The 'Asperger' killer

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

12/28/2012

Daily Tribune

In an article entitled "Newtown Shooter Had Asperger Syndrome, And Some US Gun Facts" Tyler Durden wrote last Dec. 15, "As we reported … buried inside the New York Times biopic of Newtown shooter Adam Lanza was arguably one of the most important missing pieces in the story, at least so far, which could provide clues into partially explaining yesterday's tragic loss of young life, … namely that the 20-year-old man suffered from Asperger Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism (two conditions which are being merged in the upcoming update of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) manual of mental disorders), which has been traditionally associated with social communication difficulties, including flat affect, and one which in some clinical studies has been shown to have a causal link to violence."

The Daily Mail report by Sharon Churcher on Adam Lanza, "'Goth (kids/teens who dress mostly in black and hang out with each other. They like Slipknot and dislike the rest of society) loner was 'ticking time bomb': But mother gave him shooting lessons'… Crazed killer Adam Lanza was a 'ticking time bomb' who suffered from Asperger's syndrome and was painfully shy and awkward, former classmates said yesterday... a troubling portrait began to emerge of the 'Goth' loner, who dressed all in black and was obsessed with video games …'No one is surprised. He always seemed like he was someone who was capable of that because he didn't really connect with our high school, with our town.' Beth Israel, whose daughter Alex attended the local high school with Lanza, added: 'He was just pale and scrawny, a weird kid. He was quiet, shy, socially awkward. He had vacant eyes.'"

Asperger's and a link to video games: "A new study (2008) maintains that people who are addicted to video games exhibit characteristics similar to those who suffer from Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism. As reported by Videogamer.com, the research was produced by Dr. John Charlton of the England's University of Bolton and Ian Danforth of Whitman College in the United States: 391 'computer game players,' 86 percent of whom were male, were questioned... Results found that the closer the players got to (game) addiction the more likely they were to display negative personality traits. With stronger signs of game addiction came three personality traits that would usually be associated with Aspergers: neuroticism, and lack of extraversion and agreeableness." This is from a GamePolitics.com report.

To balance the picture we quote from contrary views about Adam Lanza and the connection of his violence to his Asperger's Syndrome: Magaret Sullivan in New York Times, "'Adam Lanza, Asperger's and a Misleading Connection With Violence… This subject is important to many of those whose lives are affected by Asperger's or other forms of Autism Spectrum Disorder. They are troubled and angered by how the topic has been treated in The Times and other news organizations over the past several days. Joe McGinniss, the well-known author and the father of a son who has Asperger's, is among the many who wrote to me. 'The suggestion that Asperger's might be a clue to why this happened is offensive to me, … It's misleading to suggest that quiet people who don't pick up on social cues are more likely to become killers.'"

Nishi Roy in a mental health Web site writes, "Elizabeth Laugeson, psychologist and an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, says, 'There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior.' But aren't those who are autistic prone to greater violence? Sharing his views, psychologist Eric Butter of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who regularly treats autism, including Asperger's, said, 'Research suggests people with autism do have a higher rate of aggressive behavior — outbursts, shoving or pushing or angry shouting — than the general population. But we are not talking about the kind of planned and intentional type of violence we have seen at Newtown. These types of tragedies have occurred at the hands of individuals with many different types of personalities and psychological profiles.'"

Margaret Sullivan also quotes Dr. Ami Klin, an expert on autism at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, who said "This is not about autism… It's about mental illness and guns that those with mental illness should have no access to." So, is Asperger's Syndrome a real factor in this century's most inexplicable mass murder (Obama's drones murders are explicable, criminal acts). Asperger's syndrome remind us of one video game addict who has not only a gun fetish and his gun toting inseparable friends, but has been given canons, tanks, Armed Personnel Carriers, 250,000 toy soldiers and police forces, Hamilton naval cutters, OV-10 Bronco bombers and MD-500 Defenders (McDonell-Douglas) attack helicopters, among many others, to play with.

(Tune to 1098AM, 5 to 6 p.m. Tuesday to Friday; Watch GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m., and over www.gnntv-asia.com, delayed showing of: "2012 and 2013: Hopes and Fears"; tune to 1098AM radio Tuesday to Friday 5 to 6 p.m. http://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)

RP Christmas gifts for US

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

12/21/2012

Daily Tribune

They were two long and hard battles fought by intellectually honest, caring, and patriotic Filipinos. No, I'm not writing here about the Philippine revolutionaries or the USAFFE soldiers or the Huks of the Fil-American War and World War II (WWII). I'm discussing the civil war over the Reproductive Health (RH) and the sin tax bills.
As it is generally true in all of Philippine History, the mentally and morally corrupt, the collaborators of foreign interests and powers, and the intellectually infirmed and depraved have prevailed — naturally with the hidden as well open interference of the alien interlopers.
This Christmas season, Filipino quislings (traitors) have legislated automatic annual gifts to the magis of America worth P10 billion (or $250 million), not to mention more in RH pork, for "essential medicines" to be bought from US condom-contraceptives makers — while forking perpetual billions to foreign cigarette manufacturers and smugglers.
"RH wins!" declared one newspaper headline. That's certainly the laugh of the year. It is nothing but an unmitigated victory for US strategic political and corporate interests, starting with Henry Kissinger's NSSM (National State Security Memorandum) 200 targeting the Philippines, with 10 other developing countries, for population reduction and preservation of the Third World for US economic interests.

The 30 years of population control crusades of the US, through the UN Population Commission, actually produced success. Philippine population growth rates declined from over three percent down to just 1.8 percent (as per World Bank data) the past years with massive funding from the US Congress. Thus, official funding for UN and NGO-sponsored population programs had been reduced as well. With that, Big Pharma condom and contraceptive firms need to continue having assured markets and profits — and have, unfortunately for us, found our country as the perfect sap.
Media and NGOs are the biggest components of this transnational pharmaceuticals propaganda war in getting distorted messages across — from myths that population growth is the cause of poverty instead of iniquitous economic policy and corruption, to making the issue a "feminist" crusade against the Catholic hierarchy's "male chauvinism," among other glib lines.

Such a campaign — rammed through "porkers" like Edcel Lagman, whose law office handles many of the multinational corporations' lobbying, or through the likes of the batty Miriam Santiago or the daughter of the late self-confessed BW shares scammer — goes to show that the RH campaign is another one of the big frauds committed by politicians again and again at the expense of the people's finances and welfare.
On the Sin Tax war, the onerous and lopsided Cesar Purisima, together with the BAT (British American Tobacco) company won in their machinations to make Filipino tobacco farmers and cigarette manufacturers pay the additional taxes the International Monetary Fund wants from the Philippines.
Though slightly reduced, the new and additional taxes on local tobacco and cigarettes are still more than what the overtaxed Filipino people can absorb, such that more of it will eventually wipe out the Ilocos tobacco sector, especially after the full blown equalization of taxes on foreign and local tobacco products is attained in the next five years. It will be boom times indeed for cigarette smuggling (for which BAT was indicted in an investigation by the British Parliament in 2002) after the passage of the new sin tax rates in the years to come. And Filipinos will be reduced to mere buyers of foreign or smuggled cigarettes, resulting in hundreds of thousands of lost local tobacco jobs.

As it was at the end of WWII when Japanese imperial forces were defeated and the tally of Filipino dead reached over one million, it was not the heroic Filipinos who fought the Japanese who were honored. It was the Filipino collaborators to the Japanese forces who were handed the victory flag and the helms of government in the new "independent" Philippine regime.
Sadly, the quislings almost always win here in this country. WWII Filipino patriots were eventually hounded out of participation in legal political processes (Rep. Luis Taruc and his party were ousted from Congress for instance) and had to continue the struggle via other means.
For Filipino patriots in the struggle to expose the RH law for the swindle that it is, as with the war to save our Philippine tobacco industry, the fight goes on but on a higher and broader plane.

In order to wipe out the quislings from Philippine society (or be wiped out in the process), it is the national revolution that must continue to be waged by letting the sham of the Republic of the Philippines be swept into the dustbin of history.
In the 2013 elections, we can contribute to this patriotic struggle against the quislings by selecting senatorial candidates with clear patriotic records. In the administration coalition line-up, there's only Sonny Trillanes who has shown this spirit; among the unaligned candidates, there's Teddy Casiño; and in the UNA slate, there's only the Estrada legacy to count on.

(Watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 p.m. to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m., and over at www.gnntv-asia.com on "2013: The World and Philippine Economy;" tune in to 1098 AM radio Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., and visit http://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)

Looking back

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

12/17/2012

Daily Tribune

The end of 2012 is in sight and it's another month of looking back and assessing our triumphs as well as setbacks. Failure is not in my lexicon, for as long as one is alive any obstacle to a goal is only momentary difficulty.
At this juncture I can say with satisfaction that we have made positive contributions to the public welfare this year, and these are in the triumph against the DoTC's previously announced rate hike plan, a plan the BS Aquino III government had wanted to implement as far back as 2011. We indefatigably and persistently bared the facts about the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) and Light Rail Transit's (LRT's) financial situation; i.e. that it is not losing money, that it in fact is making a profit given the operations and maintenance (O&M) cost of only P9.11/pax/trip against the P10 to P15 the MRT charges.
The LRT is equally viable without increases as the "farebox" ratio analysis of its cost of 1.39 for LRT 1 and 1.01 for LRT 2 as Arnold Padilla of "A Radical's Nut" blog explains, "A farebox ratio of 1.0 means that fare revenues cover 100 percent of O&M. … which means that collections from passengers cover more than 100 percent of O&M. This provides more statistical evidence to our argument that fare revenues can cover O&M but the total costs are bloated by debt." The bloated debt of LRT 1 and 2, and the MRT, comes from the onerous contracts entered into by the FVR and Arroyo governments.
The MRT and LRT projects have been sold many times over with profit being made each turnover while the commuters continue to subsidize these profits of the "oligarchs."

The second contribution we can report to our readers and our people is — the successful exposé of the Hocus PCOS (precinct count optical scan) scam in the 2010 elections. It took all of three years, from the time before the elections itself when we, along with watchdogs like the Philippine Computer Society, the CenPeg and the AES Watch, to the post election years, before the whole truth was revealed, and as the saying goes: "Truth Will Out," and ironically the culprits were caught by their own mouths. "A fish is caught by its mouth."
When PCOS provider Smartmatic TIM filed a suit against Dominion Voting Systems Inc. (DMSI), its hardware and software design provider, it stated that DMSI "failed to deliver fully functional technology for use in the 2010 Philippines national election," "failing to place in escrow the required source code, hardware design, and manufacturing information."

The Smartmatic suit against its technology supplier reveals that, contrary to its claims to qualify to supply the PCOS machines in the 2010 elections, it is only a marketing firm and not the owner of a voting system technology. That explains all the last minute problems, revisions and removal of safety features in 2010 when the real technology company didn't support Smartmatic. Now all is clear why Smartmatic and the Commission on Elections (Comelec) EC gave all sorts of excuses just to avoid an unconditional third party testing of the PCOS and source code; they put obstacles to access to the source code; removed the ultra-violet lamp ballot verification, the voter confirmation of votes receipt and the Board of Election Inspector's digital signature components because the Smartmatic machines were "make do" machines as they did not have the technology and design.

It must be recalled that the Comelec under Chairman Melo then repeatedly affirmed by various assertions Smartmatic's claim that it is the owner of the technology for the voting machine (PCOS), now it is clear that it is only a marketing company and that it lied along with the Comelec. It is also now confirms my suspicion of Melo's sudden resignation right after the 2010 elections — he knew this would blow up and provided himself an escape hatch by resigning early. Now Melo is ensconced comfortably as director with a grand sinecure at the Bases Conversion and Development Authority. A new development on this score is retired Gen. Flor Fianza's additional exposé of Melo's operations that undermined the 2010 elections which appeared in his column "Duty Calls," all about the "national service" misused in the 2010 elections.

In 2010 a group which included myself, lawyer Bono Adaza, Mr. Ado Pagliinawan and several others filed a petition with the Supreme Court (SC) to annul the results of the 2010 Elections due to the countless infirmities it suffered. The SC has not resolved the petition in the two years and a half that has passed. The SC is in a dilemma and is frozen into paralysis in this case because there can be no denying, given the factual bases to condemn the 2010 Elections, that democracy was waylaid in 2010. We're ready to force the issue in the New Year with the new evidence in hand.

(Watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m., and over www.gnntv-asia.com: "A China-Philippines Update" with Chito Sta. Romana; tune to 1098AM radio Tuesday to Friday 5 to 6 p.m. http://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)

Why our laws deteriorate

BACKBENCHER

Rod P. Kapunan

12/15/2012

Manila Standard Today

The greatest tragedy of our time is catalyzed by that most pathetic role of our politicians to give in to the demands of every sector in our society. It is a tragedy as it is essentially wrong much that the mandate we gave to our elected officials is not anchored on that system of accommodating the various interests of people in a pluralistic society.

It is from this standpoint why through the years our political values have deteriorated, and badly. Such was bound to happen because we have overblown our understanding of freedom. We could no longer establish boundaries between freedom and mandate, which undoubtedly are indivisible to our understanding of the mechanics of democracy. We say this because we embraced the Western concept of freedom as unbridled.

From that point of view, we began to accept that equally wrong postulate of mandate as wholly emanating from the people, and not as something that needs some kind of political quantification. For instance, our conventional notion of a mandate begins in our understanding that it is the people that bestowed it upon our elected officials based on that stereotype notion called "democratic process".

Thus, when we begin to disagree with the policies of our elected leaders, especially on the laws they legislate, readily we feel justified in withdrawing our mandate either by not electing them in the next election or by booting them out of office. It never crossed our mind that the mandate we extended to our elected leaders is based only on that exclusive privilege to freely elect them. We never entertained the thought that our mandate could metamorphose to one of authority for them to fix and synchronize all the interests of the people so we would end up having a harmonious and progressive society.

This now explains why most of them fail to come out with laws designed to put order to our society. The thinking of both the executive and the lawmakers has been canalized to one of accommodating and satisfying the wishes of the people. Such emasculation and/or diminution of rights invariably trigger conflicting claims. Often, we wrongly take the dominance by one class as a vested right for, as usual, we equate their assertiveness as representing the majority. The great majority of our people have now been cowed down by this unconventional notion about our power. To question that would amount to an intrusion to one's freedom such that to regulate their interest now becomes taboo.

Since our elected officials are foremost politicians, the laws they legislate is now principally geared towards accommodating every sectoral demand. This in turn encouraged the most outrageous practice of "epalism" or the habit of wanting to be known to the public as responsible for the enactment of that law or for the accomplishment of that project. The race to accomplish something unwittingly caused many of our lawmakers to act as executive officials, forgetting that they were elected to enact law. They all want to implement and execute the laws dealing with projects or in protecting the rights of certain segments, hoping that come election day, the people would repay their gratitude by reelecting them.

Politicians will find every conceivable way to be known or to be identified with the project as though the money spent came directly from their pocket, and not as taxpayers' money. Any proposed laws are narrowed down to what will serve to advance their interest, and any law that is hinted of seeking to impose discipline for the purpose of putting order to society is most abhorred.

The effect is the moral and political decay of society. Our politicians tremble at the fear of not being elected; that in their attempt to please their constituents, they come out with hodgepodge approach all meant to superficially please their constituents. Thus, aside from living up to their role as politicians, they act like showbiz personalities or some kind of clowns.

Of course, there are exceptions to these self-serving laws their legislate. These exemptions include revenue raising laws and imperialist-dictated laws. Politicians would never budge to the demands of the people to lower taxes or to scrap existing ones. Even if at times if might trigger adverse reaction, revenue-raising bills are vital because they enable them to remain in power. The pork barrel generated by those laws is mainly intended to cater to the parochial demands of their constituents. After all, people easily forget that the taxes and fees imposed on them is the one politicians use to fray them. And then there are those so-called imperialist-dictated laws. It is not the money or their positive effects it will have on our people, but of the politicians' fear of being politically isolated by powerful pressure groups controlled by the US.

Good cases are those laws that dismantled all forms of subsidy, laws that deregulated the prices of goods and services, laws that increased taxes to assure payment to our international debt obligation, laws on population control including the now controversial reproductive health bill, our enactment of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, and our ratification of the International Criminal Court.

These are laws that have no immediate impact on our people. Nor could they help improve their economic well-being. Just the same, they are legislated for fear of possible retaliation from the US which has the power to single out politicians known for their anti-imperialist stand. This explains why through the years, the kind of laws our politicians have legislated have deteriorated. They have become so callous, and their political instinct have all but been reduced to just measuring whether their proposed bills would serve to promote their ambition to institute their own political dynasty.

rpkapunan@gmail.com

'Let Asians fight Asians'

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

12/14/2012

Daily Tribune

A few days ago, Dec. 11 to be exact, the Philippine government through its Foreign Affairs Secretary issued words that portend great gloom for both the future of the Filipino people and the whole of Asia.
When asked in an interview with the Financial Times of London as to "whether the Philippines would support Japan dropping its pacifist constitution to become a fully fledged military force and act as a balance against a rising China," Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) spokesman Raul Hernandez, quoting DFA Secretary Albert del Rosario, said, "I think we would welcome something like that."
Other reports of that interview also directly quoted Del Rosario as saying, "We are looking for balancing factors in the region and Japan could be a significant balancing factor."

Those statements came as the Philippines is preparing for talks with its US counterparts in the Third Bilateral Strategic Dialog, which subjects include the country's territorial dispute with China. Hernandez affirmed the Philippine government's view that Japan should "upgrade" its armed and naval forces "from a self-defense force (as defined by its official name, Japan Self-Defense Force or JSDF)" to one "with the capability (of operating) in the region" — which simply is "a euphemism for allowing Japan to go beyond defense."
Truth is, Japanese military forces have already been deployed to Iraq in 2004 (upon insistence of the US) in violation of Japan's Peace Constitution. Article 9 of that Charter explicitly states that Japan will never maintain land, sea, and air forces that can constitute any potential to use force "as a means of settling international disputes."

Japan Times published an article last June entitled, "LDP's dangerous proposals for amending antiwar article," by Craig Roberts, which says: "Article 9(1)(i) looks little changed from paragraph one of the current Article 9 … Yet the slight revision contains the basis for unraveling the binding power of the constraint, like a Trojan horse smuggling in the forces of destruction.… the clause 'threat or use of force,' which is drawn from Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, is no longer subject to the 'renunciation' (the eternal nature of which has also disappeared). Rather, the clause is now qualified by the feeble and passive phrase 'will not be used.' Not the mandatory prescriptive language of 'shall not,' or 'must not,' but merely 'will not' … That would be a radical change from the current provision, which is understood to operate as a legal prohibition."

On these little words hang the future of peace in Asia and the world, as the Asian Century — centered on China's growth — revs on. The US National Intelligence Council issued its Global Trends Report last week and finds: "China's economy to outgrow America's by 2030 as World faces 'tectonic shift'… 'China alone will probably have the largest economy, surpassing that of the United States a few years before 2030… (where) power will shift to networks and coalitions in a multi-polar world…'"
Yet, it also opines self-servingly, "A collapse or sudden retreat of US power probably would result in an extended period of global anarchy (as) no leading power would be likely to replace the United States as guarantor of the international order…" That's in spite of the fact that wherever the US went, chaos followed. Over the past decade alone, US invasions of several countries have caused mounting military and civilian casualties: 640,000 in Iraq (Lancet); 100,000 in Libya (IBTimes London); 20,000 in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In Asia, despite lingering territorial issues, the region was still able to enjoy a modicum of peace after the end of the US-instigated Korean and Vietnam wars. But now comes the US "pivot" toward Asia and, along with the Japanese government "nationalizing" the Diaoyu Islands by purchasing it with the BS Aquino III administration simultaneously acting as the Asean harmony spoiler by sticking to its rabid but isolated campaign of "internationalizing" its dispute with China.
And while we are today witnessing the Japanese rightwing, the US-backed LDP, proposing loopholes into the Japanese "Peace Constitution," we can rightfully ask: What for — a "kamikaze rearmament?" And cui bono (Who benefits)?

Certainly, it's none other than the US finance and military-industrial complex fomenting the new regional arms race, coupled with the neoconservative proponents of "The New American Century" hegemony, as well as the Japanese ruling distracting its people from the fifth recession in 15 years; all these, as BS Aquino III receives more commissions in the purchase of vintage warships and fighter jets, all as a prelude for "Asians to fight Asians."
As former US President Lyndon Johnson once said, "We are not about to send American boys nine or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves."
Thus, the "new" Imperial Japan finds a good successor to its World War II puppet, Kalibapi (Kapisanan sa Paglilingkod sa Bagong Pilipinas) leader Benigno Aquino Sr., in the guise of the latter's grandson; this, as "Green Card holder" Del Rosario sets another stage for the Filipino people to be cannon fodder once again, in what historian Barbara Tuchman calls "The March of Folly."

(Watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m., and over at www.gnntv-asia.com on "The Economy: A True Picture" with Ibon E.D. Sonny Africa and KME economist Hiro Vaswani as guests; tune in to 1098 AM radio Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., and visit http://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)

PSY wars (Gangnam style)

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

12/10/2012

Daily Tribune

This was the New York Times report I picked up from another article, "The PSY Scandal: Singing About Killing People v Constantly Doing It," by Glenn Greenwald on the Information Clearing House: "In 2004, PSY rapped on a South Korean metal band's song, 'Dear American,' at a protest concert, The Washington Post reported. 'Kill those f—ing Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives,' he said. 'Kill those f—ing Yankees who ordered them to torture. Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law and fathers. Kill them all slowly and painfully…' Two years earlier, after a pair of Korean schoolgirls were mowed down by a US-operated armored vehicle, PSY again expressed vitriol toward America. Onstage, he smashed a plastic model of a US tank into pieces as the crowd cheered, The Korea Herald reported."

The first time I saw the artist known as PSY was on a CNN TV interview. I took no interest at all. When the news channel showed his "Gangnam Style" music video with his white tuxedo and silly hand gestures with legs flapped in and out, I wondered why CNN would put such an inane figure on at all.
I still don't get how this "Gangnam Style" got the fancy of the world, but now I know that it first went "viral" on the Internet. This apparently also got the curiosity of the Washington presidential party planner who included PSY in the White House Christmas party program.
But just two weeks before the party, someone dug up a decade-old YouTube video showing the rabidly anti-American rap that PSY performed then. The short New York Times article said, "PSY apologized… adding that the song in question is from nearly a decade ago, and was 'part of a deeply emotional reaction to the war in Iraq and the killing of two Korean schoolgirls.'"

Protests briefly ensued in various US venues, including the Internet, demanding PSY be pulled out of the Christmas program. Despite this, PSY is still on for Obama's party. One Web site said, "Look, even if you're still outraged about PSY going, just hold in your anger for a few days and come Christmas we'll all get a GIF of President Obama doing the 'Gangnam Style' dance. That alone would be worth it."
The US and some of its people may get a kick out of PSY's "Gangnam Style" but I wonder why PSY would still perform for a US president who represents quite literally a deadly "Gangsta" over the whole world — especially The Third World — ripping out brains and innards of babies, women, and children; bombing with drones in wild abandon, on villages in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Yemen and once in Mindanao; and arming Syrian rebels and al-Qaeda.

Glenn Greenwald enumerated a long list of US criminal campaigns all over the world to highlight the irony of the PSY performance before the US President. He begins with a report from The Guardian: "The US military is facing fresh questions over its targeting policy in Afghanistan after a senior army officer suggested that troops were on the lookout for 'children with potential hostile intent'… In comments which legal experts and campaigners described as 'deeply troubling,' Army Lt. Col. Marion Carrington told the Marine Corp Times that children, as well as 'military-age males,' had been identified as a potential threat because some were being used by the Taliban to assist in attacks against Afghan and coalition forces…"
Indeed, the US is laying the ground for legally justifying its unmanned airborne attacks against the children of the Third World.
The statistics of drone victims (culled from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism) are deadly and growing:
Pakistan — Total reported killed: 2,593-3,387 / Civilians reported killed: 472-885 / Children reported killed: 176 / Total reported injured: 1,255-1,408;
Yemen — Total reported killed (all): 362-1,062 / Total civilians killed (all): 60-173 / Children killed (all): 24-35;
Somalia — Total reported killed: 58-170 / Civilians reported killed: 11-57 / Children reported killed: 1-3.
There are many other Web sites that cite higher civilian death proportions and are equally credible given the highly difficult nature of the information, but even these stats we have already show unacceptable levels of civilian deaths. Still, whatever the level of civilian deaths (even with confirmed "militants"), the use of drones is still legally untenable and even many US legal luminaries question whether it can stand in any court of law. Question is: Would gangsters care?

When PSY capitulated and apologized just to perform before the US president, he pretty much revealed his vacuous nature. But in my mind, the sensible lyrics from his song "Dear American" still reverberate: "Try those f—ing Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives… Try those f — ing Yankees who ordered them to torture." Try them, indeed. Hopefully, PSY can still regain his sanity after all this media frenzy dies down.

(Watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 p.m. to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m., and over at www.gnntv-asia.com on "A China-Philippines Update" with Chito Sta. Romana and Wilson Lee Flores as guests; tune in to 1098 AM radio Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., and visit http://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)

Food production, not RH

BACKBENCHER

Rod P. Kapunan

12/8/2012

Manila Standard Today

The basic reason I sneer at those hypocrites advocating the passage of the reproductive health bill is not my religious belief. It is my contempt of their waste of time trying to limit our population when they should be concentrating on increasing our food production. I am pretty sure there would be no debate on the issue because basic logic tells us it is useless to argue on population control when we cannot even feed for our own people.

We must bear it in mind that we have a sizable number of people suffering from hunger. They are in dire need of employment, not necessarily for them to improve their lives, but just to be assured that by sundown, their families would have something to eat, and none of their children would go to sleep on an empty stomach. Such is most poignant because hunger now stalks a number of our people.

In fact, the debate on the issue of population is a fallacy that has long been exposed. Countries such as China, India and Indonesia have, for a long time, been pointed to as classic cases of countries where, accordingly, population growth has overtaken their economic development. For that, stereotype economists have written off prospects for economic development because of their runaway population growth.

No doubt, they were influenced by that doomsday theory of Thomas Malthus, a British economist who said that "should human population explosion increase faster than food supply, it would eventually reach a resource limit (overpopulation), and any further increase could result in a population crush caused by famine, disease, and war." Today, his theory stands as fiction because those countries have not only been able to feed their own people, but have become net exporters of rice and grains.

Like Malthus, the believers of that doomsday theory failed to foresee that advances in science could result in increased food production often outpacing their food requirements. Thus, instead of seeing our bulging population as a problem, they should focus on how to make use of our abundant labor to generate more production. These modern-day Malthusian alarmists even failed to analyze the close link between food production and industrialization. Increase in manufactured and industrial products allowed these countries to sell their goods at higher value for them to import from countries that could produce food products at much cheaper costs.

That now catalyzed the truth about the comparative advantage formula of Adam Smith. Gradually, as they continue to advance industrially, they apply their technology to boost their own food production. This now explains why their food production has correlatively increased at a much faster pace. Many predict that in the near future, China, India and those newly industrialized states would not only be able to achieve self-sufficiency in food, but could even join the league of food exporters. We can cite Japan, which has a population of 127.3 million yet remains self-sufficient in food production. In fact, we have more tillable and arable lands than Japan. Why could we hardly feed our own people?

Notably, after the ouster of Marcos, our food production has rapidly declined. That happened because we revised our entire approach to food production by focusing on how to increase the price of our goods as our way to encourage food production. Succeeding administrations then began abolishing the subsidy on farm inputs for accordingly, that caused the price of rice and corn to remain low. Since the core of their opposition was to deregulate the price of the commodities, that to them would be a form of incentive to the farmers that in turn would induce investment.

Unfortunately, the price of rice and corn astronomically increased. Our leaders forgot that a steep increase in the cost of production would be beyond the reach of many farmers. The magic of deregulation did not bring about the fortune of increased income. Their misery was compounded because subsidy for irrigation, for the purchase of harvested palay, and the credit support facilities were stopped. These were factors that liberated the country from being a perennial rice importer during the time of President Marcos.

Corollary to that lackadaisical decision was the catastrophic decline in food production. Many farms became idle, existing irrigation canals were abandoned and left to decay, and the land reform program suffered tremendous setbacks as many beneficiaries opted to sell their lands. They did this notwithstanding the fact that their earnings lagged from what the workers in the urban centers were receiving under the minimum wage law.

Saddled by that criminally inspired inflationary monetary policy, importation became cheaper than farming, although at a terrible cost to our consumers. The "Dagupan rice cartel" that manipulated the price of rice before martial law was resurrected, specifically after the scrapping of the presidential decree giving the National Grains Authority the monopoly to buy and sell rice and corn. The rice cartel did not only regain control of the business; it regulated the supply to keep the price high.

As rice traders continued to choke small farmers by pegging the cost of their palay during bumper harvest, multinational corporations like Monsanto imposed a tight monopoly in the supply of hybrid seedlings, which seeds could not be replanted for another crop season. Worse, the hybrid seedlings, which were genetically engineered, required much water, and heavy dose of fertilizer and chemicals to achieve the desired result.

In the end, the ruined and devastated agricultural farmlands has caused unprecedented migration of landless and farmers with small landholdings to the urban centers in search of employment just to escape hunger that now haunts them and their family. For the swelling number of squatters that have become an eyesore to the hypocrites, population is now the ire of the RH proponents.

Look who's talking.

rpkapunan@gmail.com

Currency wars

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

12/9/2012

Daily Tribune

The most significant sectors of the Philippine economy and population, the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), exporters and business process outsourcing (BPOs), are facing a crisis. The peso is threatening dive below P40 to the dollar in 2013. The peso and the Filipino dollar earning sectors have already suffered 30 percent loss of their exchange income since 2004 when the peso rate was at P56, now it is at P40.85, further losses will cut even deeper into the purchasing power of the sectors. Even as the BS Aquino government boasts of 7.1 percent virtual reality growth, the real economy is actually much harsher on the people and consumers. In reviewing the Philippine peso exchange rate history, I scanned Internet sources through the night and found many historical revisionism in the data and interpretations of our currency history. They do not reflect what actually happened in the five decades past of the World and our country's currency history.

The Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998 for example was reported by Wikipedia without any mention of George Soros' role in the "speculative attack" on the Thai Baht and other Asian currencies and stock markets. It put the blame on Asian economies for allegedly mismanaging their financial situations, an interpretation that seriously distorts the facts. The Asian financial crisis was a premeditated attack timed at the point when Asia was at the peak of its financial boom, a boom the Western financial establishment itself encouraged. Then Soros and company pulled the rug from under the Asian economies. The timing of the Asian financial crisis is also construed by some as an attempt to subdue Asia as its Tiger economies soared, and the handover of Hong Kong back to China in 1997 signaled the final resurgence of the Sleeping Dragon.

Indonesia had bought the entire Naval assets of the defunct East German Republic to leap frog as a naval power in the region. The Asian financial crisis stopped Suharto right there and brought him down. The FVR regime did no better; the Peso plunged to P50 from P28, despite "Finance Manager of the Year" Bobby de Ocampo at his side. Other countries withstood the crisis like Malaysia with Mahathir's currency and capital controls, and South Korea population donated its gold and jewelry to the government to quickly repay the country's debts. Hong Kong turned the tables on Soros' ilk by "double play," defending its currency and boosting the Hong Kong stock market that speculators tried to short. On the peso's travails, I came across a blog, "The Coffee" of Mike from Valencia, Negros Oriental, an Ateneo 2005 graduate, working at a Makati technology company, who reviewed the peso history.

Mike correctly begins at the peso devaluation from P2 to P 3.70 under former President Diosdado Macapagal, but after that he seems to have been waylaid. Mike didn't explain that the precipitous crash came after Macapagal "decontrolled" the economy. Mike goes on to The Asian financial crisis and admits "I can't understand it, no matter how many times I check Wikipedia, but the peso crashes from P26 to P41 to the dollar in a single frickin' year."
That peso actually went as low as P45 to P48. Maybe Mike can pick up from our recollection and study the reality of "currency attacks." What I do need to correct is Mike's take on the peso crash under Estrada saying "Economic mismanagement and political instability… plus charges of corruption … peso nosedives …to P50." Then Mike stops there without citing the P56 crash of the peso in 2004 under Arroyo.

It was clear from Day 1 of the Estrada administration that forces were out to destabilize and oust the "masa" president. Erap disapproved of "sovereign guarantees," power and water rate increases, and the Omnibus Power bill privatizing the National Power Corp. Erap routed the Moro Islamic Liberation Front at Camp Abubakar which former US President Clinton tried to stop. The "currency attack" was kicker to finally oust Erap at Edsa II, coordinated between Makati bankers (led by Dick Romulo at the forefront of the preparing anti-Estrada bank witnesses) and the foreign bankers. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, whose regime The Coffee blog seemed to omit from discussion, doubled the Philippine debt over all previous presidents causing the massive peso crash to P56 in 2004. Today, the peso fluctuates at around P40.85, the OFWs, exporters and BPOs are already crying out for clear policy directions to defend their hard earned peso values vis-à-vis the dollar.

Finance Minister Guido Mantega of Brazil accuses the US of waging a "currency war" and strategic devaluing its currency to aid its economic recovery, but the BS Aquino government appears clueless and his BSP seemingly paralyzed. Every concerned Filipino, including Mike, should try to read Jim Rikards,' "Currency Wars" to understand that the a nation is already have always been victimized by a continuing "currency war" from Western and local financial powers.

(Watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m., and over www.gnntv-asia.com: "The True Picture of the Economy" with Ibon E.D. Sonny Africa and KME economist Hiro Vaswani; tune to 1098AM radio Tuesday to Friday 5 to 6 p.m. http://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)

Even cancers grow

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

12/3/2012

Daily Tribune

Every Philippine government administration finds ways to boast of "growth" every year, but every year the people's economic crisis grows. Government economic indicators don't help; for example, it doesn't matter whether the peso devalues or revalues: fuel, power, water and prices continue to go up, purchasing power shrinks. Unemployment outpaces the growing work force despite narrowing of the definitions of "employed," and poverty grows despite components of the "food basket" for the Consumer Price Index lowered. Over the years 10 fruits have been removed from it, as well as Baguio beans, carrots, sitsaro, green native papaya and cucumber, children's milk for breakfast, and any extra separate viand of fish or meat and fruit dessert beyond once a day.

Just before this latest announcement of the rosy statistics a major survey firm released its May assessment headlined "Record-high unemployment at 13 million jobless — 34.4 percent of Filipinos aged 18 years old and above were unemployed or approximately 13.8 million individuals." Surprisingly the same survey firm a month later changed that to 26.6 percent to 10.9 million unemployed, but it's a far cry from what the NSCB claims at 7 percent unemployment or 2.8 million in its accompanying news to the 7.1 percent growth. The Ibon Foundation economic think tank puts actual unemployed, including those left out by government definition (i.e. those who have found jobs after two years and gave up) at 4.6 million based on the old definition. What's not doubted is the underemployed, those semi-employed but still look for more work; they grew by 3.6 percent adding 1.5 million to the underemployed now at 8.5 million.

A total of 13.2 million Filipinos were either jobless of underemployed. The "jobless growth" has turned into a "joblessness growth." The definition of "underemployed" includes non-paid family members, like children threading sampaguita garlands and, maybe, hawking them in the streets. Ibon data show Asean unemployment figures: Philippines 7 percent, Singapore 2 percent, Thailand 0.9 percent, Lao PDR 1.4 percent, Cambodia 1.7 percent, Brunei 2.6 percent, Malaysia 3 percent, Indonesia 6.5 percent, Myanmar 4 percent. The Philippine's jobs crisis is at the bottom of the pervasive hunger and poverty situation of the country, and Aquino's contribution, as a report described: "When Aquino became president on June 2010, unemployment was 20.5 percent. In May 2012, unemployment was reported by the SWS to be 26.6 percent. Unemployment worsened, by 6.1 percentage points."

Growth requires confidence in the economy. One expression of this is the FDI (foreign direct investment), not to be confused with "portfolio investment" or "hot money" that emanates from the cheap US dollar or Yen (both zero interest at home) parking in the economy to gain short term benefits or even speculate against it for quick profit. The true picture can be seen in the FDI comparison: In 2011 the Philippines with 96 million population and Cambodia with 14 million tied for last place in the FDI derby at $800 million each, as FDI shies away from "Asia's Highest Power Cost." Up to June 2012 the Philippines got $850-million FDI, while Vietnam had $2.5 billion, Indonesia $5.6 billion, Malaysia $2.3billion, and Thailand $7.3 billion, and as of latest available data Cambodia had $815 million. Over the decades companies like Intel, Procter and Gamble, Ford, etc. have left the country for other Asean and Asian climes.

The growth in the 3rd quarter economic figures is really in the whopping 24 percent growth in construction and 7.5 percent in consumption (pushed with credit cards "buy now pay in 2013" promos) reflected in the wholesale and retail service sector. Even without adjusting proportionally to other factors it is evident these are the major floaters. The obvious private sector construction is in the condominium building race that's changing the Metro Manila skyline, though government construction is also apace. These construction activities, however, do not contribute to direct increase of economic productivity and durable jobs generation. Especially so, when the condo market is hot because of cheap dollars buying up the high end condos, while the rest go to OFWs. Consumption is self explanatory, and akin to an illness; a cancer, eating away national resources and creating a permanent "Black Friday" (the sale mania in the US) mentality, without producing jobs either.

(Watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m., and over www.gnntv-asia.com: "Retrogressive Economic Growth" with Ibon E.D. Sonny Africa and KME economist Hiro Vaswani; tune to 1098AM radio Tuesday to Friday 5 to 6 p.m. http://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)

Slavery-like economy revisited

BACKBENCHER

Rod P. Kapunan

12/1/2012

Manila Standard Today

When Congress, then led by Senator Ernesto "Boy" Herrera, introduced a bill seeking to relax Article 106 of the Labor Code, surely they had in mind the idea of promoting employment. They believed that unemployment remained high because many of our industrialists, manufacturers, traders, and businessmen were hesitant to hire more workers for fear of violating the constitutional mandate on security of tenure, specifically Article 278 of the Labor Code.

They proposed that employers should be given flexibility to discharge their employees once their services were no longer needed. But as a compromise, they would abide by the minimum wage law, and other benefits mandated by law to our workers. That consensus was reached because security of tenure prevented them from hiring more workers when needed and terminating their services due to business loses or for want of production contract. In effect, they thought the easing of the sacred principle that protected employment would give them manpower flexibility.

Unfortunately, that did not solve the problem of unemployment. The proliferation of contractual employment created a new shade of slavery. Service fees ranging from 10 to 15 percent is charged from the monthly income of each worker leased out to employer-beneficiaries by employment and placement agencies. Unscrupulous placement agencies even violate the minimum wage law or deny payment of wages. What employers thought would give them that much-needed advantage ended up having them paying more and leaving the workers without any assurance of employment.

Although theoretically, workers could still file a complaint of underpayment of wages, which in fact became more rampant, the number of cases have drastically dwindled much that the mother case for violation of the minimum wage is still illegal termination, something many contractual workers could never hope to win. Contractualization, in turn, resulted in the withering of trade unionism. In effect, former Senator Herrera provided the right kind of medicine that brought to comatose their own trade federations. All demands from wage adjustments to other benefits like SSS contributions, correlative to the formation of a labor union, have all been reduced to ashes. They could no longer bargain based on their collective strength.

Besides, they are at a loss whether to deal with their bogus employer that specializes in the business of leasing out their services which, under the present circumstance, could raise outlandish defenses. Consequently, contractualization widened the income gap between the workers trapped by the system of regulated or minimum wage, mostly unskilled and semi-skilled and from the very small percentage of skilled workers who could still bargain for better wages with remaining companies willing to hire them. More than that, unemployment remains at 7.2 percent, meaning that 2.9 million of our workers are still out of work, when supposedly the scrapping of the security of tenure was intended to help ease the problem of unemployment.

It therefore makes no sense for this rabidly pro-American government to boast of 7.1 percent economic growth rate (in the third quarter of this year) when it is at the same time hounded by a 16.6 percent poverty level. Such statistical paradox is indicative of a serious imbalance because economic growth rate could only be appreciated if it would result in the reduction of poverty. It was even tactless for President Aquino to make a promise to reduce the country's poverty level from an all-time high of 33.1 percent recorded during his mother's administration in 1991.

Translated most accurately, the economic growth rate dubbed by this elitist government as "the best economic performer in Southeast Asia" is pure nonsense if one has to equally cite the Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey in March 2012 stating that the number of "mahirap" or poor rose to 55 percent; and hunger at a record-high 23.8 percent of families; moderate hunger at 18.0 percent; and severe hunger at 5.8 percent." The SWS added that "tresults are quite disappointing because self-rated poverty rose by a large 10 points, from 45 percent in December 2011, and hunger was at a new high, albeit just 1.3 points more than that recorded in December 2011."

More than that, this government's continued adherence to the US-dictated inflation-based economic policy heightened by our unmitigated subscription to currency deregulation and by our open-arms policy to portfolio investment has created a deep wedge in income disparity. Combined with our antiquated system of regulating wage, prestowe ended up as having the most visible gap between the rich and the poor compared with our neighbors in Southeast Asia! According to Stratbase Research Institute, this hypocritical regime is trying to project a brisk economy even as "the registered a Gini coefficient of 44 percent last year, higher than Thailand's 42.5 percent, Indonesia's 39.4 percent, Malaysia's 37.9 percent and Vietnam's 37.8 percent."

The study added that, "the global ranking was prepared by international group called Vision of Humanity using the Gini coefficient to measure inequality of distribution as the basis." Having the highest, the Philippines has "greater rate of inequality compared to other Southeast Asian countries." This means "the richest 10 percent of Filipino families are "raking in more than a third of the country's total income." The huge disparity between the rich and the poor is likely to breed "social tension and political instability."

Stated differently, the rest of the 90 percent Filipinos are wallowing in extreme poverty, but entertained nonetheless by teleseryecapitalizing on irrational human emotion, gossip about movie stars, festivals participated in by dressed but malnourished children; clowns giving away goodies to cash-strapped participants; sensationalism about gory crimes; news about our gearing for war with China; and dosage of propaganda about progress, democracy and freedom. Indeed, there is more fun in the Philippines for people living in a world of contrast between reality and fantasy.

rpkpunan@gmail.com

Hocus-PCOS President?

Herman Tiu Laurel

OpinYon

11/26-12/2/2012

ON Sept. 11, 2012, in the State of Delaware, U.S.A. , Smartmatic International Corporation, (PCOS machines provider for Philippines' 2010 Elections) filed a Breach of Contract (Civil Action No. 7844-VCP) against its election technology supplier Dominion Voting Systems International Corporation (DVSI).

Smartmatic accused Dominion of failing to deliver fully functional technology for use in the 2010 Philippine national election; failing to provide timely technical support …; failing to place in escrow the required source code …; among others.

This means the Philippines paid P 7.1-B for deficient election technology and an admission that the "source code" was never deposited with the Bangko Sentral (BSP) (as the Election Automation Law, R.A. 9369 requires) but which Smarmatic and the Melo Comelec made the country believe was done – making them liars and criminals in the eyes of the law?

This also raises the questions of whether President Noynoy Aquino was duly elected President.

Source Code crux
In computer science the source code is the collection of computer instructions that the computer or PCOS machine can read and execute. CenPeg, Center for People Empowerment in Governance, a public policy center with U.P. and Ateneo IT scholars, was at the forefront of the crusade to check and test the Smarmatic source code.

The Election Automation Law (RA 8436) requires this source code to be available for examination. The Melo Comelec and Smartmatic insisted on tests only at their premises, using computers they specify and handled by their technician, and only for very short period. CenPeg refused to legitimize such "zarzuela" as serious testing requires extensive examination that IT experts say can take weeks or months to complete to confirm the viability of a source code.

In June 2010 representatives from Congress and political groups visited Smartmatic's Cabuyao plant to observe a PCOS demonstration. In the news then was the "Koala Boy" testimony alleging ER's (election returns) separately transmitted ahead of genuine ERs from precincts. Atty. Boy Imperial observed "… Smartmatic controls everything, …. they could have easily changed the programming of the machines beforehand, … While they had shown that the PCOS machines had refused to transmit an ER after an earlier ER has been transmitted, the allegations raised by Koala Boy could still be relevant…" For House committee chairman Rep. Teodoro Locsin, the plant and system inspection proved that the CF cards are tamper-proof; but it wasn't known then that the originally intended source code was not available and the ones in the demo are off unknown origin.

Locsin, for all his smartness, had been had.

Security lost
The absence of the original PCOS source code may explain why many security features were inoperable. The built-in Ultra Violet ballot authentication function did not work. Comelec rushed a P 30-M purchase of 80,000 hand held UV lamps most of which were never used. The "voter paper audit trail" or "receipt" print out to confirmation the PCOS's correct recording of the voters votes did not function, printing out only "congratulations". The required digital signature of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) members to authenticate transmission of election results was disabled and the Comelec, with the Supreme Court approval, substituted the PCOS "digital signature" which was none other than a machine number E-commerce legal experts declare are violating the E-commerce law.

The removal of PCOS security features is direct violation of the Automated Election System Law. Instead of allowing a delay in the elections and solving the glitches, the government, Comelec and Smartmatic presented the public with one fait accompli after another, sustained PR campaigns and stunts (like romantically linking Smartmatic spokesman with beauty queen), and paper over glaring legal issues. The cavalier regard for Law was likely motivated by pecuniary considerations from the P 7.1-B deal and dilemma of admitting the folly of dealing with Smartmatic, a mere "marketing" company which had no AES technology of its own. The Supreme Court denied Harry Roques's Concerned Citizen's Movement petition protesting the substitution of digital BEI inspectors signatures with the machine number.

Human Intervention
In its defense the Melo Comelec argued that "… the move was aimed at removing one step in the transmission process to minimize human intervention and protect the results of the balloting." Isn't the removal of all the security features "human intervention" by the Comelec, the Supreme Court? Likewise, Smartmatic by its deceit and cover-up on the matter of the non-submission of the "source code". The writing of the Automated Election System Law and inclusion of its PCOS security provisions was "human intervention" intended to safeguard the sanctity of the ballot, the railroading of the elections despite the request of the political opposition then for a week or so to fix the glitches was Comelec's intervention for derailing democracy.

International peace NGO The Carter Center observed the 2010 elections. Ingo Boltz, Austrian electronic election expert with the mission urged "caution in adopting automated voting", saying "The human element in traditional elections can often be its greatest asset…With a traditional ballot box, every layperson can, without the use of expert knowledge or tools, follow and verify every step of the election process…The price of automated voting is the delegation of these tasks to a handful of information technology experts and…it is basically impossible to guarantee that an e-vote system does exactly what its programmer says…We are obliged to trust that programmers are incorruptible." Are the software and PCOS machine providers (Smart vs. DVSI fighting over profits), Comelec, institutions like the Congress and Supreme Court incorruptible?

Annul 2010 Elections
On June 28, 2010 two days before the inauguration of Benigno "Noynoy" Aquinio III to the presidency at the Quirino grandstand, a group led by Atty. Homobono Adaza as counsel, with Mr. Ado Paglinawan, Herman Tiu Laurel et al, filed with the Supreme Court a petition for Certiorari and Prohibition against the Comelec and asking for the nullification of the 2010 presidential and local elections, GRL case No. 192561 on the grounds of illegal outsourcing of non-delegable power and functions to a foreign company in violation of the constitution and the Comelec and Smartmatic violations of various statutes including the Omnibus election code, the Automated elections Systems Law and the E-Commerce Act (on the illegality of the PCOS machine signature).

The petition concludes, "… a TRO or writ of preliminary injunction be issued against all officials who have been illegally and unconstitutionally proclaimed … Declaring the May 10, 2010 elections null and void, thus call for new elections …. ; Declaring all elective positions (including the President) which would be occupied by persons illegally proclaimed, vacant; As an alternative remedy, to order respondent COMELEC to conduct a manual count of all ballots in all precincts throughout the country in the presence of the public and representatives of candidates and political parties…

"Two and a half years later the Supreme Court has not responded. Atty. Bono Adaza asks, "If we are to believe in the full meaning of the Law and the evidence of massive automated election fraud, we should all those proclaimed winners in 2010 and Noynoy Aquino Hocus PCOS winners."

2013 PCOS Dilemma
Despite protests of the most competent automated election system watchdogs CenPeg, AES Watch and the Philippine Computer Society all composed of IT professional and university scholars, the Brillantes Comelec in March and the Supreme Court in June 2012 again approved the P 1.8-B purchase of the Smartmatic PCOS for the 2013 elections. Two months later the Smartmatic vs. Dominion case surfaced revealing Smartmatic's duplicity in claiming technology and source code for the PCOS. In an interview over DZMM last November 20 the anchor faced off Ado Paglinawan and Chairman Brillantes with the latter stammering to answer the issues and seeking to thresh them out in private. Fortunately, the anchor admonished the Comelec chair and demanded total public transparency on the issues.

The nation will be in widespread uproar over the "Hocus PCOS" situation soon, as responsible personalities of the Catholic Church have been roused to study the scandal seriously printing a thousand copies of the magazine Impact dedicated to reporting the irregularities in the PCOS of 2010. Thus far the issue has been kept out of the front pages of mainstream media, but it is only a matter of time before this explodes into a major national controversy.

Last November 21 the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee tackled only the allegations of overpricing of indelible ink in the 2012 ARMM Voter's Registration, and the Hocus PCOS issue with the new and unassailable evidence of Smartmatic and Comelec duplicity in the 2010 elections was not taken up. That's another delay in the investigation of Philippine Election's Scandal of the Century.

SOEs

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

11/30/2012

Daily Tribune

The People's Republic of China's phenomenal resurgence did not come by "privatized" enterprise and "foreign investment." The most crucial element was — and still is — "state planning" of the economy. At the heart of this planned economy is the state or the people's ownership of the "means of production," i.e. the tools and materials by which all productivity is generated. These tools, in turn, are the financial and physical economic enterprises brought about by the state's control of credit, money, and finance, as typified by the Bank of China, which they correctly consider a "public utility" and "state-owned enterprise." This set-up is very much the same in the case of power, water and infrastructure, with such business entities as Sinopec (China Petrochemical Corp.) or State Grid Corp. of China (that has already bought into the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines). As of 2011, 35 percent of business activity and 43 percent of profits came from these companies, and many "private enterprises" have as much as 49 percent state investments.

It is not only China that uses such methods in building progress and growth for its nation. Among other countries doing the same is Singapore, which has an economy primarily guided by the state and where its largest investment corporations are state-owned and run, such as Singapore Investment Corp. and Temasek Holdings or its telecommunications company, SingTel, which invests even here. Although some others mask their national industries under private companies, these are nonetheless mandated by the state, such as Japan and South Korea's respective zaibatsus and chaebols.
These are in stark contrast to the Philippines, where private corporations that are invariably backed by foreign interests suck up to P1 trillion in profits annually, siphoning these out of the system (as admitted by GMA economic adviser Joey Salceda in 2009) — which figure has increased by as much as 25 percent each succeeding year.

In our column entitled, "Opening up RP," our point was "nationalization" as the necessary direction against today's "privatization" and the "opening up" of windows, gates, skirts, and all to "foreign investors," as one Australia "business consultant" (who has no business at all) prescribes.
The Philippines was proud to be the first to accede to the GATT-WTO (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade-World Trade Organization) model and is now the last in Asia in terms of foreign economic investments and growth after almost 20 years since its signing. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reported last October that the Philippines got only $800 million in 2011. For a country of 95 million people, the said figure is just the same as what Cambodia, having 14 million people, had achieved. China, meanwhile, with its state-controlled strategic enterprises and strict foreign investment guidelines, gets the lion's share of "foreign investments" at $91 billion in the first 10 months of 2012 alone.

The original title of this piece was "LOL (laughing out loud)" after I read a number of reactors lambasting me for being "Chinese," calling me among other things, "gago," an "excrement," a "dickhead" — all of which I enjoyed immensely. For sure, my provocations successfully opened a "can of worms," exposing a host of biological brainless creatures in wild verbal undulations. One reaction was to my depiction of the Aussies' roots, which the Australian government itself, in its Web site article entitled, "Convicts and British Colonies in Australia," narrates: "On 26 January 1788, Phillip raised the British flag at Sydney Cove. Seven hundred fifty-one convicts and their children disembarked, along with 252 marines and their families. Two more convict fleets arrived in 1790 and 1791… From 1788 to 1823, the Colony of New South Wales was officially a penal colony comprised mainly of convicts," which I capped off with a quip of "Need we say more?"

From the 1700s down to 1928, White Aussies massacred native Australian Aborigines. The "Aborigine Genocide" records: "Australian Aborigines suffered genocide at the hands of the European invaders in the 19th and 20th centuries. The indigenous population dropped from about 1 million to 0.1 million in the first century after the invasion in 1788, mainly through violence, dispossession, deprivation and introduced disease. The last massacres of Aborigines occurred in the 1920s. Throughout much of the 20th century there was a policy of forcibly removing Aboriginal children from their mothers, a systematic genocidal policy involving the removal of perhaps 0.1 million children." The Australian government has since officially apologized but the racism still continues, as my friends there report to us quite often whenever they return here. Let's hope the Aussie-philes learn a few historical lessons.

LOL (laughing out loud) is an expression popularized on the Internet but it also frequently has another meaning in Filipino (uLOL) describing a rabid dog.
Not a single one from the pro-"opening up" camp presented any sane argument. Neither have they rebutted the point that so-called foreign investors — in the sense of "finance capital" being the stuff of "foreign investments" in RP (like those going into PLDT or the MRT) and extolled by the late 20th and early 21st Century globalist economists — have destroyed both the US and Europe, where the "Occupy" movement is now gaining ground. It seems they cannot even admit to themselves that Greek protesters have been occupying town halls to protest the bitter fruits of globalization and "foreign investors" in their country. Mga uLOL nga!

(Watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 p.m. to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m., and over at www.gnntv-asia.com on "Lessons from Latin America" with Federico Fuentes and Rihanna Melencio as guests; tune in to 1098 AM radio Tuesday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and visit http://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)

RP's patsy intelligentsia

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

11/26/2012

Daily Tribune

I scan almost every Filipino mainstream newspaper columnist or commentator almost every day. I also scan global news and analysis Web site. Comparing the range of thoughts on the international and national issues of our times I always come to the inescapable conclusion that the vast majority of Philippine intellectuals are "intellectual patsies." A patsy is a person who is gullible and easy to take advantage of. In Pilipino, a patsy is one who is "uto-uto." Collectively, the Philippine intelligentsia (purportedly highly educated people as a group, regarded as possessing culture and political influence through their intellectual standing) is predominantly a collection of patsies, mostly sucking up to the global and national financial elite, the corrupt politicians and the global hegemon that is the US of A. Recently, I find this trait in many columnists and commentators.

One Filipino columnist, a lawyer, lambasted Hun Sen and described the Cambodian leader as "being part of the Pol Pot regime that committed genocide that is now being prosecuted by the Extraordinary Chambers of Cambodia. He is also no match to our P-Noy in terms of moral stature."
The facts of history show Hun Sen as very courageous leader, a former military officer with the Khmer rouge (the only effective force against the US imperialist and its puppets) who defected and led the war to depose Pol Pot with Vietnamese help. Hun Sen has one glass eye due to combat injury. Many Cambodians consider Hun Sen a hero against Pol Pot. I don't see how PeNoy can be morally superior to Hun Sen in domestic or global affairs — for being a "patsy" of GMA to being a "patsy" of Ambassador Thomas — PeNoy has never shown any moral stuff to begin with.

We have patsies on all levels of the government hierarchy. For example, Marvic Leonen ascended to the Supreme Court (SC) despite being totally bereft of integrity for declaring that "there is no foreign influence in the peace agreement on the Bangsamoro" when the handprints of Malaysia, the US and Britain are all over it. Leonen has been rewarded for catering to the desires of the powerful. Leonen's appointment follows Justice Sereno who caters to the interests of the corporate oligarchs of the country instead of interpreting law in favor of the welfare of the people. We will never see non-patsies, outstanding legal luminaries willing to stand up to the powerful, with proven track record of principled advocacy in the SC, such as lawyer Alan Paguia who sacrificed almost a decade of being suspended from practice for standing against the skewed justice of the GMA-Davide SC.

Many newspaper columnists now lambast China and its supposed "bullying" of the Philippines, citing the naval build-up of China as evidence. But what is China building up for? Isn't it against the real bully in all of modern history — the Western hegemon? In many critiques of China's defense moves a myopia is prevalent, failing to see China and the Philippines in relations to global political-economic-military strategic situation. They term China a bully when the greatest bully is right inside the Philippine — the US overlord and its minions demanding continuously increasing tribute by way of diktats from its agencies such as the International Monetary Fund. Lagarde has just demanded new "tax on texts" after ramming through the "sin tax" and tollways taxes despite Noy's promised "no new taxes." The US rammed through the Bangsamoro agreement, violates with impunity the "no nukes" policy of the Philippine Constitution, ad nausea.

Filipino intellectual patsies are a scourge to human history, they abet wars that serve the Western hegemony's interests while collaborating in the ritual sacrifice of the rest of the world to that hegemony. In World War II where the Philippines acted as a loyal colony of the rival imperialist countries at war instead of exercising independent influence to avert war. Many in the Philippine intelligentsia today are incapable of playing a new game — taking sides instead of standing sovereign and exercising its influence for the good of its own strategic interest which is the prevention of conflict and war in the region. The Philippine intelligentsia should help clarify that: the issue on the China Sea is not who "owns" but how to share "50/50" or more for the small countries; the defense issue is how to stop the US "missile defense shield" that will allow US "first strike" capacity and trigger retaliation against the US "lily pad" military bases in the region like the Philippines, Japan and South Korea

.
(Watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m., and over www.gnntv-asia.com: "Bolivia's Progress" with surprise guest from Latin America; tune to 1098AM radio Tuesday To Friday 5 to 6 p.m. http://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)

Genocide for the world to see

BACKBENCHER

Rod P. Kapunan

11/24/2012

Manila Standard Today

In justifying its genocidal bombing of the Gaza Strip, the criminal Zionist state of Israel has issued a statement saying "the Palestinian people had it coming." For their decision to vote for Hamas, the militant wing within the umbrella of the Palestinian Liberation Organization representing mostly the people living in Gaza, they are being punished collectively. According to Gilad Sharon, the son of General Ariel Sharon, the butcher of Sabra and Shatila whose soldiers murdered more than 3,500 civilians mostly women and children in 1982, "Gaza should be flattened to the ground like what the US did in Nagasaki and Hiroshima to compel the Japanese to surrender."

Despite world condemnation, US President Barack Obama said "Israel has a right to defend itself, and no country in the world would tolerate missiles falling in torrents within its borders." Such exaggerated statement also exudes that typical imperialistic hubris of sanctioning Israel's systematic act of genocide. The US, being the principal broker of the criminal Zionist state, ignores the truth that when the Palestinian people voted for Hamas in January 2006, it was the result of a democratic process that should be respected by all civilized nations, including the US which has proclaimed itself as the champion of democracy.

The problem, however, is that Israel together with the US, now acting in criminal concert to isolate and starve the Palestinian people, not only refuse to abide by that decision, but have arbitrarily classified Hamas as a terrorist organization. While the criminal Zionist state continues to bludgeon the Palestinians, the US plays the duplicitous role of pitting the Fatah of President Mahmoud Abbas against those supporting Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

Thus, from the time Hamas took control of Gaza, the tinderbox situation was long expected to explode because of Israel's persistent stonewalling in halting construction in the occupied lands and in evicting Palestinians. Hamas was brave enough to accept the hard truth that all the avenues for peaceful negotiations have become futile. In fact, the criminal state of Israel has been racing fast to convert the whole of Gaza into a virtual cage for the 1.7 million Palestinians.

No food, medicine, goods or any kind of supply, including fuel, could enter Gaza by land and by sea without the permission from the criminal Zionist authorities. More than that, supplies are restricted and severely limited. Aside from having been isolated from the West Bank, its entire border with Israel has been fenced with high concrete blocs. Its outlet towards the Mediterranean Sea has equally been blockaded. In fact, last May, 2010, in gross violation of international law, the criminal Zionist state has imposed a unilateral blockade of Gaza. An international flotilla was organized to help deliver the much-needed supplies. The flotilla consisting of small vessels carrying food supplies, medicines and basic necessities was to break the illegal naval blockade. However, while still on high seas, the ships were suddenly boarded by Israeli commandos, and the soldiers started firing their guns and began beating the passengers resulting in the death of nine with several others seriously injured.

For that bloody assault on the crew members engaged in humanitarian mission, all that was heard from the criminal Zionist state was to say the incident was regretful, but it never made an apology nor offered to compensate those killed. As usual, they were summarily branded as "terrorists" as if terrorists would announce themselves publicly to carry out a humanitarian mission. The US, on the other hand, blamed the organizers of the flotilla saying that the bloody boarding could have been avoided had those manning the vessels did not attempt to break the blockade which in the first place was in violation of international law.

The latest carnage has resulted in the death of 163 Palestinians and wounding 850 as a direct result of indiscriminate aerial bombing and artillery fire, while only five Israelis were killed and 60 wounded from the improvised rockets fired by Hamas. Again, Israel and the US take as their linear point in blaming the Palestinians on the rockets fired by Hamas into Israel, and not from the long list of brutal oppression inflicted on them by this Jewish Gestapo. They are even prohibited from digging tunnels even for purposes of using them as bomb shelters fearing that Hamas would use them to smuggle arms.

To this day, the US and the criminal Zionist state refuse to see that an entire population has been caged like animals crammed in a very small territory for easy picking using electronically-guided drones to drop concussion bombs and even of the prohibited white phosphorous bombs which is illegal under Protocol 3 on the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons which the criminal Zionist state of Israel refuses to sign.

In fact, many could not understand because Resolution 242 urges Israel to withdraw from all territories it occupied since June 1967. Rather, it continues to defy the resolution, and its defiance has consistently been supported by the US using its veto power to reject any resolution condemning the criminal state of Israel. In the latest round of conflict, the criminal Zionist state wants to collectively punish the Palestinians in Gaza for voting for Hamas. It is on this score why the world is appalled because the right of the people to elect their own leaders and to form their own government is a right that is supposed to be exclusive to them.

Besides, their right to elect Hamas is internal to them and is apart from actual process of negotiation. But it seems the Zionist criminal state has opted to prejudge Hamas to avoid negotiations, thus exposing the truth of its contempt for international law and complete disregard of world opinion.

rpkapunan@gmail.com

'Opening up' RP

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

11/23/2012

Daily Tribune

There's a foreign business consultant cum commentator in the Inquirer pressing for constitutional change for unmitigated "opening up" to foreign investors. But aren't foreign investors already welcome? However, like all other countries in Asia, limits are imposed to keep nationals in control, except in sectors where locals have no competence, inclination or capital to venture in. That's only fair. The Filipino Internet's social network also has rabid activists for radical opening up to foreign capital as a way to fight the local oligarchs' abusive business monopolies, but they "miss" the similarity of that "foreign capital" with local Big Capitalists and have created economic crises in their own lands such as the US and Europe. There is another way for Philippine growth: the State ending foreign debt, and releasing available domestic capital and credit for collective or individual Filipino enterprises.

The country already has significant surplus in foreign exchange holdings relative to its foreign debt, and P1.8 trillion in savings from overseas Filipino workers, export and BPO sectors held in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) paying four percent to keep in its vaults. This capital is ready and waiting to fund large, medium and small scale enterprises. However, if these trillions of pesos were used only for consumption, horrendous inflation would ensue. These billions should be used for productive agriculture and manufacturing enterprises which would necessarily compete and substitute for goods imported today today — local dairy, shoes, clothes, steel, machinery, ad infinitum. That would be very good for the economy. This was this nation's dream in the 50's, 60's and 70's, dreams set aside during the 80's globalization that continues to be the doctrine of this country's economic planner today.

There is no lack of domestic capital, only the lack of political will to carve an independent and productive national economy reminiscent of the dreams of our economic nationalist leaders from the likes of Mike Cuaderno during the Filipino First policy era, while industrialists like Ysmael and Delgado starting on the road to manufacturing local appliances and transport vehicles, nationalist ideologues like Hilarion Henares and Alejandro Lichauco were recruited by Congress to plan the industrialization of the nation. This is the paradigm that all wealthy Asian nations followed to success, from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and, now China which weathers the global economic and financial "perfect storms" by tweaking it policies toward domestic pump priming and economic development. We have trillions of pesos now ready to pave the road to this type of success.

The foreigner inveigles Filipinos with arguments such as, "The dream of many Filipinos is to gain a foreign education to add to what they've learnt here… going to Harvard, but the cost is prohibitive. Why not bring Harvard here?" Do Filipinos really need or want Harvard education? Harvard graduates in the US are hard put to find jobs and can't pay their student loans. Did Henry Sy Sr. or Lucio Tan, or for that matter many successful businessmen siblings and thousands of successful Filipino and Tsinoy entrepreneurs go to Harvard? I can say with certainty that 99.99 percent of them never did go nor needed to go to Harvard. Maybe if one wants to be an atsoy of a Western multinational that would be necessary. In the age of the Internet, what can be learned in Harvard can be picked up over the Internet; besides, the best schools in the world's list of top universities are already in Asia.

The foreign commentator added, "In 1935, there was rudimentary AM radio, negligible commercial air travel, cars that could reach 100 kph if they struggled hard enough. TV was unheard of … Fifteen years ago, we didn't have cell phones; today, we can't leave the house without them. Imagine if the Constitution had banned mobile communications in the name of protecting national security. (But even North Korea has cellphones!) Today, I can turn on the TV and CNN is right there in my living room. It doesn't need a transmitter here… so why not let it have one if it wants? "But if they're in already, what's their need to have a transmitter here? If they're already in, what's the need for "opening up?" Inane logic! He is saying Filipinos would still be "Monkeys in trees" if the White Man like him hadn't come. He should be kicked out and returned to his land of "bandits, rogues and garbage" thrown out by England.

It is the colonial mentality of some Filipinos, even Big Business Filipinos who are nothing more than compradors and domestic gents of transnationals, that this foreign commentator faces regularly (such as in the Makati Business Club) and thinks these represent Filipinos in general. Those Filipinos may be in pinstriped suits and ride around in chauffeured Mercedes Benzes but they don't represent the vast number of independently employed and productive Filipinos, from tobacco farmers to self-made industrialist, who have no patience for condescending foreign parasites preying on the Philippines.

(Watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m., and over www.gnntv-asia.com: "Comelec-Smartmatic 2010 Fraud" with lawyer Bono Adaza, Toti Casino and Ado Paglinawan; tune to 1098AM radio Tuesday to Friday 5 to 6 p.m. http://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)

Not so Smartmatic

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

11/19/2012

Daily Tribune

On June 28, 2010, led by Ado Paglinawan and represented by counsel Homobono Adaza, with Myrleon Peralta, Don Emilion de Castro, Patricia Ilagan, we filed GRL case No. 192561 demanding the annulment of the 2010 presidential and local elections. We filed the case on the basis of the massive failure of the Comelec-Smartmatic automated elections system to deliver transparent, efficacious, clean and credible democratic elections. In violation of the Constitution, the Comelec outsourced its powers and functions to a private and foreign corporation with false claims of technical expertise and competence, financial capability and reliability — all of which are now confirmed by a case filed by Smartmatic itself against the principal election automation technology company Dominion Voting Systems International Corp. (DVSI).

The reporters covering our action asked if there was any point to our case as the new president was already to be inaugurated the next day. Adaza explained that we were putting on record with the highest court of the land, the violations of the Constitution and our electoral laws by the Arroyo government, Comelec and Smarmatic: they committed basic misrepresentation of the problem for which we spent P7.2 billion for the PCOS purportedly addressed which the late Mano Alcuaz, an information tech pioneer, incessantly pointed out: that the precinct manual voting and counting was never the problem as they were always finished by the end of election day, it was the verification and security of transmission which a range of simpler and cheaper solutions addressed — such as cellphone snapshots of the canvass board and sheets by watchers and the public to, among others.

There were the countless illegal changes in the PCOS machines safeguard provisions, such as the removal of the built-in ultraviolet ballot verification scanners to ascertain the genuineness of the ballots; the voter's printed vote receipt itemizing the voter's actual votes shaded on the ballot and replaced with a simple print out saying "congratulations" to the voter for successfully voting; the digital signature of the election official on the official election result for the electronic transmission of election results from the precinct to municipal to provincial to national canvassing, and many more enumerated in our 5,000-word petition to the Supreme Court. For two-and-a-half years now the case has languished in that court and the petitioners have heard nothing since. No hearing has been called, no dismissal of the case has been heard of.

Two months ago something happened gave impetus to a revival of our case. In the State of Delaware a court case filed by Smartmatic against DVSI provided confirmation of the problems we and many other critics of the Smartmatic PCOS machines, the Comelec and the conduct of the 2010 elections, had pointed out. Smartmatic and DVSI squabbling over huge business opportunities in the sale of voting machines and election software technologies and services, led Smartmatic to sue election software provider DVSI for withholding from it various software support to operate voting machines it markets for its clients in various countries in past, present and forthcoming elections. Smartmatic is now again exposed, as we many have reported before, to be only a "marketing company" and has no software technology capability contrary to it claims made to the Philippines for the 2010 elections. They are not-so-smart-matics after all.

Smartmatic's general counsel said: "This lawsuit is necessary because of Dominion's persistent refusal to deliver technology that Smartmatic legally licensed. We intend to recover the costs of rectifying a basic Dominion software error that nearly affected the 2010 Philippine elections, which we went to great lengths and expense to correct in keeping with our commitment to maintain the highest standards of election integrity and transparency." "Nearly affected" is a gross understatement. Most startling is Smartmatic's contention that DVSI never provided Smartmatic the "source code" for its voting machines in the 2010 election — contradicting Smartmatic and Comelec's claim in 2010 that they had those source codes in safekeeping. When the AES Watch, a group of Filipino IT experts, sought to test the source code Comelec and Smartmatic insisted in had to be at their warehouses.

The law requires that a source code must be given to the Comelec and deposited with the Bangko Sentral, which apparently never happened. What does this make of the BSP officials, the Comelec, Smartmatic, the congressional officials who were supposed to oversee the entire process? Aren't they now all proven to be liars? It's time a new investigation is called and then Comelec Chairman Melo, as well as all other commissioners then, asked to shed light on these. The final problem now is Comelec chairman Sixto Brillantes' P 1.8-billion purchase of the PCOS machines for the 2013 elections which many had warned against. Those machines will be useless without the "source code" DVSI is denying Smartmatic — maybe that's why Brillantes suddenly shifted focus to the party-list disqualifications and the anti-dynasty issues.

(Watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m., and over www.gnntv-asia.com: "Comelec-Smartmatic 2010 Fraud" with Atty. Bono Adaza, Toti Casino and Ado Paglinawan; tune to 1098AM radio Tuesday to Friday 5 to 6 p.m. http://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)

MRT, WESM, O-bomb-ma

PEOEPLE'S STRUGGLE

Herman Tiu Laurel

11/12-18/2012

OpinYon

THE three issues that should be topmost in the public's mind this week are named in out title. First, the victory the public has won against the MRT fare hike; second, the new electricity rate hike that the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM); and third, Obama II and what it means for Filipinos and the World.

Victory over MRT/LRT fare hikes
After the All Saints Day holidays DOTC secretary Antonio Abaya made an obtuse statement to the effect that the MRT fare hike he announced earlier "…must be adjusted upwards only if the railway systems service improves."

This was partially an announcement that the MRT fares would no longer be increased on January 13 as earlier scheduled, a step backwards for the DOTC and an admission of the resounding victory of the arguments put forwards by the campaign of various commuter crusaders who have battled to oppose and stop the MRT fare hike.

The Aquino III government has been pushing the MRT fare hike since Day One of its administration but never presented actual MRT figures on the cost of operations to the public without exposing the scam Aquino III's oligarchs-backers wrote into the original contract.

The DOTC secretary is also obviously reacting to this writer's article last month entitled "Lower the MRT fares" where we reported the results of research and studies made by the RILES Network (of which I am co-convenor and spokesman) with a coalition of NGOs, including Agham (a group of scientists) which found that the MRT O&M (operation and maintenance) cost per passenger is only P9.11/trip.

Agham's Giovanni Tapang used the "farebox" method, dividing the total revenues by the entire cost of O&M and found that MRT commuters are actually paying more than enough to run and maintain the MRT. Abaya is quoted saying "actual cost of transporting passengers from end to end of the railway station costs P60…. the government must subsidize P45 of the cost since only P15 is collected from the passengers as fares", there are several lies there.

Taxpayers/Commuters subsidizing scam
The P60 cost is rather the financial burden to fulfilling the sovereign guarantee to the 15% profit margin and P 60/ passenger fare in the Fidel V. Ramos contract with "investors" Sobrepeñas, Ayala, Agustines and Campos groups. These groups have cashed in their profits selling the MRT contract several times over to, among others, the MRTC3FC, Goldman Sachs and GAS of Bobby Ongpin, and then Arroyo's government buying back 80% to get Goldman Sachs' court collection suit off its back but without a single voting share. The balance of 20% is owned now by Manny Pangilinan's group which expects to takeover completely after a fare hike is made.

Abaya is covering up for these scams when he hides this truth from the public and lies if he maintains the story that government will take 100% control. Abaya inaccurately claims "…the government must subsidize P45 of the cost …." The Aquino III government is not paying the subsidy. It is the taxpayers, you and me, as well as the MRT/LRT commuters paying the subsidy. The State includes the people, the government or administration is not the people.

Commuters are also already P5 for that subsidy, over the P 9.11/ passenger O&M cost. Investments in improvements can already be made based on the present fares since the MRT commuters pay P 5 over the O&M already, if they take the scam cost-burden out.

Columnist Michael Tan of the Inquirer wrote supporting the fare hike "if there is an improvement", that inaccuracy is a disservice to the millions who take the MRT/LRT on a daily basis; media has a responsibility to fully understand the issues and inform the public accordingly.

Lower the MRT/LRT fares
The Palace is saying "P6 MRT 3 fare hike is a 'good compromise'," so the fare hike is not off the table at all. From the very beginning of the MRT fare hike controversy I wrote that the P10 fare hike was a ploy and only a negotiating position. I told my two youngest sons who take the MRT/LRT to their respective universities every day, "The government is really aiming for a P 5 fare hike, starting at P 10 and scaling down to half that they hope the public will eventually, easily swallow."

So, let's not be fooled. There is absolutely no justification for any fare increase. There are still other sources to raise fund without any fare hike, like reversion of revenues from ancillary business such as advertising and real estate values to the MRT operations, maintenance and improvements; or change of overpricing maintenance contractors like Sumitomo to other s or to in house maintenance that would be cheaper.

The RILES Network has started the petition signing campaign for a "Lower the MRT fare" crusade. We are scheduled to start on November 13 and will appear again at different MRT stations to commuters to sign on and ensure justice for the millions of MRT/LRT passengers. There is no compromise in Truth and Justice in a democracy when it comes to the people's welfare.

The only rule to follow is "The greater good for the greater number of people", and the Aquino III government and its DOTC secretary is still trying to hoodwink the 95-million Filipinos to favor the vested interests of not more than a dozen individuals in the Philippine oligarchy and their foreign financial partners. We the people have won one victory in the MRT/LRT fare hike struggle – we must carry to the next level: Lower the MRT/LRT fares!

Power hikes again
"Power rate hike looms", the newspapers headlined last November 9, allegedly due to higher generation prices in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) the reports say: "There was a de-energization of the Luzon-Visayas interconnection from October 8 to 13, 2012, so that Luzon's supply from Visayas was reduced. During this period, market prices rose significantly."

This means cheaper geothermal sources in the Visayas failed to deliver to the grid and higher cost power from oil fed generations were tapped. Power rates were expected to drop due to the hydro-electric reservoirs being full and consumption of air conditioning being lower. This problem of rising power rates when it should go down is due to privatization and apportionment of the State power assets to countless private companies, losing the benefit of economies-of-scale.

A breakdown in one generating unit cannot be compensated for by another unit; instead during such disruptions private generating company increases its rates to profit from the opportunity, selling through the WESM (Wholesale Electricity Spot Market). Last month the price at the spot market went up because, Meralco said, "two coal-fired power plants underwent repair and maintenance, the 647-megawatt Pangasinan Sual 1 power plant had shut down … while Sual 2, which generates 647MW was also closed… "There is no incentive to maintain reliability at all times since breakdowns are also opportunities to increase rates. Meanwhile, Meralco will start collecting on the "bill deposit" January, completely unjustifiable but apparently approved by the ERC which never held a public hearing on this. We'll have to organize and oppose this in the streets and in court when January comes.

O-"boom" or "bomb"-ma?
Some commentators opine that a Democratic U.S. president is going to be good Filipinos for being more open to immigration. That helps individuals but not the nation. The Philippines will always be a market to pry open wider and wider for predatory business interests such as "hot money" investments, businesses repatriating profits, as well as goods and loan shark services.

Obama II will generate U.S. jobs by exporting – that means a strategic devaluation of its Dollar to reduce imports and push U.S. goods and services into other markets. The recent loss of the Peso exchange rate to the Dollar is the effect of what Guido Mantega, Brazil's finance minister, call "currency war". Obama's victory will bring no "boom" but bring an economic "bomb", and the Philippines must pick up the courage to set up the "bomb shelters" - institute safety net policies such as "currency" and "capital" regulation to contain the damage to our OFWs, exporters, BPOs and all other sectors.

(Watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8am, and over www.gnntv-asia.com: tune to 1098AM radio Tues. To Fri. 5 to 6pmhttp://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)