CONSUMERS DEMAND!
Herman Tiu Laurel
12/26/2011-1/1/2012
In part one of our year-ender, we discussed the role of the oligarchy in dragging our economy down. We pointed out how various Big Business oligarchs engage in the piracy of the nation’s public utilities and infrastructure assets or projects, then later use these to plunder the nation. We also touched on the way they are doing this in cahoots with elements of the international financial mafia. Just think of the MRT deal between the Ayalas-Sobrepeñas-Agustines with Goldman Sachs that cost $800 million of government bank money to repurchase--only to be privatized again. And that’s just one of the many examples.
In this “Year-ender II,” we will focus on the conspiracy between the local ruling elite with the Western financial overlords to swindle our economy through perpetual debt bondage. First, let us underscore the fact that despite $76 billion in Gross International Reserves (GIR) sitting in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), enough to pay off our entire $60-billion foreign debt, annual debt service still eats up P800 million of our budget. Besides this, another anomaly lies in the dormant Special Deposit Account (SDA) of government, amounting to at least P1.7 trillion, which is supposed to fund domestic development.
However, despite all the financial resources now available to us, the BSP has even scheduled $4 billion in new borrowings for 2012. The situation is so distressing that even conservative business and academic sectors have now called for the wipe-out of our debt to finance our own development.
On the subject of the SDA, Marvin Fausto, president of the Trust Officers Association of the Philippines, said on Nov. 3, “(The money parked in SDA facilities) should instead be channeled to funding needs, like in infrastructure projects. We need investments. (The money in SDAs) is enough to spur (further) growth.” Victor Abola, senior economist at the University of Asia and the Pacific, whom I seldom agree with but do in this case, also said that SDAs are a “waste of resources” and the “BSP should lower interest rates for SDAs to free up more funds, from the present 4 percent to 3 percent.”
As for the country’s international reserves, we have an Oct. 12 report from Abigail Ho about what one of our more enlightened political leaders said: “Binay urges gov’t to use gross int’l reserves for dev’t projects…" Vice president Jejomar Binay is urging the national government to tap its $75-billion gross international reserves to fund development projects and open the door to more local public borrowing. In a speech before members of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Wednesday, he said the country’s large GIR would be a viable source of funds for projects that would promote social and economic development. ‘If the national government could be persuaded to utilize its large gross international reserves… for its development projects, the (public-private partnership) could open up in various areas, giving a big boost to business activity nationwide… This could also shift the source of public borrowing from foreign financial institutions to the central bank, which could save the government from the rise and fall of the US dollar.’
“’I will ask (PCCI) to join me in asking the President to consider using our large dollar reserve for development, and to confine public borrowing to local sources… According to the Bureau of the Treasury, 58 percent, or P2.736 trillion, of the country’s total outstanding debt was secured from domestic lenders… The country’s foreign currency debt, which accounted for 42 percent of the total, stood at P2.01 trillion, booked in US dollar, euro, and yen.’”
You see, while we seek to get rid of our foreign debt, the domestic debt we can live with for a while--one problem at a time. Ultimately, I am for nationalizing all banking functions as all credit is backed up by the people’s taxes anyway; but Vice-President Binay’s position is already the maximum that one can hope for under the present situation, which would be a game changer for the Philippine economy. With an immediate medium-term turnaround that can be expected from such an action, the Philippines will surge ahead in Asean within five years.
How important is it to break free of debt? Argentina experienced a dramatic reversal of fortunes since its debt default in 2001 to become one of the most dynamic economies in Latin America, with growth rates that have averaged 8.5% from 2003 to 2010 (way above the –14% it sustained after defaulting in 2002).
Although we don’t need to default, we just have to substantially pay off our debt and invest in our own development projects without borrowing any further. For sure, this will push Philippine growth rates beyond what Argentina had achieved.
It is thus imperative that we begin pump priming our economy as export and OFW markets dwindle in the crisis-stricken world. Already, projection for the Philippines’ 2012 GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is a dismal 5%, a far cry from the rosy projection of 7% and above, while World Bank estimate of 4.2% for 2011 varies from government’s projection of 7 to 8%.
Sadly, we are kept at this worse-than-expected level of economic growth due to the total lack of economic and financial independence (or imagination) of Malacañang and its finance managers.
As 2011 ends and 2012 begins, we call on our readers to join our nationalist economic movement in clamoring for a militant national financial and economic policy that junks economic bondage to regain our financial sovereignty and independence. Let us free our nation so that we can plan our own economy according to the needs of the people, as well as our collective vision of prosperity and stability.
Keep following Dyaryo OpinYon and it economic section to keep abreast of this struggle, in order to bring about the glory of the Philippine economy as it had in the 1950s--when the Filipino First Policy guided the nation toward the beginning of industrialization and economic sovereignty.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Friday, December 30, 2011
‘Little boy’ preps for war
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
12/30/2011
The raggedy “little girl” doll was all-too-willing a tool in the subversion of our country’s slow but fledgling popular democratic governance. For her almost canine devotion to her masters, she was rewarded with her share of the plunder by the US and the local oligarchy for nine years. But, as that raggedy doll became worn out and torn on all sides, she was amply thrown away, replaced with a “little boy puppet.” This dummy, with a wooden smile carved into a wooden face (perplexing everyone besides himself), has a wide eyed gape like the cowboy marionette of the 1950s puppet show, Howdy Doody, coupled with the jerky motions and hobbling gait of Jim Henson’s Muppets.
The past year, this little boy’s puppeteers made him over as a “hanging judge” to end 2010 with a bang. For the New Year, they are dressing him up as the “little drummer boy” and “little tin soldier” rolled into one, hobbling off to a new adventure of patriot games — even when the future of our people, our children, and grandchildren is not something to be toyed with.
Two of my recent columns raised the alert for the heightened geopolitical tensions being drummed up in the Eurasian front, centered on Syria and Iran, and in the Asia-Pacific front, on the South China Sea issue. “A creeping World War III” and “Useful idiot’s autocratic mission” are a wake-up call to the real and present danger of having a literally insane leadership in Malacañang — installed in the 2010 “Hocus-PCOS” elections, where technical shenanigans had been established and where the key to uncovering the electoral manipulation lies in the second software sneaked in. Yes, my friends, they do go to that extent to control our elections, with US software company, Dominion Voting Systems, at the core of that discredited AES of Smartmatic.
War does not just happen. It is painstakingly planned on a long-term basis. And it is seldom done so for reasons other than money. Since wars are utterly expensive in resources and lives, these are never initiated without a clear payback in mind. We see that in every conflict initiated throughout the millennia. In the latest one in Libya, the lion’s share of that country’s oil revenues now go to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) countries, leaving mere drops for the Libyans themselves.
The assaults on Syria are aimed at Iran’s oil, which, in turn, leads to the ultimate goal — aborting China’s rise as a world power. The personal assaults on Vladimir Putin by the plethora of “opposition” groups funded by Western NGOs (like George Soros’ Open Society, the National Endowment for Democracy, and Freedom House) is meant to weaken Russian politics for the ultimate assault on its sovereignty and the weakening of the Russia-China alliance.
Meanwhile, in Asia, the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security (ANZUS) partners are aiming for the China Sea issue as the casus belli against China — this, despite perfectly sound arrangements having been forged by that emerging superpower with Asean to resolve their shared maritime territorial and resource issues through peaceful dialog and joint exploitation.
Thus, with an irrational element needing to be introduced, the likely “hero” would be a little boy blue with all his insecurities covered up by his love of guns, the company of his kabarkada cronies, all while exhibiting an incompetence that has caused the most dismal Asean growth rate the past year and presiding over troubles at home that are wreaking havoc on the nation’s institutions.
Here, the perfect chance to escape all these woes is by playing soldier and patriot, egged on by a Big Brother, who promises this little “useful idiot” a steady supply of disposed guns, warships, and planes for his war games. No surprise there really — for this little dummy now struts before his generals, declaring a shift of focus, from internal security to the defense of the realm. And as the little boy now has his toys to brandish, all it takes is to provoke an overreaction from the “enemy.”
That situation was very eruditely described in the Asia Sentinel, a prestigious Web magazine that features well-known Asian writers. In a Dec. 20 article there (“US Playing a Dangerous Asia-Pacific Game?”), Gavin Greenwood says: “On Dec. 14, Philippine President Benigno Aquino formally commissioned his country’s latest and most capable warship, a 46-year-old former US Coast Guard cutter. Renamed the Gregorio del Pilar after a young revolutionary general killed fighting American troops in 1899, the navy’s new flagship… along with many other small warships, form what military strategists like to call ‘the tip of the spear’… The significance of this ageing vessel’s deployment, however, is not its manifest inability to defend itself — let alone the Philippines — from almost any other warship afloat in the region but that such an attack could invoke the country’s 60-year-old mutual defense treaty with the US… The role of the Gregorio del Pilar may be seen as simply to remain at sea long enough to get in the way of a potential enemy — invariably seen as China — and introduce a layer of uncertainty over the consequences of any direct action against the Philippines or its state assets…
“By providing the Philippines with even the most limited means to confront an opponent at sea, backed by Clinton’s explicit signaling her government’s resolve to stand by its treaty obligation, Washington may have handed over the potential detonator for an armed confrontation with China to the crew of an elderly ship that had once borne the name of the first US Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton’s caution that ‘when the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation’…”
Such a sword — in the hands of a little tin soldier boy imbued with a growing sense of insecurity over his domestic failures and the conflicts he has spawned, who is moreover nervous and fretful of the consequences of his rapidly disintegrating governance — can certainly come in handy, with Big Brother eagerly awaiting the consequences.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Herman Tiu Laurel
12/30/2011
The raggedy “little girl” doll was all-too-willing a tool in the subversion of our country’s slow but fledgling popular democratic governance. For her almost canine devotion to her masters, she was rewarded with her share of the plunder by the US and the local oligarchy for nine years. But, as that raggedy doll became worn out and torn on all sides, she was amply thrown away, replaced with a “little boy puppet.” This dummy, with a wooden smile carved into a wooden face (perplexing everyone besides himself), has a wide eyed gape like the cowboy marionette of the 1950s puppet show, Howdy Doody, coupled with the jerky motions and hobbling gait of Jim Henson’s Muppets.
The past year, this little boy’s puppeteers made him over as a “hanging judge” to end 2010 with a bang. For the New Year, they are dressing him up as the “little drummer boy” and “little tin soldier” rolled into one, hobbling off to a new adventure of patriot games — even when the future of our people, our children, and grandchildren is not something to be toyed with.
Two of my recent columns raised the alert for the heightened geopolitical tensions being drummed up in the Eurasian front, centered on Syria and Iran, and in the Asia-Pacific front, on the South China Sea issue. “A creeping World War III” and “Useful idiot’s autocratic mission” are a wake-up call to the real and present danger of having a literally insane leadership in Malacañang — installed in the 2010 “Hocus-PCOS” elections, where technical shenanigans had been established and where the key to uncovering the electoral manipulation lies in the second software sneaked in. Yes, my friends, they do go to that extent to control our elections, with US software company, Dominion Voting Systems, at the core of that discredited AES of Smartmatic.
War does not just happen. It is painstakingly planned on a long-term basis. And it is seldom done so for reasons other than money. Since wars are utterly expensive in resources and lives, these are never initiated without a clear payback in mind. We see that in every conflict initiated throughout the millennia. In the latest one in Libya, the lion’s share of that country’s oil revenues now go to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) countries, leaving mere drops for the Libyans themselves.
The assaults on Syria are aimed at Iran’s oil, which, in turn, leads to the ultimate goal — aborting China’s rise as a world power. The personal assaults on Vladimir Putin by the plethora of “opposition” groups funded by Western NGOs (like George Soros’ Open Society, the National Endowment for Democracy, and Freedom House) is meant to weaken Russian politics for the ultimate assault on its sovereignty and the weakening of the Russia-China alliance.
Meanwhile, in Asia, the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security (ANZUS) partners are aiming for the China Sea issue as the casus belli against China — this, despite perfectly sound arrangements having been forged by that emerging superpower with Asean to resolve their shared maritime territorial and resource issues through peaceful dialog and joint exploitation.
Thus, with an irrational element needing to be introduced, the likely “hero” would be a little boy blue with all his insecurities covered up by his love of guns, the company of his kabarkada cronies, all while exhibiting an incompetence that has caused the most dismal Asean growth rate the past year and presiding over troubles at home that are wreaking havoc on the nation’s institutions.
Here, the perfect chance to escape all these woes is by playing soldier and patriot, egged on by a Big Brother, who promises this little “useful idiot” a steady supply of disposed guns, warships, and planes for his war games. No surprise there really — for this little dummy now struts before his generals, declaring a shift of focus, from internal security to the defense of the realm. And as the little boy now has his toys to brandish, all it takes is to provoke an overreaction from the “enemy.”
That situation was very eruditely described in the Asia Sentinel, a prestigious Web magazine that features well-known Asian writers. In a Dec. 20 article there (“US Playing a Dangerous Asia-Pacific Game?”), Gavin Greenwood says: “On Dec. 14, Philippine President Benigno Aquino formally commissioned his country’s latest and most capable warship, a 46-year-old former US Coast Guard cutter. Renamed the Gregorio del Pilar after a young revolutionary general killed fighting American troops in 1899, the navy’s new flagship… along with many other small warships, form what military strategists like to call ‘the tip of the spear’… The significance of this ageing vessel’s deployment, however, is not its manifest inability to defend itself — let alone the Philippines — from almost any other warship afloat in the region but that such an attack could invoke the country’s 60-year-old mutual defense treaty with the US… The role of the Gregorio del Pilar may be seen as simply to remain at sea long enough to get in the way of a potential enemy — invariably seen as China — and introduce a layer of uncertainty over the consequences of any direct action against the Philippines or its state assets…
“By providing the Philippines with even the most limited means to confront an opponent at sea, backed by Clinton’s explicit signaling her government’s resolve to stand by its treaty obligation, Washington may have handed over the potential detonator for an armed confrontation with China to the crew of an elderly ship that had once borne the name of the first US Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton’s caution that ‘when the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation’…”
Such a sword — in the hands of a little tin soldier boy imbued with a growing sense of insecurity over his domestic failures and the conflicts he has spawned, who is moreover nervous and fretful of the consequences of his rapidly disintegrating governance — can certainly come in handy, with Big Brother eagerly awaiting the consequences.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
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