PEOPLE'S STRUGGLE
Herman Tiu Laurel
7/23-29/2012
First we are “Lie-bored”: On June 27, the international media reported that Barclays Bank had been fined by U.S. and U.K. regulators £ 290-M or $ 451-M for manipulating Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate) between 2005 and 2009. It had been falsifying its submissions to the Libor setting mechanism on such its cost of borrowing from other banks to boost its standing, its high ratings to lower its interest costs. Libor is calculated by the BBA (British Bankers’ Association) and published by Thomson Reuters financial information group daily after 11:00 AM (London Time), fixing rates for three currencies: the U.S. Dollar, British Pound Sterling and the Japanese Yen. Evidence of the rate fixing included e-mails of Barclays executives, The Globe and Mail reports: “The scandal – complete with e-mails showing bankers boasting of manipulating interest rates and congratulating each other with offers of champagne – has triggered fierce criticism about the financial industry in general and Barclays in particular.”
Barclays dragged in other major banks, exposing what seems to be industry practice. Barclays’ manipulation from 2005 on also means this was done with knowledge of various authorities. The British paper Financial Spectator reports, “… the bank confirms that it had close contact with the Bank of England and other authorities regarding the liquidity crisis in October 2008. … Paul Tucker, the deputy governor of the Bank of England (BoE) …. advised that a number of senior figures within Whitehall were concerned (about) Barclays' Libor submissions ... Mr Diamond (Barclays’ head) explained this by advising Mr. Tucker that he believed other banks were ‘posting rates at levels that were not representative of where they would have to undertake business’", i.e. other banks were also falsifying to window dress their submissions. Now, the BoE and other major banks are dragged into the scandal.
Filipinos victims
The Barclays’ scandal is just the tip of the iceberg. One website reflecting my sentiment aptly called “Hang the Bankers”, reports other global banks being investigated and sued on Libor fixing: HSBC, Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland, JP Morgan, Citibank, et al. Interest rate “rigging” comes in many forms, while these commercial banks do it and can be found criminal in the act, governments like the U.S. of A. can rig it and its accepted as law, as the almost 0% interest rate in the U.S. for its bankers is today. For Filipinos who labor to pay interest on everything with interest rates from just over 4% that the BSP (Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas) is paying for example to keep local banks’ moneys from OFWs and other inflows parked with it, to the $ 36-B U.S. bonds costing as much, to commercial rates of up to 10% or consumer finance that is much, much higher, the news of such bank manipulations of interest rates such as Barclays should cause an epiphany, and call for independence from Western banking enslavement.
Ten million Filipinos labor overseas, often in horrendous conditions, to send a few dollars home. Twenty-million Filipino families, labor daily to eke out a living to pay for food, water, electricity and other basics. Over and above everything they also pay for one thing that they never even completely understand – financial interest on everything. Paying interest for the P 5.1-Trillion National Debt that continues growing in interest, P 2-Trillion National Budget it includes P 800-B automatically appropriated for debt payment half of which is interest payments, interest on securitized projects of the PPP (Public Private Partnership projects), the MRT, the CCT, the power companies such as Meralco and the water companies such as Manila Water and Maynilad, ad nausea. The basic facts of Filipino life today are Death, Taxes, and Interest Rates on debt; then these global banks manipulate the interest rates for their advantage at the expense of Third World nations and folks.
The world is shanghaied
The July 18 financial headlines blared: “HSBC banks on Mexican drug cartels, terror funds“ after the US Senate initiated probes and finding the global banking giant HSBC (which began in the 19th Century as a British “opium bank” profiting from the Opium Trade in China). HSBC, euphemistically put, “exposed the United States and other countries, including India, to major risks of money laundering, terrorist financing and drug trafficking with its lax controls”. It’s US division provided money and banking services to some Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh banks that helped fund Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups in India. “HSBC used its US bank as a gateway into the US financial system for some HSBC affiliates around the world to provide US dollar services to clients while playing fast and loose with US banking rules,” Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Permanent Sub-committee on Investigations, said.
What was HSBC’s response? “We will apologize, acknowledge these mistakes, answer for our actions and give our absolute commitment to fixing what went wrong,” said HSBC spokesman Robert Sherman. Some of its top executives were set to resign, but is that really punishment or is it just graceful exit and then reassignment? Again, what is being uncovered is just the tip of the financial iceberg. The U.S. investigation uncovered most shocking things of HSBC’s illegal activities, i.e. finding that HSBC allowed Mexican drug cartels to launder billions of dollars through its US operations. The Mexican affiliate of HSBC transported $7 billion in physical from HSBC-US from 2007 to 2008. “In an age of international terrorism, drug violence in our streets and on our borders, and organized crime, stopping illicit money flows that support those atrocities is a national security imperative,” noted Senator Carl Levin. An HSBC official resigns as head of it “compliance office” over drug money scandal but he will stay with the bank in a new capacity.
Whitewash will follow
The US Congress is also investigating the “Lie-bor” scandal but already Obama’s Justice Department Secretary Eric Holder has proposed “immunity” for the culprits. Glen Ford writes in ICH (Information Clearing House) that “Obama’s Justice Department Rushes to the Rescue of LIBOR Criminals … The Justice Department claims to be building criminal and civil cases in the LIBOR scandal ,…But that’s all a front, a farce. … He packed his administration with ’banksters’ (banker-gangsters), passed his own bailout and, in collaboration with the Federal Reserve, channeled at least $16 trillion dollars into the accounts of U.S. and even European banks – … His Attorney General, Eric Holder, a corporate lawyer to the core, is busily staging a pre-emptive LIBOR prosecution of bankers in order to shield them from legal action by a host of other government agencies…” The same strategy will apply in the HSBC case eventually and the guilty will eventually be let off. It will be no different from the 2008 financial scandals where the villains not only continue to operate but get huge bonuses still.
Western Banksters mock AMLA
Last June 11, 2012 I wrote a piece entitled “Lawmakers, Lawbreakers” and this is what I said, “The AMLA (Anti-Money Laundering Act) is a law inspired and lobbied for by the U.S. through the Philippine legislature, supposedly to track illegal and terrorist money. Guess what? The biggest illegal funds transactions in the world is the $ 500-B annual drug money transfers which include the Philippines as one of the biggest source. We have no data on the Philippines but we can see how the West and the U.S. banks break the global anti-money laundering rules. Read ‘Western banks, Immune, Enjoy Biggest Slice Of Drug Money Profits’ posted in The Agonist, and ‘American Banks “High” On Drug Money’ - about exposes of Martin Woods an expert at “sniffing out dirty money passing through International Banking Systems’. The U.S. and its Western allies as the originator of the global anti-money laundering rules and regulations also have its banks as the world’s also chief violators.” Law-abiding citizens of the World and the Philippines today should learn its lesson in the chicanery, hypocrisy and misanthropy of the Western financial system.
The Philippines and Filipinos have been Lie-bored and Shanghaied all the past decades and if it wants to end these financial victimization it must turn back the clock and restore the era of “Filipino First” financial policies from the time of President Carlos P. Garcia and Central Bank Gov. Mike Cuaderno of “currency and capital controls” and maybe, moving forward to the future, reinstate the primacy of public or National Banking over private and international banking.
(Watch Destiny Cable GNN’s HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m., this week “New Sin Tax: Sin against Filipinos”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
Monday, July 23, 2012
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Regulating our own NGOs
BACKBENCHER
Rod P. Kapunan
7/21-22/2012
Russia is about to pass a law declaring the status of citizens working with non-governmental organizations receiving grants and financial assistance abroad as "foreign agents." According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, "the proposed law does not prohibit anything…the aim is to make political activity of organizations operating in Russia transparent." On the contrary, he is increasing state funding for NGOs by at least three times …in anticipation that the new law would reduce the amount these NGOs normally receive from abroad.
The author of the bill, Russian MP Aleksandr Sidyakin, dismissed all the hysteria and delirium explaining that the bill used similar US legislation as "blueprint." No doubt the bill is intended to regulate and monitor foreign-funded groups disguising as NGOs. If approved, members who fail to register their organizations shall be punished by fines …and repeated violations could send them to prison for up to two years. However, works in the field of culture, science, art, health, sports, welfare services, the protection and preservation of flora and fauna, charity work, and philanthropic donations are not considered "political activity."
This column mentioned this bill because in this country, Filipinos, acting as foreign agents, managed to penetrate the most sensitive positions in government often influencing policies on crucial matters. They even exploited the delegates that drafted the 1987 Constitution resulting in unlimited access to scrutinize and criticize the government. This is evident by the incorporation of Sections 15 and 16, Article XIII of the Constitution pertaining to the role and rights of alleged "People's Organizations."
The attitude of these NGOs towards the government oscillates, and always in accordance to the declared "advocacy" of their foreign funder. Should the government show signs of refusing to support Western maneuvers, their local agents would no sooner drumbeat the issues of human rights, curtailment of freedom, and even discrediting political parties and their leaders.
Such interference in our internal political affairs and in the decision-making processes has been justified in the name of freedom of the press, in advancing the rights of women, the cultural minorities, and of their vaunted crusade to protect certain sectors without us being made aware that they are in fact planting the seeds of divisiveness.
Sad to say, many of these organizations are operated and even managed by former activists. Such is ironic because many of them are psychotic self-righteous and narcissistic intellectuals who for years had been immersed in romantic chauvinism to change society. To maintain their relevance, they persist on harping the so-called Marcos dictatorship without reexamining that the government they helped install turned out to be more corrupt, although dressed with all the regalia of freedom and democracy.
For that drawback, they now act as crusaders against corruption in a system that is more corrupt. They have become crafty mercenaries in doing propaganda work to make sure we have a pliant government susceptible to foreign blackmail. The role of Transparency and Accountability Network with its subsidiary, Transparency International – Philippines, is most glaring. While they are consistent in condemning certain public officials and government agencies as corrupt, they have yet to come out with the same stinging report of venalities in countries funding them.
For that matter, we are the only country that made formal arrangement with the US-funded NGO called AGILE or Accelerated Growth, Investment and Liberalization and Equity by according to it, access to our state of finances like monitoring the operations of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Aside from posting round-the-clock Filipino agents, they have a voice in shaping the policies of the two agencies. In fact, it was AGILE what lobbied for the passage of the Anti-Money Laundering Act.
Many of these foreign-funded NGOs possibly act as fronts of foreign intelligence agencies. They also come out with their own reports and statistics, and often designed to embarrass the government. For instance, human rights can readily become a hot issue once the government loses the confidence of the country funding their NGOs. Similarly, they fund investigative journalism, using the usual parameter of freedom of the press to discredit the government. But the same NGOs would not say a word why those who refuse to sing along with them are denied access to their controlled mainstream media.
Local agents of foreign-funded NGOs act as effective collaborators in blocking the implementation of legitimate economic policies. Most familiar is their insidious cry to save and protect our environment. They oppose, for instance, the construction of dams that would irrigate vast hectares of lands to boost our food production, and to the new mining act to increase our exports and provide more employment to our people. It was the same NGO that turned out to be more faithful to Shell Corporation by its vigorous campaign to stop the operations of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant despite the loss of $2.2 billion paid to Westinghouse.
Today, many Filipinos employed by foreign-funded NGOs are practically engaged in espionage and are working against the interest of their own country. Looking at their stand on certain policies, they amount to nothing more but economic sabotage, for purposely their objective is to undermine our government.
Maybe it is high time for our local legislators to pass a similar law. Such is underscored by the fact that they have become a threat to our national security than serving as watchdogs to secure our freedom and democracy. Worse, we take their intrusion into our internal political affairs as legitimate without their local quislings thinking that they cannot do what they are doing here in countries funding their NGOs.
rpkapunan@gmail.com
The author of the bill, Russian MP Aleksandr Sidyakin, dismissed all the hysteria and delirium explaining that the bill used similar US legislation as "blueprint." No doubt the bill is intended to regulate and monitor foreign-funded groups disguising as NGOs. If approved, members who fail to register their organizations shall be punished by fines …and repeated violations could send them to prison for up to two years. However, works in the field of culture, science, art, health, sports, welfare services, the protection and preservation of flora and fauna, charity work, and philanthropic donations are not considered "political activity."
This column mentioned this bill because in this country, Filipinos, acting as foreign agents, managed to penetrate the most sensitive positions in government often influencing policies on crucial matters. They even exploited the delegates that drafted the 1987 Constitution resulting in unlimited access to scrutinize and criticize the government. This is evident by the incorporation of Sections 15 and 16, Article XIII of the Constitution pertaining to the role and rights of alleged "People's Organizations."
The attitude of these NGOs towards the government oscillates, and always in accordance to the declared "advocacy" of their foreign funder. Should the government show signs of refusing to support Western maneuvers, their local agents would no sooner drumbeat the issues of human rights, curtailment of freedom, and even discrediting political parties and their leaders.
Such interference in our internal political affairs and in the decision-making processes has been justified in the name of freedom of the press, in advancing the rights of women, the cultural minorities, and of their vaunted crusade to protect certain sectors without us being made aware that they are in fact planting the seeds of divisiveness.
Sad to say, many of these organizations are operated and even managed by former activists. Such is ironic because many of them are psychotic self-righteous and narcissistic intellectuals who for years had been immersed in romantic chauvinism to change society. To maintain their relevance, they persist on harping the so-called Marcos dictatorship without reexamining that the government they helped install turned out to be more corrupt, although dressed with all the regalia of freedom and democracy.
For that drawback, they now act as crusaders against corruption in a system that is more corrupt. They have become crafty mercenaries in doing propaganda work to make sure we have a pliant government susceptible to foreign blackmail. The role of Transparency and Accountability Network with its subsidiary, Transparency International – Philippines, is most glaring. While they are consistent in condemning certain public officials and government agencies as corrupt, they have yet to come out with the same stinging report of venalities in countries funding them.
For that matter, we are the only country that made formal arrangement with the US-funded NGO called AGILE or Accelerated Growth, Investment and Liberalization and Equity by according to it, access to our state of finances like monitoring the operations of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Aside from posting round-the-clock Filipino agents, they have a voice in shaping the policies of the two agencies. In fact, it was AGILE what lobbied for the passage of the Anti-Money Laundering Act.
Many of these foreign-funded NGOs possibly act as fronts of foreign intelligence agencies. They also come out with their own reports and statistics, and often designed to embarrass the government. For instance, human rights can readily become a hot issue once the government loses the confidence of the country funding their NGOs. Similarly, they fund investigative journalism, using the usual parameter of freedom of the press to discredit the government. But the same NGOs would not say a word why those who refuse to sing along with them are denied access to their controlled mainstream media.
Local agents of foreign-funded NGOs act as effective collaborators in blocking the implementation of legitimate economic policies. Most familiar is their insidious cry to save and protect our environment. They oppose, for instance, the construction of dams that would irrigate vast hectares of lands to boost our food production, and to the new mining act to increase our exports and provide more employment to our people. It was the same NGO that turned out to be more faithful to Shell Corporation by its vigorous campaign to stop the operations of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant despite the loss of $2.2 billion paid to Westinghouse.
Today, many Filipinos employed by foreign-funded NGOs are practically engaged in espionage and are working against the interest of their own country. Looking at their stand on certain policies, they amount to nothing more but economic sabotage, for purposely their objective is to undermine our government.
Maybe it is high time for our local legislators to pass a similar law. Such is underscored by the fact that they have become a threat to our national security than serving as watchdogs to secure our freedom and democracy. Worse, we take their intrusion into our internal political affairs as legitimate without their local quislings thinking that they cannot do what they are doing here in countries funding their NGOs.
rpkapunan@gmail.com
Mines: Theirs or Ours?
PEOPLE'S STRUGGLE
Herman Tiu Laurel
07/16-22/2012
The global and national economy is actually all about the "mining" industry; that is, what is mine and what is theirs. The question at the center of it all is, "Whose 'mine' are we talking about?"
The world's 1% believes it to be "all mine" while it thinks that the 99% poor saps like you and me (yes, including the middle class, with the broad masses at the bottom) don't have any right at all to any of it. Oh, maybe, the rest of the 99% can have a little in taxes the 1% pays, like the 2% mining tax the Philippine law stipulates--which is now supposed to be raised, albeit still to a measly 7%.
In some countries like China, the 99% own all the mineral wealth of their lands--managed, of course, through and by the state. That way, it is factored in as part of their national economic development plan. Take China's wealth of "rare earth minerals." These are being used to dominate the solar energy and electric transport industries of the world for that country's benefit.
Meanwhile, in the Philippines, where trillions worth of gold have already been extracted in centuries, the country has remained among the poorest.
What is yours and mine
The Executive Order (EO) issued by BS Aquino III recently has kept open almost 800 mining concessions and existing operations in place, while calling for a moratorium on new ones. It increases the taxation and other fees on mining operations but leaves the triple-lion's share or 90% to the corporate miners who are actually an even smaller percentage (maybe 0.01%) of the global population. These extremely lucky companies include Alcoa, Anglo American Rio Rinto, Barrick Gold, and Xstrata which is behind the Tampakan mining operation that is the subject of the "Danger in Perpetuity" episode some months back of my cable TV show on the world's most dangerous mining projects.
The domestic mining companies, in like manner, represent an extremely small percentage of the population, like the Zamora brothers, who have used that wealth to control other resources such as government and its finances, as highlighted by an early 2011 OpinYon issue on the brothers' control of the BS Aquino III regime and their pressures to monopolize the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) that led to a DBP executive's suicide.
The question of "theirs" or "ours" is the fundamental issue every Filipino concerned with the mining issue should focus on. If we, as I do, believe that the mineral wealth of this country is a God- and nature-given national patrimony and bounty that all Filipinos present and future can and should share in, then we should take the position that all mining activities must totally be of, by, and for the nation.
Private mining interests can participate as contractors on the basis of cost, or through other variations of cooperatives with local residents and small miners, or in partnerships and joint ventures if necessary. But as private corporate mining giants have had a record of exploiting and extracting with nominal safeguards that eventually cause disastrous environmental damage years or decades later, leaving the unimaginable economic and environmental costs for the local populations to suffer, the state must have all the credit and capital it needs to open and exploit the mines in behalf of the people, and afford the safeguards for present and future generations.
Let me end this segment by paraphrasing Woody Guthrie's populist "This Land Is Your Land" in answer to the imperialist anthem "God Bless America:" "These mines are your mines, these mines are our mines, these mines are not 'their' mines, from Luzon to the Mindanao islands, from the Benguet to the Tampakan mines, these mines were made for you and me…"
While the oligarchs are wont to say, "What is yours is mine," we say, "These are yours and mine."
Danger in Perpetuity
The world's 1% believes it to be "all mine" while it thinks that the 99% poor saps like you and me (yes, including the middle class, with the broad masses at the bottom) don't have any right at all to any of it. Oh, maybe, the rest of the 99% can have a little in taxes the 1% pays, like the 2% mining tax the Philippine law stipulates--which is now supposed to be raised, albeit still to a measly 7%.
In some countries like China, the 99% own all the mineral wealth of their lands--managed, of course, through and by the state. That way, it is factored in as part of their national economic development plan. Take China's wealth of "rare earth minerals." These are being used to dominate the solar energy and electric transport industries of the world for that country's benefit.
Meanwhile, in the Philippines, where trillions worth of gold have already been extracted in centuries, the country has remained among the poorest.
What is yours and mine
The Executive Order (EO) issued by BS Aquino III recently has kept open almost 800 mining concessions and existing operations in place, while calling for a moratorium on new ones. It increases the taxation and other fees on mining operations but leaves the triple-lion's share or 90% to the corporate miners who are actually an even smaller percentage (maybe 0.01%) of the global population. These extremely lucky companies include Alcoa, Anglo American Rio Rinto, Barrick Gold, and Xstrata which is behind the Tampakan mining operation that is the subject of the "Danger in Perpetuity" episode some months back of my cable TV show on the world's most dangerous mining projects.
The domestic mining companies, in like manner, represent an extremely small percentage of the population, like the Zamora brothers, who have used that wealth to control other resources such as government and its finances, as highlighted by an early 2011 OpinYon issue on the brothers' control of the BS Aquino III regime and their pressures to monopolize the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) that led to a DBP executive's suicide.
The question of "theirs" or "ours" is the fundamental issue every Filipino concerned with the mining issue should focus on. If we, as I do, believe that the mineral wealth of this country is a God- and nature-given national patrimony and bounty that all Filipinos present and future can and should share in, then we should take the position that all mining activities must totally be of, by, and for the nation.
Private mining interests can participate as contractors on the basis of cost, or through other variations of cooperatives with local residents and small miners, or in partnerships and joint ventures if necessary. But as private corporate mining giants have had a record of exploiting and extracting with nominal safeguards that eventually cause disastrous environmental damage years or decades later, leaving the unimaginable economic and environmental costs for the local populations to suffer, the state must have all the credit and capital it needs to open and exploit the mines in behalf of the people, and afford the safeguards for present and future generations.
Let me end this segment by paraphrasing Woody Guthrie's populist "This Land Is Your Land" in answer to the imperialist anthem "God Bless America:" "These mines are your mines, these mines are our mines, these mines are not 'their' mines, from Luzon to the Mindanao islands, from the Benguet to the Tampakan mines, these mines were made for you and me…"
While the oligarchs are wont to say, "What is yours is mine," we say, "These are yours and mine."
Danger in Perpetuity
One of the most controversial mining issues in the country today is the Tampakan Copper Gold Project operated by Sagittarius Mines Inc. (with Xstrata) in the tri-boundaries of South Cotabato, Davao del Sur, and Sarangani.
According to Clive Montgomery, conservation and development consultant and specialist on impact of extractive industries, the Tampakan project is one of the most dangerous mining projects in the world. It has been estimated to produce 2.7 billion tons of mine wastes which will be placed atop the mountain sitting above its open pit mine site. The mine wastes will be stacked up to 300 meters high and cover 500 hectares; and considering that the project is located just 10 kilometers away from Mount Matutum, an active volcano, seismic activities within the mining area can cause the gargantuan mine wastes to avalanche down to the populated areas and water sources. An example of this is the March 24, 1996 disaster in Marinduque where the collapse of mine tailings containment resulted in an avalanche of over 1.6 million cubic meters of tailings.
The Marinduque mine tailings poisoned 27 kilometers of river and coastal areas, and an inestimable impact on the river and the people who depend on it for their living. The deluge of tailings displaced river water and flooded low-lying areas, destroying crops and vegetable gardens and clogging irrigation channels to rice fields. The release left the Boac River virtually dead. Such tragedies, however, happen not only in the Philippines.
On July 19, 1985, the tailings dams of the Val di Stava mines near Tesero, Northern Italy collapsed, bringing sand, slime, and water downhill at a velocity approaching 90 kilometers per hour, killing people and destroying trees, buildings, and everything in their path, until these reached the river Avisio. The mudslide alone killed 268 people and completely destroyed three hotels, 53 homes, and six industrial buildings, also demolishing eight bridges and seriously damaging nine other buildings. The thick layer of mud measuring between 20 and 40 centimeters covered an overall 435,000 square meters over 4.2 kilometers. (Click on "Stava Mine Failure" on YouTube.)
A study entitled, "Reported tailings dam failures: A review of the European incidents in the worldwide context," by a group of European experts, reporting on "a corpus of 147 cases of worldwide tailings dam disasters, from which 26 (are) located in Europe," shows that, in many of these cases, thousands have died and hundreds of thousands of hectares of land and rivers were poisoned.
Whenever the life of a mine site is over, the corporate mining interests simply pack up and leave, while promising their tailing ponds and mines will be safe forever.
It is thus better that we, the 99%, keep mining moderated, modest, and stretched out over decades of conscientious extraction rather than at the plundering rate of corporate profit-predators.
BS Aquino III's Mining EO allows the continuation of almost 800 corporate mining operations, hence the headline, "Tampakan investor upbeat after EO issuance."
Mining in all economic fields
According to Clive Montgomery, conservation and development consultant and specialist on impact of extractive industries, the Tampakan project is one of the most dangerous mining projects in the world. It has been estimated to produce 2.7 billion tons of mine wastes which will be placed atop the mountain sitting above its open pit mine site. The mine wastes will be stacked up to 300 meters high and cover 500 hectares; and considering that the project is located just 10 kilometers away from Mount Matutum, an active volcano, seismic activities within the mining area can cause the gargantuan mine wastes to avalanche down to the populated areas and water sources. An example of this is the March 24, 1996 disaster in Marinduque where the collapse of mine tailings containment resulted in an avalanche of over 1.6 million cubic meters of tailings.
The Marinduque mine tailings poisoned 27 kilometers of river and coastal areas, and an inestimable impact on the river and the people who depend on it for their living. The deluge of tailings displaced river water and flooded low-lying areas, destroying crops and vegetable gardens and clogging irrigation channels to rice fields. The release left the Boac River virtually dead. Such tragedies, however, happen not only in the Philippines.
On July 19, 1985, the tailings dams of the Val di Stava mines near Tesero, Northern Italy collapsed, bringing sand, slime, and water downhill at a velocity approaching 90 kilometers per hour, killing people and destroying trees, buildings, and everything in their path, until these reached the river Avisio. The mudslide alone killed 268 people and completely destroyed three hotels, 53 homes, and six industrial buildings, also demolishing eight bridges and seriously damaging nine other buildings. The thick layer of mud measuring between 20 and 40 centimeters covered an overall 435,000 square meters over 4.2 kilometers. (Click on "Stava Mine Failure" on YouTube.)
A study entitled, "Reported tailings dam failures: A review of the European incidents in the worldwide context," by a group of European experts, reporting on "a corpus of 147 cases of worldwide tailings dam disasters, from which 26 (are) located in Europe," shows that, in many of these cases, thousands have died and hundreds of thousands of hectares of land and rivers were poisoned.
Whenever the life of a mine site is over, the corporate mining interests simply pack up and leave, while promising their tailing ponds and mines will be safe forever.
It is thus better that we, the 99%, keep mining moderated, modest, and stretched out over decades of conscientious extraction rather than at the plundering rate of corporate profit-predators.
BS Aquino III's Mining EO allows the continuation of almost 800 corporate mining operations, hence the headline, "Tampakan investor upbeat after EO issuance."
Mining in all economic fields
However, the "mining" industry is not only for minerals and metals; it is in all human economic fields of endeavor. The oligarchs are into every "mining" field as they "mine" in the water and power industries in the Philippines. They are "mining" in money, too.
In the power sector, this 1% has claimed as "mine" (or "theirs") our nation's geothermal and hydroelectric resources, along with all the power plants that consumers and taxpayers had paid for since the establishment of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) decades ago.
One commodity that is supposedly "ours" (i.e. the people's) is our money or our peso. But, as the bankers claim it to be theirs, as do the IMF, World Bank, and ADB, we the people have had to borrow "their" money for every move we make and everything we desire to do.
Filipinos should thus begin to understand that money, like our land and seas, is a national patrimony and exists only because we the people use it. And with this understanding, we should demand that money (in our case, the peso) be also treated as a public utility for us to claim our power over it.
How do we claim public ownership over our money? By nationalizing the banking system and instituting public control over monetary policy and matters, by taking these away from the IMF et al., including the puppet Monetary Board.
If anyone shall protest that that will be prone to corruption, it will only prove that he or she does not understand what's really going on in the monetary system here and in the world.
Philippine media has dwelt almost nil on the scandal now raging in Britain, on the rate-fixing scandal of the LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate), which determines the interest rates of bank-to-bank loans and which, as BizNews' Tony Lopez explains, affects our peso and all our financial transactions down to the payment of our small bills. This rate-fixing scheme led by Barclays (fined $450 million by regulators), involving the Bank of England, Citibank, JP Morgan, HSBC, and five others, came about as the bank lied to lower its rates and upgrade its credit standing.
Filipinos will never climb out of poverty because these "banksters" (banker-gangsters) are always going to extract surplus capital from the Philippines through fixing interest rates and buying local politicians like BS Aquino III who kowtow to them. So, whether it's in mining, utilities, or money, are we still going to sit idly by while they continue to get what's "ours" as "theirs"?
(Watch Destiny Cable GNN's HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m., this week on "Consumer Updates: Water and Power Scams;" visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
In the power sector, this 1% has claimed as "mine" (or "theirs") our nation's geothermal and hydroelectric resources, along with all the power plants that consumers and taxpayers had paid for since the establishment of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) decades ago.
One commodity that is supposedly "ours" (i.e. the people's) is our money or our peso. But, as the bankers claim it to be theirs, as do the IMF, World Bank, and ADB, we the people have had to borrow "their" money for every move we make and everything we desire to do.
Filipinos should thus begin to understand that money, like our land and seas, is a national patrimony and exists only because we the people use it. And with this understanding, we should demand that money (in our case, the peso) be also treated as a public utility for us to claim our power over it.
How do we claim public ownership over our money? By nationalizing the banking system and instituting public control over monetary policy and matters, by taking these away from the IMF et al., including the puppet Monetary Board.
If anyone shall protest that that will be prone to corruption, it will only prove that he or she does not understand what's really going on in the monetary system here and in the world.
Philippine media has dwelt almost nil on the scandal now raging in Britain, on the rate-fixing scandal of the LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate), which determines the interest rates of bank-to-bank loans and which, as BizNews' Tony Lopez explains, affects our peso and all our financial transactions down to the payment of our small bills. This rate-fixing scheme led by Barclays (fined $450 million by regulators), involving the Bank of England, Citibank, JP Morgan, HSBC, and five others, came about as the bank lied to lower its rates and upgrade its credit standing.
Filipinos will never climb out of poverty because these "banksters" (banker-gangsters) are always going to extract surplus capital from the Philippines through fixing interest rates and buying local politicians like BS Aquino III who kowtow to them. So, whether it's in mining, utilities, or money, are we still going to sit idly by while they continue to get what's "ours" as "theirs"?
(Watch Destiny Cable GNN's HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m., this week on "Consumer Updates: Water and Power Scams;" visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
Monday, July 16, 2012
Lie-bor and our labors
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
7/16/2012
Ten million Filipinos labor overseas, often in horrendous conditions, to earn a few dollars. Even more Filipinos, almost 20 million families, labor each day in various conditions of difficulties to eke out a living to pay for food, water, electricity and other basics. Over and above all that, they also pay for one thing that they never even completely understand — financial interest on everything. They are paying interest for the P 5.1-trillion national debt that continues growing in interest payments, and the P2-trillion national budget includes P800 billion automatically appropriated for debt payment, half of which is interest payments. They are paying for the interest on securitized projects of the PPP (public-private partnership projects) or the MRT, the power companies such as Meralco and the water companies such as Manila Water and Maynilad. The basic facts of Filipino life today are death, taxes, and interest rates on debt.
On June 27, the international finance media reported that Barclays Bank had been find by £290 million or $451 million for manipulating Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate) between 2005 and 2009. It had been lying and falsifying its submissions (misreporting, some describe) to the Libor setting mechanism on such critical matters as cost of borrowing from other banks. It did this to boost its appearances as a solid financial institution and maintain high rating and lower interest cost to itself. Libor is calculated by the BBA (British Bankers' Association) and published by Thomson Reuters financial information group daily after 11:00 a.m. (London time), fixing rates for three currencies: the US dollar, British pound sterling and the Japanese yen. Evidence of the rate fixing included e-mails of Barclays executives, as The Globe and Mail reports: "The scandal — complete with e-mails showing bankers boasting of manipulating interest rates and congratulating each other with offers of champagne — has triggered fierce criticism about the financial industry in general and Barclays in particular."
Barclays has dragged in other major banks into what seems to be industry practice, lying and falsification to manipulate their interest costs. Barclays is being investigated for its manipulation from 2005 on, and this couldn't have gone on so long without knowledge of financial authorities. The British paper Financial Spectator suggests this is so, "In the statement, the bank confirms that it had close contact with the Bank of England and other authorities regarding the liquidity crisis in October 2008 … Paul Tucker, the deputy governor of the Bank of England (BoE) …. advised that a number of senior figures within Whitehall were concerned (about) Barclays' Libor submissions... Mr Diamond (Barclays' head) explained this by advising Mr Tucker that he believed other banks were 'posting rates at levels that were not representative of where they would have to undertake business'", i.e. other banks were also falsifying to window dress their submissions. Now, the BoE and other major banks are dragged into the scandal.
The Guardian reports the Barclays' scandal is just the tip of the iceberg. One Website reflecting my sentiment aptly called "Hang the Bankers," reports other global banks being investigated and sued on Libor fixing: HSBC, Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland, JP Morgan, Citibank, et al. Interest rate "rigging" comes in many forms, while these commercial banks do it and can be found criminal in the act, governments like the US of A. can rig it and it is accepted as law, as the almost zero percent interest rate in the US for its bankers is today. For Filipinos who labor to pay interest on everything with interest rates from the lowest of just over four percent that the BSP (Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas) is paying for example to keep local banks' moneys from OFWs and other inflows parked with it, to the $36-billion bonds costing as much, to commercial rates of up to 10 percent or consumer finance that is much, much higher, the news of such bank manipulations of interest rates such as Barclays should cause an epiphany, and call for independence from Western banking enslavement.
The Philippines is no longer short of capital to fund its development, as a Filipino banker confirmed to me in a recent discussion. The banker, who was also a major OFW contractor, explained that the over $ 20-billion earnings of the nation annually is more than sufficient and only an OFW bank is needed to consolidate this for investment which will earn the OFWs handsomely on interest. But our national ruling elite in finance and politics refuse to acknowledge the fact that the Philippines is already financially self-sufficient and the traditional bankers with their foreign partners would lose their interest earnings from our country and politicians like Sonny Belmonte who wants Cha-cha to allow in foreign financial predators.
Our politicians are operators for these global and local shylocks. Our nations' labors should not be stolen of its fruits by the lying boors of Libor, Eurobor (Euro Interbank Offered Rates), the US Federal Reserve or other foreign manipulated rate setting bodies.
The Philippines currency and interest rate sovereignty will only be restored with policies we had during the "Filipino First" era: currency and capital controls.
(Watch Destiny Cable GNN's HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m., this week "New Sin Tax: Sin against Filipinos"; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
7/16/2012
Ten million Filipinos labor overseas, often in horrendous conditions, to earn a few dollars. Even more Filipinos, almost 20 million families, labor each day in various conditions of difficulties to eke out a living to pay for food, water, electricity and other basics. Over and above all that, they also pay for one thing that they never even completely understand — financial interest on everything. They are paying interest for the P 5.1-trillion national debt that continues growing in interest payments, and the P2-trillion national budget includes P800 billion automatically appropriated for debt payment, half of which is interest payments. They are paying for the interest on securitized projects of the PPP (public-private partnership projects) or the MRT, the power companies such as Meralco and the water companies such as Manila Water and Maynilad. The basic facts of Filipino life today are death, taxes, and interest rates on debt.
On June 27, the international finance media reported that Barclays Bank had been find by £290 million or $451 million for manipulating Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate) between 2005 and 2009. It had been lying and falsifying its submissions (misreporting, some describe) to the Libor setting mechanism on such critical matters as cost of borrowing from other banks. It did this to boost its appearances as a solid financial institution and maintain high rating and lower interest cost to itself. Libor is calculated by the BBA (British Bankers' Association) and published by Thomson Reuters financial information group daily after 11:00 a.m. (London time), fixing rates for three currencies: the US dollar, British pound sterling and the Japanese yen. Evidence of the rate fixing included e-mails of Barclays executives, as The Globe and Mail reports: "The scandal — complete with e-mails showing bankers boasting of manipulating interest rates and congratulating each other with offers of champagne — has triggered fierce criticism about the financial industry in general and Barclays in particular."
Barclays has dragged in other major banks into what seems to be industry practice, lying and falsification to manipulate their interest costs. Barclays is being investigated for its manipulation from 2005 on, and this couldn't have gone on so long without knowledge of financial authorities. The British paper Financial Spectator suggests this is so, "In the statement, the bank confirms that it had close contact with the Bank of England and other authorities regarding the liquidity crisis in October 2008 … Paul Tucker, the deputy governor of the Bank of England (BoE) …. advised that a number of senior figures within Whitehall were concerned (about) Barclays' Libor submissions... Mr Diamond (Barclays' head) explained this by advising Mr Tucker that he believed other banks were 'posting rates at levels that were not representative of where they would have to undertake business'", i.e. other banks were also falsifying to window dress their submissions. Now, the BoE and other major banks are dragged into the scandal.
The Guardian reports the Barclays' scandal is just the tip of the iceberg. One Website reflecting my sentiment aptly called "Hang the Bankers," reports other global banks being investigated and sued on Libor fixing: HSBC, Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland, JP Morgan, Citibank, et al. Interest rate "rigging" comes in many forms, while these commercial banks do it and can be found criminal in the act, governments like the US of A. can rig it and it is accepted as law, as the almost zero percent interest rate in the US for its bankers is today. For Filipinos who labor to pay interest on everything with interest rates from the lowest of just over four percent that the BSP (Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas) is paying for example to keep local banks' moneys from OFWs and other inflows parked with it, to the $36-billion bonds costing as much, to commercial rates of up to 10 percent or consumer finance that is much, much higher, the news of such bank manipulations of interest rates such as Barclays should cause an epiphany, and call for independence from Western banking enslavement.
The Philippines is no longer short of capital to fund its development, as a Filipino banker confirmed to me in a recent discussion. The banker, who was also a major OFW contractor, explained that the over $ 20-billion earnings of the nation annually is more than sufficient and only an OFW bank is needed to consolidate this for investment which will earn the OFWs handsomely on interest. But our national ruling elite in finance and politics refuse to acknowledge the fact that the Philippines is already financially self-sufficient and the traditional bankers with their foreign partners would lose their interest earnings from our country and politicians like Sonny Belmonte who wants Cha-cha to allow in foreign financial predators.
Our politicians are operators for these global and local shylocks. Our nations' labors should not be stolen of its fruits by the lying boors of Libor, Eurobor (Euro Interbank Offered Rates), the US Federal Reserve or other foreign manipulated rate setting bodies.
The Philippines currency and interest rate sovereignty will only be restored with policies we had during the "Filipino First" era: currency and capital controls.
(Watch Destiny Cable GNN's HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m., this week "New Sin Tax: Sin against Filipinos"; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Fixed wages will solve the problem
BACKBENCHER
Rod P. Kapunan
7/14-15/2012
The paralyzing traffic jam we experience daily could be resolved by compelling bus, and possibly taxi and jeepney, operators to pay wage instead of commission to their drivers and conductors. Fixing their daily wage is well grounded as it is for the safety of the passengers and commuters. It will also ease the traffic snarl that occurs in our major thoroughfares.
Notably, those drivers whose day's earnings depend on the number of passengers they could take, viz. to reach the so-called "boundary" or rent they would remit to the operator to entitle them to a commission, has indeed been pinpointed as the source of most vehicular accidents and cause of unnecessary traffic, and sometimes tempt deceitful conductors to cheat passengers by not returning their change. The proponents argue that it is on that rat-race system to meet the rental mislabeled as "boundary," which on the average is fixed at 9 to 10 percent for the drivers and 7 to 8 percent for the conductors of the bus earnings that turns them into some kind of hell drivers resulting in complete road pandemonium.
Paying drivers their fixed wage could be a possible solution to the irritating problem of buses and passenger vehicles converging at certain intersections all wanting to pick up as many passengers they could. They would not budge an inch to let other vehicles pass, neither would they leave until after all seats have been taken, nor would care if one exasperated passenger is cursing them for being late. In fact, we are the only country in the world that allows commuter vehicles to converge in such strategic choking points and use them as their terminal to pick up passengers. It is on this chaotic situation where corrupt policemen and traffic enforcers take advantage by ignoring the problem all for the "kotong" they receive either from the individual drivers or from the bus operators for the assurance of not being driven away.
Likewise, commuters take the risk to get a ride and agonizingly wait for their bus or jeepney to finally move. For their lack of safety concern in wanting to take their ride, they too contribute to the gridlock and make possible the unwanted vice of tong collection to proliferate. During rush hours, when all are in a hurry to arrive on time, many of them are rather suicidal chasing moving vehicles just to be able to get inside ahead of the rest. Because drivers too are eager to get their quota, they too would not bother to pull their vehicle to the side to avoid blocking the road. It is typical of a dog-eat-dog society.
Besides, the operators of passenger vehicles and their drivers failed to realize vehicles that keep on moving after loading or unloading their passengers conserve more fuel than those that stop and wait to pick up passengers. Those "on the go" are able to save gas up to one third of the consumption compared to vehicles that stop and wait to pick up passengers. Even if those vehicles carry less passengers than those that wait, in the long run they are able to carry more passengers if divided by the number of loops they are able to complete. For instance, if normally they would be able to make an average of seven to eight loops for a 12-hour run, they could only manage an average of five to six loops for the same number of hours with much less passengers, if divided by the loop, and more fuel spent because of their habit to stop and wait to pick up passengers.
Finally, if those bus drivers and conductors are thinking they would earn less if the Department of Labor would insist they be paid on a fixed wage, I say they are dead wrong. This does not mean this column now takes back its original advocacy in wanting to deregulate wage. Rather, in their eagerness to maintain their day's commission ranging from P700 to P800 for the drivers and from P600 to P700 for the conductors, respectively, they overlooked that they drive for an average of 10 to 12 hours. If their commission is divided by the number of hours plus a 25 percent premium for overtime pay for those hours worked beyond the required eight hours work, that would definitely fall below the current minimum of P412 daily.
Most important, drivers and conductors take a rest or are not able to work the next day to complete the six-day a week work. They are only able to work for an average of 4 days a week. If the actual number of days they drive in a week is divided by six their income would dip steeply below the minimum wage. This explains why most bus operators would not care less about the traffic jam and accidents that happen. At the back of their mind, profit is what counts.
The fear that fixing the wage for drivers and conductors would result in them failing to pay the "boundary" with the excess mislabeled as "commission" is capricious and arbitrary. Bus operators must realize that their fixed rental is based on what is profitable, notwithstanding that public utility vehicles is a form of public service vested with public interest. Nonetheless, through time and motion study, the problem could be resolved not to mention that giving our drivers their fixed income would finally relieve us of the serious problem of traffic jam and vehicular accidents caused by crazy drivers racing to meet their commission quota.
(rgkapunan_office@yahoo.com)
Notably, those drivers whose day's earnings depend on the number of passengers they could take, viz. to reach the so-called "boundary" or rent they would remit to the operator to entitle them to a commission, has indeed been pinpointed as the source of most vehicular accidents and cause of unnecessary traffic, and sometimes tempt deceitful conductors to cheat passengers by not returning their change. The proponents argue that it is on that rat-race system to meet the rental mislabeled as "boundary," which on the average is fixed at 9 to 10 percent for the drivers and 7 to 8 percent for the conductors of the bus earnings that turns them into some kind of hell drivers resulting in complete road pandemonium.
Paying drivers their fixed wage could be a possible solution to the irritating problem of buses and passenger vehicles converging at certain intersections all wanting to pick up as many passengers they could. They would not budge an inch to let other vehicles pass, neither would they leave until after all seats have been taken, nor would care if one exasperated passenger is cursing them for being late. In fact, we are the only country in the world that allows commuter vehicles to converge in such strategic choking points and use them as their terminal to pick up passengers. It is on this chaotic situation where corrupt policemen and traffic enforcers take advantage by ignoring the problem all for the "kotong" they receive either from the individual drivers or from the bus operators for the assurance of not being driven away.
Likewise, commuters take the risk to get a ride and agonizingly wait for their bus or jeepney to finally move. For their lack of safety concern in wanting to take their ride, they too contribute to the gridlock and make possible the unwanted vice of tong collection to proliferate. During rush hours, when all are in a hurry to arrive on time, many of them are rather suicidal chasing moving vehicles just to be able to get inside ahead of the rest. Because drivers too are eager to get their quota, they too would not bother to pull their vehicle to the side to avoid blocking the road. It is typical of a dog-eat-dog society.
Besides, the operators of passenger vehicles and their drivers failed to realize vehicles that keep on moving after loading or unloading their passengers conserve more fuel than those that stop and wait to pick up passengers. Those "on the go" are able to save gas up to one third of the consumption compared to vehicles that stop and wait to pick up passengers. Even if those vehicles carry less passengers than those that wait, in the long run they are able to carry more passengers if divided by the number of loops they are able to complete. For instance, if normally they would be able to make an average of seven to eight loops for a 12-hour run, they could only manage an average of five to six loops for the same number of hours with much less passengers, if divided by the loop, and more fuel spent because of their habit to stop and wait to pick up passengers.
Finally, if those bus drivers and conductors are thinking they would earn less if the Department of Labor would insist they be paid on a fixed wage, I say they are dead wrong. This does not mean this column now takes back its original advocacy in wanting to deregulate wage. Rather, in their eagerness to maintain their day's commission ranging from P700 to P800 for the drivers and from P600 to P700 for the conductors, respectively, they overlooked that they drive for an average of 10 to 12 hours. If their commission is divided by the number of hours plus a 25 percent premium for overtime pay for those hours worked beyond the required eight hours work, that would definitely fall below the current minimum of P412 daily.
Most important, drivers and conductors take a rest or are not able to work the next day to complete the six-day a week work. They are only able to work for an average of 4 days a week. If the actual number of days they drive in a week is divided by six their income would dip steeply below the minimum wage. This explains why most bus operators would not care less about the traffic jam and accidents that happen. At the back of their mind, profit is what counts.
The fear that fixing the wage for drivers and conductors would result in them failing to pay the "boundary" with the excess mislabeled as "commission" is capricious and arbitrary. Bus operators must realize that their fixed rental is based on what is profitable, notwithstanding that public utility vehicles is a form of public service vested with public interest. Nonetheless, through time and motion study, the problem could be resolved not to mention that giving our drivers their fixed income would finally relieve us of the serious problem of traffic jam and vehicular accidents caused by crazy drivers racing to meet their commission quota.
(rgkapunan_office@yahoo.com)
Friday, July 13, 2012
Time for serious realism
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
6/13/2012
Just as the nation felt the relief of lowered gas prices for a week or two, conditions in the Middle East just as quickly started raising crude oil prices anew, with the Philippines bracing for new oil price hikes this week. These fluctuations came at a time when Philippine "King of Comedy" Dolphy's long drawn-out health battles and subsequent demise dominated the airwaves. Despite the entertainment icon's much-deserved accolades, I still wonder why a lot of coverage is being devoted to this when an entire national economy is dying because of unresolved problems in energy supply and price stabilization.
With mainstream media placing so much importance on the life and times of the screen and TV legend, I wonder: Are the hard times best assuaged by comedy instead of serious realism and problem-solving?
Indeed, comedy may lighten the burdens. Comedy may even provide the needed distraction. But the truth is, comedy can never solve our problems. And as reality persists, every moment of distraction only eats away at the opportunities to solve these problems.
I watched my share of John en Marsha as a kid; but as I had often preferred to play and do other things, our yayas were the ones left to watch it. I did wonder over the years how he had one woman after another. I later learned that as the masa spend a lot of money on comedic distractions, which Dolphy was a master of, such artists become so fabulously rich that their innate charisma is magnified to the hilt. Thus, in Dolphy's case, with his string of romances, he also sired quite a number of children, some of whom, unfortunately, turned to murder and arson for self-expression.
When I became oriented to economics as I am today, and contemplated on what such kind of comedy has really contributed to Philippine society, I found that the benefit accrues mainly to the elite. It's not that they follow Dolphy's work; but it's rather due to the distraction of the masses from potential thoughts of dissatisfaction and rebellion.
When egged on for political candidacy Dolphy once joked, "No way. I might win, then what do I do?" So why is the country taking him so seriously when he has never taken himself half as seriously?
Some types of comedy require a lot brains, like stand-ups. Charlie Chaplin once said, "All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl." Although Chaplin had serious social and political commentary in his later features, with some saying the same for Dolphy's John en Marsha or Home Along da Riles, it seemed to me that the latter dwelt more on self-deprecation and a come-what-may acceptance of the depressing lot faced by lower classed Filipinos, instead of making them think about its causes.
So how seriously should audiences take comedians? Saturday Night Live's Dennis Miller said, "I'm a comedian, for God's sake. Viewers shouldn't trust me. And you know what? They're hip enough to know they shouldn't trust me." Sadly, comedy and entertainment are extolled to the extreme in profit-seeking societies because they are a business; and as Steve Martin says, "Comedy may be big business but it isn't pretty."
Exploitation in the entertainment industry is as bad as it is in the regular capitalist economy, though there are efforts by industry Samaritans like Erap to establish welfare projects such as the Movie Workers Welfare Fund (Mowelfund); still, it cannot be doubted that a greater number of support actors and cast retire into poverty while only a few live in the opulence of movie potentates.
Let me pick a quote again from another renowned entertainment icon, Sholem Aleichem, writer of Fiddler on the Roof: "Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor." And life will always be this way if comedy and entertainment become the focus of Philippine society instead of, as I would prefer, watching the tragedy. As Aldous Huxley once said, "We participate in a tragedy; at a comedy we only look."
It's time to get serious and demand such headlines as "Government approves six months oil buffer stock" so that the country could tide over periods of manipulated high oil prices with stocks of low-priced oil; or "ERC (Energy Regulatory Commission) total revamp… Consumer protectionists appointed;" followed by "New ERC investigates sweetheart deals," uncovering 900 percent overpricing in the tens of thousands of power transformers and substations a power company has been buying from its sister company all the past decades; or better yet, "ERC cuts Meralco (Manila Electric Co.) rates by 50 percent." Now, wouldn't all these elicit euphoria and a genuine comedy in the sense of a "happy ending?"
None of these can ever happen if the nation is glued to comedy day in and day out, which, in a sense, even the shows of Willie Revillame are. Only when the nation gets serious about its crisis and tragedy can it be galvanized into action.
If the progressive countries of today such as China, Singapore, Venezuela, et al. had spent their days indulging in comedy instead of revolution, they would certainly have ended up like the Philippines today.
Laughter is not the best medicine when you have cancer; it is radical intervention with all the means at one's command. And in a country such as ours which is in the midst of a socio-political and economic cancer, even a healthy dose of comedy wouldn't amount to much.
(Watch Destiny Cable GNN's HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m., this week on "Consumer Updates: Water and Power Scams;" visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
6/13/2012
Just as the nation felt the relief of lowered gas prices for a week or two, conditions in the Middle East just as quickly started raising crude oil prices anew, with the Philippines bracing for new oil price hikes this week. These fluctuations came at a time when Philippine "King of Comedy" Dolphy's long drawn-out health battles and subsequent demise dominated the airwaves. Despite the entertainment icon's much-deserved accolades, I still wonder why a lot of coverage is being devoted to this when an entire national economy is dying because of unresolved problems in energy supply and price stabilization.
With mainstream media placing so much importance on the life and times of the screen and TV legend, I wonder: Are the hard times best assuaged by comedy instead of serious realism and problem-solving?
Indeed, comedy may lighten the burdens. Comedy may even provide the needed distraction. But the truth is, comedy can never solve our problems. And as reality persists, every moment of distraction only eats away at the opportunities to solve these problems.
I watched my share of John en Marsha as a kid; but as I had often preferred to play and do other things, our yayas were the ones left to watch it. I did wonder over the years how he had one woman after another. I later learned that as the masa spend a lot of money on comedic distractions, which Dolphy was a master of, such artists become so fabulously rich that their innate charisma is magnified to the hilt. Thus, in Dolphy's case, with his string of romances, he also sired quite a number of children, some of whom, unfortunately, turned to murder and arson for self-expression.
When I became oriented to economics as I am today, and contemplated on what such kind of comedy has really contributed to Philippine society, I found that the benefit accrues mainly to the elite. It's not that they follow Dolphy's work; but it's rather due to the distraction of the masses from potential thoughts of dissatisfaction and rebellion.
When egged on for political candidacy Dolphy once joked, "No way. I might win, then what do I do?" So why is the country taking him so seriously when he has never taken himself half as seriously?
Some types of comedy require a lot brains, like stand-ups. Charlie Chaplin once said, "All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl." Although Chaplin had serious social and political commentary in his later features, with some saying the same for Dolphy's John en Marsha or Home Along da Riles, it seemed to me that the latter dwelt more on self-deprecation and a come-what-may acceptance of the depressing lot faced by lower classed Filipinos, instead of making them think about its causes.
So how seriously should audiences take comedians? Saturday Night Live's Dennis Miller said, "I'm a comedian, for God's sake. Viewers shouldn't trust me. And you know what? They're hip enough to know they shouldn't trust me." Sadly, comedy and entertainment are extolled to the extreme in profit-seeking societies because they are a business; and as Steve Martin says, "Comedy may be big business but it isn't pretty."
Exploitation in the entertainment industry is as bad as it is in the regular capitalist economy, though there are efforts by industry Samaritans like Erap to establish welfare projects such as the Movie Workers Welfare Fund (Mowelfund); still, it cannot be doubted that a greater number of support actors and cast retire into poverty while only a few live in the opulence of movie potentates.
Let me pick a quote again from another renowned entertainment icon, Sholem Aleichem, writer of Fiddler on the Roof: "Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor." And life will always be this way if comedy and entertainment become the focus of Philippine society instead of, as I would prefer, watching the tragedy. As Aldous Huxley once said, "We participate in a tragedy; at a comedy we only look."
It's time to get serious and demand such headlines as "Government approves six months oil buffer stock" so that the country could tide over periods of manipulated high oil prices with stocks of low-priced oil; or "ERC (Energy Regulatory Commission) total revamp… Consumer protectionists appointed;" followed by "New ERC investigates sweetheart deals," uncovering 900 percent overpricing in the tens of thousands of power transformers and substations a power company has been buying from its sister company all the past decades; or better yet, "ERC cuts Meralco (Manila Electric Co.) rates by 50 percent." Now, wouldn't all these elicit euphoria and a genuine comedy in the sense of a "happy ending?"
None of these can ever happen if the nation is glued to comedy day in and day out, which, in a sense, even the shows of Willie Revillame are. Only when the nation gets serious about its crisis and tragedy can it be galvanized into action.
If the progressive countries of today such as China, Singapore, Venezuela, et al. had spent their days indulging in comedy instead of revolution, they would certainly have ended up like the Philippines today.
Laughter is not the best medicine when you have cancer; it is radical intervention with all the means at one's command. And in a country such as ours which is in the midst of a socio-political and economic cancer, even a healthy dose of comedy wouldn't amount to much.
(Watch Destiny Cable GNN's HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m., this week on "Consumer Updates: Water and Power Scams;" visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
Monday, July 9, 2012
Free the Chief Justice
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
7/9/2012
Since the gates opened on the jockeying for the position of Philippine Supreme Court (SC) chief justice (CJ), the horses that have entered the race have reached ridiculous numbers.
That was the prevailing sentiment we got over lunch with some media men and politicos, where one top editor of a major daily even exclaimed, "How many are now in the race? Sixty? The noise in the jostling for the CJ post is now like a market place!"
It happened just a day after lawyers Bono Adaza and Alan Paguia, along with Jojo Borja and myself, filed a petition before the SC — at the height of last week's rains — for it to issue a "Certiorari and Prohibition with a Prayer for a TRO, Writ of Preliminary versus President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III and the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC)" to stop the continuing malpractice of the presidential appointment of the chief magistrate, which debases and subjugates the highest judicial official of the land and the supposedly independent body he or she leads.
Sadly, there were no press or media people who covered the filing last Tuesday, partly due to the heavy rains and widespread flooding. The chief of reporters of Destiny Cable's Global News Network (GNN), for instance, texted that his people were constrained from covering the event as they were assigned to various flood relief centers. And while the same must have been true for the other media outfits, we decided to bring the campaign to the media kapihans in order to better inform the public on the issues involved.
At the Friday Rembrandt media forum, both Adaza and Paguia presented the case while I distributed a press statement announcing the launching of the Movement for Chief Justice Independence (MCJI), a campaign to generate public awareness and support for freeing the Chief Justice from presidential influence and control through the current malpractice of presidential appointment.
While the petition was jumpstarted when a number of volunteers pitched in for the cost of its filing, the media support was even more impressive.
In all the forums we pitched this proposal to, we never failed to elicit the support of all those in attendance. On the legal question, Adaza and Paguia presented indisputable evidence by first citing the provisions of the Constitution and then asking any doubters to point to any statement assigning to the JBC the power to nominate and to the President the power to appoint the CJ.
As Paguia repeatedly stresses, since it is a question of fact, all the legal doubters need to do is point to any constitutional proviso that grants such powers — when, in fact, there is absolutely none.
Thus, Adaza writes, "The reason why other Presidents got away with violating the Constitution is due to the fact that no citizen had questioned their authority. Now, there are citizens who are concerned with the rape of the Constitution by public officials and the drift of the rule of law in this country, that there is need to stop this unconstitutional practice in the national interest."
To this writer's surprise, some newspapers carried the item last Friday suggesting that our petition was dismissed, with some even saying "one down, two to go," referring to the three petitions questioning the current conduct of the nominations by the JBC. If that were true, it would only indicate uncharacteristic haste and, therefore, betray a fear of something in our petition — for how could it be dismissed in three days when the SC justices hardly have enough time to study the many petitions pending before them for close to six months?
Thankfully, a careful reading indicates that only the petition of a certain Famela Dulay, whose arguments do not coincide with ours, has been dismissed, which means that our fight goes on.
Ever since we aired our appeal for support, many more have come to our aid. In addition to all those we acknowledged in a previous column, our heartfelt thanks also go out to Mr. Poem Gratela, as well as a doctor and a rural banker who requested not to be named. We also thank this donor from Bicol who thoughtfully sent us delicacies from his native province. Rest assured that your being part of this movement fuels us to continue pursuing this case. And as we await official action, we will never be deterred by any attempt at misinformation or disinformation.
Even so, there are other advocacies that we must take the cudgels for, such as the water issue.
Last Saturday, we heard the presentation of Gloria Dalida and Rodolfo Javellana Jr. of Water for All Refund Movement (Warm) on their petition vs Manny Pangilinan, the Consunji Group, and a long list of respondents on the scam in our privatized water services, which is as huge a scam as that in the power sector. Hopefully, we'll have them on our GNN show in the coming days to link them up with all our fellow electricity advocates.
So as we jostle in the legal arena, there must be similar action in other fronts to make for a holistic and authentic democratic order. Our nation must unite against the exploitation and oppression of the local and global oligarchs, who conspire to squeeze the people into abject poverty and helpless prostration. We must not wait any longer.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Interpreting garbage laws
BACKBENCHER
Rod P. Kapunan
7/7-8/2012
Looking back at that blot on our judicial history, the decision to remove the sitting chief justice of the Supreme Court indeed highlighted the country as a pariah in the international legal circle. As we Filipinos would often consider ourselves, the impeachment of Renato Corona put truism in us as "only in the Philippines."
We must bear in mind that the law used to impeach the chief justice was legislated consequent to our lunatic pretension of wanting to be known all over the world as democratically honest. We recall that ignominious event to question the idiotic philosophy that goaded the authors to make it compulsory to all public officials to declare their bank deposits in their Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth.
My lawyer-friend who is more philosophical than legalistic in his perspective began by putting forward that individuals are supposed to be punished if what has been proven constitutes a crime, meaning that even if there is no law declaring such act as offensive or injurious to society, mankind, by its desire to have an orderly and peaceful society, would nonetheless declare the commission of the act punishable.
In that infamous case, the chief justice was punished using a garbage law that in substance would not constitute an offense or a crime. It was the legislative fiat declaring such act malum prohibitum that made the act punishable, viz. that what Corona did was a diligent act a person in his right mind would normally do. His act was not mala in se that he could be punished even without a law declaring it a crime as the act is inherently injurious and contrary to civilized conduct of man.
So, by any legal extrapolation, my friend said, no amount of legislation could transform an act of any public official not to include in his SALN his bank account to a crime. It is for this that the framers of the Constitution specifically enumerated the high crimes that could be made a ground to impeach some high officials. Yet, we kicked out a chief justice not for a crime, but for violation of the capricious law, and worse, for one that does not even fall into the category of a high crime.
Since to make a deposit is accepted and a normal thing to do, that act must logically be reinforced by laws guaranteeing the secrecy of one's bank deposits, but giving room to some exception. The exception is few because that follows the same logical presumption of innocence to one who might stand as accused, and that is for the accuser to prove.
The same has been raised by my good friend-lawyer in asking why our mentally deranged lawmakers opted to pass a law declaring as a form of violence against women should a husband refuse to give financial support to his wife. Up to now many wonder about that silly conclusion of equating failure or refusal to give support as equivalent to violence. In fact, by any stretch of one's imagination, violence is the act of inflicting harm or physical pain to another, in this case to a wife. In fact, the act is already punished by existing laws.
There is no question that support is an acknowledged legal obligation. That becomes mandatory if there has been a judgment of divorce or legal separation of which the guilty party is ordered by the court to give alimony or support to the innocent spouse. But instead of fine tuning those laws to re-enforce and increase the grounds for financial support, our mentally deranged solons proceeded to interpret that as an act of violence, when the guilty party could simply be punished for contempt or defiance to a lawful order.
It is for this reason why many have been calling the laws recently passed by our lawmakers as garbage. They stand as exposition of their insanity. One could easily detect they were enacted just to boost the ego of the author, for want of anything to do, or to appease fanatical pressure groups wanting to highlight their misguided role in our society. Some of them may even be funded by foreign non-governmental organizations out to weaken our democratic institution by injecting outlandish rights that could trigger enmity among our people.
Yes, there are rights which our society should accord to women, but certainly they do not include rights that would result in the diminution on the rights of men for that could mean discrimination, and in contravention to what society has declared as co-equal. The same can be said of other pressure groups. Each has its own peculiar interest to elevate as a right. The problem is nobody has come to think that those interests could only become viable as a right for as long as they would not transgress on the rights of others.
It is for this reason why many have become apprehensive in that decision to remove Corona. Even if we take it that Corona was convicted after he waived his right, his waiver did not result in him violating the law because they remained legal. His waiver was not an act of legislation to enact a new law to single himself out. But sadly, our lawmakers failed to see that point.
We must bear in mind that the law used to impeach the chief justice was legislated consequent to our lunatic pretension of wanting to be known all over the world as democratically honest. We recall that ignominious event to question the idiotic philosophy that goaded the authors to make it compulsory to all public officials to declare their bank deposits in their Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth.
My lawyer-friend who is more philosophical than legalistic in his perspective began by putting forward that individuals are supposed to be punished if what has been proven constitutes a crime, meaning that even if there is no law declaring such act as offensive or injurious to society, mankind, by its desire to have an orderly and peaceful society, would nonetheless declare the commission of the act punishable.
In that infamous case, the chief justice was punished using a garbage law that in substance would not constitute an offense or a crime. It was the legislative fiat declaring such act malum prohibitum that made the act punishable, viz. that what Corona did was a diligent act a person in his right mind would normally do. His act was not mala in se that he could be punished even without a law declaring it a crime as the act is inherently injurious and contrary to civilized conduct of man.
So, by any legal extrapolation, my friend said, no amount of legislation could transform an act of any public official not to include in his SALN his bank account to a crime. It is for this that the framers of the Constitution specifically enumerated the high crimes that could be made a ground to impeach some high officials. Yet, we kicked out a chief justice not for a crime, but for violation of the capricious law, and worse, for one that does not even fall into the category of a high crime.
Since to make a deposit is accepted and a normal thing to do, that act must logically be reinforced by laws guaranteeing the secrecy of one's bank deposits, but giving room to some exception. The exception is few because that follows the same logical presumption of innocence to one who might stand as accused, and that is for the accuser to prove.
The same has been raised by my good friend-lawyer in asking why our mentally deranged lawmakers opted to pass a law declaring as a form of violence against women should a husband refuse to give financial support to his wife. Up to now many wonder about that silly conclusion of equating failure or refusal to give support as equivalent to violence. In fact, by any stretch of one's imagination, violence is the act of inflicting harm or physical pain to another, in this case to a wife. In fact, the act is already punished by existing laws.
There is no question that support is an acknowledged legal obligation. That becomes mandatory if there has been a judgment of divorce or legal separation of which the guilty party is ordered by the court to give alimony or support to the innocent spouse. But instead of fine tuning those laws to re-enforce and increase the grounds for financial support, our mentally deranged solons proceeded to interpret that as an act of violence, when the guilty party could simply be punished for contempt or defiance to a lawful order.
It is for this reason why many have been calling the laws recently passed by our lawmakers as garbage. They stand as exposition of their insanity. One could easily detect they were enacted just to boost the ego of the author, for want of anything to do, or to appease fanatical pressure groups wanting to highlight their misguided role in our society. Some of them may even be funded by foreign non-governmental organizations out to weaken our democratic institution by injecting outlandish rights that could trigger enmity among our people.
Yes, there are rights which our society should accord to women, but certainly they do not include rights that would result in the diminution on the rights of men for that could mean discrimination, and in contravention to what society has declared as co-equal. The same can be said of other pressure groups. Each has its own peculiar interest to elevate as a right. The problem is nobody has come to think that those interests could only become viable as a right for as long as they would not transgress on the rights of others.
It is for this reason why many have become apprehensive in that decision to remove Corona. Even if we take it that Corona was convicted after he waived his right, his waiver did not result in him violating the law because they remained legal. His waiver was not an act of legislation to enact a new law to single himself out. But sadly, our lawmakers failed to see that point.
Friday, July 6, 2012
A Russian 'Mir-acle?'
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
7/6/2012
A Daily Telegraph report noting the upturn in the talks on the Syrian crisis said, "Diplomats were clearly pleased to have agreed a peace plan, confounding the pessimists…" Indeed, such an outcome could only have come about because of strong Russian support for the Kofi Annan peace mission. And while that Geneva meeting yielded a "transition plan" through a unity government that includes all stakeholders in Syria, including both government and opposition forces, any precondition for "regime change," i.e. the removal of an elected national leader, as a way of moving forward was naturally set aside.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has expressed willingness to exit for the cause of peace if that is what his people want. Thus, China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, in backing the Russia plan, declared: "A plan of political settlement on the Syrian issue can only be Syrian-led … Outsiders cannot make decisions for the Syrian people."
On that score, Russian diplomacy has won the day by toughing it out on the principles of integrity of sovereign nations, in effect resisting the latest aggressive US-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) destabilization and Balkanization of a sovereign state.
Incidentally, the Russian word for "peace" known as mir aptly describes the possible "mir-acle" of peace in Syria.
With that hopeful thought, perhaps Syria can still be saved from the fate that befell Libya, which went through the brutal "R2P" (Right to Protect) intervention of Western powers led by Italy and France (with US support and direction). Many should know that Libya, after the fall of Gaddafi and under the governance of the National Transition Council (NTC) composed of anti-Gaddafi forces, is now in a state of chaos and massive deterioration of political-economic conditions.
In a March article the Washington Post declared, "In Libya, despot is gone but chaos reigns;" and this, few geopolitical laymen realize, is precisely what the Western powers intended all along: Chaos in a country where the external power gains unlimited opportunity for exploitation.
London's Independent quoted NTC chief and Washington man Mustafa Abdul Jalil commenting on the factional (brigades) fighting: "We are now between two bitter options. We deal with these violations by brigades strictly and put the Libyans in a military confrontation which we don't accept, or we split and there will be civil war. If there's no security, there will be no law, no development and no elections."
Nine years after the US invasion of Iraq, the country is still in shambles and continues to deteriorate under factional conflict, with bombings between Shi'ite and Sunni factions (and maybe US and British covert operations disguised as either) continuing to kill and maim innocent men, women, children, and religious pilgrims indiscriminately.
On the Afghanistan-Pakistan front, Sumaira Nasir Durrani reports on Centre for Research on Globalization: "The United Nations reported that in the year of 2011 the civilian death toll in Afghanistan was 3,021 and 4,507 Afghans were wounded. According to other sources the actual number of civilian casualties was probably five times as large as the number that the UN mentioned. In Feb. 2012 the annual report on 'Protection of civilians in armed conflict' prepared by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), acknowledged that 3,021 civilian deaths last year is an increase of eight percent than the previous year's total of 2,790."
From the Voices Web site comes this: "According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, there were 111 US/Nato Predator drone attacks inside Pakistan during 2010 resulting in 957 civilian deaths. The United Nations reports that from 2006 to 2011, an estimated 1,245 civilians have died in US airstrikes in Afghanistan … Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, whose cousin was killed in a US night raid in March, has repeatedly condemned US and Nato drone and other airstrikes that have resulted in the deaths of civilians."
These are just some samples of the violence that US and Nato have inflicted on the countries they have intervened in to allegedly "save the people" and "establish democracy."
The real intention of the West--with the US and Britain leading the rest of Europe by the nose--comprehensively described by geopolitical analyst Webster Tarpley runs like this: "The current US policy under the Obama administration with Hillary Clinton in the State Department aims at the destruction of all sovereign states on this planet. It's really rolling the world situation back to the time before the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 which established the regime of modern independent sovereign states. The desperation of the US and the British comes from their financial bankruptcy, and what they've got to do is increase the rate of exploitation and looting and sacking of the entire world economy… (And) In the course of this, they find that any national government is an intolerable obstacle… (as) It gets in their way."
In the same way that Western powers have looted Iraq and Libya, they have done the same, if not worse, to the Philippines, by turning it into a model for their "peaceful" subversion of a nation, starting with the 1986 elite counter-revolution of Cory Aquino's Yellow horde. Today, the Philippine state has effectively been destroyed with the US-Britain's looting in Malampaya, as well as of through our privatized electricity and other public utilities.
Worse, BS Aquino III is now even into calling US spy planes to hover above what should be an Asean Sea patrolled only by Asean forces. Evidently, with such people at the helm, no "mir-acle" is yet in store for the Philippines… that is, unless drastic revolutionary change occurs.
(Watch Destiny Cable GNN's HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m., this week with senatorial candidate Joey de Venecia; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has expressed willingness to exit for the cause of peace if that is what his people want. Thus, China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, in backing the Russia plan, declared: "A plan of political settlement on the Syrian issue can only be Syrian-led … Outsiders cannot make decisions for the Syrian people."
On that score, Russian diplomacy has won the day by toughing it out on the principles of integrity of sovereign nations, in effect resisting the latest aggressive US-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) destabilization and Balkanization of a sovereign state.
Incidentally, the Russian word for "peace" known as mir aptly describes the possible "mir-acle" of peace in Syria.
With that hopeful thought, perhaps Syria can still be saved from the fate that befell Libya, which went through the brutal "R2P" (Right to Protect) intervention of Western powers led by Italy and France (with US support and direction). Many should know that Libya, after the fall of Gaddafi and under the governance of the National Transition Council (NTC) composed of anti-Gaddafi forces, is now in a state of chaos and massive deterioration of political-economic conditions.
In a March article the Washington Post declared, "In Libya, despot is gone but chaos reigns;" and this, few geopolitical laymen realize, is precisely what the Western powers intended all along: Chaos in a country where the external power gains unlimited opportunity for exploitation.
London's Independent quoted NTC chief and Washington man Mustafa Abdul Jalil commenting on the factional (brigades) fighting: "We are now between two bitter options. We deal with these violations by brigades strictly and put the Libyans in a military confrontation which we don't accept, or we split and there will be civil war. If there's no security, there will be no law, no development and no elections."
Nine years after the US invasion of Iraq, the country is still in shambles and continues to deteriorate under factional conflict, with bombings between Shi'ite and Sunni factions (and maybe US and British covert operations disguised as either) continuing to kill and maim innocent men, women, children, and religious pilgrims indiscriminately.
On the Afghanistan-Pakistan front, Sumaira Nasir Durrani reports on Centre for Research on Globalization: "The United Nations reported that in the year of 2011 the civilian death toll in Afghanistan was 3,021 and 4,507 Afghans were wounded. According to other sources the actual number of civilian casualties was probably five times as large as the number that the UN mentioned. In Feb. 2012 the annual report on 'Protection of civilians in armed conflict' prepared by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), acknowledged that 3,021 civilian deaths last year is an increase of eight percent than the previous year's total of 2,790."
From the Voices Web site comes this: "According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, there were 111 US/Nato Predator drone attacks inside Pakistan during 2010 resulting in 957 civilian deaths. The United Nations reports that from 2006 to 2011, an estimated 1,245 civilians have died in US airstrikes in Afghanistan … Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, whose cousin was killed in a US night raid in March, has repeatedly condemned US and Nato drone and other airstrikes that have resulted in the deaths of civilians."
These are just some samples of the violence that US and Nato have inflicted on the countries they have intervened in to allegedly "save the people" and "establish democracy."
The real intention of the West--with the US and Britain leading the rest of Europe by the nose--comprehensively described by geopolitical analyst Webster Tarpley runs like this: "The current US policy under the Obama administration with Hillary Clinton in the State Department aims at the destruction of all sovereign states on this planet. It's really rolling the world situation back to the time before the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 which established the regime of modern independent sovereign states. The desperation of the US and the British comes from their financial bankruptcy, and what they've got to do is increase the rate of exploitation and looting and sacking of the entire world economy… (And) In the course of this, they find that any national government is an intolerable obstacle… (as) It gets in their way."
In the same way that Western powers have looted Iraq and Libya, they have done the same, if not worse, to the Philippines, by turning it into a model for their "peaceful" subversion of a nation, starting with the 1986 elite counter-revolution of Cory Aquino's Yellow horde. Today, the Philippine state has effectively been destroyed with the US-Britain's looting in Malampaya, as well as of through our privatized electricity and other public utilities.
Worse, BS Aquino III is now even into calling US spy planes to hover above what should be an Asean Sea patrolled only by Asean forces. Evidently, with such people at the helm, no "mir-acle" is yet in store for the Philippines… that is, unless drastic revolutionary change occurs.
(Watch Destiny Cable GNN's HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m., this week with senatorial candidate Joey de Venecia; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Killing us
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
7/2/2012
The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has again approved new rates for the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) for the new regulatory year starting July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013 on the strength of only a provisional authority (PA) before pending issues are resolved. The latest PA was issued on top of several previous PAs for 2010, 2011, and 2012.
For one, our fellow crusader, Mang Naro Lualhati, has pending, unresolved petitions on Meralco's Maximum Average Price (MAP), insisting that it should only be P0.90 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) as against ERC-approved rates that used to be around P1.60/kWh but now even raised to P1.6303/kWh. Another colleague of ours, Iligan Light and Power's Jojo Borja, has produced evidence of up to 900-percent overpricing of Meralco's costs that served as the basis for its rate hike applications before the ERC. Both of these were already brought to the courts for resolution; yet the ERC continues to issue its PAs.
Just what is the urgency of issuing these rate increases via these PAs when Meralco has continued to reflect annual increases in profits since 2006 up to the current year?
Last Feb. 2012 it was announced in the headline, "Meralco profit surges 40 percent," that the power company's "core net income, which strips out currency and derivatives-related items, climbed 22 percent to P14.9 billion from a year ago… (exceeding) the profit guidance of P14.5 billion." But take note of this: The power firm, which is indirectly controlled by Hong Kong-based First Pacific Co. Ltd. and partly owned by San Miguel Corp., "had 5.3 million customers last year, up 3.7 percent from a year ago."
Meralco says that its profits rose due to an increased number of customers, but a 40-percent increase in profits cannot be due to a mere 3.7-percent increase in customer base as its own media statement claims. That profit rise is simply from the price gouging rates that the ERC has been giving "provisionally" to Meralco over at least the past three regulatory years.
From a recent letter of our colleague Butch Junia: "Meralco's net earnings have soared year on year: P3.1 billion in 2008; P6.3 billion in 2009; P10.1 billion in 2010; P14.8 billion in 2011. For the year 2010, customer base grew 3 percent; sales increased 11 percent, but earnings soared 67 percent--which obviously came from rate increases rather than market growth or operational efficiencies … Best for the utility, hardly good for the public."
Again, with such profits, what is the urgency of granting PAs for rate increases to Meralco?
Such profit surges are only possible with the massive overpricing of Meralco costs, such as 500 percent on the tens of thousands of power transformers, 900 percent on electric poles, and similarly overpriced substations, contractors, ad nausea.
At the heart of the abuse, however, is ERC's continued defiance of a 2004 Supreme Court (SC) decision under Chief Justice Reynato Puno upholding the old 12-percent Return-on-Rate Base (RoRB) formula as the legal and just basis for setting power rates.
As Junia recaps: "Shortly after that (SC) decision, the ERC started the shift from RoRB to Performance Based Regulation (PBR) with the adoption of rate unbundling in 2003, and full PBR in 2007. Under RoRB, the distribution, supply and metering charge of Meralco was P0.70/kWh; under rate unbundling it was P0.90/kWh. With PBR, it was P1.2227/kWh in 2009, P1.491 in 2010, P1.6464 in 2011, P1.60 in 2012, to go up to P1.633 in July 2012-June 2013."
The PBR effectively raises Meralco's rate of return to over 15 percent; but that is not all. The ERC also provided incentives that added on pushed distribution utility (DU) returns to as high as 17 percent. But these are not the only problems residential consumers have with the present electricity rate-setting system, but are rarely told.
As Junia writes in his letter, the ERC "is mandated by the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) to 'ensure (for consumers) a reasonable price of electricity… (where) the rates prescribed shall be non-discriminatory.'"
Still, we see in Meralco's petition "for distribution charges… an increase to P1.962/kWh from P1.078/kWh for residential consumers using up to 200 kWh, P1.5535/kWh from P1.3851/kWh for those consuming 201-300 kWh, P1.5535/kWh from P1.3851/kWh for consumers of 301-400 kWh, and P2.4780/kWh from P2.3096/kWh for those that use over 400 kWh per month. Industrial users, meanwhile, with a minimum demand of 40 kW to less than 200 kW would have their supply charges raised to P990 from the current P910 … Large industrial users that consume 200 kW to less than 750 kW will pay supply charges of P4,110 while industrial users of 750 kW to less than 10,000 kW have to pay P14,920…"
Note: Up to 10,000 kW industrial users pay P1.49/kW but residential consumers using 201 kWh to 400 kWh pay P1/55/kWh to P2.30/kWh, while industrial and commercial power consumers using even higher kWh, such as shopping malls which go into millions of kWh, can pay as low as P0.20/kWh in distribution charges.
Residential users consume roughly 35 percent of distributed power but provide around 65 percent of Meralco's revenues, which is inversely proportional to industrial/commercial customers. Thus, residential consumers subsidize everyone else.
Soon the "open access" policy will push even higher rates for residential users as Meralco and DUs court industrial/commercial consumers with lower rates to prevent them from setting up their own power plants.
Meanwhile, "Shares of Meralco closed at P253.40 on Friday, up 0.96 percent from its previous close of P251 apiece"--this as the national economy suffers, as exemplified by the recent statement of businessman Robert Go, director of the Philippine Retailers Association and chairman of the Economic Development Committee of the Regional Development Council (RDC) saying "Because of these big power expenses, most of the profits of businessmen in the past year were wiped out and if this will continue, the workers will be affected because their employers can hardly adjust wages."
Stated simply, the power oligarchs are killing every one of us. Time to fight back.
(Watch Destiny Cable GNN's HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m., this week with senatorial candidate Joey de Venecia; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
For one, our fellow crusader, Mang Naro Lualhati, has pending, unresolved petitions on Meralco's Maximum Average Price (MAP), insisting that it should only be P0.90 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) as against ERC-approved rates that used to be around P1.60/kWh but now even raised to P1.6303/kWh. Another colleague of ours, Iligan Light and Power's Jojo Borja, has produced evidence of up to 900-percent overpricing of Meralco's costs that served as the basis for its rate hike applications before the ERC. Both of these were already brought to the courts for resolution; yet the ERC continues to issue its PAs.
Just what is the urgency of issuing these rate increases via these PAs when Meralco has continued to reflect annual increases in profits since 2006 up to the current year?
Last Feb. 2012 it was announced in the headline, "Meralco profit surges 40 percent," that the power company's "core net income, which strips out currency and derivatives-related items, climbed 22 percent to P14.9 billion from a year ago… (exceeding) the profit guidance of P14.5 billion." But take note of this: The power firm, which is indirectly controlled by Hong Kong-based First Pacific Co. Ltd. and partly owned by San Miguel Corp., "had 5.3 million customers last year, up 3.7 percent from a year ago."
Meralco says that its profits rose due to an increased number of customers, but a 40-percent increase in profits cannot be due to a mere 3.7-percent increase in customer base as its own media statement claims. That profit rise is simply from the price gouging rates that the ERC has been giving "provisionally" to Meralco over at least the past three regulatory years.
From a recent letter of our colleague Butch Junia: "Meralco's net earnings have soared year on year: P3.1 billion in 2008; P6.3 billion in 2009; P10.1 billion in 2010; P14.8 billion in 2011. For the year 2010, customer base grew 3 percent; sales increased 11 percent, but earnings soared 67 percent--which obviously came from rate increases rather than market growth or operational efficiencies … Best for the utility, hardly good for the public."
Again, with such profits, what is the urgency of granting PAs for rate increases to Meralco?
Such profit surges are only possible with the massive overpricing of Meralco costs, such as 500 percent on the tens of thousands of power transformers, 900 percent on electric poles, and similarly overpriced substations, contractors, ad nausea.
At the heart of the abuse, however, is ERC's continued defiance of a 2004 Supreme Court (SC) decision under Chief Justice Reynato Puno upholding the old 12-percent Return-on-Rate Base (RoRB) formula as the legal and just basis for setting power rates.
As Junia recaps: "Shortly after that (SC) decision, the ERC started the shift from RoRB to Performance Based Regulation (PBR) with the adoption of rate unbundling in 2003, and full PBR in 2007. Under RoRB, the distribution, supply and metering charge of Meralco was P0.70/kWh; under rate unbundling it was P0.90/kWh. With PBR, it was P1.2227/kWh in 2009, P1.491 in 2010, P1.6464 in 2011, P1.60 in 2012, to go up to P1.633 in July 2012-June 2013."
The PBR effectively raises Meralco's rate of return to over 15 percent; but that is not all. The ERC also provided incentives that added on pushed distribution utility (DU) returns to as high as 17 percent. But these are not the only problems residential consumers have with the present electricity rate-setting system, but are rarely told.
As Junia writes in his letter, the ERC "is mandated by the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) to 'ensure (for consumers) a reasonable price of electricity… (where) the rates prescribed shall be non-discriminatory.'"
Still, we see in Meralco's petition "for distribution charges… an increase to P1.962/kWh from P1.078/kWh for residential consumers using up to 200 kWh, P1.5535/kWh from P1.3851/kWh for those consuming 201-300 kWh, P1.5535/kWh from P1.3851/kWh for consumers of 301-400 kWh, and P2.4780/kWh from P2.3096/kWh for those that use over 400 kWh per month. Industrial users, meanwhile, with a minimum demand of 40 kW to less than 200 kW would have their supply charges raised to P990 from the current P910 … Large industrial users that consume 200 kW to less than 750 kW will pay supply charges of P4,110 while industrial users of 750 kW to less than 10,000 kW have to pay P14,920…"
Note: Up to 10,000 kW industrial users pay P1.49/kW but residential consumers using 201 kWh to 400 kWh pay P1/55/kWh to P2.30/kWh, while industrial and commercial power consumers using even higher kWh, such as shopping malls which go into millions of kWh, can pay as low as P0.20/kWh in distribution charges.
Residential users consume roughly 35 percent of distributed power but provide around 65 percent of Meralco's revenues, which is inversely proportional to industrial/commercial customers. Thus, residential consumers subsidize everyone else.
Soon the "open access" policy will push even higher rates for residential users as Meralco and DUs court industrial/commercial consumers with lower rates to prevent them from setting up their own power plants.
Meanwhile, "Shares of Meralco closed at P253.40 on Friday, up 0.96 percent from its previous close of P251 apiece"--this as the national economy suffers, as exemplified by the recent statement of businessman Robert Go, director of the Philippine Retailers Association and chairman of the Economic Development Committee of the Regional Development Council (RDC) saying "Because of these big power expenses, most of the profits of businessmen in the past year were wiped out and if this will continue, the workers will be affected because their employers can hardly adjust wages."
Stated simply, the power oligarchs are killing every one of us. Time to fight back.
(Watch Destiny Cable GNN's HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m., this week with senatorial candidate Joey de Venecia; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
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