. Coming from Keh, who represents an institution that has spawned quite a number of apologists for the likes of CodeNGO, this is another sure sign of foreign interests at play.
Make no mistake: Heidi Mendoza is an asset from SGV, a breeding ground of corporate operators such as the Hyatt 10’s Cesar Purisima (who wants to restore SGS to Customs). And just as it was for Cory Aquino since Edsa I, Gloria Arroyo in 2001, and now, Aquino III, Heidi is being made out to be another “gift from God” by the Yellows.
However, 25 years of Cory’s legacy and 200 days of Aquino III have only shown that “gifts from God” do not necessarily deliver heaven on earth. There have been and there are many more heroic public servants whom the Ateneo, the Jesuits, the nuns, and civil society have inequitably and inexplicably never sought to give due respect to, and more whistle-blowers than they have ever reached out to help, such as the late Sammy Ong (who exposed Hello Garci), anti-jueteng witness Sandra Cam, along with Jose Barredo and Dante Madriaga of the fertilizer fund and ZTE-NBN scams, respectively.
Given the record of these Yellows and their patrons in giving the Filipino nation such “gifts from God,” we should henceforth be wary of another one. After all the hype surrounding the conferment of “sainthood” to the Yellows’ icon, the Filipino people are almost certain to open the gates of their hearts again — this time, to another Trojan horse — only to regret it a little too late.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “Cuba, Venezuela on the Libyan Crisis” with Ambassadors Juan Carlos Arencibia and Manuel Perez Iturbe; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our select radio and GNN shows)
Monday, March 7, 2011
It's the Anglo-U.S. con game, stupid
INFOWARS
Herman Tiu Laurel
6/2/2008
The country is up in arms against the Lopezes for the swindle of people's hard earned money for astoundingly overpriced electricity, with much of it never delivered. Meantime, some well-meaning citizens and consumer advocates who are siding with Winston Garcia, unknowingly perpetrate a grand deception to merely transfer Meralco to Arroyo's cronies, even with just the false hope of negligible power rate reductions in mind. And while a church leader says government is "not known as a good businessman," this, too, wrongly implies that it's better to make power a commodity for profit instead of a tool for public service. The real culprits in the exorbitant power prices in the Philippines—the Anglo-U.S. overlords, along with their predatory policies, which are enforced on us through corrupt leaders they help install—are escaping scrutiny in the cacophony of acrimonious debate and propaganda.
That is why a few clarifications are in order.
First of all, privatized electricity is without a doubt higher in cost than publicly owned and operated electricity. The reason is simple: the profit factor pushes up the price automatically. Add deregulation to privatization then you have a money juggernaut gone amuck, as what had happened with Enron in 2001 by way of artificial power shortages to jack up rates. If the Bible points to money as the root of all evil, then by syllogistic consequence, making electricity a commodity for money-making rather than a service for the public good now makes it the root of the Meralco and IPP-PPA evil, bedeviling the Filipino people. Not surprisingly, the idea of privatizing electricity originated from England and the U.S., with Thatcher, Reagan and Bush, Enron, Bechtel, etc.
Second, the Lopezes admitted that it faced financial collapse in the first quarter of the 1970's. The Lopezes were forced to seek government's bail-out, the two biggest factors were: (a) the peso devaluation that crippled Meralco, which had huge obligations to its U.S. benefactors and international banks (led by IMF-WB), all denominated in dollars; and (b) the sudden, inordinate rise in the world price of oil, which was the main fuel of its power plants at that time. These two are undoubtedly within the purview of the Anglo-U.S. powers to manipulate to their advantage, which is why in today's oil price hike, 60 percent is attributed to oil trade speculation in cahoots with banks. The same thing happened from 1971 to 1973, when they triggered the 6-Day Arab-Israeli War and oil price spikes, down to their conspiracy with OPEC and the Saudis to recycle petro-dollars through Third World debt entrapments.
Since time immemorial, exchange rates are manipulated to the advantage of the U.S. The decline in today's dollar, for instance, is due to the controlled depreciation the U.S. hopes will stem its imports, promote domestic production and push its exports all over the world. Thus, we can see U.S. Chevy's and Fords in the Philippine market again in numbers not seen since the 1960's. But it still hasn't worked effectively since China has not revalued as the U.S. wants.
The Lopezes were bankrupted by the peso devaluation of the 1970's, in the same way that Napocor's debts ballooned after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Napocor was laden with dollar obligations from Ramos' IPP contracts, including the supply of oil and coal for IPPs. Thus, it was a devastating triple whammy for Napocor: the dollar doubled in value, its profitable power plants and markets were privatized, and its fuel supply contracts rose in cost.
Third, in the 1992-93 Philippine power crisis, Meralco signed a long-term supply contract with Napocor to ensure a steady, cheap power supply for distribution to its six-million customers. At that time Royal Dutch Shell and Texaco were already jumpstarting the Malampaya offshore natural gas platform and needed to ensure their market. So Ramos intervened to broker the natural gas IPPs, which the Lopezes gleefully accepted even if it had to renege on its contract with Napocor as there was more money to be made that way. But then, Meralco simply had to conspire with Gloria to have the penalties for violating the supply contract with Napocor, a whopping P52 billion, passed on to consumers. Only opposition from the likes of this writer, FDC and Nasecore stopped it.
Fourth, what Royal Dutch Shell, IMF-WB, the oil giants, Wall Street and the Washington-London axis want, they get. With Gloria's imprimatur, imagine them indexing the low-cost natural gas for electricity to high priced diesel, which we are only beginning to discover through probes into the Malampaya-Lopez-Arroyo connections!
Fifth, in the domestic war between the Lopezes and Arroyos et al, who are all puppet-agents of the Anglo-U.S. powers, the Lopezes will win because the economic agents are more permanent while the political puppets are more expendable as the shock absorbers and red herrings of the people's wrath. When someone asked who I am siding with in the Meralco-Lopez fight against Gloria-Garcia. I said that I'm siding with neither as I side only with the people against them all, the Anglo-U.S. imperial swindlers and their puppet-agents. To believe that the Gloria-Garcia side will really bring about the correct power price reduced to the level of the average Asean or Asian power rates is to be a fool. The Epira privatization law and the whole structure emerging from it, including the IPPs, the inutile ERC and the manipulated Wesm, stops any attempt at really arriving at an economic power price. Bring it to court and it'll take the next twenty years to resolve, all in favor of the money mongers. This is why I make a call for revolution to turn things around--peacefully, I hope.
Peaceful revolution can succeed if our electoral system can be trusted--as shown in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Argentina, Brazil and Chile where patriotic and pro-people forces and reforms won by election. Otherwise, we'll need the intervention of enlightened, pro-people military forces to aid genuine civilian leaders march up the path of reform and change peacefully. The imperative reforms are the restoration of the pubic ownership and management of the energy sector as a public service, to junk the Epira and its conversion of electricity into a commodity for profit. Then a medium term program for energy self-sufficiency be put in place. Indeed, the country is most ready for revolution after the Meralco-Lopez versus Arroyo-Garcia comedy that has outraged to the maximum.
(Tune in to my shows, "Talk News TV," on Destiny Cable Channel 3, every Tuesday, 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., "Kape't Kamulatan, Kabansa" on 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m., and "Suló ng Pilipino" every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on the same station)
Herman Tiu Laurel
6/2/2008
The country is up in arms against the Lopezes for the swindle of people's hard earned money for astoundingly overpriced electricity, with much of it never delivered. Meantime, some well-meaning citizens and consumer advocates who are siding with Winston Garcia, unknowingly perpetrate a grand deception to merely transfer Meralco to Arroyo's cronies, even with just the false hope of negligible power rate reductions in mind. And while a church leader says government is "not known as a good businessman," this, too, wrongly implies that it's better to make power a commodity for profit instead of a tool for public service. The real culprits in the exorbitant power prices in the Philippines—the Anglo-U.S. overlords, along with their predatory policies, which are enforced on us through corrupt leaders they help install—are escaping scrutiny in the cacophony of acrimonious debate and propaganda.
That is why a few clarifications are in order.
First of all, privatized electricity is without a doubt higher in cost than publicly owned and operated electricity. The reason is simple: the profit factor pushes up the price automatically. Add deregulation to privatization then you have a money juggernaut gone amuck, as what had happened with Enron in 2001 by way of artificial power shortages to jack up rates. If the Bible points to money as the root of all evil, then by syllogistic consequence, making electricity a commodity for money-making rather than a service for the public good now makes it the root of the Meralco and IPP-PPA evil, bedeviling the Filipino people. Not surprisingly, the idea of privatizing electricity originated from England and the U.S., with Thatcher, Reagan and Bush, Enron, Bechtel, etc.
Second, the Lopezes admitted that it faced financial collapse in the first quarter of the 1970's. The Lopezes were forced to seek government's bail-out, the two biggest factors were: (a) the peso devaluation that crippled Meralco, which had huge obligations to its U.S. benefactors and international banks (led by IMF-WB), all denominated in dollars; and (b) the sudden, inordinate rise in the world price of oil, which was the main fuel of its power plants at that time. These two are undoubtedly within the purview of the Anglo-U.S. powers to manipulate to their advantage, which is why in today's oil price hike, 60 percent is attributed to oil trade speculation in cahoots with banks. The same thing happened from 1971 to 1973, when they triggered the 6-Day Arab-Israeli War and oil price spikes, down to their conspiracy with OPEC and the Saudis to recycle petro-dollars through Third World debt entrapments.
Since time immemorial, exchange rates are manipulated to the advantage of the U.S. The decline in today's dollar, for instance, is due to the controlled depreciation the U.S. hopes will stem its imports, promote domestic production and push its exports all over the world. Thus, we can see U.S. Chevy's and Fords in the Philippine market again in numbers not seen since the 1960's. But it still hasn't worked effectively since China has not revalued as the U.S. wants.
The Lopezes were bankrupted by the peso devaluation of the 1970's, in the same way that Napocor's debts ballooned after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Napocor was laden with dollar obligations from Ramos' IPP contracts, including the supply of oil and coal for IPPs. Thus, it was a devastating triple whammy for Napocor: the dollar doubled in value, its profitable power plants and markets were privatized, and its fuel supply contracts rose in cost.
Third, in the 1992-93 Philippine power crisis, Meralco signed a long-term supply contract with Napocor to ensure a steady, cheap power supply for distribution to its six-million customers. At that time Royal Dutch Shell and Texaco were already jumpstarting the Malampaya offshore natural gas platform and needed to ensure their market. So Ramos intervened to broker the natural gas IPPs, which the Lopezes gleefully accepted even if it had to renege on its contract with Napocor as there was more money to be made that way. But then, Meralco simply had to conspire with Gloria to have the penalties for violating the supply contract with Napocor, a whopping P52 billion, passed on to consumers. Only opposition from the likes of this writer, FDC and Nasecore stopped it.
Fourth, what Royal Dutch Shell, IMF-WB, the oil giants, Wall Street and the Washington-London axis want, they get. With Gloria's imprimatur, imagine them indexing the low-cost natural gas for electricity to high priced diesel, which we are only beginning to discover through probes into the Malampaya-Lopez-Arroyo connections!
Fifth, in the domestic war between the Lopezes and Arroyos et al, who are all puppet-agents of the Anglo-U.S. powers, the Lopezes will win because the economic agents are more permanent while the political puppets are more expendable as the shock absorbers and red herrings of the people's wrath. When someone asked who I am siding with in the Meralco-Lopez fight against Gloria-Garcia. I said that I'm siding with neither as I side only with the people against them all, the Anglo-U.S. imperial swindlers and their puppet-agents. To believe that the Gloria-Garcia side will really bring about the correct power price reduced to the level of the average Asean or Asian power rates is to be a fool. The Epira privatization law and the whole structure emerging from it, including the IPPs, the inutile ERC and the manipulated Wesm, stops any attempt at really arriving at an economic power price. Bring it to court and it'll take the next twenty years to resolve, all in favor of the money mongers. This is why I make a call for revolution to turn things around--peacefully, I hope.
Peaceful revolution can succeed if our electoral system can be trusted--as shown in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Argentina, Brazil and Chile where patriotic and pro-people forces and reforms won by election. Otherwise, we'll need the intervention of enlightened, pro-people military forces to aid genuine civilian leaders march up the path of reform and change peacefully. The imperative reforms are the restoration of the pubic ownership and management of the energy sector as a public service, to junk the Epira and its conversion of electricity into a commodity for profit. Then a medium term program for energy self-sufficiency be put in place. Indeed, the country is most ready for revolution after the Meralco-Lopez versus Arroyo-Garcia comedy that has outraged to the maximum.
(Tune in to my shows, "Talk News TV," on Destiny Cable Channel 3, every Tuesday, 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., "Kape't Kamulatan, Kabansa" on 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m., and "Suló ng Pilipino" every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on the same station)
The banes: debt trap, profit motive
INFOWARS
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/30/2008
The Meralco stockholders meeting highlighted the acrimonious divide between the pro-Lopez stockholders and mobs and the pro-Winston Garcia group. Who represented consumers there? None among the two groups is pro-consumer and for really lower rates. The issue of getting the fair, Asean average price for electricity for every Filipino was drowned out by the fight between the Lopezes and Garcia. We know of course Garcia claims to be fighting to lower Meralco electricity prices, but only idiots and fools would believe that. Garcia is in the Meralco fight as a proxy of other faction of the exploitative economic elite and the power mongering of the political usurpers in Malacañang – all for the profit motive.
Meralco stockholders gain no sympathy from this quarter. They too benefit from the exploitation committed by the Lopezes and Meralco. Some try to present shareholder corporate participation of this public utility company as economic democracy, nothing is farther from the truth. Shareholders of privatized public utilities are in the same category as the controlling stockholders, profit seekers gouging the consumers. They are taking the free ride on the backs of power users’ monthly bill payments which capitalizes and finances the power company and its growth. These stockholders undermine the principle of public service in public utilities by their obsession for profit.
Meralco workers rooting for the Lopezes and booing Garcia reveal their self-serving motives. They are traitors to their class of millions of fellow workers who are reeling from the extortionist electricity rates. If the Meralco employees had the right perspective they should have joined the hundreds rallying outside the stockholders meeting hall, at the lobby and outside the Meralco building condemning both the Lopezes and Garcia. These groups, including the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) and EmPower Coalition are demanding popular and democratic ownership and control of the power distribution company by consumers. It is these groups that have been vindicated in the Meralco and Epira abuses they have exposed the past decade.
FDC, EmPower and this columnist have labored the past decade to expose the anomaly of privatizing power, particularly the abuses of the Lopezes and Meralco. If we take history further back to the late 60’s our groups have rallied against the Lopez abuse since the LAPVIIR days (which we have written of, i.e. the Lopez campaign fountain and our rallies against their ostentatious wealth display). The correct principle in this struggle is that public utilities such as electricity and water are natural monopolies, naturally funded from the public sector because of its huge financial requirement amortized by consumers’ payments. The public must be made aware of the absolute necessity of banning the profit motive in public utilities and the imperative of restoring them to public ownership.
We need to have a quick and permanent solution to the oppressive electricity prices, but at the rate Garcia’s motives are being suspected and the Lopezes’ legal obstructionism to change in the power sector, the public and the country’s suffering will go on without relief in sight. Whoever between the two wins, the people loses. This pointless struggle of the two avaricious factions of the power elite should awaken the Filipino middle class. They should join the long languishing masa in the brewing revolt against these power oligarch and Gloria’s corrupt system. The thinking elements among the military should reflect on these developments showing the greed of these oligarchs and the corrupt political regime, and how they aggravate the already desperate economic crisis.
The past few days Gloria Arroyo has grandstanded on a proposed allocation of two billion pesos from RVAT collections for dole outs to poor power consumers, jeepney and other public transport drivers, for tuition, etc. That’s the classic consuelo de bobo. The RVAT collections in 2006 was P 75-B, it is bigger now. Even just basing on the 2006 level the P 2-B dole out would not even constitute five percent of the entire RVAT collection. What the public should keep in mind is that 70% of the RVAT goes to debt service. The high prices of gasoline and other oil products are rooted in the onerous national debt. Even our tuition fees for our children’s education has RVAT tacked on to it, which is a real abomination if we value education as a basic right.
We reported the trial balloons from the DoF and secretary Teves regarding Gloria’s need for more revenues, but knowing how enraged the people are now about the RVAT the Arroyo government has made a feint and a sidestep. Gloria has announced that there will be no need for new taxes until her term officially ends in 2010 (as if she has any intention of leaving). On the same day as this news cam out the Margarito Teves announces that “ ‘Gov’t considering higher privatization earnings this year ‘ … including 40% stake in Petron and Philippine National Oil Co.-Exploration Corp. (PNOC-EC), 120-hectare Food Terminals Inc. (FTI), government’s real estate property in Fujimi, Japan; its stake in Meralco and Eastern Telecom Philippines Inc.”
We will ask Yuko, a Filipina in Japan and Gloria nemesis, to check the Fujimi property as there are prohibitions to selling Philippine government properties in Japan. The Petron shares are hugely profitable stocks, selling them would be a great loss to the public; and the government’s Meralco shares’ announced sale by the DoF raises the suspicion that it is depressing the value of those shares through the threat of government takeover to allow Gloria cronies to buy the shares very low. The day after the rowdy stockholder’s meeting Meralco shares have gone down by around 5%, a few more days and weeks of this and its value may just crash through the floor tiles – a great buy for anyone who gets insider information Gloria can provide.
It’s a pity that the no-nonsense senator who filed the bills to end the automatic debt appropriations and cap Malacañang’s debt contracting power is shackled in detention. Senator Trillanes filed those bills to limit the country’s debt problems and taxes stemming from it. The good news is that more testimonies, including that of journalist Alvin Elchico shows that there was no coup d’etat at Oakwood. They should let Trillanes out now to help fight the cause of the people in the Senate against debt and taxes. As soon as Trillanes gets out he will be among our first guests for our Tuesday, 8:45 to 9:30pm “Talk News TV” on Destiny Cable, GNN Channel 3. The maiden episode was quite interesting.
(Tune to “Kape’t Kamulatan, Kabansa” 1098AM, 8:30-9am, Monday to Friday)
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/30/2008
The Meralco stockholders meeting highlighted the acrimonious divide between the pro-Lopez stockholders and mobs and the pro-Winston Garcia group. Who represented consumers there? None among the two groups is pro-consumer and for really lower rates. The issue of getting the fair, Asean average price for electricity for every Filipino was drowned out by the fight between the Lopezes and Garcia. We know of course Garcia claims to be fighting to lower Meralco electricity prices, but only idiots and fools would believe that. Garcia is in the Meralco fight as a proxy of other faction of the exploitative economic elite and the power mongering of the political usurpers in Malacañang – all for the profit motive.
Meralco stockholders gain no sympathy from this quarter. They too benefit from the exploitation committed by the Lopezes and Meralco. Some try to present shareholder corporate participation of this public utility company as economic democracy, nothing is farther from the truth. Shareholders of privatized public utilities are in the same category as the controlling stockholders, profit seekers gouging the consumers. They are taking the free ride on the backs of power users’ monthly bill payments which capitalizes and finances the power company and its growth. These stockholders undermine the principle of public service in public utilities by their obsession for profit.
Meralco workers rooting for the Lopezes and booing Garcia reveal their self-serving motives. They are traitors to their class of millions of fellow workers who are reeling from the extortionist electricity rates. If the Meralco employees had the right perspective they should have joined the hundreds rallying outside the stockholders meeting hall, at the lobby and outside the Meralco building condemning both the Lopezes and Garcia. These groups, including the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) and EmPower Coalition are demanding popular and democratic ownership and control of the power distribution company by consumers. It is these groups that have been vindicated in the Meralco and Epira abuses they have exposed the past decade.
FDC, EmPower and this columnist have labored the past decade to expose the anomaly of privatizing power, particularly the abuses of the Lopezes and Meralco. If we take history further back to the late 60’s our groups have rallied against the Lopez abuse since the LAPVIIR days (which we have written of, i.e. the Lopez campaign fountain and our rallies against their ostentatious wealth display). The correct principle in this struggle is that public utilities such as electricity and water are natural monopolies, naturally funded from the public sector because of its huge financial requirement amortized by consumers’ payments. The public must be made aware of the absolute necessity of banning the profit motive in public utilities and the imperative of restoring them to public ownership.
We need to have a quick and permanent solution to the oppressive electricity prices, but at the rate Garcia’s motives are being suspected and the Lopezes’ legal obstructionism to change in the power sector, the public and the country’s suffering will go on without relief in sight. Whoever between the two wins, the people loses. This pointless struggle of the two avaricious factions of the power elite should awaken the Filipino middle class. They should join the long languishing masa in the brewing revolt against these power oligarch and Gloria’s corrupt system. The thinking elements among the military should reflect on these developments showing the greed of these oligarchs and the corrupt political regime, and how they aggravate the already desperate economic crisis.
The past few days Gloria Arroyo has grandstanded on a proposed allocation of two billion pesos from RVAT collections for dole outs to poor power consumers, jeepney and other public transport drivers, for tuition, etc. That’s the classic consuelo de bobo. The RVAT collections in 2006 was P 75-B, it is bigger now. Even just basing on the 2006 level the P 2-B dole out would not even constitute five percent of the entire RVAT collection. What the public should keep in mind is that 70% of the RVAT goes to debt service. The high prices of gasoline and other oil products are rooted in the onerous national debt. Even our tuition fees for our children’s education has RVAT tacked on to it, which is a real abomination if we value education as a basic right.
We reported the trial balloons from the DoF and secretary Teves regarding Gloria’s need for more revenues, but knowing how enraged the people are now about the RVAT the Arroyo government has made a feint and a sidestep. Gloria has announced that there will be no need for new taxes until her term officially ends in 2010 (as if she has any intention of leaving). On the same day as this news cam out the Margarito Teves announces that “ ‘Gov’t considering higher privatization earnings this year ‘ … including 40% stake in Petron and Philippine National Oil Co.-Exploration Corp. (PNOC-EC), 120-hectare Food Terminals Inc. (FTI), government’s real estate property in Fujimi, Japan; its stake in Meralco and Eastern Telecom Philippines Inc.”
We will ask Yuko, a Filipina in Japan and Gloria nemesis, to check the Fujimi property as there are prohibitions to selling Philippine government properties in Japan. The Petron shares are hugely profitable stocks, selling them would be a great loss to the public; and the government’s Meralco shares’ announced sale by the DoF raises the suspicion that it is depressing the value of those shares through the threat of government takeover to allow Gloria cronies to buy the shares very low. The day after the rowdy stockholder’s meeting Meralco shares have gone down by around 5%, a few more days and weeks of this and its value may just crash through the floor tiles – a great buy for anyone who gets insider information Gloria can provide.
It’s a pity that the no-nonsense senator who filed the bills to end the automatic debt appropriations and cap Malacañang’s debt contracting power is shackled in detention. Senator Trillanes filed those bills to limit the country’s debt problems and taxes stemming from it. The good news is that more testimonies, including that of journalist Alvin Elchico shows that there was no coup d’etat at Oakwood. They should let Trillanes out now to help fight the cause of the people in the Senate against debt and taxes. As soon as Trillanes gets out he will be among our first guests for our Tuesday, 8:45 to 9:30pm “Talk News TV” on Destiny Cable, GNN Channel 3. The maiden episode was quite interesting.
(Tune to “Kape’t Kamulatan, Kabansa” 1098AM, 8:30-9am, Monday to Friday)
Oil tax, budget & other lies
INFOWARS
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/26/2008
Last week the Department of Finance announced that its April budget surplus was a record P 25.8-B, double of last year. What it did not report is the P 24.8-B loss of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) which appeared in very small newspaper items on the inside pages. The BSP will get P 40-B fresh capital infusion from the national government through a special purpose trust to raise funds through 10-year bonds. This is on top of a $ 500-M overseas float, and as the report says: “The government would likely renege on a vow to limit foreign borrowings this year…” Finally, from several newspapers we culled this item, actually the second time it’s been floated by Gary Teves, “Government seeks more revenue to balance budget”.
The Arroyo government and its financial authorities are attempting to put on a grand tale about an “unprecedented budget surplus” while actually losing a lot of money in the BSP and other areas. At the same time more borrowings are on stream to cover up the growing losses, and while putting up this show the Department of Finance is actually pressing on Congress for the past two months now to enact new taxes. Just to remind one and all, seventy percent of all taxes go to debt servicing, and this new tax request clearly triggered by IMF-WB demands simply unmasks all the lies about the “budget surplus”. But these are not the biggest lies they are foisting again on the people, the biggest today is the oil excise tax cut that’s supposed to help the people tide over the high petro prices.
Last Friday morning I listened with glee to Joe Taruc of DzRH interviewing Finance secretary Margarito Teves. He was pressing on why the DOF does not accede to a reduction of the RVAT on fuel. Teves kept bringing the discussion back to the “removal of the excise tax” and saying that its “revenue neutral”, as if being revenue neutral is any help to the Filipino fuel consumer. Taruc asked why not reduce the RVAT down to six percent down from the present twelve percent. Teves continued to evade the issue. The reason for his evasiveness is that the 3% excise tax removal is only a sleight of hand, that doesn’t disappear because as oil prices rises the RVAT rise event bigger than the excise tax as it is on the much higher retail price and four times bigger.
When you add the rise in world oil prices expected to hit $ 150/barrel driven by speculative manipulation, the RVAT will actually rise up to eight times more eventually! Gloria Arroyo and the IMF-WB don’t need the excise tax. They’d been waiting for oil prices to rise to cover the excise tax and more. They think they can fool the people with this, but if the Ibon Foundation survey is accurate that Arroyo’s approval rating is negative 75% then we know people are learning that there’s nothing to believe from the Arroyo regime. However, it is still of utmost importance to go beyond Arroyo and expose the IMF-WB-Makati elite (Ayala, Yuchengco, et al) conspiracy to perpetuate this debt trap upon us, and show how easy it is to break the chain of this debt.
Filipinos don’t want to be called “balasubas”, especially when honoring a debt. It is therefore takes a difficult task convincing Filipinos to campaign for “debt default”. It will be easier for them to understand once we explain that the biggest debt defaulter in history is the United States of America. From a great article by Eric Janszen you can find in the February 2008 Harper’s Magazine it is explained:
“The Next Bubble: Priming the markets for tomorrow’s big crash… ... by the second quarter of 1971, the U.S. balance of merchandise trade had run up a deficit of $3.8 billion (adjusted for inflation)… Members of the Bretton Woods system, most famously French President General Charles de Gaulle, worried that the United States intended to repay the money borrowed to cover its trade gap with depreciated dollars. Opposed to the exercise of such “exorbitant privilege,” de Gaulle demanded payment in gold. With the balance of payments so greatly out of balance, newly elected President Richard Nixon faced a run on the U.S. gold supply, and his solution was novel: unilaterally end the U.S. legal obligation to redeem dollars with gold; in other words, default.”
The U.S. as a creditworthy entity is a big lie. It is the richest country in the world because small countries like the Philippines are led by politicians who refuse to expose this lie, instead they connive in the plunder of our country through unjust debt payment. These politicians fear removal by the powers in the U.S. State Department, the Pentagon or Wall Street if they opposed the debt trap. The only thing needed to end the debt problem is either have the gall to default on a legitimate debt as the U.S. did in 1971, or have the courage to repudiate an unjust, murderous debt. The only roadblack to our national economic and social recovery is this debt – remove it and we’ll take off like a rocket, like Argentina has done. There is nothing to fear in debt repudiation but fear itself, and life will be sweet after debt.
"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts", Abraham Lincoln said. There are daily lies in our media and politics, the same is so globally:
It is not true Myanmar prevents all countries from helping their typhoon victims. They are allowing Asean to help, but not former colonial invaders. The BBC had to apologize for using 2004’s Tsunami videos to exaggerate reports on Myanmar – a devious lie if it were not caught. It is not true Mugabe is a demon; it is the British that want to re-invade Zimbabwe using Tsangarai. Every day, the Infowar must be waged. Our crusade is advancing into Destiny Cable, Global News Network’s (GNN) “Talk News TV”, Monday to Friday, Channel 3, 7:30pm to 9:30pm. Analysis from this columnist and guests every Tuesday from 8:45pm to 9:30pm; this Tuesday: “The National Crisis: What is to be Done?” with Linggoy Alcuaz and Maris de la Cruz. GNN challenges ABS-CBN-ANC’s dominance, and cheaper rates from Destiny Cable too.
(Tune in to 1098AM, 8:30 to 9am, “Kape’t Kamulatan, Kabansa”, Monday to Friday)
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/26/2008
Last week the Department of Finance announced that its April budget surplus was a record P 25.8-B, double of last year. What it did not report is the P 24.8-B loss of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) which appeared in very small newspaper items on the inside pages. The BSP will get P 40-B fresh capital infusion from the national government through a special purpose trust to raise funds through 10-year bonds. This is on top of a $ 500-M overseas float, and as the report says: “The government would likely renege on a vow to limit foreign borrowings this year…” Finally, from several newspapers we culled this item, actually the second time it’s been floated by Gary Teves, “Government seeks more revenue to balance budget”.
The Arroyo government and its financial authorities are attempting to put on a grand tale about an “unprecedented budget surplus” while actually losing a lot of money in the BSP and other areas. At the same time more borrowings are on stream to cover up the growing losses, and while putting up this show the Department of Finance is actually pressing on Congress for the past two months now to enact new taxes. Just to remind one and all, seventy percent of all taxes go to debt servicing, and this new tax request clearly triggered by IMF-WB demands simply unmasks all the lies about the “budget surplus”. But these are not the biggest lies they are foisting again on the people, the biggest today is the oil excise tax cut that’s supposed to help the people tide over the high petro prices.
Last Friday morning I listened with glee to Joe Taruc of DzRH interviewing Finance secretary Margarito Teves. He was pressing on why the DOF does not accede to a reduction of the RVAT on fuel. Teves kept bringing the discussion back to the “removal of the excise tax” and saying that its “revenue neutral”, as if being revenue neutral is any help to the Filipino fuel consumer. Taruc asked why not reduce the RVAT down to six percent down from the present twelve percent. Teves continued to evade the issue. The reason for his evasiveness is that the 3% excise tax removal is only a sleight of hand, that doesn’t disappear because as oil prices rises the RVAT rise event bigger than the excise tax as it is on the much higher retail price and four times bigger.
When you add the rise in world oil prices expected to hit $ 150/barrel driven by speculative manipulation, the RVAT will actually rise up to eight times more eventually! Gloria Arroyo and the IMF-WB don’t need the excise tax. They’d been waiting for oil prices to rise to cover the excise tax and more. They think they can fool the people with this, but if the Ibon Foundation survey is accurate that Arroyo’s approval rating is negative 75% then we know people are learning that there’s nothing to believe from the Arroyo regime. However, it is still of utmost importance to go beyond Arroyo and expose the IMF-WB-Makati elite (Ayala, Yuchengco, et al) conspiracy to perpetuate this debt trap upon us, and show how easy it is to break the chain of this debt.
Filipinos don’t want to be called “balasubas”, especially when honoring a debt. It is therefore takes a difficult task convincing Filipinos to campaign for “debt default”. It will be easier for them to understand once we explain that the biggest debt defaulter in history is the United States of America. From a great article by Eric Janszen you can find in the February 2008 Harper’s Magazine it is explained:
“The Next Bubble: Priming the markets for tomorrow’s big crash… ... by the second quarter of 1971, the U.S. balance of merchandise trade had run up a deficit of $3.8 billion (adjusted for inflation)… Members of the Bretton Woods system, most famously French President General Charles de Gaulle, worried that the United States intended to repay the money borrowed to cover its trade gap with depreciated dollars. Opposed to the exercise of such “exorbitant privilege,” de Gaulle demanded payment in gold. With the balance of payments so greatly out of balance, newly elected President Richard Nixon faced a run on the U.S. gold supply, and his solution was novel: unilaterally end the U.S. legal obligation to redeem dollars with gold; in other words, default.”
The U.S. as a creditworthy entity is a big lie. It is the richest country in the world because small countries like the Philippines are led by politicians who refuse to expose this lie, instead they connive in the plunder of our country through unjust debt payment. These politicians fear removal by the powers in the U.S. State Department, the Pentagon or Wall Street if they opposed the debt trap. The only thing needed to end the debt problem is either have the gall to default on a legitimate debt as the U.S. did in 1971, or have the courage to repudiate an unjust, murderous debt. The only roadblack to our national economic and social recovery is this debt – remove it and we’ll take off like a rocket, like Argentina has done. There is nothing to fear in debt repudiation but fear itself, and life will be sweet after debt.
"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts", Abraham Lincoln said. There are daily lies in our media and politics, the same is so globally:
It is not true Myanmar prevents all countries from helping their typhoon victims. They are allowing Asean to help, but not former colonial invaders. The BBC had to apologize for using 2004’s Tsunami videos to exaggerate reports on Myanmar – a devious lie if it were not caught. It is not true Mugabe is a demon; it is the British that want to re-invade Zimbabwe using Tsangarai. Every day, the Infowar must be waged. Our crusade is advancing into Destiny Cable, Global News Network’s (GNN) “Talk News TV”, Monday to Friday, Channel 3, 7:30pm to 9:30pm. Analysis from this columnist and guests every Tuesday from 8:45pm to 9:30pm; this Tuesday: “The National Crisis: What is to be Done?” with Linggoy Alcuaz and Maris de la Cruz. GNN challenges ABS-CBN-ANC’s dominance, and cheaper rates from Destiny Cable too.
(Tune in to 1098AM, 8:30 to 9am, “Kape’t Kamulatan, Kabansa”, Monday to Friday)
The Social Revolution
INFOWARS
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/23/2008
A colleague quipped one morning, “You seem to end all your columns now with a call for social revolution.” And indeed I am, as anyone aware of the dismal future this country is facing would be. It’s not just the past seven years under Gloria, it’s the decades of decline in quality of life Filipinos, middle and masa classes. Ever since the Edsa I elite led coup against the Republic, this has worsened. In fact, it’s been declining since the 60’s after Diosdado Macapagal won over Carlos P. Garcia. This had been the case except for the brief spring of Marcos II when he asserted the demand for bases rental and started the energy and industrial development programs. We had been declining since Macapagal took the American Manufacturer’s Association and CIA funds to win against Filipino First president Garcia.
The decline accelerated rapidly in the wake of Edsa I. Cory Aquino’s sell out of the Philippines’ most vital interests precipitated it– her boast to pay all the onerous foreign debt and her not-so-known bloating of our domestic debt to the local finance mafia, her sell off of state assets and cancellation of major energy projects, and her request for U.S. “Phantom jets persuasion flights” to stave off a military rebellion that marked the end of any semblance of sovereign struggle of the country. By the time Ramos took over mendicancy to the U.S. had become the pre-qualification for ascendance to the presidency – blessing from the State Department, Pentagon or Wall Street, New York. When a homegrown president was elected in 1998, the Edsa I cabal went into motion to depose the most popularly elected president.
Some socio-political critics today still limit their analyses of the Philippine crisis to the “single-personality” cause. They blamed everything on Marcos, then Estrada. Despite the exit of the two from power the Philippine social crisis not only persisted but even worsened. Today, all blame is on Gloria, which is only partially correct. The other past is that she is only the continuation and alter ego of Fidel V. Ramos, including and particularly in the energy crisis issue. They are the Father and Auntie of the IPP, PPA and Epira, but then there are many ninong and ninangs too behind them – the oligarchs. They are the continuing cabal that stay in power whoever comes as the new political power. This is the permanent power that underlies the tale of the Philippine socio-economic-political crisis – the oligarchs.
The Meralco story is just the most obvious of the many operations of the oligarchs in the country. The Lopezes are too overt with their wealth and power. In the 1960’s the Lopez tied up with Marcos, Fernando Lopez ran as vice to Ferdinand. Patriarch Iñing Lopez had a wedding anniversary bash so unabashedly opulent and ostentatious, flying in guests worldwide and newspapers reported the champagne fountain that flowed. All perceived to be taken from the monthly payments of millions of electricity consumers. The LAPVIIR (Layman’s Post-Vatican II Reforms group) picketed that wedding anniversary, and I don’t think ever since then that the Lopezes had ever recovered from the public impression of their socially irresponsible business practices and extravagance.
Charity work of the Lopezes smacks of self-serving agendas, like the Bantay Bata program that has been shown to use it ABS-CBN clout to extort donations from the Department of Education, or that project in La Mesa Dam for alleged environmental protection that had become apparently a front for the Lopezes real estate project, and that eye care hospital in Rockwell I visited once with my wife to have a consultation which turned out to be charging so high that’s its really extortionist – and I had to move over to the old Manila Doctors’ Hospital to find better but more affordable eye care. But the most chagrining fact about the Lopez octopus is their cross-ownership of mega-media establishments which is used in their blatant business-political machinations.
The Lopezes are not alone; Cebu’s Garcias is among them, among its scions is the Meralco nemesis now whose top GSIS job allows the clan to maneuvers billions in funds for the objectives of the political boss today – Gloria. The Garcias are no match for the more illustrious Spanish surnames like Razon, Aboitiz and Alcantara who have cut up the energy sector for themselves. Razon (Gloria’s election fund manager and whose Manila port operations charge the highest in the world) got Transco, which earns $ 400-M a year, for $ 4-B in installment for what is valued at least $ 6-B. Congress is now rushing its franchise. The Aboitizes (Cory Aquino appointed one to NPC) and Alcantaras (who had at least one in every cabinet since Cory Aquino) have their share of IPPs but want a slice of Meralco’s distribution – which they will get care of Gloria, Enrile and Mikey’s “open access” amendments.
The Philippine oligarchs follow Amschel Rothchild’s dictum (founder of the world’s most powerful Jewish financial network the past two hundred fifty years): “Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws.” The U.S. is also dominated by its financial oligarchs, defense industries and its privately owned U.S. Federal Reserve. The power of money affects each world citizen more than they can know today, due to media’s lack of reporting on it. The world market oil overprice today by 60% is due to manipulation by oil traders in cahoots with global banks recovering their loses from dollar depreciation and the subprime crisis – taking advantage of China and India’s fears of Western lock-out of their oil needs. Philippine oligarchs are small fries, but the global financial powers empower them as Philippine agents to exploit the country.
Philippine history is shaped by these traditional oligarchs who connive with traditional politicians to turn the Philippine government and its laws into tools for exploitation of the nation’s patrimony, toil and sweat. The Lopezes were “franchised” by the American’s General Power Corporation charge the high rates to pay them off for Meralco. What the Lopezes did in power Razon has done in port operations, the Ayalas in water and telecoms, the Aboitizes and Alcantaras in power and oil, as nausea. In 2010, they’ll back another controlled, and most likely “winnable” but spineless or most corruptible candidate. If they lose they can plot the next “people power”. Only a social revolution can sweep aside these cabals of oligarchs and corrupt politicians, and install leadership for genuine reform of the economic-political power structure for social equity and national development.
(Tune in to 1098AM, “Kape’t Kamulatan, Kabansa”, 8:30-9am, Monday to Friday)
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/23/2008
A colleague quipped one morning, “You seem to end all your columns now with a call for social revolution.” And indeed I am, as anyone aware of the dismal future this country is facing would be. It’s not just the past seven years under Gloria, it’s the decades of decline in quality of life Filipinos, middle and masa classes. Ever since the Edsa I elite led coup against the Republic, this has worsened. In fact, it’s been declining since the 60’s after Diosdado Macapagal won over Carlos P. Garcia. This had been the case except for the brief spring of Marcos II when he asserted the demand for bases rental and started the energy and industrial development programs. We had been declining since Macapagal took the American Manufacturer’s Association and CIA funds to win against Filipino First president Garcia.
The decline accelerated rapidly in the wake of Edsa I. Cory Aquino’s sell out of the Philippines’ most vital interests precipitated it– her boast to pay all the onerous foreign debt and her not-so-known bloating of our domestic debt to the local finance mafia, her sell off of state assets and cancellation of major energy projects, and her request for U.S. “Phantom jets persuasion flights” to stave off a military rebellion that marked the end of any semblance of sovereign struggle of the country. By the time Ramos took over mendicancy to the U.S. had become the pre-qualification for ascendance to the presidency – blessing from the State Department, Pentagon or Wall Street, New York. When a homegrown president was elected in 1998, the Edsa I cabal went into motion to depose the most popularly elected president.
Some socio-political critics today still limit their analyses of the Philippine crisis to the “single-personality” cause. They blamed everything on Marcos, then Estrada. Despite the exit of the two from power the Philippine social crisis not only persisted but even worsened. Today, all blame is on Gloria, which is only partially correct. The other past is that she is only the continuation and alter ego of Fidel V. Ramos, including and particularly in the energy crisis issue. They are the Father and Auntie of the IPP, PPA and Epira, but then there are many ninong and ninangs too behind them – the oligarchs. They are the continuing cabal that stay in power whoever comes as the new political power. This is the permanent power that underlies the tale of the Philippine socio-economic-political crisis – the oligarchs.
The Meralco story is just the most obvious of the many operations of the oligarchs in the country. The Lopezes are too overt with their wealth and power. In the 1960’s the Lopez tied up with Marcos, Fernando Lopez ran as vice to Ferdinand. Patriarch Iñing Lopez had a wedding anniversary bash so unabashedly opulent and ostentatious, flying in guests worldwide and newspapers reported the champagne fountain that flowed. All perceived to be taken from the monthly payments of millions of electricity consumers. The LAPVIIR (Layman’s Post-Vatican II Reforms group) picketed that wedding anniversary, and I don’t think ever since then that the Lopezes had ever recovered from the public impression of their socially irresponsible business practices and extravagance.
Charity work of the Lopezes smacks of self-serving agendas, like the Bantay Bata program that has been shown to use it ABS-CBN clout to extort donations from the Department of Education, or that project in La Mesa Dam for alleged environmental protection that had become apparently a front for the Lopezes real estate project, and that eye care hospital in Rockwell I visited once with my wife to have a consultation which turned out to be charging so high that’s its really extortionist – and I had to move over to the old Manila Doctors’ Hospital to find better but more affordable eye care. But the most chagrining fact about the Lopez octopus is their cross-ownership of mega-media establishments which is used in their blatant business-political machinations.
The Lopezes are not alone; Cebu’s Garcias is among them, among its scions is the Meralco nemesis now whose top GSIS job allows the clan to maneuvers billions in funds for the objectives of the political boss today – Gloria. The Garcias are no match for the more illustrious Spanish surnames like Razon, Aboitiz and Alcantara who have cut up the energy sector for themselves. Razon (Gloria’s election fund manager and whose Manila port operations charge the highest in the world) got Transco, which earns $ 400-M a year, for $ 4-B in installment for what is valued at least $ 6-B. Congress is now rushing its franchise. The Aboitizes (Cory Aquino appointed one to NPC) and Alcantaras (who had at least one in every cabinet since Cory Aquino) have their share of IPPs but want a slice of Meralco’s distribution – which they will get care of Gloria, Enrile and Mikey’s “open access” amendments.
The Philippine oligarchs follow Amschel Rothchild’s dictum (founder of the world’s most powerful Jewish financial network the past two hundred fifty years): “Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws.” The U.S. is also dominated by its financial oligarchs, defense industries and its privately owned U.S. Federal Reserve. The power of money affects each world citizen more than they can know today, due to media’s lack of reporting on it. The world market oil overprice today by 60% is due to manipulation by oil traders in cahoots with global banks recovering their loses from dollar depreciation and the subprime crisis – taking advantage of China and India’s fears of Western lock-out of their oil needs. Philippine oligarchs are small fries, but the global financial powers empower them as Philippine agents to exploit the country.
Philippine history is shaped by these traditional oligarchs who connive with traditional politicians to turn the Philippine government and its laws into tools for exploitation of the nation’s patrimony, toil and sweat. The Lopezes were “franchised” by the American’s General Power Corporation charge the high rates to pay them off for Meralco. What the Lopezes did in power Razon has done in port operations, the Ayalas in water and telecoms, the Aboitizes and Alcantaras in power and oil, as nausea. In 2010, they’ll back another controlled, and most likely “winnable” but spineless or most corruptible candidate. If they lose they can plot the next “people power”. Only a social revolution can sweep aside these cabals of oligarchs and corrupt politicians, and install leadership for genuine reform of the economic-political power structure for social equity and national development.
(Tune in to 1098AM, “Kape’t Kamulatan, Kabansa”, 8:30-9am, Monday to Friday)
EPIRA cohorts will double-deal consumers
INFOWARS
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/19/2008
Gloria Arroyo will meet with Meralco's Manolo Lopez--two Epira conspirators whose clash of interests in the country's electricity industry erupted last week. They’ll meet I surmise: not to solve the high price of power, but talk on divvying up the sector for Gloria's Big Business allies, as the Lopezes bargain for a premium to open up Meralco's mega-franchise. Maybe they'll smoke the peace pipe after, every one of them laughing to their banks again -- on the backs of hapless power consumers.
Mainstream newspaper columnist Billy Esposo wrote: "Meralco customers are better off with the devil they know," arguing that while "power consumers are trapped between the greed of two parties fighting over Meralco… a government takeover will most certainly take us all back to the dark ages, pun intended." He forgets that when the electricity sector was mainly in public hands, it had never been accused of having "the highest power cost in Asia". Esposo lambasts Marcos' power management but forgets that it was Cory who scuttled the hydro-electric projects San Roque, Chico, Casecnan, and Liaban dams, and the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant that led to the infamous blackouts under Cory and her clone Fidel V. Ramos.
Cory's National Power Corp. (NPC) chief was crony Ernie Aboitiz , whose company made billions in importing generators during the blackouts, earning him "The Prince of Darkness" tag. FVR then became the "Father of the PPA" (Purchased Power Adjustment) with the infamous "take or pay” provision. Cory signed in a dozen IPPs; Ramos, around thirty-five; and Gloria the infamous Impsa. Esposo’s favorite whipping-boy President Estrada refused to sign a single IPP contract because of the "sovereign guarantee" in them. Erap deferred several IPP contracts, including the Impsa which Gloria signed ten days after Edsa II.
Billy Esposo, by his own admission, was a Meralco shareholder. As such, he partook of the Meralco plunder, profiting from the Lopezes' crony capitalism in taking Meralco sans capital by the graces of the Edsa I authorities. Meralco proceeded with unethical, conflict-of-interest practices of setting up subsidiaries to supply equipment, services and power to their mother company Meralco. Meralco abuses its power and privileges, including charging electricity consumption of its huge conglomerate to consumers to the tune of P500-million a year. It connives with corrupt politicians to transfer taxes to consumers, keep the interest on meter deposits for its own pockets, ad nausea.
Reflect on it: a generator's electron flow is the same any other's as the quality of electrons from one generator cannot be different from another. And because electricity generation and service require huge investments that only government can consolidate, any attempt to justify privatization inevitably hides the fact that it is always public credit and consumer payments that bankroll such capital-intensive projects. This, for instance, is reflected in the terms of the transfer of the American company, General Public Utilities (GPU), to the Lopezes' MSC (which became Meralco):
"… for a total price of $54.4 million, 10% payable immediately (which was borrowed) and the balance in 9 equal yearly installments . .. with interest at 3% per annum on the unpaid balance. The payment of the second and subsequent installments, with interest, was secured by revolving irrevocable letters of credit issued by a syndicate of 16 Philippine banks, confirmed by a syndicate of 10 United States banks… admittedly a self-liquidating obligation, because the dividends which MSC would receive from Meralco… would take care of the installment payments, with interest, of the MSC obligation to GPU."
In less than a year, the Lopezes sought to increase Meralco rates and got it over the objections of government. Their reason: Meralco needed funds to expand its services. But even then, the Free Press magazine had already argued that Meralco should raise money from its stockholders, not from power consumers. Still, it has always been the method of the Lopezes to raise funds from consumers and claim them as its own to invest in subsidiaries, other public utilities like Maynilad Water, real estate businesses such as Rockwell or road projects such as NLEX. To get these deals, the Lopezes have mastered the art of corrupting various public institutions and officials. In short, they have used Filipino consumers' payments to build their empire.
Electricity began as a novelty and then a luxury. Eventually, its potential for public good and socio-economic development made it a matter of public and national interest. And since electricity serves as an economic driver, national planners realized it had to reach as many citizens as possible. Thus, came huge projects requiring huge credits that only governments could provide, especially when the cheapest source of electricity was to be sourced from gigantic hydro-electric dams. This thesis is proven by such historic projects like the Hoover Dam which helped revive the U.S. economy in the wake of the Great Depression. Electricity is thus a natural government monopoly, which makes government the sole source of real credit backed up by taxes, and the only body responsible for consolidating all sources of cheap and higher cost energy to charge the average lowest rates.
The argument of “choice”, in behalf of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (Wesm), does not hold water. The electron and its flow from any generator is the same. There is no product difference--not in packaging, in delivery, scent, color, taste, etc. The only difference is the form of generation, i.e. fossil fuel, coal, hydro-electric, nuclear or others, each with its own cost structure. This is why consolidating all sources to one lowest average power rate is important to ensure democratic pricing of electricity. Otherwise, as we have seen today, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao coops and private suppliers all have different prices but are way above Asian averages.
GMA and the Epira conspirators will make a show of lowering power rates a bit. The public has become too aware of the extreme inequity and corruption of power rates under the Epira. The public, however, should not just expect lower rates but demand that these not be higher than the average in Asia. That's between 40% to 50% lower than what Meralco is charging us today or at least P5/kwh less. For this to happen, the Epira and its private profit motive will have to be junked en toto. Gloria and the Lopezes certainly aren't going to allow this; neither are the politicians. We'll need a Social Revolution for this to happen.
(Tune in to Kape't Kamulatan, Kabansa on 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m., and Suló ng Pilipino every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.)
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/19/2008
Gloria Arroyo will meet with Meralco's Manolo Lopez--two Epira conspirators whose clash of interests in the country's electricity industry erupted last week. They’ll meet I surmise: not to solve the high price of power, but talk on divvying up the sector for Gloria's Big Business allies, as the Lopezes bargain for a premium to open up Meralco's mega-franchise. Maybe they'll smoke the peace pipe after, every one of them laughing to their banks again -- on the backs of hapless power consumers.
Mainstream newspaper columnist Billy Esposo wrote: "Meralco customers are better off with the devil they know," arguing that while "power consumers are trapped between the greed of two parties fighting over Meralco… a government takeover will most certainly take us all back to the dark ages, pun intended." He forgets that when the electricity sector was mainly in public hands, it had never been accused of having "the highest power cost in Asia". Esposo lambasts Marcos' power management but forgets that it was Cory who scuttled the hydro-electric projects San Roque, Chico, Casecnan, and Liaban dams, and the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant that led to the infamous blackouts under Cory and her clone Fidel V. Ramos.
Cory's National Power Corp. (NPC) chief was crony Ernie Aboitiz , whose company made billions in importing generators during the blackouts, earning him "The Prince of Darkness" tag. FVR then became the "Father of the PPA" (Purchased Power Adjustment) with the infamous "take or pay” provision. Cory signed in a dozen IPPs; Ramos, around thirty-five; and Gloria the infamous Impsa. Esposo’s favorite whipping-boy President Estrada refused to sign a single IPP contract because of the "sovereign guarantee" in them. Erap deferred several IPP contracts, including the Impsa which Gloria signed ten days after Edsa II.
Billy Esposo, by his own admission, was a Meralco shareholder. As such, he partook of the Meralco plunder, profiting from the Lopezes' crony capitalism in taking Meralco sans capital by the graces of the Edsa I authorities. Meralco proceeded with unethical, conflict-of-interest practices of setting up subsidiaries to supply equipment, services and power to their mother company Meralco. Meralco abuses its power and privileges, including charging electricity consumption of its huge conglomerate to consumers to the tune of P500-million a year. It connives with corrupt politicians to transfer taxes to consumers, keep the interest on meter deposits for its own pockets, ad nausea.
Reflect on it: a generator's electron flow is the same any other's as the quality of electrons from one generator cannot be different from another. And because electricity generation and service require huge investments that only government can consolidate, any attempt to justify privatization inevitably hides the fact that it is always public credit and consumer payments that bankroll such capital-intensive projects. This, for instance, is reflected in the terms of the transfer of the American company, General Public Utilities (GPU), to the Lopezes' MSC (which became Meralco):
"… for a total price of $54.4 million, 10% payable immediately (which was borrowed) and the balance in 9 equal yearly installments . .. with interest at 3% per annum on the unpaid balance. The payment of the second and subsequent installments, with interest, was secured by revolving irrevocable letters of credit issued by a syndicate of 16 Philippine banks, confirmed by a syndicate of 10 United States banks… admittedly a self-liquidating obligation, because the dividends which MSC would receive from Meralco… would take care of the installment payments, with interest, of the MSC obligation to GPU."
In less than a year, the Lopezes sought to increase Meralco rates and got it over the objections of government. Their reason: Meralco needed funds to expand its services. But even then, the Free Press magazine had already argued that Meralco should raise money from its stockholders, not from power consumers. Still, it has always been the method of the Lopezes to raise funds from consumers and claim them as its own to invest in subsidiaries, other public utilities like Maynilad Water, real estate businesses such as Rockwell or road projects such as NLEX. To get these deals, the Lopezes have mastered the art of corrupting various public institutions and officials. In short, they have used Filipino consumers' payments to build their empire.
Electricity began as a novelty and then a luxury. Eventually, its potential for public good and socio-economic development made it a matter of public and national interest. And since electricity serves as an economic driver, national planners realized it had to reach as many citizens as possible. Thus, came huge projects requiring huge credits that only governments could provide, especially when the cheapest source of electricity was to be sourced from gigantic hydro-electric dams. This thesis is proven by such historic projects like the Hoover Dam which helped revive the U.S. economy in the wake of the Great Depression. Electricity is thus a natural government monopoly, which makes government the sole source of real credit backed up by taxes, and the only body responsible for consolidating all sources of cheap and higher cost energy to charge the average lowest rates.
The argument of “choice”, in behalf of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (Wesm), does not hold water. The electron and its flow from any generator is the same. There is no product difference--not in packaging, in delivery, scent, color, taste, etc. The only difference is the form of generation, i.e. fossil fuel, coal, hydro-electric, nuclear or others, each with its own cost structure. This is why consolidating all sources to one lowest average power rate is important to ensure democratic pricing of electricity. Otherwise, as we have seen today, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao coops and private suppliers all have different prices but are way above Asian averages.
GMA and the Epira conspirators will make a show of lowering power rates a bit. The public has become too aware of the extreme inequity and corruption of power rates under the Epira. The public, however, should not just expect lower rates but demand that these not be higher than the average in Asia. That's between 40% to 50% lower than what Meralco is charging us today or at least P5/kwh less. For this to happen, the Epira and its private profit motive will have to be junked en toto. Gloria and the Lopezes certainly aren't going to allow this; neither are the politicians. We'll need a Social Revolution for this to happen.
(Tune in to Kape't Kamulatan, Kabansa on 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m., and Suló ng Pilipino every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.)
EPIRA cohorts - economic saboteurs
INFOWARS
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/12/2008
Power crocodiles on GMA’s side call the Lopezes power sharks. GMA’s economic adviser Joey Salceda point to the IPPs (international power pirates), and Chiz Escudero says it’s the RVAT on “systems loss” while the Lopezes says it’s the tax on Malampaya gas, Mikey Arroyo and Juan Ponce Enrile says it’s the lack of “open access” to entice other “players” (i.e. other power pirates) to partake of the PPA plunder. There are countless opinions and propositions on the burning issue of high Philippine electricity cost and the role of Meralco, the IPPs and the GMA regime in the power price crisis. They’re all quacks harping on symptoms rather than the cancer at the root – the EPIRA privatization and deregulation of power.
Before the EPIRA privatization, electricity generation and distribution was still in principle a government service to empower the nation and the people to pursue modern conveniences, productivity and national development. Whatever sins of the government run power industry and the NPC since its establishment in 1936, causing power rates to be the highest in Asia was never one of them. The Philippines waited for the EPIRA’s privatization from Edsa Dos to earn that distinction of having the “highest power cost in Asia”.
Privatization and deregulation in the world started in the late 80s with Tatcherite and Reaganite economics revolution in the U.K. and the U.S. Neo-conservatives and Big Business began funding academes and politicians to ram through power privatization and deregulation laws, mainstream media to demonize state and public power utilities, and banking institutions followed suit with debt-for-privatization schemes. The IMF-WB-ADB started tying loan packages to Third World country to power privatization and deregulation, which led many Third World countries into that trap. South America was particularly targeted by U.S. companies using corrupt and surrogate governments in the 90s in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and others to privatize state energy firms.
In Asia, the State of Maharastra, India, in 1996 allowed Enron set up a power plant and within a year power rates shot up prompting massive demonstrations that eventually led to its closure. Indonesia under the dictator Suharto was a compliant leader and accepted privatization of many public energy companies, but the high prices put the foreign IPPs at odds with Indonesians which led to contentious cases filed in the international courts. When Suharto fell many of the IPPs in Indonesia were renegotiated. In South American many countries are currently reversing and re-nationalizing the privatization and deregulation of the last decade, under the new, patriotic or nationalist governments of Krichner, Lula and Chavez.
In 2001 Philippine newspapers cited the real reason for the fast tracking of the EPIRA by the GMA regime. In the i-Report of the PCIJ, which is just one among dozens one could quickly pick up on the Internet, this headline ran: “Short-circuited Reforms in the Power Sector - EPIRA’s passage in 2001, in fact, was a condition for the release of much-needed loans from the ADB and Japan Export-Import Bank amounting to $950 million. ...” The reforms deformed the power sector, but Gloria Arroyo couldn’t wait and got the Lopezes to bankroll the payola (distributed by then Speaker Sony Belmonte) to congressmen of the lame duck Congress to railroad the EPIRA. Arroyo also got then NEA (National Electrification Administration) chief Noel Sanchez to release P 10-M per congressmen for power projects.
EPIRA’s power rates practically doubled but it was kept under wraps for a year as Gloria ordered Napocor to hold the rate increase in abeyance. Due to mounting debts NPC was forced to raise rates a year later, then the nation learned of the evil PPA and IPPs. Such bitter experiences is not limited to us, Americans were even worse hit by sudden increases in power rates after privatization and deregulation – culminating in the $ 50-B Enron swindle of California. One website in the U.S I recommend to our readers to visit is Common Dreams, which published one report published by Public Citizen entitled: “It’s Greed Stupid! Debunking the Ten Myths of Utility Deregulation”, by Wenonah Hauter and Tyson Slocum”. In Myth # 2 that deregulation will lower costs for consumers, it said:
“Deregulation has been sold to the public as a way to lower prices. Unfortunately, the inverse is often true… Now, as wholesale prices have skyrocketed since last year (2001), proponents argue that consumer rates will have to increase to encourage more competition.” When deregulation is under fire: “Myth # 1: Deregulation does not work because California did not deregulate enough.’ … Advocates for deregulation say that if … consumers paid for the real cost of electricity through a free market, there would not be a problem. But they fail to mention that … the cost of wholesale electricity has at times been almost 4,000 percent higher than before deregulation because … of the profiteering on electricity trading at the Power Exchange.“ California’s Power Exchange is the WESM here, and like in California the buyers and sellers manipulate the market to maximize profit.
GMA, Garcia, the Lopezes, WESM directors, senators and congressmen – they are all to blame. Economic saboteurs and traitors all! : The Lopezes did not pay for Meralco, it’s the power consumers who did. Consumers are not obliged to respect Cory Aquino’s crony franchise to the Lopezes to profit from our electricity payments. It was anomalous from the start, to give the minority Lopezes the right to manage the public firm and supply it power and equipment through Lopez subsidiaries. GMA (and FVR) is worse, selling out national interest to the IPPs, destroying the national economy and impoverishing millions of Filipinos. Legislator sold out for a few pieces of silver from the ADB and other multi-lateral financial agencies; and mainstream media kept the public befuddled by abdicating its duty to help the public piece the puzzle into one intelligible issue: privatization of public utilities is plunder.
To solve the power price crisis: junk EPIRA and restore electricity as a public utility; confiscate and nationalize Meralco; re-nationalize all IPPs; appoint credible officials to the regulatory agencies with the mandate to align rates with the regional average. Privatization for profit is no option at all. Nasecore’s Pete Ilagan is calling for “cooperativization” which is really taking private corporations out and restoring power to the public. Government corruption is cited for opposition to nationalization, but experience with cooperatives raise the same problem – unreliable coop leaders; but profit seeking corporations are the worst. The solution is good men to provide good government, but our present political system can’t make this happen. – Back to the Revolution.
(Tune in to 1098AM, “Kape’t Kamulatan, Kabansa” 8:30-9am, Monday to Friday)
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/12/2008
Power crocodiles on GMA’s side call the Lopezes power sharks. GMA’s economic adviser Joey Salceda point to the IPPs (international power pirates), and Chiz Escudero says it’s the RVAT on “systems loss” while the Lopezes says it’s the tax on Malampaya gas, Mikey Arroyo and Juan Ponce Enrile says it’s the lack of “open access” to entice other “players” (i.e. other power pirates) to partake of the PPA plunder. There are countless opinions and propositions on the burning issue of high Philippine electricity cost and the role of Meralco, the IPPs and the GMA regime in the power price crisis. They’re all quacks harping on symptoms rather than the cancer at the root – the EPIRA privatization and deregulation of power.
Before the EPIRA privatization, electricity generation and distribution was still in principle a government service to empower the nation and the people to pursue modern conveniences, productivity and national development. Whatever sins of the government run power industry and the NPC since its establishment in 1936, causing power rates to be the highest in Asia was never one of them. The Philippines waited for the EPIRA’s privatization from Edsa Dos to earn that distinction of having the “highest power cost in Asia”.
Privatization and deregulation in the world started in the late 80s with Tatcherite and Reaganite economics revolution in the U.K. and the U.S. Neo-conservatives and Big Business began funding academes and politicians to ram through power privatization and deregulation laws, mainstream media to demonize state and public power utilities, and banking institutions followed suit with debt-for-privatization schemes. The IMF-WB-ADB started tying loan packages to Third World country to power privatization and deregulation, which led many Third World countries into that trap. South America was particularly targeted by U.S. companies using corrupt and surrogate governments in the 90s in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and others to privatize state energy firms.
In Asia, the State of Maharastra, India, in 1996 allowed Enron set up a power plant and within a year power rates shot up prompting massive demonstrations that eventually led to its closure. Indonesia under the dictator Suharto was a compliant leader and accepted privatization of many public energy companies, but the high prices put the foreign IPPs at odds with Indonesians which led to contentious cases filed in the international courts. When Suharto fell many of the IPPs in Indonesia were renegotiated. In South American many countries are currently reversing and re-nationalizing the privatization and deregulation of the last decade, under the new, patriotic or nationalist governments of Krichner, Lula and Chavez.
In 2001 Philippine newspapers cited the real reason for the fast tracking of the EPIRA by the GMA regime. In the i-Report of the PCIJ, which is just one among dozens one could quickly pick up on the Internet, this headline ran: “Short-circuited Reforms in the Power Sector - EPIRA’s passage in 2001, in fact, was a condition for the release of much-needed loans from the ADB and Japan Export-Import Bank amounting to $950 million. ...” The reforms deformed the power sector, but Gloria Arroyo couldn’t wait and got the Lopezes to bankroll the payola (distributed by then Speaker Sony Belmonte) to congressmen of the lame duck Congress to railroad the EPIRA. Arroyo also got then NEA (National Electrification Administration) chief Noel Sanchez to release P 10-M per congressmen for power projects.
EPIRA’s power rates practically doubled but it was kept under wraps for a year as Gloria ordered Napocor to hold the rate increase in abeyance. Due to mounting debts NPC was forced to raise rates a year later, then the nation learned of the evil PPA and IPPs. Such bitter experiences is not limited to us, Americans were even worse hit by sudden increases in power rates after privatization and deregulation – culminating in the $ 50-B Enron swindle of California. One website in the U.S I recommend to our readers to visit is Common Dreams, which published one report published by Public Citizen entitled: “It’s Greed Stupid! Debunking the Ten Myths of Utility Deregulation”, by Wenonah Hauter and Tyson Slocum”. In Myth # 2 that deregulation will lower costs for consumers, it said:
“Deregulation has been sold to the public as a way to lower prices. Unfortunately, the inverse is often true… Now, as wholesale prices have skyrocketed since last year (2001), proponents argue that consumer rates will have to increase to encourage more competition.” When deregulation is under fire: “Myth # 1: Deregulation does not work because California did not deregulate enough.’ … Advocates for deregulation say that if … consumers paid for the real cost of electricity through a free market, there would not be a problem. But they fail to mention that … the cost of wholesale electricity has at times been almost 4,000 percent higher than before deregulation because … of the profiteering on electricity trading at the Power Exchange.“ California’s Power Exchange is the WESM here, and like in California the buyers and sellers manipulate the market to maximize profit.
GMA, Garcia, the Lopezes, WESM directors, senators and congressmen – they are all to blame. Economic saboteurs and traitors all! : The Lopezes did not pay for Meralco, it’s the power consumers who did. Consumers are not obliged to respect Cory Aquino’s crony franchise to the Lopezes to profit from our electricity payments. It was anomalous from the start, to give the minority Lopezes the right to manage the public firm and supply it power and equipment through Lopez subsidiaries. GMA (and FVR) is worse, selling out national interest to the IPPs, destroying the national economy and impoverishing millions of Filipinos. Legislator sold out for a few pieces of silver from the ADB and other multi-lateral financial agencies; and mainstream media kept the public befuddled by abdicating its duty to help the public piece the puzzle into one intelligible issue: privatization of public utilities is plunder.
To solve the power price crisis: junk EPIRA and restore electricity as a public utility; confiscate and nationalize Meralco; re-nationalize all IPPs; appoint credible officials to the regulatory agencies with the mandate to align rates with the regional average. Privatization for profit is no option at all. Nasecore’s Pete Ilagan is calling for “cooperativization” which is really taking private corporations out and restoring power to the public. Government corruption is cited for opposition to nationalization, but experience with cooperatives raise the same problem – unreliable coop leaders; but profit seeking corporations are the worst. The solution is good men to provide good government, but our present political system can’t make this happen. – Back to the Revolution.
(Tune in to 1098AM, “Kape’t Kamulatan, Kabansa” 8:30-9am, Monday to Friday)
Junk EPIRA to stop power lies
INFOWARS
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/5/2008
One objective of the hidden forces behind Edsa II was the passage of the electricity sector privatization law. Four months after President Estrada was ousted, the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) was certified as urgent and passed by a lame duck Congress. They had no decency to wait for the new elected Congress. Gloria later upped the ante with that TV ad of a couple elating over a new electric fan to cool them due to the cheaper electricity they enjoyed because of the Epira. A year later, the country was shocked by a doubling of electricity bills, only to learn that Gloria had actually ordered Napocor (NPC) to halve the actual costs to hype up EPIRA's so-called, "benefits." Gloria's instruction bloated the debt of the already indebted NPC, which could not be sustained without raising electricity rates dramatically a year later.
It was only then that Filipino consumers learned the truth about the PPA (Purchased Power Adjustment) and the IPP's (Independent Power Producers), and what great con game electricity privatization and deregulation was. The promise of lower rates through competition and transparency was all false hope, given to hoodwink people into giving up public control of the power industry. Epira created layers upon layers of legal obfuscations, including the Wholesale Electricty Spot Market (WESM), a fully-deregulated structure that negated any regulatory power of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).
In 2006, Gloria vaingloriously inaugurated the WESM operation and promised lower rates for the nth time, and again instructed NPC to bid low in WESM at P2.72/kWh to impress the pubic; but by WESM's third month, it became P4.853/kWh and eventually reached almost P 11/kwh by the end of 2006. A furor ensued as Wesm accused NPC of price manipulation in a market mechanism that was guaranteed to stamp out manipulation. An investigation of alleged NPC price manipulation in the WESM was conducted through 2007 but the NPC was cleared. Meantime, WESM directors (who are also power industry executives already receiving huge pays from their mother companies) applied with ERC for P500-million operating expenses and got them approved, which means WESM directors will get pays charged to electricity bills.
And as WESM rates fluctuated monthly and were difficult to follow, a year later, another inordinate increase sprung from Meralco. Last April 23, 2008 newspapers headlined, "Meralco hikes rates." A day later, the Inquirer, succumbing to Meralco's PR blitz, headlined it and spun it as "Coal lack hikes Meralco bill." It had nothing to do with coal but with transfer pricing by the Lopezes buying at peak rates through WESM from their own IPP's. Meralco's captive columnists, particularly one in the Inquirer, started spewing out disinformation that the increase was due to the high NPC-WESM rate, allegedly higher than Meralco's rate. One radio anchor on DZXL picked up on the disinformation and spread the distortion.
Nasecore's Pete Ilagan informed us that the NPC rate electric cooperatives were getting was P4.11/kwh, which Meralco should have gotten. Meralco's claim was that NPC charged it P7.27/kwh through WESM. On April 25, however, Wesm replied that Meralco's rate was high because it chose to buy at peak hours. Why would Meralco deliberately buy at peak hours if it were not to benefit the Lopez IPP's, namely, Sta. Rita, San Lorenzo, Duracom and Quezon Power, and put down NPC?
My April 25 column summarized it: "The Great Con in the Philippines this week is: Meralco's rate increase attributed to the 'coal lack' or rising fuel prices. The real cause is the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) in the electricity sector privatization…. The truth is Meralco bought the highest cost power from their own Lopez-owned IPPs … Wesm is the idea in California that Enron used to fleece $50-billion from California power consumers." California started electricity deregulation in 1996. Deregulation required a sell off of generating assets of publicly-owned companies like San Diego Gas and Electric or Pacific Gas and Electric to private companies like Enron which traded in the spot market. Its spot market started in 1998 with the same promise as ours. But instead of bringing down power costs, rates significantly rose.
By June of 2000, California started experiencing power blackouts--the first signs of manipulations to push prices even higher (as we experienced a few weeks ago simultaneous with the coal shortage scare). San Diego Gas and Electric filed cases of market manipulation against Enron et al but it soon went bankrupt while Enron raked it in until its $50-billion collapse and investigation for market manipulation and accounting fraud. Enron's collapse dragged down another U.S. energy company – Mirant which by 2003 filed for a $5-billion bankruptcy; but had a ready fall back in the Philippine electricity market.
As it joined Gloria Arroyo's corporate conspirators cum Board of Economic Advisers, this company backed Arroyo's coup and acquired the richest IPP's, which netted it windfall profits primarily because its IPP's were collecting PPA's without producing any electricity - thanks to the sovereign guarantees. Mirant has since unloaded its Philippine assets after siphoning away what we estimate to be $10-billion. In like manner other foreign firms in the power sector are tied in with their local conduits like the Lopezes, Aboitizes, Alcantaras et al. Ostensibly, their strategy of fleecing the country involved removing Estrada, who opposed "sovereign guarantees," and installing Gloria, who approved the EPIRA posthaste.
The hardships stemming from the power price manipulations cannot be separated from the lies of Edsa II, Gloria Arroyo, the oligarchs and the wayward media. The current "spat" between Gloria and Meralco is a moro-moro to cover up the distortion and predatory exploitation of privatized electricity that converted power into a commodity for profit instead of an engine for public service and national development. From the public utility that the Constitution defined it to be, electricity or power has now been converted into a private utility for private profit in the EPIRA. Hence, this regime of high power rates and power rate manipulation; which will only get worse until the onerous EPIRA is junked and the power industry is restored to public ownership and control. Until that revolution comes, we are forced to continue bearing the unbearable.
(Tune in to Kape't Kamulatan, Kabansa on 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m., and Suló ng Pilipino every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.)
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/5/2008
One objective of the hidden forces behind Edsa II was the passage of the electricity sector privatization law. Four months after President Estrada was ousted, the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) was certified as urgent and passed by a lame duck Congress. They had no decency to wait for the new elected Congress. Gloria later upped the ante with that TV ad of a couple elating over a new electric fan to cool them due to the cheaper electricity they enjoyed because of the Epira. A year later, the country was shocked by a doubling of electricity bills, only to learn that Gloria had actually ordered Napocor (NPC) to halve the actual costs to hype up EPIRA's so-called, "benefits." Gloria's instruction bloated the debt of the already indebted NPC, which could not be sustained without raising electricity rates dramatically a year later.
It was only then that Filipino consumers learned the truth about the PPA (Purchased Power Adjustment) and the IPP's (Independent Power Producers), and what great con game electricity privatization and deregulation was. The promise of lower rates through competition and transparency was all false hope, given to hoodwink people into giving up public control of the power industry. Epira created layers upon layers of legal obfuscations, including the Wholesale Electricty Spot Market (WESM), a fully-deregulated structure that negated any regulatory power of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).
In 2006, Gloria vaingloriously inaugurated the WESM operation and promised lower rates for the nth time, and again instructed NPC to bid low in WESM at P2.72/kWh to impress the pubic; but by WESM's third month, it became P4.853/kWh and eventually reached almost P 11/kwh by the end of 2006. A furor ensued as Wesm accused NPC of price manipulation in a market mechanism that was guaranteed to stamp out manipulation. An investigation of alleged NPC price manipulation in the WESM was conducted through 2007 but the NPC was cleared. Meantime, WESM directors (who are also power industry executives already receiving huge pays from their mother companies) applied with ERC for P500-million operating expenses and got them approved, which means WESM directors will get pays charged to electricity bills.
And as WESM rates fluctuated monthly and were difficult to follow, a year later, another inordinate increase sprung from Meralco. Last April 23, 2008 newspapers headlined, "Meralco hikes rates." A day later, the Inquirer, succumbing to Meralco's PR blitz, headlined it and spun it as "Coal lack hikes Meralco bill." It had nothing to do with coal but with transfer pricing by the Lopezes buying at peak rates through WESM from their own IPP's. Meralco's captive columnists, particularly one in the Inquirer, started spewing out disinformation that the increase was due to the high NPC-WESM rate, allegedly higher than Meralco's rate. One radio anchor on DZXL picked up on the disinformation and spread the distortion.
Nasecore's Pete Ilagan informed us that the NPC rate electric cooperatives were getting was P4.11/kwh, which Meralco should have gotten. Meralco's claim was that NPC charged it P7.27/kwh through WESM. On April 25, however, Wesm replied that Meralco's rate was high because it chose to buy at peak hours. Why would Meralco deliberately buy at peak hours if it were not to benefit the Lopez IPP's, namely, Sta. Rita, San Lorenzo, Duracom and Quezon Power, and put down NPC?
My April 25 column summarized it: "The Great Con in the Philippines this week is: Meralco's rate increase attributed to the 'coal lack' or rising fuel prices. The real cause is the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) in the electricity sector privatization…. The truth is Meralco bought the highest cost power from their own Lopez-owned IPPs … Wesm is the idea in California that Enron used to fleece $50-billion from California power consumers." California started electricity deregulation in 1996. Deregulation required a sell off of generating assets of publicly-owned companies like San Diego Gas and Electric or Pacific Gas and Electric to private companies like Enron which traded in the spot market. Its spot market started in 1998 with the same promise as ours. But instead of bringing down power costs, rates significantly rose.
By June of 2000, California started experiencing power blackouts--the first signs of manipulations to push prices even higher (as we experienced a few weeks ago simultaneous with the coal shortage scare). San Diego Gas and Electric filed cases of market manipulation against Enron et al but it soon went bankrupt while Enron raked it in until its $50-billion collapse and investigation for market manipulation and accounting fraud. Enron's collapse dragged down another U.S. energy company – Mirant which by 2003 filed for a $5-billion bankruptcy; but had a ready fall back in the Philippine electricity market.
As it joined Gloria Arroyo's corporate conspirators cum Board of Economic Advisers, this company backed Arroyo's coup and acquired the richest IPP's, which netted it windfall profits primarily because its IPP's were collecting PPA's without producing any electricity - thanks to the sovereign guarantees. Mirant has since unloaded its Philippine assets after siphoning away what we estimate to be $10-billion. In like manner other foreign firms in the power sector are tied in with their local conduits like the Lopezes, Aboitizes, Alcantaras et al. Ostensibly, their strategy of fleecing the country involved removing Estrada, who opposed "sovereign guarantees," and installing Gloria, who approved the EPIRA posthaste.
The hardships stemming from the power price manipulations cannot be separated from the lies of Edsa II, Gloria Arroyo, the oligarchs and the wayward media. The current "spat" between Gloria and Meralco is a moro-moro to cover up the distortion and predatory exploitation of privatized electricity that converted power into a commodity for profit instead of an engine for public service and national development. From the public utility that the Constitution defined it to be, electricity or power has now been converted into a private utility for private profit in the EPIRA. Hence, this regime of high power rates and power rate manipulation; which will only get worse until the onerous EPIRA is junked and the power industry is restored to public ownership and control. Until that revolution comes, we are forced to continue bearing the unbearable.
(Tune in to Kape't Kamulatan, Kabansa on 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m., and Suló ng Pilipino every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.)
No food crisis in Asean: Only in the Philippines
INFOWARS
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/21/2008
The furor over the "global food crisis" is all over the world's media, but in Asia and Asean, do we see any panicky country other than the Philippines? China, India and Pakistan, the three most populous Asian continental nations, have limited their exports and secured their reserves. Take note of the word "reserves," that is, buffer stocks of their own and not imported. Indonesia, with the largest population in Asean, has also stopped its rice exports; likewise, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. The Philippines is the only one desperately buying from anyone still willing to export. So is there anyone else in Asia and Asean facing rice shortage? This is one time the quip "Only in the Philippines" truly applies. We should ponder this uniquely Philippine predicament for the fate of future Filipino children depends on it.
That emaciated child's face could soon be the eye-bulging one that we used to associate only with African famine. My generation associated that vivid picture of absolute hunger with Biafra during its short civil war with Nigeria while today's generation sees it in pictures of Somalia, Sudan, Darfur, etc.--all in Africa. That picture could be the Philippines a decade from now, as I have written forebodingly about for years. I describe the Philippines' precipitous fall into this situation as "Africanization," a term used to describe the dire poverty in Africa but also implying a deliberate and systematic push of a country into socio-economic collapse--a destruction by Western imperialism and neo-colonialism.
Regular readers of my column over the years will remember that I've often warned of this inevitable "Africanization" of the Philippines under the continuing predatory exploitation of the IMF-WB, its local elite (read, Makati Business Club) and their political patsies (pawns). For years, I have been trying to spread the use of the term to instill a sense of urgency over this crisis. Last week, I heard over AM radio someone alluding to Africa in describing the rice crisis unfolding today. Karen Davila was saying (in Filipino), "This food crisis looks like what we see happening in Africa." If anything good has come out of this rice and food crisis in the Philippines, it is that people are beginning to think more deeply about the problem.
The more enlightened and concerned among Filipinos have long seen this crisis brewing; this columnist is not the only one equipped with foresight. One fellow I was reminded of is Dr. Filomeno Sta. Ana III, who supported Edsa II (but now feeling like an "Edsa Dork" I am told), because he had a six-point program addressing agricultural modernization. President Joseph E. Estrada, he should be glad to note, started an annual awards program for the top three provinces that attained the highest increases in agricultural productivity: P 100-M, P 50-M and P 10-M for top, second and third placers; reflecting his awareness of the need for raising productivity. Estrada's appointment of Dr. William Dar, now International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-arid Tropics (ICRIST) head, also gave hope for real modernization, but was cut short.
The tasks in righting our agricultural wrongs to achieve rice and food security are no longer rocket science. First, it should be clear to everyone that the "policy of importation" to ensure "availability" of rice is an utterly failed policy. In a crunch, every food and rice exporting country will hedge and hoard their stocks to ensure domestic availability and local social stability before exporting for other countries' needs. Second, dependence on the "market" for incentives for production is an utter farce as even the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization Latin America chief denounced market speculators for the rise in food prices. National food policy (supply and production management) is a function of State and government with food self-sufficiency as primary aim.
The State and government uses all means--policy and planning, budgetary, financial, and technological measures, among others at its disposal to ensure adequate food at all times, at prices afforded by even those in the lowest rung of the economic ladder. The past-Edsa governments led by Cory Aquino did not put food self-sufficiency among their highest priorities in either policy or planning. The Cory Carp law stipulating that 75% of its budget for agrarian infrastructure (which includes irrigation) be sourced from Official Development Funds, foreign donations and whatever recovered Marcos wealth put our agricultural development at the mercy of external funding sources and abdicated the primary role of the State.
The Arroyo regime, short in everything including ideas for solving the rice crisis in the short and long term, also has no answers. The P 50-B emergency expenditure to go to rice retail subsidy should have been allocated to infrastructure and incentives years ago; ditto the Joc-Joc Bolante "fertilizer funds," which too many have written about. Gloria won't be around long enough to oversee the final solution to the rice and food crisis problem; this crisis is her final Waterloo. There are no short fixes for the problem and the tragedy is Gloria cannot even start to focus on initiating the solutions as her political survival needs comes before anything else. Talk of her "con-con" is again rife. With the Supreme Court numbers now firmly on her side, she can ram it through and damn what the people think about it.
Last but not least of the fundamental challenges in the food policy of the Philippines is our foreign policy. So long as the people cannot throw off the yoke of mendicant thinking and continue to follow IMF-WB-ADB and US-British impositions, we will never be allowed food self-sufficiency. It's their method of controlling us. Food dependency is a basic strategy of the West, and the Bush initiative for bio-fuels is not about fuel sources but about contracting food supply and boosting Cargill and Monsanto profits. All other Asian and Asean countries are resisting these Western shackles--and this is why the food crisis is "Only in the Philippines." Nationalism, with a nationalist and protectionist national development strategy, is the only effective response and durable solution.
(Tune in to 1098AM for "Kape't Kamulatan, Kabansa," every Mon. to Fri., 8:30 to 9:00am, and "Suló ng Pilipino" every M-W-F, 6:00 to 7:00pm)
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/21/2008
The furor over the "global food crisis" is all over the world's media, but in Asia and Asean, do we see any panicky country other than the Philippines? China, India and Pakistan, the three most populous Asian continental nations, have limited their exports and secured their reserves. Take note of the word "reserves," that is, buffer stocks of their own and not imported. Indonesia, with the largest population in Asean, has also stopped its rice exports; likewise, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. The Philippines is the only one desperately buying from anyone still willing to export. So is there anyone else in Asia and Asean facing rice shortage? This is one time the quip "Only in the Philippines" truly applies. We should ponder this uniquely Philippine predicament for the fate of future Filipino children depends on it.
That emaciated child's face could soon be the eye-bulging one that we used to associate only with African famine. My generation associated that vivid picture of absolute hunger with Biafra during its short civil war with Nigeria while today's generation sees it in pictures of Somalia, Sudan, Darfur, etc.--all in Africa. That picture could be the Philippines a decade from now, as I have written forebodingly about for years. I describe the Philippines' precipitous fall into this situation as "Africanization," a term used to describe the dire poverty in Africa but also implying a deliberate and systematic push of a country into socio-economic collapse--a destruction by Western imperialism and neo-colonialism.
Regular readers of my column over the years will remember that I've often warned of this inevitable "Africanization" of the Philippines under the continuing predatory exploitation of the IMF-WB, its local elite (read, Makati Business Club) and their political patsies (pawns). For years, I have been trying to spread the use of the term to instill a sense of urgency over this crisis. Last week, I heard over AM radio someone alluding to Africa in describing the rice crisis unfolding today. Karen Davila was saying (in Filipino), "This food crisis looks like what we see happening in Africa." If anything good has come out of this rice and food crisis in the Philippines, it is that people are beginning to think more deeply about the problem.
The more enlightened and concerned among Filipinos have long seen this crisis brewing; this columnist is not the only one equipped with foresight. One fellow I was reminded of is Dr. Filomeno Sta. Ana III, who supported Edsa II (but now feeling like an "Edsa Dork" I am told), because he had a six-point program addressing agricultural modernization. President Joseph E. Estrada, he should be glad to note, started an annual awards program for the top three provinces that attained the highest increases in agricultural productivity: P 100-M, P 50-M and P 10-M for top, second and third placers; reflecting his awareness of the need for raising productivity. Estrada's appointment of Dr. William Dar, now International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-arid Tropics (ICRIST) head, also gave hope for real modernization, but was cut short.
The tasks in righting our agricultural wrongs to achieve rice and food security are no longer rocket science. First, it should be clear to everyone that the "policy of importation" to ensure "availability" of rice is an utterly failed policy. In a crunch, every food and rice exporting country will hedge and hoard their stocks to ensure domestic availability and local social stability before exporting for other countries' needs. Second, dependence on the "market" for incentives for production is an utter farce as even the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization Latin America chief denounced market speculators for the rise in food prices. National food policy (supply and production management) is a function of State and government with food self-sufficiency as primary aim.
The State and government uses all means--policy and planning, budgetary, financial, and technological measures, among others at its disposal to ensure adequate food at all times, at prices afforded by even those in the lowest rung of the economic ladder. The past-Edsa governments led by Cory Aquino did not put food self-sufficiency among their highest priorities in either policy or planning. The Cory Carp law stipulating that 75% of its budget for agrarian infrastructure (which includes irrigation) be sourced from Official Development Funds, foreign donations and whatever recovered Marcos wealth put our agricultural development at the mercy of external funding sources and abdicated the primary role of the State.
The Arroyo regime, short in everything including ideas for solving the rice crisis in the short and long term, also has no answers. The P 50-B emergency expenditure to go to rice retail subsidy should have been allocated to infrastructure and incentives years ago; ditto the Joc-Joc Bolante "fertilizer funds," which too many have written about. Gloria won't be around long enough to oversee the final solution to the rice and food crisis problem; this crisis is her final Waterloo. There are no short fixes for the problem and the tragedy is Gloria cannot even start to focus on initiating the solutions as her political survival needs comes before anything else. Talk of her "con-con" is again rife. With the Supreme Court numbers now firmly on her side, she can ram it through and damn what the people think about it.
Last but not least of the fundamental challenges in the food policy of the Philippines is our foreign policy. So long as the people cannot throw off the yoke of mendicant thinking and continue to follow IMF-WB-ADB and US-British impositions, we will never be allowed food self-sufficiency. It's their method of controlling us. Food dependency is a basic strategy of the West, and the Bush initiative for bio-fuels is not about fuel sources but about contracting food supply and boosting Cargill and Monsanto profits. All other Asian and Asean countries are resisting these Western shackles--and this is why the food crisis is "Only in the Philippines." Nationalism, with a nationalist and protectionist national development strategy, is the only effective response and durable solution.
(Tune in to 1098AM for "Kape't Kamulatan, Kabansa," every Mon. to Fri., 8:30 to 9:00am, and "Suló ng Pilipino" every M-W-F, 6:00 to 7:00pm)
Creating panic for world control
INFOWARS
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/18/2008
“Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all people of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government.” - Henry Kissinger, transcribed from a tape made by a Swiss delegate at the Bilderberg Meeting on May 21, 1992 in Evian, France.
Did you notice IMF chief Dominique Strauss–Kahn and the World Bank’s chief Bob Zoellick creating global panic by warning of famine, social unrest and war stemming from the world food tightness? Kahn was headlined last April 12 and Zoellick on April 13, setting the tone for media to go into a spin connecting hunger to population explosion, environment and “errant” Third World governments. It should dawn on people that the alarmism of these two multilateral financial institutions’ chiefs they who could have prevented such food crises in the first place, but did nothing. The IMF and WB are rightly accused by international anti-IMF-WB movements of causing this problem by decades of their “structural conditionalities” in exchange of loans.
IMF and WB structural conditionalities usually consists of: eradication of subsidies for Third World peasants (Europe and U.S. subsidizes farmers by over $ 1-B a day); trade liberalization, removal of tariffs on importation of agricultural products (drowning local farmers in subsidized imports); privatization and sabotage of public infrastructure (such as hydro-electric facilities and irrigation), combined with other conditions such as encouraging export crops such as black pepper or cut flowers. Implemented over a decade or two these result in massive failures in domestic agriculture as we have seen in the Philippines in the rice, corn, garlic, onion and other crop sectors.
There is enough land and resources in the world to feed the global population today thrice over. The vast, under-populated African continent many studies show could be the world’s breadbasket. The Philippines still has large tracks of arable low and uplands. If the Israeli deserts could be made productive, nothing prevents Filipinos from doing the same with their plains, hills and valleys - except by the sabotage by Western-controlled leaders like Cory Aquino. Marcos has imported thousands of mini-hydros to set up on upland sites for mini-dams as mountain rivers and streams rolled down, but Cory Aquino stopped the program and allowed those mini-hydro units and the program to rot.
To obfuscate Cory’s sabotage such as the cancellation four major irrigation dams and her CARP law requiring irrigation funding to be sourced from ODA and recovered “Marcos wealth”, they raise the Marcos bogey. Likewise on Estrada who did a lot for food security such as: appoint an agriculturist Wiliam Dar to the DA (now in an international agri project in India); offer up to P 100-M prize to communities that achieve high agricultural production, set up the carabao breeding program (Urdaneta Mayor Amadeo Perez last April 16 raised the alarm on declining carabao numbers in Pangasinan). Yet Edsa Dos writers like Billy Esposo et al, continue demonizing Erap with the concocted cases instead.
To comprehend this sabotage of Third World nations’ food security by multi-lateral agencies, look at the global pattern. In Haiti the vastly popular President Jean Bertrand-Aristide was deposed twice for resisting IMF conditionalities. Leaders and countries that try to ensure the people’s basic needs like Myanmar or Cuba, are demonized and pressured with embargoes to stop them. The Henry Kissinger quote above summarizes the truth that goes on behind the façade of songs and dances before global media: longstanding Western imperialist oligarchs are scheming to keep control of the world.
If millions die of famine or war to maintain world control, the oligarchs shed no tear for to them the masses are teeming amoebas (including you, me and our families). As Kissinger said Bilderbergers: “… an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all people of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil.” “Real or promulgated” threats, and “world leaders” who are they who have the money have three faces: “The Bilderberg Society is the most secretive of the three main organizations set up to bring about a One World Government, with the other two being the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Trilateral Commission” as website describes.
The usual tactic to dispel this truth is to call it “conspiracy theory” because, as J. Edgar Hoover said: “The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous - he simply cannot believe it exists.” It is not in the experience of ordinary folks and therefore such malevolence of power is inconcievable; but to those who have seen power in operation and conspiracies in action even at smaller, local levels, it begins to be wholly comprehensible. Although ordinary folks can be educated to understand the mainstream media prevents this and promotes ignorance of people. New York Times editor John Swinton at the turn of the last century said of the U.S. independent press to a group of journalists honoring him:
“There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print…. We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.” The same should be said about the Philippine mainstream media, but we in the alternative media can claim otherwise just as this column is always lashing out at the rich and powerful in Philippine society. The only reason why Tribune cannot print more copies is because it has few rich advertisers, unlike the mainstream newspapers.
The global and Philippine crisis is being pushed towards chaos, then Western intervention can enter just like in Haiti for direct control. The only measure against this is the nationalist response – establishment of a genuine republican government of, for and by the people –independent and sovereign by investing national resources for infrastructure for food security, modern energy and fuel sources, public education, health and scientific development (not for debt payment). That’s where countries like China, India, Russia and smaller Vietnam and Malaysia are going. These countries shall be under attack after the weak ones like the Philippines are totally controlled for used as launching pads for global war in the EuraAsian continent.
(Tune in to 1098AM, “Kape’t Kamulatan, Kabansa”; Monday to Friday 8:30 to 9am)
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/18/2008
“Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all people of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government.” - Henry Kissinger, transcribed from a tape made by a Swiss delegate at the Bilderberg Meeting on May 21, 1992 in Evian, France.
Did you notice IMF chief Dominique Strauss–Kahn and the World Bank’s chief Bob Zoellick creating global panic by warning of famine, social unrest and war stemming from the world food tightness? Kahn was headlined last April 12 and Zoellick on April 13, setting the tone for media to go into a spin connecting hunger to population explosion, environment and “errant” Third World governments. It should dawn on people that the alarmism of these two multilateral financial institutions’ chiefs they who could have prevented such food crises in the first place, but did nothing. The IMF and WB are rightly accused by international anti-IMF-WB movements of causing this problem by decades of their “structural conditionalities” in exchange of loans.
IMF and WB structural conditionalities usually consists of: eradication of subsidies for Third World peasants (Europe and U.S. subsidizes farmers by over $ 1-B a day); trade liberalization, removal of tariffs on importation of agricultural products (drowning local farmers in subsidized imports); privatization and sabotage of public infrastructure (such as hydro-electric facilities and irrigation), combined with other conditions such as encouraging export crops such as black pepper or cut flowers. Implemented over a decade or two these result in massive failures in domestic agriculture as we have seen in the Philippines in the rice, corn, garlic, onion and other crop sectors.
There is enough land and resources in the world to feed the global population today thrice over. The vast, under-populated African continent many studies show could be the world’s breadbasket. The Philippines still has large tracks of arable low and uplands. If the Israeli deserts could be made productive, nothing prevents Filipinos from doing the same with their plains, hills and valleys - except by the sabotage by Western-controlled leaders like Cory Aquino. Marcos has imported thousands of mini-hydros to set up on upland sites for mini-dams as mountain rivers and streams rolled down, but Cory Aquino stopped the program and allowed those mini-hydro units and the program to rot.
To obfuscate Cory’s sabotage such as the cancellation four major irrigation dams and her CARP law requiring irrigation funding to be sourced from ODA and recovered “Marcos wealth”, they raise the Marcos bogey. Likewise on Estrada who did a lot for food security such as: appoint an agriculturist Wiliam Dar to the DA (now in an international agri project in India); offer up to P 100-M prize to communities that achieve high agricultural production, set up the carabao breeding program (Urdaneta Mayor Amadeo Perez last April 16 raised the alarm on declining carabao numbers in Pangasinan). Yet Edsa Dos writers like Billy Esposo et al, continue demonizing Erap with the concocted cases instead.
To comprehend this sabotage of Third World nations’ food security by multi-lateral agencies, look at the global pattern. In Haiti the vastly popular President Jean Bertrand-Aristide was deposed twice for resisting IMF conditionalities. Leaders and countries that try to ensure the people’s basic needs like Myanmar or Cuba, are demonized and pressured with embargoes to stop them. The Henry Kissinger quote above summarizes the truth that goes on behind the façade of songs and dances before global media: longstanding Western imperialist oligarchs are scheming to keep control of the world.
If millions die of famine or war to maintain world control, the oligarchs shed no tear for to them the masses are teeming amoebas (including you, me and our families). As Kissinger said Bilderbergers: “… an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all people of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil.” “Real or promulgated” threats, and “world leaders” who are they who have the money have three faces: “The Bilderberg Society is the most secretive of the three main organizations set up to bring about a One World Government, with the other two being the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Trilateral Commission” as website describes.
The usual tactic to dispel this truth is to call it “conspiracy theory” because, as J. Edgar Hoover said: “The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous - he simply cannot believe it exists.” It is not in the experience of ordinary folks and therefore such malevolence of power is inconcievable; but to those who have seen power in operation and conspiracies in action even at smaller, local levels, it begins to be wholly comprehensible. Although ordinary folks can be educated to understand the mainstream media prevents this and promotes ignorance of people. New York Times editor John Swinton at the turn of the last century said of the U.S. independent press to a group of journalists honoring him:
“There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print…. We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.” The same should be said about the Philippine mainstream media, but we in the alternative media can claim otherwise just as this column is always lashing out at the rich and powerful in Philippine society. The only reason why Tribune cannot print more copies is because it has few rich advertisers, unlike the mainstream newspapers.
The global and Philippine crisis is being pushed towards chaos, then Western intervention can enter just like in Haiti for direct control. The only measure against this is the nationalist response – establishment of a genuine republican government of, for and by the people –independent and sovereign by investing national resources for infrastructure for food security, modern energy and fuel sources, public education, health and scientific development (not for debt payment). That’s where countries like China, India, Russia and smaller Vietnam and Malaysia are going. These countries shall be under attack after the weak ones like the Philippines are totally controlled for used as launching pads for global war in the EuraAsian continent.
(Tune in to 1098AM, “Kape’t Kamulatan, Kabansa”; Monday to Friday 8:30 to 9am)
Paradigm shift
INFOWARS
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/14/2008
Do you notice that the countries where the food riots are erupting are under the aegis the West, i.e. U.S.-Anglo-EU umbrella? Topping the list is Haiti where the U.S. sent 20,000 troops in 1994 to oust of Col. Raul Cedras’ military regime. Cedras wanted elections opposed by Clinton who restored former Catholic priest turned politician Jean Bertrand-Aristide, whom Clinton deposed again later for resisting an IMF-restructuring program which created food-crisis hit country today. The other food-riot stricken country is Mubarak’s Egypt which earns on tourism but lives on annual $ 1.3-B U.S. to help suppress aspirations for sovereignty. Others listed by the U.N. are the Philippines, Indonesia (which had U.S. backed Suharto for decades) and London-E.U. influenced African countries.
The rice exporting countries today outside the West are primarily Asian countries which are at odds with the West, i.e. Myanmar of Burma which the West has consistently lambasted as “the poorest country in Asean”, Vietnam which maintains strict protectionism for its economy despite its very late accession to the WTO in 2006, of course China, India and Thailand. While Thailand does not appear to many as protectionist as the others mentioned above, the conservative and pro-globalization internet magazine “The Globalist” headlines a signal article lambasting the numerous industrial and agricultural protectionist measures Thailand has in place. What separates these countries from those hit by the food crisis? – Their relative insulation from past IMF “structural reforms”, i.e. the removal of protective barriers to destroy local industrial and agricultural production.
One must blame the Philippines’ rice crisis today not just on any single failed leader but on a series of them starting with Gloria’s father, Diosdado “Dadong” Macapagal, who started selling out Philippine political and economic sovereignty for U.S. political support for his election against the protectionist Carlos P. Garcia. Upon winning Dadong doubled the national debt, devalued the Peso, reversed the incipient independent and national economics of the country. Marcos defeated Dadong to follow in the same IMF- path but later set the course to reverse the dependency with his “Green” and “11-Industrial projects” revolution. Cory Aquino dismantled it after the U.S.-Makati Business Club Edsa Uno-civil society coup of 1986. To this day they feign ignorance of their sins in destroying the domestic economy and scapegoats Gloria as the only culprit.
Gloria is the biggest culprit only as a partner to Edsa Dos which installed her to stop Joseph E. Estrada’s economic policy for food security (assigning professional agriculturist William Dar) and agricultural self-reliance as in the Carabao Breeding Program, Gloria appointed lawyer Arthur Yap (better at slipping around laws) with a management and economics degree from Gloria. Edsa Dos civil society supporters denounce Gloria’s corruption, but they cannot denounce her economics as it is theirs’ – free trade, anti-protectionism, comparative and “market” economics, as taught by Solita Monsod (U.P.), Vic Abola (of UAP), by Cielito Habito (Ateneo), and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (Ateneo). They have their allies in media in mushy, starry-eyed liberals like Billy Esposo, Tony Abaya, Jose Montelibano, Isagani Cruz, among many others.
I am aching for a public debate with these so-called economists and “civil society” intelligentsia because they are part of the obfuscation of the real issues that beset this nation. They doom to ignorance a great part of the population who read the mainstream media that limits the scope of their reportage and analysis. They blame all ills of society on a few personalities they demonize, and omit the overarching historical, geo-strategic and political-economic environment that conditions many of the events in this vulnerable Third World country – like the U.S. hand in Philippine elections and “people power”, the British role in the theft of Sabah, and recently in the passage of the EPIRA and privatization of power, in the BOTs in water and tollways.
They omit the geo-strategic and political-economic backdrop of the rice crisis today. Much of the rice crisis goes back to U.S. instigated IMF-conditionalities, assault on our economic sovereignty and “people power” that ended up reversing economic-industrial and agricultural programs launching self-reliance and self-sufficiency under Marcos II and in the short-lived Erap administration. Let us focus on a particular beloved subject of the liberal intelligentsia - “market” economics and the principle of “letting supply and demand” determine the economics of the nation. On the present food crisis in the world, last April 10 a senior Food and Agricultural Organization official (FAO), Jose Graziano said, “"The crisis is a speculative attack and it will last…” The “markets”, i.e. speculators holding leveraged money, are buying up food futures and jacking up prices.
The likes of Monsod and Habito (I should add Paderanga, whom I always hear invoke the “markets” when he speaks) have repeatedly told this country to rely on the “markets” instead of national and state planning. Let’s call them by their generic label – the market economists. Now, as Graziano confirms, we are victims of the “markets” while the planned economies of China, India, Vietnam and Burma continue without fail to assure the basic needs of their people. Let me add Malaysia too, which to this day practices state planning and protectionism that Mahathir and predecessors maintained. This directly contradicts market economists’ thesis state planning is inimical to growth, and private corporations are the key to national prosperity (what AIM teaches its students).
The late 20th century debate on which is a better economic model - the protectionist and state-led economy or the market-led economics - is settled by the many crises we face today. Eight years after the turn of the century we are seeing unprecedented global financial collapse, followed by food crises every where and the promise of more crises to come in global security, energy and environment. The Last century’s dominant market-led capitalism, aggressively pursued by the Western countries and imposed on the Third World, is now proven to be an utter failure. State-led, planned economic systems are on a comeback. Filipinos must this cue and embark on the new course, and it must leave behind the myths and paradigms of Edsa Uno and Dos to begin with.
The Philippines must focus on gathering the old and new intellectual and political leaders that have consistently opposed the failed methods of the past and proposed the path towards protectionist, nationalist, balanced social-market systems and variations of the theme. Political leaders must no longer be drawn from the corporate technocratic cadres; they engineered the failed economics that led to our present predicament. The new economic managers must be inspired by the like of Alejandro “Ding” Lichauco and Dr. Dodong Nemenzo, political leaders drawn from the ranks of the anti-globalization social-economic activists, business sector leaders selected from producers and manufacturers and not from speculative traders, real estate speculators and money men. Military leaders will come from “conscientized” officers and not mercenaries of the Pentagon or the local oligarchy.
The top leadership shall be reserved not for candidates of the “civil society”, the elite or the U.S. Ambassador, but for genuine leaders of the people and the masa. Not even moderate greed should be acceptable in leadership and state or government functions. The people’s material welfare and not the national GDP or GNP shall be the measure of the nation and the economic system’s success or failure. Nothing less that a complete paradigm alter this country’s present course towards the precipice – the “failed state” the West has planned for us as they did for Haiti, Afghanistan and others once thriving societies. The crisis Gloria has brought upon this land will force our people to realize and embrace this paradigm shift – we just have to get the message out to them through consistent and persistent information and political education.
(Tune in to 1098AM, Mon. to Fri., 8:30-9am)
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/14/2008
Do you notice that the countries where the food riots are erupting are under the aegis the West, i.e. U.S.-Anglo-EU umbrella? Topping the list is Haiti where the U.S. sent 20,000 troops in 1994 to oust of Col. Raul Cedras’ military regime. Cedras wanted elections opposed by Clinton who restored former Catholic priest turned politician Jean Bertrand-Aristide, whom Clinton deposed again later for resisting an IMF-restructuring program which created food-crisis hit country today. The other food-riot stricken country is Mubarak’s Egypt which earns on tourism but lives on annual $ 1.3-B U.S. to help suppress aspirations for sovereignty. Others listed by the U.N. are the Philippines, Indonesia (which had U.S. backed Suharto for decades) and London-E.U. influenced African countries.
The rice exporting countries today outside the West are primarily Asian countries which are at odds with the West, i.e. Myanmar of Burma which the West has consistently lambasted as “the poorest country in Asean”, Vietnam which maintains strict protectionism for its economy despite its very late accession to the WTO in 2006, of course China, India and Thailand. While Thailand does not appear to many as protectionist as the others mentioned above, the conservative and pro-globalization internet magazine “The Globalist” headlines a signal article lambasting the numerous industrial and agricultural protectionist measures Thailand has in place. What separates these countries from those hit by the food crisis? – Their relative insulation from past IMF “structural reforms”, i.e. the removal of protective barriers to destroy local industrial and agricultural production.
One must blame the Philippines’ rice crisis today not just on any single failed leader but on a series of them starting with Gloria’s father, Diosdado “Dadong” Macapagal, who started selling out Philippine political and economic sovereignty for U.S. political support for his election against the protectionist Carlos P. Garcia. Upon winning Dadong doubled the national debt, devalued the Peso, reversed the incipient independent and national economics of the country. Marcos defeated Dadong to follow in the same IMF- path but later set the course to reverse the dependency with his “Green” and “11-Industrial projects” revolution. Cory Aquino dismantled it after the U.S.-Makati Business Club Edsa Uno-civil society coup of 1986. To this day they feign ignorance of their sins in destroying the domestic economy and scapegoats Gloria as the only culprit.
Gloria is the biggest culprit only as a partner to Edsa Dos which installed her to stop Joseph E. Estrada’s economic policy for food security (assigning professional agriculturist William Dar) and agricultural self-reliance as in the Carabao Breeding Program, Gloria appointed lawyer Arthur Yap (better at slipping around laws) with a management and economics degree from Gloria. Edsa Dos civil society supporters denounce Gloria’s corruption, but they cannot denounce her economics as it is theirs’ – free trade, anti-protectionism, comparative and “market” economics, as taught by Solita Monsod (U.P.), Vic Abola (of UAP), by Cielito Habito (Ateneo), and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (Ateneo). They have their allies in media in mushy, starry-eyed liberals like Billy Esposo, Tony Abaya, Jose Montelibano, Isagani Cruz, among many others.
I am aching for a public debate with these so-called economists and “civil society” intelligentsia because they are part of the obfuscation of the real issues that beset this nation. They doom to ignorance a great part of the population who read the mainstream media that limits the scope of their reportage and analysis. They blame all ills of society on a few personalities they demonize, and omit the overarching historical, geo-strategic and political-economic environment that conditions many of the events in this vulnerable Third World country – like the U.S. hand in Philippine elections and “people power”, the British role in the theft of Sabah, and recently in the passage of the EPIRA and privatization of power, in the BOTs in water and tollways.
They omit the geo-strategic and political-economic backdrop of the rice crisis today. Much of the rice crisis goes back to U.S. instigated IMF-conditionalities, assault on our economic sovereignty and “people power” that ended up reversing economic-industrial and agricultural programs launching self-reliance and self-sufficiency under Marcos II and in the short-lived Erap administration. Let us focus on a particular beloved subject of the liberal intelligentsia - “market” economics and the principle of “letting supply and demand” determine the economics of the nation. On the present food crisis in the world, last April 10 a senior Food and Agricultural Organization official (FAO), Jose Graziano said, “"The crisis is a speculative attack and it will last…” The “markets”, i.e. speculators holding leveraged money, are buying up food futures and jacking up prices.
The likes of Monsod and Habito (I should add Paderanga, whom I always hear invoke the “markets” when he speaks) have repeatedly told this country to rely on the “markets” instead of national and state planning. Let’s call them by their generic label – the market economists. Now, as Graziano confirms, we are victims of the “markets” while the planned economies of China, India, Vietnam and Burma continue without fail to assure the basic needs of their people. Let me add Malaysia too, which to this day practices state planning and protectionism that Mahathir and predecessors maintained. This directly contradicts market economists’ thesis state planning is inimical to growth, and private corporations are the key to national prosperity (what AIM teaches its students).
The late 20th century debate on which is a better economic model - the protectionist and state-led economy or the market-led economics - is settled by the many crises we face today. Eight years after the turn of the century we are seeing unprecedented global financial collapse, followed by food crises every where and the promise of more crises to come in global security, energy and environment. The Last century’s dominant market-led capitalism, aggressively pursued by the Western countries and imposed on the Third World, is now proven to be an utter failure. State-led, planned economic systems are on a comeback. Filipinos must this cue and embark on the new course, and it must leave behind the myths and paradigms of Edsa Uno and Dos to begin with.
The Philippines must focus on gathering the old and new intellectual and political leaders that have consistently opposed the failed methods of the past and proposed the path towards protectionist, nationalist, balanced social-market systems and variations of the theme. Political leaders must no longer be drawn from the corporate technocratic cadres; they engineered the failed economics that led to our present predicament. The new economic managers must be inspired by the like of Alejandro “Ding” Lichauco and Dr. Dodong Nemenzo, political leaders drawn from the ranks of the anti-globalization social-economic activists, business sector leaders selected from producers and manufacturers and not from speculative traders, real estate speculators and money men. Military leaders will come from “conscientized” officers and not mercenaries of the Pentagon or the local oligarchy.
The top leadership shall be reserved not for candidates of the “civil society”, the elite or the U.S. Ambassador, but for genuine leaders of the people and the masa. Not even moderate greed should be acceptable in leadership and state or government functions. The people’s material welfare and not the national GDP or GNP shall be the measure of the nation and the economic system’s success or failure. Nothing less that a complete paradigm alter this country’s present course towards the precipice – the “failed state” the West has planned for us as they did for Haiti, Afghanistan and others once thriving societies. The crisis Gloria has brought upon this land will force our people to realize and embrace this paradigm shift – we just have to get the message out to them through consistent and persistent information and political education.
(Tune in to 1098AM, Mon. to Fri., 8:30-9am)
The price of treason and neglect
INFOWARS
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/7/2008
The rice crisis is only the tip of the iceberg. And while the milk crisis may not as huge as the rice shortage, it still impacts the most vulnerable in the family--children and babies. Milk prices have been on the rise and going beyond the reach of 71 percent (or 12.8-M) of Filipino families that consider themselves poor or very poor. In the years ahead, the peak of these two crises will come when water would have been dearer and scarcer than it is today. All these could have been avoided if the Marcos II programs (referring to the post-'76 Marcos who started to aim for self-reliance and industrialization) were not scuttled outright by the Edsa I regime of Cory Aquino and followed through by Ramos, Gloria and "civil society."
Yet another crisis, this time in the power sector, which has not only brought us the highest power cost in Asia, is pointing to rough times ahead. Worse, it signals our further enslavement as it is in the hands of foreign powers, like in the case of the Malampaya natural gas production facility, which newspapers report may have to shut down the next six months due to a "gas leak." Since it has been only five years since its inauguration, I find this hard to believe. Power rationing would be one consequence of such repairs. And, coming at this critical time when the Spratly's seismic survey issue between the U.S. and Britain versus China is heating up, my suspicious mind fears that the "gas leak" may just be a telegraphed warning to Gloria to carry out her promised cancellation of the Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking.
A review of Marcos II shows the country anticipated and prepared for these crises by: 1) achieving rice self-sufficiency by 1976, 2) launching water and power programs scheduled to be on stream by the early '80s such as major hydro-electric dams, the geothermal and Bataan Nuclear Power Plant projects (which could produce fresh water from the sea in its cooling system), 3) launching of oil exploration that led to Malampaya, and 4) a myriad of other initiatives from developing the textile to the domestic armaments industry, which would have kept us ahead of other Asean countries. However, the U.S. took a contrary view: a nation such as ours with a big population in a strategically-located archipelago, capable of controlling passage through the China Sea, is better kept weak and dependent; hence, its de-agro/industrialization.
Under such a scheme, Marcos had to go. So Edsa I also ushered in the myth that Cory Aquino brought "democracy" back after the "Marcos dictatorship." The fact is dictatorships--of the corporate kind--rule even the Western world. Only illusions of democracy prevail there, particularly in the U.S., as the real power is the permanent political-economic rulers who control the money and the bureaucracy. President Eisenhower got that in part when he warned of the "military-industrial complex" in his farewell in 1961. President Lincoln had a far broader view of the danger: ". corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign . until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
The global corporate powers don't want a self-reliant and independent Philippines. For them, it has to be kept under control; kept vulnerable for food, power, fuel, water and other basic necessities. The globalization logic fits perfectly: depend on other countries for cheap supplies, and dismantle the State as the corporations can do a better job. To further seal the deal, Edsa II then came to aggravate the corruption and crisis levels.
After twenty years of this mantra since Edsa I, the Filipino poor have multiplied. Despite all these facts, "people power" apologists and traditional politicians, academic, media people and columnists have not come out to debunk the prevailing system. That is the treason, and the price of perpetuating the lies is that this country never corrects it errors and is doomed to hunger, thirst and disease.
Philippine politics, media and academic discussions are a surfeit of bitching, quarreling and squabbling, grandstanding and positioning for the favors of the ruling factions and personalities. Edsa I and II apologists concentrate on the demonization of their enemies which detract us from the basic, vital, strategic and collective concerns of the nation. Their prized reward is attention of the U.S., British or E.U. embassies which may reward the national self-flagellation with a scholarship or grant, or the blessing for a politician to replace the puppet they have in Malacañang. They also crave the attention of surrogate corporate power in electricity, water, and media, which can give them funds, interviews or a free show in their massive radio and TV networks.
The result of the cacophony of demonization is the silence on the basic, long term physical and cultural infrastructure for national development and progress. This in turn has translated to neglect for anticipative expansion of power plants for cheap electricity, water projects for consumption and irrigation, mass nationwide transport systems and railways, independent surveying of our waters, research and development on food and other necessities, ad infinitum. This column, along with a few other writers like Alejandro Lichauco, tries to consistently give the long and comprehensive view to lead the readers and the nation into reflections beyond cantankerous argumentations. Thus, we challenge the Edsa I and II apologists, who still shun face-to-face debate, because the truth would expose their treason.
The price paid for the distraction from the nation's strategic tasks is the fall from the second most prosperous nation in the '50s down to just a rung or two higher than Laos or Myanmar. The price is paid by the poor and middle class Filipinos whose living standards have fallen progressively over the past two decades, with the number of poor and very poor reaching unprecedented heights. In the face of increasing crises, only placebos or stop-gap measures are available because the wherewithal, as well as, the consciousness or will to engage in long-term rebuilding is a tabooed option. When one tries to provide for food security and even a semblance of political independence, like opposing sovereign guarantees, the wrath of the U.S., British and E.U. embassies will be faced, as President Estrada did.
When Filipino leaders protest the prevailing decay of Gloria's Western-friendly government, they go to prison, like the heroes of February 2006 military protesters General Lim, Col. Querubin and company. Stage a surprise electoral victory from prison, like Senator Trillanes, and a spectacular demonstration with patriotic civilian leaders who envision the self-reliant and independent Philippines, as in the Manila Peninsula stand-off, and the U.S. ambassador quickly makes an official statement against it just three hours later. Nonetheless, with Gloria's corruption and extra-judicial killings, the U.S. and Western embassies have the patience of Job. Then, the local corporate sector, like the Federation of Philippine Industries, follows suit with a full-page ad supporting Gloria to stay until 2010.
Edsa I and II apologists and politicians must remember: "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." By their treason and distractive demonization, causing neglect of strategic self-sufficiency discussions and programs, they bring about this society's and their own undoing. Saddam Hussein was a U.S. surrogate, but he was brutally sacrificed in the end. Better to fight along the way Zimbabwe's revolutionary war veterans with Mugabe are fighting despite the Western embargo. Independence is the only option for national survival and prosperity. The price of liberty is to struggle against colonization, the way the U.S. founding fathers did, as well as, China, India, Vietnam, Malaysia et al. The Philippine crises provide opportunities for enlightening the people on the imperative nationalist and patriotic alternative--leadership provided by Alejandro Lichauco, General Danilo Lim, Senator Trillanes and the Magdalo, and by President Estrada.
(Tune in to "Kape't Kamulatan, Kabansa" on 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 8:30 to 9:00 am)
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/7/2008
The rice crisis is only the tip of the iceberg. And while the milk crisis may not as huge as the rice shortage, it still impacts the most vulnerable in the family--children and babies. Milk prices have been on the rise and going beyond the reach of 71 percent (or 12.8-M) of Filipino families that consider themselves poor or very poor. In the years ahead, the peak of these two crises will come when water would have been dearer and scarcer than it is today. All these could have been avoided if the Marcos II programs (referring to the post-'76 Marcos who started to aim for self-reliance and industrialization) were not scuttled outright by the Edsa I regime of Cory Aquino and followed through by Ramos, Gloria and "civil society."
Yet another crisis, this time in the power sector, which has not only brought us the highest power cost in Asia, is pointing to rough times ahead. Worse, it signals our further enslavement as it is in the hands of foreign powers, like in the case of the Malampaya natural gas production facility, which newspapers report may have to shut down the next six months due to a "gas leak." Since it has been only five years since its inauguration, I find this hard to believe. Power rationing would be one consequence of such repairs. And, coming at this critical time when the Spratly's seismic survey issue between the U.S. and Britain versus China is heating up, my suspicious mind fears that the "gas leak" may just be a telegraphed warning to Gloria to carry out her promised cancellation of the Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking.
A review of Marcos II shows the country anticipated and prepared for these crises by: 1) achieving rice self-sufficiency by 1976, 2) launching water and power programs scheduled to be on stream by the early '80s such as major hydro-electric dams, the geothermal and Bataan Nuclear Power Plant projects (which could produce fresh water from the sea in its cooling system), 3) launching of oil exploration that led to Malampaya, and 4) a myriad of other initiatives from developing the textile to the domestic armaments industry, which would have kept us ahead of other Asean countries. However, the U.S. took a contrary view: a nation such as ours with a big population in a strategically-located archipelago, capable of controlling passage through the China Sea, is better kept weak and dependent; hence, its de-agro/industrialization.
Under such a scheme, Marcos had to go. So Edsa I also ushered in the myth that Cory Aquino brought "democracy" back after the "Marcos dictatorship." The fact is dictatorships--of the corporate kind--rule even the Western world. Only illusions of democracy prevail there, particularly in the U.S., as the real power is the permanent political-economic rulers who control the money and the bureaucracy. President Eisenhower got that in part when he warned of the "military-industrial complex" in his farewell in 1961. President Lincoln had a far broader view of the danger: ". corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign . until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
The global corporate powers don't want a self-reliant and independent Philippines. For them, it has to be kept under control; kept vulnerable for food, power, fuel, water and other basic necessities. The globalization logic fits perfectly: depend on other countries for cheap supplies, and dismantle the State as the corporations can do a better job. To further seal the deal, Edsa II then came to aggravate the corruption and crisis levels.
After twenty years of this mantra since Edsa I, the Filipino poor have multiplied. Despite all these facts, "people power" apologists and traditional politicians, academic, media people and columnists have not come out to debunk the prevailing system. That is the treason, and the price of perpetuating the lies is that this country never corrects it errors and is doomed to hunger, thirst and disease.
Philippine politics, media and academic discussions are a surfeit of bitching, quarreling and squabbling, grandstanding and positioning for the favors of the ruling factions and personalities. Edsa I and II apologists concentrate on the demonization of their enemies which detract us from the basic, vital, strategic and collective concerns of the nation. Their prized reward is attention of the U.S., British or E.U. embassies which may reward the national self-flagellation with a scholarship or grant, or the blessing for a politician to replace the puppet they have in Malacañang. They also crave the attention of surrogate corporate power in electricity, water, and media, which can give them funds, interviews or a free show in their massive radio and TV networks.
The result of the cacophony of demonization is the silence on the basic, long term physical and cultural infrastructure for national development and progress. This in turn has translated to neglect for anticipative expansion of power plants for cheap electricity, water projects for consumption and irrigation, mass nationwide transport systems and railways, independent surveying of our waters, research and development on food and other necessities, ad infinitum. This column, along with a few other writers like Alejandro Lichauco, tries to consistently give the long and comprehensive view to lead the readers and the nation into reflections beyond cantankerous argumentations. Thus, we challenge the Edsa I and II apologists, who still shun face-to-face debate, because the truth would expose their treason.
The price paid for the distraction from the nation's strategic tasks is the fall from the second most prosperous nation in the '50s down to just a rung or two higher than Laos or Myanmar. The price is paid by the poor and middle class Filipinos whose living standards have fallen progressively over the past two decades, with the number of poor and very poor reaching unprecedented heights. In the face of increasing crises, only placebos or stop-gap measures are available because the wherewithal, as well as, the consciousness or will to engage in long-term rebuilding is a tabooed option. When one tries to provide for food security and even a semblance of political independence, like opposing sovereign guarantees, the wrath of the U.S., British and E.U. embassies will be faced, as President Estrada did.
When Filipino leaders protest the prevailing decay of Gloria's Western-friendly government, they go to prison, like the heroes of February 2006 military protesters General Lim, Col. Querubin and company. Stage a surprise electoral victory from prison, like Senator Trillanes, and a spectacular demonstration with patriotic civilian leaders who envision the self-reliant and independent Philippines, as in the Manila Peninsula stand-off, and the U.S. ambassador quickly makes an official statement against it just three hours later. Nonetheless, with Gloria's corruption and extra-judicial killings, the U.S. and Western embassies have the patience of Job. Then, the local corporate sector, like the Federation of Philippine Industries, follows suit with a full-page ad supporting Gloria to stay until 2010.
Edsa I and II apologists and politicians must remember: "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." By their treason and distractive demonization, causing neglect of strategic self-sufficiency discussions and programs, they bring about this society's and their own undoing. Saddam Hussein was a U.S. surrogate, but he was brutally sacrificed in the end. Better to fight along the way Zimbabwe's revolutionary war veterans with Mugabe are fighting despite the Western embargo. Independence is the only option for national survival and prosperity. The price of liberty is to struggle against colonization, the way the U.S. founding fathers did, as well as, China, India, Vietnam, Malaysia et al. The Philippine crises provide opportunities for enlightening the people on the imperative nationalist and patriotic alternative--leadership provided by Alejandro Lichauco, General Danilo Lim, Senator Trillanes and the Magdalo, and by President Estrada.
(Tune in to "Kape't Kamulatan, Kabansa" on 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 8:30 to 9:00 am)
Rise up vs. blood sucking taxation
INFOWARS
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/4/2008
One priority of the Cory Aquino government after taking power in 1986 was the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP) with the Value Added Tax and Excise Tax “reforms”. I remember as clear as daylight the debate I was engaged in on the issue against Big Business appointees to Cory’s government. “Boy Blue” del Rosario was one of the hatchet men pushing the CTRP, another was Bobby de Ocampo. Their argument was that government needed more revenues to cover the budgetary deficit, spend on pro-poor programs, that it would lead to the mythical balanced budget and that it would be the last tax increase ever needed. After two decades, two expansions of the VAT and the flip flops on the Excise Tax, we have found them to be all lies to perpetrate tax plunder on the nation.
Part of the CTRP debate was over the issue of progressive taxation during Marcos’ term, where the rich are made to pay more in income taxes. The contrary position held by the new Cory Aquino finance managers was the Value Added Tax, universally known to be a regressive tax where the poor pay exorbitantly more than the rich by way of taxes on goods and services. Since the Big Business hatchet men were in power with their yellow doll Cory Aquino, their tax plans ruled the day and we see the cumulative effects of two decades of VAT – the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer. It takes a historical perspective to see these but, tragically very few try to collect these cumulative experiences to learn from it.
The Excise Tax debate was on the shift from ad valorem to specific tax. From a percentage tax on value that automatically adjusts to inflation, to a fixed amount tax which does not move with inflation. Lobbying for the excise tax system “reform” was Phillip Morris International (PMI) which wanted reclassification of locally made cigarettes to higher tax brackets and slap them with higher specific taxes reducing their price advantage. Foreign luxury priced cigarettes would rise faster in inflationary times because of higher initial prices. The cheering squad for the Phillip Morris lobby were University of Asia and Pacific economist Vic Abola, and Boy Blue del Rosario and Bobby de Ocampo on the government side.
After Cory Aquino handed power to Ramos using the Comelec to cheat against Danding Cojuangco and Miriam Santiago, Bobby de Ocampo took over the helms of the Department of Finance and the VAT continued to be a priority. The specific tax debate accelerated as FVR tried to demolish domestic tobacco manufacturers in behalf of the foreign tobacco companies. I organized the ATM, Anti-Tax Movement and picketed Congress. There was spontaneous support for the struggle against these new tax “reforms” which I denounced as “deformities”. Someone produced a car sticker which said “No to VAT”, and I still have it on my rear windshield to this day. Though faded after twelve years the message is still strong.
The VAT was expanded to cover more products and service, becoming the Expanded Value Added Tax or EVAT. With egging from the World Bank, the IMF and the Asian Development Bank, the finance department pushed for the EVAT using the same argument that they did in the earlier VAT debates – government needing revenues to cut deficit, for more pro-poor programs, to achieve a balanced budget by so-and-so year, and that it would be the last new taxes. Then Edsa Dos came and installed Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo gushing with promises and better life for Filipinos. The “international community” praised Edsa Dos and included their victim, Estrada, in the pantheon of the favorite “corrupt” icons along with Marcos and others and used it for station breaks of CNN.
Gloria Arroyo and her henchmen started posthaste to expand the EVAT, but to hide the “expansion” they called it the RVAT - increasing the tax from 10% to 12%. To this day, I can not remember what exactly that “R” stands for. The obfuscation suited their purpose of hiding the true intention of the new VAT. Ralph Recto championed the RVAT in the Senate, but the unusual keenness of the public surfaced when it perceiving the fraud Recto was foisting on them. They voted down Recto’s second bid for a senate seat despite his political lineage and huge campaign war. It was a resounding rejection of the RVAT. Vilma couldn’t save him, and we promise to raise the RVAT issue when Vilma runs with Noli in the 2010 elections.
A report made by several economics think tanks including the Freedom from Debt Coalition and the Ibon Foundation, reported that 70% of the RVAT go to international debt payment of the Philippines. Sixty percent of the country’s total national budget goes to debt repayment, and our taxes go to fill the national budget. Last week the World Bank through its chief economist for East Asia and the Pacific Region Vera Songws said: “RP needs to hike tax take, spend more on infrastructure to sustain growth”. Again there’s the obligatory or perfunctory reference to the poor, she said “the Philippines is in the middle of the 10 years of sustained growth needed to help the poor…Sustaining growth and making it more inclusive is now the challenge," World Bank Philippines country director Bert Hoffman added - all pure hypocrisy.
Pulse Asia survey last week reported that 71% or 12.8 million of Filipino families consider themselves poor or very poor. That’s the bitter fruit of twenty-one years of VAT and its expansion going to the payment of the foreign debt (plus domestic debt of Cory Aquino) of which principal has been fully paid five times over the past two decades. They’ve pulled these scams upon the lies of the global financial institutions and their local henchmen in the financial department and the academe. But despite the people knowing the evil of the VAT taxes and voting out Ralph Recto, the evil taxes have not been stopped. That is because defeating them in elections is not enough. The finance mafia have so many means to subvert the people’s will – including co-opting opposition politicians to bend to their will.
As we see in the media blitz of the World Bank last week, coordinated with finance chief Gary Teves who said he supported new taxes, the massive and hourly disinformation campaign of the tax fiends over controlled media is simply too dizzying for many people. Beyond the mind numbing media manipulation is the political, police and military forces used to cow any tax protestor the formation of a tax resistance movement. That is why we have to call for conscience block amongst our military compatriots to help the civilian leadership who’ve been in constant struggle against the exploitation and plunder, and slow genocide of the nation using hunger and poverty – social crises to destroy the nation and declare it a failed state for eventually direct foreign power or UN intervention and control.
If our nation is to survive, the blood sucking taxes must end. Te people have shown their enlightenment by defeating the representatives of the financial vampires in the 2007 election, but it is not enough. The vampires keep coming back, confusing the people with their recycled of lies and employing local zombies like Gloria Arroyo and Gary Teves to impose acquiesce to suicidal taxation. The military reformists and idealist should also see the predatory taxation as the culprit in the decimation of the Armed Forces material capabilities. It’s time for a national tax revolt, in cadence with the food and other revolts.
(Tune in to “Kape’t Kamulatan, Kabansa” 1098AM, 8:30-9am, Mon. to Fri.)
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/4/2008
One priority of the Cory Aquino government after taking power in 1986 was the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP) with the Value Added Tax and Excise Tax “reforms”. I remember as clear as daylight the debate I was engaged in on the issue against Big Business appointees to Cory’s government. “Boy Blue” del Rosario was one of the hatchet men pushing the CTRP, another was Bobby de Ocampo. Their argument was that government needed more revenues to cover the budgetary deficit, spend on pro-poor programs, that it would lead to the mythical balanced budget and that it would be the last tax increase ever needed. After two decades, two expansions of the VAT and the flip flops on the Excise Tax, we have found them to be all lies to perpetrate tax plunder on the nation.
Part of the CTRP debate was over the issue of progressive taxation during Marcos’ term, where the rich are made to pay more in income taxes. The contrary position held by the new Cory Aquino finance managers was the Value Added Tax, universally known to be a regressive tax where the poor pay exorbitantly more than the rich by way of taxes on goods and services. Since the Big Business hatchet men were in power with their yellow doll Cory Aquino, their tax plans ruled the day and we see the cumulative effects of two decades of VAT – the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer. It takes a historical perspective to see these but, tragically very few try to collect these cumulative experiences to learn from it.
The Excise Tax debate was on the shift from ad valorem to specific tax. From a percentage tax on value that automatically adjusts to inflation, to a fixed amount tax which does not move with inflation. Lobbying for the excise tax system “reform” was Phillip Morris International (PMI) which wanted reclassification of locally made cigarettes to higher tax brackets and slap them with higher specific taxes reducing their price advantage. Foreign luxury priced cigarettes would rise faster in inflationary times because of higher initial prices. The cheering squad for the Phillip Morris lobby were University of Asia and Pacific economist Vic Abola, and Boy Blue del Rosario and Bobby de Ocampo on the government side.
After Cory Aquino handed power to Ramos using the Comelec to cheat against Danding Cojuangco and Miriam Santiago, Bobby de Ocampo took over the helms of the Department of Finance and the VAT continued to be a priority. The specific tax debate accelerated as FVR tried to demolish domestic tobacco manufacturers in behalf of the foreign tobacco companies. I organized the ATM, Anti-Tax Movement and picketed Congress. There was spontaneous support for the struggle against these new tax “reforms” which I denounced as “deformities”. Someone produced a car sticker which said “No to VAT”, and I still have it on my rear windshield to this day. Though faded after twelve years the message is still strong.
The VAT was expanded to cover more products and service, becoming the Expanded Value Added Tax or EVAT. With egging from the World Bank, the IMF and the Asian Development Bank, the finance department pushed for the EVAT using the same argument that they did in the earlier VAT debates – government needing revenues to cut deficit, for more pro-poor programs, to achieve a balanced budget by so-and-so year, and that it would be the last new taxes. Then Edsa Dos came and installed Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo gushing with promises and better life for Filipinos. The “international community” praised Edsa Dos and included their victim, Estrada, in the pantheon of the favorite “corrupt” icons along with Marcos and others and used it for station breaks of CNN.
Gloria Arroyo and her henchmen started posthaste to expand the EVAT, but to hide the “expansion” they called it the RVAT - increasing the tax from 10% to 12%. To this day, I can not remember what exactly that “R” stands for. The obfuscation suited their purpose of hiding the true intention of the new VAT. Ralph Recto championed the RVAT in the Senate, but the unusual keenness of the public surfaced when it perceiving the fraud Recto was foisting on them. They voted down Recto’s second bid for a senate seat despite his political lineage and huge campaign war. It was a resounding rejection of the RVAT. Vilma couldn’t save him, and we promise to raise the RVAT issue when Vilma runs with Noli in the 2010 elections.
A report made by several economics think tanks including the Freedom from Debt Coalition and the Ibon Foundation, reported that 70% of the RVAT go to international debt payment of the Philippines. Sixty percent of the country’s total national budget goes to debt repayment, and our taxes go to fill the national budget. Last week the World Bank through its chief economist for East Asia and the Pacific Region Vera Songws said: “RP needs to hike tax take, spend more on infrastructure to sustain growth”. Again there’s the obligatory or perfunctory reference to the poor, she said “the Philippines is in the middle of the 10 years of sustained growth needed to help the poor…Sustaining growth and making it more inclusive is now the challenge," World Bank Philippines country director Bert Hoffman added - all pure hypocrisy.
Pulse Asia survey last week reported that 71% or 12.8 million of Filipino families consider themselves poor or very poor. That’s the bitter fruit of twenty-one years of VAT and its expansion going to the payment of the foreign debt (plus domestic debt of Cory Aquino) of which principal has been fully paid five times over the past two decades. They’ve pulled these scams upon the lies of the global financial institutions and their local henchmen in the financial department and the academe. But despite the people knowing the evil of the VAT taxes and voting out Ralph Recto, the evil taxes have not been stopped. That is because defeating them in elections is not enough. The finance mafia have so many means to subvert the people’s will – including co-opting opposition politicians to bend to their will.
As we see in the media blitz of the World Bank last week, coordinated with finance chief Gary Teves who said he supported new taxes, the massive and hourly disinformation campaign of the tax fiends over controlled media is simply too dizzying for many people. Beyond the mind numbing media manipulation is the political, police and military forces used to cow any tax protestor the formation of a tax resistance movement. That is why we have to call for conscience block amongst our military compatriots to help the civilian leadership who’ve been in constant struggle against the exploitation and plunder, and slow genocide of the nation using hunger and poverty – social crises to destroy the nation and declare it a failed state for eventually direct foreign power or UN intervention and control.
If our nation is to survive, the blood sucking taxes must end. Te people have shown their enlightenment by defeating the representatives of the financial vampires in the 2007 election, but it is not enough. The vampires keep coming back, confusing the people with their recycled of lies and employing local zombies like Gloria Arroyo and Gary Teves to impose acquiesce to suicidal taxation. The military reformists and idealist should also see the predatory taxation as the culprit in the decimation of the Armed Forces material capabilities. It’s time for a national tax revolt, in cadence with the food and other revolts.
(Tune in to “Kape’t Kamulatan, Kabansa” 1098AM, 8:30-9am, Mon. to Fri.)
What must be done
INFOWARS
Herman Tiu Laurel
3/31/2008
Every weekend, I summarize the vital news and discussions I treat on the air in my Monday to Friday morning program over DWAD, 1098AM. I also try to record significant texts I receive from listeners along the way. All of them put together are too many for my short regular column that comes out on Mondays and Fridays, but highlighting the key issues gives a gist of where this country is and what must be done to move forward. But after looking at the same issues through the years, one doesn't only conclude unambiguously that the country is running around in circles; worse, it is in a downward spiral. Thankfully, though, one still gets to identify ways to end this vicious cycle of precipitous decline.
Yesterday morning I received this text: "It was former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban and Davide who conspired and brought down Erap. Now he is complaining about.Gloria controlling the Supreme Court. Read Inquirer today March 30. It was they who changed the destiny of our country. Karma sa Pinoy ang ginawa nila," which was then followed by a lengthy call for Juan de la Cruz to rise up now for the sake of the nation's children. Over seven years, I and many other Filipinos have raged over the crappy "constructive resignation" decision penned by Panganiban and passed by the Davide Supreme Court. It was arbitrary and without constitutional basis no doubt, yet they did it to satisfy Edsa II. Today, there's no difference in what they did and what the majority in the Puno court has done on the "executive privilege" issue.
As for the rice crisis, IRRI president Robert Zeigler weighed in with his better-informed view that the Filipino farmer is already producing one of the higher yields per hectare in the region, but he says there's just not enough arable, fertile land as in the Indo-Chinese peninsula that is blessed by the Mekong River. True, but he seems to have omitted a very important fact-that water impounding with mini-hydros would irrigate uplands and give way to more arable land. Former Agriculture secretary, Arsenio Balicasan, correctly said that increasing productivity through irrigation infrastructure, research and development, and solving the problem of high energy cost are what should be prioritized. Marcos had tackled these problems and programmed the solutions, but Edsa I and Edsa II "civil society" kept throwing the baby out with the bath water.
When I point my finger at Edsa II, I include most particular print communicators like Billy Esposo of the Philippine Star (owned by Gloria hatchetman Belmonte) and Antonio Abaya of Standard (owned by Enrique Razon who, according to Neri, is the ZTE funds handler). These representatives of "civil society" views are at the forefront of the unrelenting campaign to confuse the nation and the youth about historical truths, especially in the cases of Marcos and Erap Estrada, who both had timely, appropriate and necessary programs to serve the welfare of the people. In the latter's case, they should now concede the Kangaroo nature of the Teresita de Castro Sandigan court by the circumstances of her Supreme Court promotion and her current pro-Gloria voting record.
Let me digress a bit on the "conviction" of Estrada, which the Edsa II media uses spitefully despite the blatantly malicious intent of the Sandiganbayan. When I read international press reports mentioning Anwar Ibrahim's conviction, they qualified it by adding "politically motivated" before the word "conviction." The Inquirer and anti-Erap writers, in contrast, do not give this fair play to Estrada, which is a very grave injustice and exposes them as black propagandists. The ploy is obvious: keep repeating the "conviction" and the pejorative description, "convicted criminal," to make them stick despite the clearly political nature of the seven-year-process led by three Gloria-appointed Sandiganbayan judges, of which two, de Castro and now, Diosdado (named after Gloria's father) Peralta, have gotten their payback with promotions.
Surely, the best way to overcome black propaganda is to stick to historical facts; and the rice crisis and forthcoming milk supply crisis will prove that Marcos and Estrada were leaders on the right track. A continuing reiteration of the cause of the deteriorating food crisis traceable to the embrace of globalization, privatization and deregulation by the "people power trio" Cory Aquino, FVR and Gloria Arroyo (add the massive corruption of the last two), and their dismantling of programs to ensure irrigation infrastructure and fairly priced fuel and electricity, is the best way to put these icons of Edsa I and II in their proper, unflattering light. In fact, the latest news adds more evidence to this: March 28, "ADB: Power, infra costs cripple RP," citing higher than neighboring countries' electricity, toll and other transport charges.
On the same day, the Japan External Trade Organization was reported to have said that of all Asean countries where its country's firms operate, expansion plans in the Philippines was lowest at 1.2% compared to 11.3% in Thailand, 8.4% in Vietnam, 3.5% in Indonesia and 2.7% in Malaysia. The reason cited for the "bearish" expansion plans is similar to what the ADB cited: power and other high costs, but it added the appreciation of the peso as another problem. As in decades past, the Philippines continues to slide down in the priorities for investment from other countries while the economy continues its deterioration, and the impact on the people can be seen in developments like in this week's news: "RP 8th TB producer in the world, say doctors"--not television but tuberculosis, the disease of poverty.
Another very important news item that received scant attention, compared to front page grabs of Pacquiao's latest bout, is retired Supreme Court Justice Jose Melo's oath-taking as the new Comelec Commissioner. Chairman Melo is better known for his cover up of Gloria Arroyo's role in the so-called, "extra-judicial killings" of hundreds of anti-Gloria and Leftist dissenters. Melo was credibly accused by Senator Lacson as a "counsel" for Abalos during the ZTE Senate hearings because he sat behind Abalos, a seat which is normally reserved for the witness' counsel. Melo denied it but I don't know if anyone believed him. I don't. Like all of Gloria's appointments, Melo will be at the Comelec to do Gloria's bidding--cover up and manipulate. His appointment to the Comelec demolishes any hope for clean elections in 2010.
Every week, when I sum up the news and developments, it becomes clearer and clearer that there is no hope for the country to break free from the vicious downward cycle of institutional decay, economic collapse, press perversion and increasing poverty--unless there is radical clean up and restructuring. Unfortunately, the leaders that have shown the vision, daring and courage to spark the radical change have temporarily been immobilized in detention. General Danilo Lim, Senator Trillanes IV and the Magdalo group are still in Camp Crame, while Colonel Querubin and the February 26 group are at the Isafp languishing in "bartolinas." In balance, though, the electoral opposition leader, President Estrada, is making more progress, continuing his political education sorties all over the country.
The advocates for the progressive idea of a "transformational transition" council, including the Laban ng Masa, the November 29 Movement and other mass-based groups are consolidating for the next major mass action with the opposition coalition on April 5, to coincide with Gloria's birthday bash and are calling for an early end to her malevolent regime. But, as the text from "Kabansang Ferdie" suggests, the rally should address issues vital to the people: "Korapsyon at Kahirapan" (Corruption and Poverty), as well as, against the 12% RVAT and high power and other public utilities costs. Meanwhile, the consciences of our AFP reformists outside prison bars should continue to be stoked.
(Tune in to "Kape't Kamulatan, Kabansa" on 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 8:30 to 9:00am)
Herman Tiu Laurel
3/31/2008
Every weekend, I summarize the vital news and discussions I treat on the air in my Monday to Friday morning program over DWAD, 1098AM. I also try to record significant texts I receive from listeners along the way. All of them put together are too many for my short regular column that comes out on Mondays and Fridays, but highlighting the key issues gives a gist of where this country is and what must be done to move forward. But after looking at the same issues through the years, one doesn't only conclude unambiguously that the country is running around in circles; worse, it is in a downward spiral. Thankfully, though, one still gets to identify ways to end this vicious cycle of precipitous decline.
Yesterday morning I received this text: "It was former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban and Davide who conspired and brought down Erap. Now he is complaining about.Gloria controlling the Supreme Court. Read Inquirer today March 30. It was they who changed the destiny of our country. Karma sa Pinoy ang ginawa nila," which was then followed by a lengthy call for Juan de la Cruz to rise up now for the sake of the nation's children. Over seven years, I and many other Filipinos have raged over the crappy "constructive resignation" decision penned by Panganiban and passed by the Davide Supreme Court. It was arbitrary and without constitutional basis no doubt, yet they did it to satisfy Edsa II. Today, there's no difference in what they did and what the majority in the Puno court has done on the "executive privilege" issue.
As for the rice crisis, IRRI president Robert Zeigler weighed in with his better-informed view that the Filipino farmer is already producing one of the higher yields per hectare in the region, but he says there's just not enough arable, fertile land as in the Indo-Chinese peninsula that is blessed by the Mekong River. True, but he seems to have omitted a very important fact-that water impounding with mini-hydros would irrigate uplands and give way to more arable land. Former Agriculture secretary, Arsenio Balicasan, correctly said that increasing productivity through irrigation infrastructure, research and development, and solving the problem of high energy cost are what should be prioritized. Marcos had tackled these problems and programmed the solutions, but Edsa I and Edsa II "civil society" kept throwing the baby out with the bath water.
When I point my finger at Edsa II, I include most particular print communicators like Billy Esposo of the Philippine Star (owned by Gloria hatchetman Belmonte) and Antonio Abaya of Standard (owned by Enrique Razon who, according to Neri, is the ZTE funds handler). These representatives of "civil society" views are at the forefront of the unrelenting campaign to confuse the nation and the youth about historical truths, especially in the cases of Marcos and Erap Estrada, who both had timely, appropriate and necessary programs to serve the welfare of the people. In the latter's case, they should now concede the Kangaroo nature of the Teresita de Castro Sandigan court by the circumstances of her Supreme Court promotion and her current pro-Gloria voting record.
Let me digress a bit on the "conviction" of Estrada, which the Edsa II media uses spitefully despite the blatantly malicious intent of the Sandiganbayan. When I read international press reports mentioning Anwar Ibrahim's conviction, they qualified it by adding "politically motivated" before the word "conviction." The Inquirer and anti-Erap writers, in contrast, do not give this fair play to Estrada, which is a very grave injustice and exposes them as black propagandists. The ploy is obvious: keep repeating the "conviction" and the pejorative description, "convicted criminal," to make them stick despite the clearly political nature of the seven-year-process led by three Gloria-appointed Sandiganbayan judges, of which two, de Castro and now, Diosdado (named after Gloria's father) Peralta, have gotten their payback with promotions.
Surely, the best way to overcome black propaganda is to stick to historical facts; and the rice crisis and forthcoming milk supply crisis will prove that Marcos and Estrada were leaders on the right track. A continuing reiteration of the cause of the deteriorating food crisis traceable to the embrace of globalization, privatization and deregulation by the "people power trio" Cory Aquino, FVR and Gloria Arroyo (add the massive corruption of the last two), and their dismantling of programs to ensure irrigation infrastructure and fairly priced fuel and electricity, is the best way to put these icons of Edsa I and II in their proper, unflattering light. In fact, the latest news adds more evidence to this: March 28, "ADB: Power, infra costs cripple RP," citing higher than neighboring countries' electricity, toll and other transport charges.
On the same day, the Japan External Trade Organization was reported to have said that of all Asean countries where its country's firms operate, expansion plans in the Philippines was lowest at 1.2% compared to 11.3% in Thailand, 8.4% in Vietnam, 3.5% in Indonesia and 2.7% in Malaysia. The reason cited for the "bearish" expansion plans is similar to what the ADB cited: power and other high costs, but it added the appreciation of the peso as another problem. As in decades past, the Philippines continues to slide down in the priorities for investment from other countries while the economy continues its deterioration, and the impact on the people can be seen in developments like in this week's news: "RP 8th TB producer in the world, say doctors"--not television but tuberculosis, the disease of poverty.
Another very important news item that received scant attention, compared to front page grabs of Pacquiao's latest bout, is retired Supreme Court Justice Jose Melo's oath-taking as the new Comelec Commissioner. Chairman Melo is better known for his cover up of Gloria Arroyo's role in the so-called, "extra-judicial killings" of hundreds of anti-Gloria and Leftist dissenters. Melo was credibly accused by Senator Lacson as a "counsel" for Abalos during the ZTE Senate hearings because he sat behind Abalos, a seat which is normally reserved for the witness' counsel. Melo denied it but I don't know if anyone believed him. I don't. Like all of Gloria's appointments, Melo will be at the Comelec to do Gloria's bidding--cover up and manipulate. His appointment to the Comelec demolishes any hope for clean elections in 2010.
Every week, when I sum up the news and developments, it becomes clearer and clearer that there is no hope for the country to break free from the vicious downward cycle of institutional decay, economic collapse, press perversion and increasing poverty--unless there is radical clean up and restructuring. Unfortunately, the leaders that have shown the vision, daring and courage to spark the radical change have temporarily been immobilized in detention. General Danilo Lim, Senator Trillanes IV and the Magdalo group are still in Camp Crame, while Colonel Querubin and the February 26 group are at the Isafp languishing in "bartolinas." In balance, though, the electoral opposition leader, President Estrada, is making more progress, continuing his political education sorties all over the country.
The advocates for the progressive idea of a "transformational transition" council, including the Laban ng Masa, the November 29 Movement and other mass-based groups are consolidating for the next major mass action with the opposition coalition on April 5, to coincide with Gloria's birthday bash and are calling for an early end to her malevolent regime. But, as the text from "Kabansang Ferdie" suggests, the rally should address issues vital to the people: "Korapsyon at Kahirapan" (Corruption and Poverty), as well as, against the 12% RVAT and high power and other public utilities costs. Meanwhile, the consciences of our AFP reformists outside prison bars should continue to be stoked.
(Tune in to "Kape't Kamulatan, Kabansa" on 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 8:30 to 9:00am)
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